Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/476

462 Palace, near the tower of the Rossi, in the suburb of San Jacopo, but this was not put in execution. He likewise prepared the design for the palace of the Giuntini, on the piazza d’Ognissanti sopr’ Arno. At a subsequent period, the leaders of the Guelphic party, in Florence, determined to erect a building wherein there should be a hall, with an audience chamber, for the transaction of their affairs; and the care of this they entrusted to Francesco della Luna. The work was commenced, and was raised ten braccia from the ground, many faults having been committed in it, when it was put into the hands of Filippo, who constructed the palace in the form, and with the magnificence which we now see. In the execution of this work, Filippo had to compete with the said Francesco, who was favoured by many, and this was indeed the case with Filippo while he lived; he was ever striving, now with this man, and now with that; for many were hostile to him, and contending with him, and causing him perpetual vexations; nay, they not unfrequently sought to gain honour for themselves from his designs, by which he was ultimately brought to refuse to show anything or to confide in any one. The hall of the above-named palace is no longer used by those captains of the Guelphs before mentioned, seeing that the flood of 1557 having done much injury to the papers of the Monte, Duke Cosimo, for the greater security of the writings appertaining thereto, and which are of the utmost importance, removed them, together with the offices of the institution, to that hall. But, to the end that the ancient staircase of this palace should still serve for the office of the captains, who had given up the hall, which is used as the Monte, and had retired to a different part of the palace, his excellency gave commission to Giorgio Vasari for the construction of the very commodious staircase which now ascends to the said hall of the Monte, and which was erected by him accordingly. A balcony of wrought stone has also been executed, from a design by the same architect, and this has been placed, according to the intentions of Filippo, on fluted colums of a hard grey stone, called macigno.