ottoes appropriate to
the nuptials, and all those of the most illustrious members of the
house of Medici. Besides this, he had a most sumptuous decoration made
in the great open court, all full of stories; on one side of the
Greeks and Romans, and on the other sides of deeds done by illustrious
men of that house of Medici, which were all executed under the
direction of Tribolo by the most excellent young painters that there
were in Florence at that time--Bronzino, Pier Francesco di Sandro,
Francesco Il Bacchiacca, Domenico Conti, Antonio di Domenico, and
Battista Franco of Venice.

On the Piazza di S. Marco, also, upon a vast pedestal ten braccia in
height (in which Bronzino had painted two very beautiful scenes of the
colour of bronze on the socle that was above the cornices), Tribolo
erected a horse of twelve braccia, with the fore-legs in the air, and
upon it an armed figure, large in proportion; and this figure, which
had below it men dead and wounded, represented the most valorous
Signor Giovanni de' Medici, the father of his Excellency. This work
was executed by Tribolo with so much art and judgment, that it was
admired by all who saw it, and what caused even greater marvel was the
speed with which he finished it; among his assistants being the
sculptor Santi Buglioni, who was crippled for ever in one leg by a
fall, and came very near dying.

Under the direction of Tribolo, likewise, for the comedy that was
performed, Aristotile da San Gallo executed marvellous scenery, being
truly most excellent in such things, as will be told in his Life; and
for the costumes in the interludes, which were the work of Giovan
Battista Strozzi, who had charge of the whole comedy, Tribolo himself
made the most pleasing and beautiful inventions that it is possible to
imagine in the way of vestments, buskins, head-dresses, and other
wearing apparel. These things were the reason that the Duke afterwards
availed himself of Tribolo's ingenuity in many fantastic masquerades,
as in that of the bears, in a race of buffaloes, in the masquerade of
the ravens, and in others.

In like manner, in the year when there was born to the said Lord Duke
his eldest son, the Lord Don Francesco, there was to be made in the
Temple of S. Giovanni in Florence a very magnificent decoration which
was to be marvellous in its grandeur, and capable of accommodating one
hundred most noble young maidens, who were to accompany the Prince
from the Palace as far a