Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/470

456 should ever imagine their grandeur and beauty. And it is certain that duke Cosmo could not have found any undertaking more worthy of the elevation and greatness of his mind than the completion of this palace, which would seem to have been erected by Messer Luca Pitti, expressly for his most illustrious excellency. Messer Lucca left it unfinished, being constantly occupied with his labours for the state; and his heirs, not having means wherewith to complete the building, were glad to give it up to the duchess, who continued to expend money on it during the whole of her life, but not to such an amount as to give hope that it could be quickly finished. It is true that she had intended, as I have heard, to expend 40,000 ducats on it in one year only, if she lived, to the end that she might see it if not finished, at least on the way to completion. The model of Filippo has not been found, and his excellency has therefore had another made by, an excellent sculptor and architect. It is according to this that they are now working, and a great part of the inner court is already completed in rustic work, similar to that of the outer court. And of a truth, whoever