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One of these, which was called the Diamante, had for its head the brother of the Pope, Signor Giuliano de' Medici, who had given it that name because the diamond had been a device of his father, the elder Lorenzo; and the head of the other, which had as name and device the Broncone, was Signor Lorenzo, the son of Piero de' Medici, who had for his device a Broncone that is, a dried trunk of laurel growing green again with leaves, as it were to signify that he was reviving and restoring the name of his grandfather.
Diamante, as the elder boy was called, was pleased to be admired so much by the little new pupil; but as time went on, his pride in his own work grew less as he saw with amazement how quickly Filippo's little brown fingers learned to draw straighter lines and more beautiful curves than any he could manage.
And now, as you know, gaunt, weather-beaten Luigione, licensed master in the coast trade and just now captain of the Sorrentine felucca Giovannina, from Amalfi to Diamante with macaroni, there are no more of the Children of the King in old Verbicaro, and their goods have fallen into divers hands, but chiefly into those very grasping and close-holding ones of Don Pietro Casale and his wife.
His brother, Cardinal Sigismondo, raised the Palazzo Diamante, that magnificent Renaissance structure in the Via degli Angeli. The Trotti and the Costabili, the Strozzi and Boschetti, all followed suit and built palatial residences in the neighbourhood. These fine buildings were surrounded with spacious gardens.
During the time we lay close and toke phisick in this castle of contemplation, there was a Magnificos wife of good calling sent in to beare vs companie. Her husbands name was Castaldo, she hight Diamante, the cause of her committing was an vngrounded ielous suspition which her doating husbande had conceiued of her chastitie.
Having passed the Diamante we entered a land inhabited only by tigers, crocodiles, and chiguires; the latter are a large species of the genus Cavia of Linnaeus. We saw flocks of birds, crowded so closely together as to appear against the sky like a dark cloud which every instant changed its form. The river widens by degrees.
Then one by one they began to laugh and talk, and point with eager, excited fingers. 'Look, cried one, 'there is Brother Giovanni; I would know his smile among a hundred. 'There is that beggar who comes each day to ask for soup, cried another. 'And there is his dog, shouted a third. 'Look at the maid who kneels in front, said Fra Diamante in a hushed voice, 'is she not as fair as any saint?
So it happened that, in that wonderful spring of Filippo's life, Sandro too was at Prato, and worked there with Fra Diamante. And in after years when the master's little daughter was born, she was named Alessandra, after the favourite pupil, to whom was also left the training of little Filippino. Now, indeed, Sandros good old father had no further cause to complain.
But that road is not so good as the one to Diamante, because the river is sometimes swollen, and people with laden mules have to wait even as much as three days before they can try the ford, and moreover there is bad air there, which brings fever. At last they struck the long beach and began to trudge through the sand. "And what shall we do to-morrow?" asked Sebastiano.
This Jacopo prepared six triumphal cars, in order to double the number of those executed by the Diamante.
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