been set in motion as has been described, should accompany him
from the gate as far as the Palace of the Signori, and should then come
to rest in the middle of the Piazza. This horse, after being carried by
Domenico so near completion that there only remained to gild it, was
left in that condition, because His Majesty after all did not at that
time go to Siena, but left Italy after being crowned at Bologna; and the
work remained unfinished. But none the less the art and ingenuity of
Domenico were recognized, and all men greatly praised the grandeur and
excellence of that great structure, which stood in the Office of Works
of the Duomo from that time until His Majesty, returning from his
victorious enterprise in Africa, passed through Messina and then Naples,
Rome, and finally Siena; at which time Domenico's work was placed on the
Piazza del Duomo, to his great honour.

The fame of the ability of Domenico being thus spread abroad, Prince
Doria, who was with the Court, after seeing all the works by his hand
that were in Siena, besought him that he should go to Genoa to work in
his palace, where Perino del Vaga, Giovanni Antonio of Pordenone, and
Girolamo da Treviso had worked. But Domenico could not promise that lord
that he would go to serve him at that time, although he engaged himself
for another time, for in those days he had set his hand to finishing a
part of the marble pavement in the Duomo, which Duccio, the painter of
Siena, had formerly begun in a new manner of work. The figures and
scenes were already in great part designed on the marble, the outlines
being hollowed out with the chisel and filled with a black mixture, with
ornaments of coloured marble all around, and likewise the grounds for
the figures. But Domenico, with fine judgment, saw that this work could
be much improved, and he therefore took grey marbles, to the end that
these, profiled with the chisel and placed beside the brilliancy of the
white marble, might give the middle shades; and he found that in this
way, with white and grey marble, pictures of stone could be made with
great perfection after the manner of chiaroscuro. Having then made a
trial, the work succeeded so well in invention, in solidity of design,
and in abundance of figures, that he made a beginning after this fashion
with the grandest, the most beautiful, and the most magnificent pavement
that had ever been made; and in the course of his life, little by
little, he executed a great