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it was to have a figure of bronze spouting water. At the end of this
garden, in the centre, there was to be a gate with some children of
marble on both sides spouting water, with a fountain on either side,
and in the corners double niches in which statues were to be placed,
as in the others that are in the walls at the sides, at the opposite
ends of the avenues that cross the garden, which are all covered with
greenery distributed in various ways.

Through the above-mentioned gate, which is at the upper end of this
garden, above some steps, one enters into another garden, as wide as
the first, but of no great depth in the direct line, in comparison
with the mountain beyond. In this garden were to be two other loggie,
one on either side, and in the wall opposite to the gate, which
supports the soil of the mountain, there was to be in the centre a
grotto with three basins, with water playing into them in imitation of
rain. The grotto was to be between two fountains placed in the same
wall, and opposite to these, in the lower wall of the garden, were to
be two others, one on either side of the gate; so that the fountains
of this garden would have been equal in number to those of the other,
which is below it, and receives its water from the first, which is
higher. And this garden was to be all full of orange-trees, which
would have had--and will have, whenever that may be--a most favourable
situation, being defended by the walls and by the mountain from the
north wind and other harmful winds.

From this garden one climbs by two staircases of flint, one on either
side, to a forest of cypresses, fir-trees, holm-oaks, laurels, and
other evergreen trees, distributed with beautiful order, in the middle
of which, according to Tribolo's design, there was to be a most lovely
fish-pond, which has since been made. And because this part, gradually
narrowing, forms an angle, that angle, to the end that it might be
made flat, was to be blunted by the breadth of a loggia, from which,
after climbing some steps, might be seen in front the palace, the
gardens, the fountains, and all the plain below and about them, as far
as the Ducal Villa of Poggio a Caiano, Florence, Prato, Siena, and all
that is around for many miles.

Now the above-named Maestro Pietro da San Casciano, having carried his
work of the aqueduct as far as Castello, and having turned into it all
the waters of Castellina, was overtaken by a violent fever, and died
in