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In 1494, on the 5th of April, Maestro Mariotto di Paola, "called Torzuolo," contracts with the canons of the cathedral to make a range of cupboards in the sacristy. Such masses of wood-work, very frequently richly carved and ornamented, are found in the sacristies of most of the larger churches in Italy.
Such as it is, however, this sacristy at St. Peter's was handsome enough to excite the emulation of the canons of the cathedral, for the contract made with Maestro Mariotto who was nicknamed Torzuolo specifies that the work is to be entirely of walnut wood, after the fashion of the sacristy at St. Peter's, and is to be executed "in the manner of a good, loyal and expert master." It is to be all done by his own hand, or at least in his presence and under his superintendence. The work is to be completed in one year, and the canons are to pay for it at the rate of ten florins every square braccio, Florentine measure. This was in 1494; and it will here again be observed that the price, as compared with that to be paid to Maestro Stefano by the monks of St. Peter's for their choir, even fully allowing for the greater richness of the latter, indicates the very rapid alteration in the value of money which took place at the beginning of the sixteenth century. But the canons, it would seem, were very careful hands at a bargain, for we find that it is provided in the contract that when the work shall have been completed it shall be examined by two experts, and that if it shall be found to be worth less than the price named, Maestro Torzuolo shall receive so much less; but that if it shall be found by the said experts and appraisers to be worth more, the maestro shall stand to his bargain and not receive more than the price named an agreement which is frequently found in the contracts made about that period. When the work was completed it was accordingly examined and appraised by Maestro Mattia of Reggio and Maestro Pietro of Florence. The latter was brought from Citt
Maestro Mattia, the other expert called to appraise the work done by Maestro Torzuolo for the canons of the cathedral of Perugia, was already well and favorably known in that city, for he had been employed in 1495 to appraise some work which had been done for the choir of the monks of St. Lorenzo; in that same year we find him executing some very elaborate work for the convent of St.
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