work
on his own account in the house of Messer Alessandro, the son of M.
Ottaviano de' Medici, he executed a model good in many parts and as
large as the others.

The models finished, the Duke went to see those of Ammanati and of
Benvenuto; and, being more pleased with that of Ammanati than with
that of Benvenuto, he resolved that Ammanati should have the marble
and make the giant, because he was younger than Benvenuto and more
practised in marble. The disposition of the Duke was strengthened by
Giorgio Vasari, who did many good offices with his Excellency for
Ammanati, having perceived that, in addition to his knowledge, he was
ready to endure any labour, and hoping that from his hands there would
issue an excellent work finished in a short time. The Duke would not
at that time see the model of Maestro Giovan Bologna, because, not
having seen any work by him in marble, it did not seem to him that he
could entrust to that master, as his first work, so great an
undertaking, although he heard from many craftsmen and other men of
judgment that Giovan Bologna's model was in many parts better than the
others. But if Baccio had been alive, there would not have been all
that contention among those masters, because without a doubt it would
have fallen to him to make the model of clay and the giant of marble.
This work, then, was snatched from Baccio by death, but the same
circumstance brought him no little glory, in that it revealed by means
of those four models--the reason of the making of which was that
Baccio was not alive--how much better were the design, judgment and
ability of him who placed on the Piazza the Hercules and Cacus, as it
were living in the marble; the excellence of which work has been made
evident and brought to light even more by the works that have been
executed since Baccio's death by those others, who, although they have
acquitted themselves in a manner worthy of praise, have yet not been
able to attain to the beauty and excellence that he placed in his
work.

Afterwards Duke Cosimo, for the marriage of Queen Joanna of Austria,
his daughter-in-law, seven years after the death of Baccio, caused the
audience-chamber in the Great Hall, begun by Baccio, of which we have
spoken above, to be finished; and he chose that the head of this work
of completion should be Giorgio Vasari, who has sought with all
diligence to put right the many defects that would have been in it if
it had been continued and finished