ntion nor power of design enough to make in that place a
beginning that might afterwards in time receive that ornamentation
which the site and the waters required, one day that his Excellency
was on the spot, speaking of this with such men as Messer Ottaviano
de' Medici and Cristofano Rinieri, the friend of Tribolo and the old
servant of Signora Maria and of the Duke, they extolled Tribolo in
such a manner, as a man endowed with all those parts that were
requisite in the head of such a fabric, that the Duke gave Cristofano
a commission to make him come from Bologna. Which having been
straightway done by Rinieri, Tribolo, who could not have received any
better news than that he was to serve Duke Cosimo, set out immediately
for Florence, and, arriving there, was taken to Castello, where his
most illustrious Excellency, having heard from him what he thought
should be done in the way of decorative fountains, gave him a
commission to make the models. Whereupon he set his hand to these, and
was engaged upon them, while Maestro Pietro da San Casciano was
executing the aqueduct and bringing the waters to the place, when the
Duke, who meanwhile had begun, for the security of the city, to
surround with a very strong wall the bastions erected on the hill of
San Miniato at the time of the siege after the designs of
Michelagnolo, ordained that Tribolo should make an escutcheon of hard
stone, with two Victories, for an angle of the summit of a bastion
that faces Florence. But Tribolo had scarcely finished the escutcheon,
which was very large, and one of those Victories, a figure four
braccia high, which was held to be a very beautiful thing, when he was
obliged to leave that work incomplete, for the reason that, Maestro
Pietro having carried well on the making of the aqueduct and the
bringing of the waters, to the full satisfaction of the Duke, his
Excellency wished that Tribolo should begin to put into execution, for
the adornment of that place, the designs and models that he had
already shown to him, ordaining him for the time being a salary of
eight crowns a month, the same that was paid to San Casciano.

Now, in order that I may not become confused in describing the
intricacies of the aqueducts and of the ornaments of the fountains, it
may be well to say briefly some few words about the site and position
of Castello. The villa of Castello stands at the roots of Monte
Morello, below the Villa della Topaia, which is halfway up the