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After all these things Cristofano executed on the pediments of the windows with knee-shaped brackets some nude figures that are holding the devices of his Excellency, and over the door a Ducal coat of arms, the six balls of which are upheld by some naked little boys, who twine in and out between each other as they fly through the air.
For Ser Giovanni Conti, one of the secretaries of the Lord Duke Cosimo, he made many useful and beautiful improvements in his house at Florence; although it is true that in the two ground-floor windows, supported by knee-shaped brackets, which open out upon the street, Giuliano departed from his usual method, and so cut them up with projections, little brackets, and off-sets, that they inclined rather to the German manner than to the true and good manner of ancient or modern times.
Below this, in the frieze that is above the door and the windows supported by knee-shaped brackets, are the seven Liberal Arts, each of which is in a line with the oval in which is the particular story of the Life of Man appropriate to it; and in the same straight lines, continued upwards, are the Moral Virtues, Planets, Signs, and other corresponding symbols.
Crashing down the hill through the brush, the lad had scant time or will for observing things about him, but as they crossed a gully he saw, or fancied he saw, on the knee-shaped crag above, the slouched figure of a buccaneer silhouetted against the sky. It was not the bearded giant called Herriot, but another, Jeremy was sure.
Next, between the windows with knee-shaped brackets, there is Life, both the active and the contemplative, with scenes and statues, continued down to Death, Hell, and our final Resurrection. In brief, Cristofano executed almost all by himself the whole cornice, the festoons, the little boys, and the seven Signs of the Planets.
In the lowest part at the foot, which is about the windows with knee-shaped brackets and the door, is Leah in a niche, representing the Active Life, and on the other side of the same place is Industry, who has a Cornucopia and two goads in her hands.
For the above-named Messer Pier Francesco the same Tasso executed the door of the Church of S. Romolo, and a window with knee-shaped brackets on the Piazza del Duca, in an order of his own, substituting capitals for bases, and doing so many other things without measure or order, that it might have been said that the German Order had begun to return to life in Tuscany by means of this man; to say nothing of the works that he did in the Palace in the way of staircases and apartments, which the Duke has been obliged to have destroyed, because they had no sort of order, measure, or proportion, and were, on the contrary, all shapeless, out of square, and without the least convenience or grace.
That loggia having then been enclosed after the design of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and given the form of a chamber, with two knee-shaped windows, which were the first to be made in that manner, with iron gratings, for the exterior of a palace, Giovanni adorned all the vaulting with stucco-work and painting, making in a medallion the six balls, the arms of the House of Medici, supported by three little boys executed in relief in attitudes of great beauty and grace.
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