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After passing the court from which one enters into the large garden of the labyrinth, at the main entrance, where there is a vast lawn, after climbing the steps that lead to that labyrinth, there came a level space thirty braccia square, on which there was to be and has since been made a very large fountain of white marble, which was to spout upwards above ornaments fourteen braccia in height, while from the mouth of a statue at the highest point was to issue a jet of water rising to the height of six braccia.
"The cellars are excavated," he explains, "to more than half their depth under the ground, having four braccia beneath the earth, that is with three above, on account of the lights. There are, besides buttresses, store-rooms, etc., on the same level.
Now there are two most difficult things which have to be put into execution at the present time: one is the making of the scaffoldings to enable the masons to do their work, which have to be used both within and without the building, where they must support men, stones, and lime, and sustain the crane for lifting weights, with other instruments of that kind; the other is the chain of ties which has to be placed above the twelve braccia, surrounding and binding together the eight sides of the cupola, and clamping the fabric together, so that it may bind and secure all the weight that is laid above, in such a manner that the weight may not force it out or stretch it, and that the whole structure may rest firmly on its own basis.
Among other things that I can prove, two pieces, of four braccia and a half each, on the Ripa were stolen from me by Agostino Chigi, which had cost me more than fifty gold ducats; and these could be claimed for, because there are witnesses. But to return to the marbles.
This ornamental work, they proposed, should serve as the audience-chamber, and should be in the Great Hall of the Palace, at that end which looks towards the north. The audience-chamber was to have a space of fourteen braccia in depth, the ascent to which was to be by seven great steps; and it was to be closed in front by a balustrade, excepting the entrance in the middle.
Among these appeared Filippo, who gave it as his opinion that the edifice above the roof must be constructed, not after the design of Arnolfo, but that a frieze, fifteen braccia high, must be erected, with a large window in each of its sides: since not only would this take the weight off the piers of the tribune, but would also permit the cupola itself to be more easily raised."
There must be a buttress at each angle, which will be eight in all, and between the angles, in the face of each wall, there shall be two, sixteen in all; and these sixteen buttresses on the inner and outer side of each wall must each have the breadth of four braccia at the base.
It is true that on the front of that base he finished entirely a scene of marble in half-relief, with figures about two braccia high, in which he represented Signor Giovanni seated, to whom are being brought many prisoners, soldiers, women with dishevelled hair, and nude figures, but all without invention and without revealing any feeling.
The fancy took him, in order to show that he was able to make large figures for he had been told that his manner was that of a miniaturist to paint on panel, for the wall in which is the door of the choir, a figure of S. Mark the Evangelist, five braccia in height, and executed with very good draughtsmanship and supreme excellence.
Thereupon the Wardens of Works for the Vescovado gave the commission for three windows in the principal chapel, each twenty braccia in height, to Stagio, the son of the said Fabiano, and to the painter Domenico Pecori; but when these were finished and fixed in their places, they gave no great satisfaction to the Aretines, although they were passing good and rather worthy of praise than otherwise.
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