will be
described) embellished with extraordinary rapidity, the fabric of the
long corridor (which leads from that Palace to that of the Pitti)
flying, as it were, with wings, the column, the fountain, and all the
arches described above springing in a certain sense out of the ground,
and all the other festive preparations in progress, but in particular
the comedy, which was to appear first, and the two grand masquerades,
which had need of most labour, and, finally, all the other things being
prepared according to the time at which they were to be represented,
some quickly and others more slowly; the two Lords, Duke and Prince,
after the manner of the ancient AEdiles, having distributed them between
themselves, and having undertaken to execute each his part in generous
emulation. Nor was less solicitude or less rivalry seen among the
gentlemen and ladies of the city, and among the strangers, of whom a
vast number had flocked thither from all Italy, vying one with another
in the pomp of vestments, and not less in their own than in the liveries
of their attendants, male and female, in festivals private and public,
and in the sumptuous banquets that were given in constant succession,
now in one place and now in another; so that there could be seen at one
and the same moment leisure, festivity, delight, spending, and pomp, and
also commerce, industry, patience, labour, and grateful gain, with which
all the craftsmen named above were filled, all working their effect in
liberal measure.
Now, to come to the court of the Ducal Palace, into which one entered by
the door already described; in order not to pass it by without saying
anything about it, we must relate that, although it seemed dark and
inconvenient, and almost incapable of receiving any kind of
ornamentation, nevertheless with marvellous novelty and with incredible
rapidity it was carried to that perfection of beauty and loveliness in
which it may be seen by everyone at the present day. In addition to the
graceful fountain of hardest porphyry that is placed in the centre, and
the lovely boy that pours water into it from the dolphin held in his
arms, in an instant the nine columns were fluted and shaped in a most
beautiful manner in the Corinthian Order, which surround the square
court named above, and which support on one side the encircling loggie
constructed very roughly of hard-stone, according to the custom of those
times; overlaying the ground of those columns a
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