lmost entirely with gold,
and filling them with most graceful foliage over the flutings, and
shaping their bases and capitals together according to the good ancient
custom. Within the loggie, the vaults of which were all filled and
adorned with most bizarre and extravagant grotesques, there were seen
represented, as in many medallions made for the same purpose, some of
the glorious deeds of the magnanimous Duke, which--if smaller things may
be compared with greater--I have considered often in my own mind to be
so similar to those of the first Octavianus Augustus, that it would be
difficult to find any greater resemblance; for the reason that--not to
mention that both the one and the other were born under one and the same
ascendant of Capricorn, and not to mention that both were raised almost
unexpectedly to the sovereignty at the same immature age, and not to
speak of the most important victories gained both by the one and by the
other in the first days of August, and of their having similar
constitutions and natures in their private and intimate lives, and of
their singular affection for their wives, save that in his children, in
the election to the principality, and perhaps in many other things, I
believe that our fortunate Duke might be esteemed more blessed than
Augustus--is there not seen both in the one and in the other a most
ardent and most extraordinary desire to build and embellish, and to
contrive that others should build and embellish? Insomuch that, if the
first said that he found Rome built of bricks and left her built of
solid stone, the second will be able to say not less truthfully that he
received Florence already of stone, indeed, ornate and beautiful, but
leaves her to his successors by a great measure more ornate and more
beautiful, increased and magnified by every kind of convenient, lovely,
and magnificent adornment.

To represent these matters, in each lunette of the above-named loggie
there was seen an oval accommodated with suitable ornaments, and with
singular grace; in one of which there could be seen the fortification of
Porto Ferrajo in Elba, a work of such importance, with many ships and
galleys that were shown lying there in safety, and the glorious building
of the city in the same place, called after its founder Cosmopolis; with
a motto within the oval, saying: ILVA RENASCENS; and another in the
encircling scroll, which said: TUSCORUM ET LIGURUM SECURITATI. Even as
in the second was seen