l with the stage proper, which
might serve for the choral music. Above this first stage he wished to
make another for harpsichords, organs, and other suchlike instruments
that cannot be moved or changed about with ease; and the space where he
had pulled down the walls, in front, he wished to have covered with
curtains painted with prospect-views and buildings. All which pleased
Aristotile, because it enriched the proscenium, and left the stage free
of musicians, but he was by no means pleased that the rafters upholding
the roof, which had been left without the walls below to support them,
should be arranged otherwise than with a great double arch, which should
be very strong; whereas Lorenzo wished that it should be sustained by
some props, and by nothing else that could in any way interfere with the
music. Aristotile, knowing that this was a trap certain to fall headlong
down on a multitude of people, would not on any account agree in the
matter with Lorenzo, who in truth had no other intention but to kill the
Duke in that catastrophe. Wherefore, perceiving that he could not drive
his excellent reasons into Lorenzo's head, he had determined that he
would withdraw from the whole affair, when Giorgio Vasari, who was the
protege of Ottaviano de' Medici, and was at that time, although a mere
lad, working in the service of Duke Alessandro, hearing, while he was
painting on that scenery, the disputes and differences of opinion that
there were between Lorenzo and Aristotile, set himself dexterously
between them, and, after hearing both the one and the other and
perceiving the danger that Lorenzo's method involved, showed that
without making any arch or interfering in any other way with the stage
for the music, those rafters of the roof could be arranged easily
enough. Two double beams of wood, he said, each of fifteen braccia,
should be placed along the wall, and fastened firmly with clamps of iron
beside the other rafters, and upon them the central rafter could be
securely placed, for in that way it would lie as safely as upon an arch,
neither more nor less. But Lorenzo, refusing to believe either Giorgio,
who proposed the plan, or Aristotile, who approved it, did nothing but
oppose them with his cavillings, which made his evil intention known to
everyone. Whereupon Giorgio, having seen what a terrible disaster might
result from this, and that it was nothing less than an attempt to kill
three hundred persons, said that come wh