lace, and his Excellency desiring to
adorn it with gardens, groves, fountains, fish-ponds, and other
suchlike things, Tribolo executed all the distribution of the hill in
the manner in which it still remains, accommodating everything in its
proper place with beautiful judgment, although various things in many
parts of the garden have since been changed. Of this Pitti Palace,
which is the most beautiful in Europe, mention will be made in another
place with a more suitable occasion.

After these things, Tribolo was sent by his Excellency to the island
of Elba, not only that he might see the city and port that the Duke
had caused to be built there, but also that he might make arrangements
for the transport of a round piece of granite, twelve braccia in
diameter, from which was to be made a tazza for the great lawn of the
Pitti Palace, which might receive the water of the principal fountain.
Tribolo, therefore, went thither and caused a boat to be made on
purpose for transporting the tazza, and then, after giving the
stone-cutters directions for the transportation, he returned to
Florence; where he had no sooner arrived, than he found the whole
country full of murmurings and maledictions against him, since about
that time floods and inundations had done infinite havoc in the
neighbourhood of those rivers that he had patched up, although it was,
perhaps, not altogether through his fault that this had happened.
However that may have been, whether it was the malignity of some of
his assistants, or perchance envy, or that the accusation was indeed
true, the blame for all that damage was laid on Tribolo, who, being a
man of no great spirit, and rather wanting in resolution than
otherwise, and doubting that the malice of some enemy might make him
lose the favour of the Duke, was in a state of great despondency,
when, being of a feeble habit of body, on the 20th of August in the
year 1550, there came upon him a most violent fever. At that time
Giorgio Vasari was in Florence, for the purpose of having sent to Rome
the marbles for the tombs that Pope Julius III caused to be erected in
S. Pietro a Montorio; and he, as one who sincerely esteemed the
talents of Tribolo, visited and comforted him, beseeching him that he
should think of nothing save his health, and that, when cured, he
should return to finish the work of Castello, letting the rivers go
their own way, for they were more likely to drown his fame than to
bring him any prof