large statue
were seen many others, both Satyrs and Bacchanals, who, shown in a
thousand pleasing ways drinking, dancing, singing, and playing all those
pranks that the drunken are wont to play, seemed as if chanting the
motto written above them:

NUNC EST BIBENDUM, NUNC PEDE LIBERO PULSANDA TELLUS.

OF THE ARCH OF THE DOGANA.

It appeared, among the many prerogatives, excellences, and graces with
which fair Florence adorned herself, distributing them over various
places, as has been shown, to receive and accompany her illustrious
Princess, it appeared, I say, that the sole sovereign and head of them
all, Civil Virtue or Prudence, queen and mistress of the art of ruling
and governing well peoples and states, had been passed over up to this
point without receiving any attention; as to which Prudence, although to
the great praise and glory of Florence it could be demonstrated amply in
many of her children in past times, nevertheless, having at the present
time in her most excellent Lords the most recent, the most true, and
without a doubt the most splendid example that has ever been seen in her
up to our own day, it was thought that their magnanimous actions were
best fitted to express and demonstrate that virtue. And with what good
reason, and how clearly without any taint of adulation, but only by the
grateful minds of the best citizens, this honour was paid to them,
anyone who is not possessed by blind envy (by whose venomous bite
whoever has ruled at any time has always been molested), may judge with
ease, looking not only at the pure and upright government of their
happily adventuresome State and at its preservation among difficulties,
but also at its memorable, ample, and glorious increase, brought about
certainly not less by the infinite fortitude, constancy, patience, and
vigilance of its most prudent Duke, than by the benign favour of
prosperous Fortune. All which came to be expressed excellently well in
the inscription set with most beautiful grace in a fitting place,
embracing the whole conception of the whole ornament, and saying:

REBUS URBANIS CONSTITUTIS, FINIB. IMPERII PROPAGATIS, RE MILITARI
ORNATA, PACE UBIQUE PARTA, CIVITATIS IMPERIIQUE DIGNITATE AUCTA,
MEMOR TANTORUM BENEFICIORUM PATRIA PRUDENTIAE DUCIS OPT.
DEDICAVIT.

At the entrance of the public and ducal Piazza, then, and attached on
one side to the public and ducal Palace, and on the other to those
buildings in w