ar completion, he set about planning to make the
Duke begin some great and costly work, which might take a very long
time. Duke Cosimo had ceased to inhabit the Palace of the Medici, and
had returned with his Court to live in the Palace in the Piazza, which
was formerly occupied by the Signoria; and this he was daily
rearranging and adorning. Now he had said to Baccio that he had a
desire to make a public audience-chamber, both for the foreign
Ambassadors and for his citizens and the subjects of the State; and
Baccio, with Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo, went about thinking how to
suggest to him that he should erect an ornamental work of Fossato
stone and marble, thirty-eight braccia in width and eighteen in
height. 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. At the end of the
hall were to be three great arches, two of which were to serve for
windows, being divided up by columns, four to each, two of Fossato
stone and two of marble; and above this was to curve a round arch with
a frieze of brackets, which were to form on the outer side the
ornament of the facade of the Palace, and on the inner side to adorn
in the same manner the facade of the hall. The arch in the middle,
forming not a window, but a niche, was to be accompanied by two other
similar niches, which were to be at the ends of the audience-chamber,
one on the east and the other on the west, and adorned with four round
Corinthian columns, which were to be ten braccia high and to form a
projection at the ends. In the central facade were to be four
pilasters, which were to serve as supports between one arch and
another to the architrave, frieze, and cornice running right round
both above the arches and above the columns. These pilasters were to
have between one and another a space of about three braccia, and in
each of these spaces was to be a niche four braccia and a half in
height, to contain statues, by way of accompaniment to the great niche
in the middle of the facade and the two at the sides; in each of which
niches Baccio wished to place three statues.

Baccio and Giuliano had in mind, in addition to the ornament of the
inner faca