Tommaso da Lugano. St Jerome altar.  San Salvador, Venice. 

TOMMASO DA LUGANO (1505 circa-1567) and JACOPO BRESCIANO

Extracted from the Life of Jacopo Sansovino

Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists

There is also one Tommaso da Lugano, a sculptor, who likewise has been many years with Sansovino, and has made with the chisel many figures in the Library of San Marco, very beautiful, in company with others. And then, having left Sansovino, he has made by himself a Madonna with the Child in her arms, and at her feet a little St. John, which are all three figures of such beautiful form, attitude, and manner, that they can stand among all the other beautiful modern statues that are in Venice; which work is placed in the Church of San Bastiano. And a portrait of the Emperor Charles V, which he made from the breast upwards, of marble, has been held to be a marvelous thing, and was very dear to his Majesty. And since Tommaso has delighted to work rather in stucco than in marble or bronze, there are innumerable most beautiful figures by his hand and works executed by him in that material in the houses of various gentlemen of Venice. But it must suffice to have said this much of him.

Of the Lombards, finally, it remains for us to make record of Jacopo Bresciano, a young many of twenty-four, who has not long parted from Sansovino. He has given proof at Venice, in the many years that he has been there, of being talented and likely to prove excellent, as he has since shown in the works that he has executed in his native Brescia, and particularly in the Palazzo Pubblico, and if he lives and studies, there will be seen from his hand, also, things greater and better, for he has a fine spirit and most beautiful gifts.