Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/99

Rh Florence, commencing with the earliest period; they represent the extension and improvement of the city, the honours, the victories, and all other great events or illustrious deeds by which the glory of the state and town have been increased; more particularly those respecting the war with Pisa and Sienna, with an infinite variety of other circumstances, the relation of which would lead me too far. A convenient space of sixty braccia in extent has also been left in both of the side-walls, for the purpose of executing three pictures in each, to correspond with the ceiling and to include the space of seven compartments on each side, the subjects whereof are also taken from the wars of Pisa and Siena. These mural-paintings are so large, that no space of greater extent has yet been seen filled with historical pictures, either among the ancients or the moderns. The compartments are furthermore adorned by exceedingly massive stones which meet at the end of the Plall, where on one side, the north that is to say, the Signor Duke has caused an apartment to be be completed, which was commenced and carried forward to a considerable extent by Baccio Bandinelli; this is richly decorated with columns, -pilasters, and niches filled with marble statues, and is intended to serve as a public audiencechamber, as will be related in its proper place.

On the other side, and opposite to this, there is to be another and similar apartment, which is now in course of construction by the sculptor and architect Ammanato, with a fountain in the Hall, which is to throw up water, and to be surrounded by a rich and beautiful decoration of columns and statues in marble and bronze. Nor will I affect to conceal, that by thus raising the roof of the Hall these twelve braccia, the structure has not only acquired freedom, but a most ample quantity of light also, seeing, that in addition to the windows of the upper part, there are three very large ones about to be constructed at each end; these will look upon a corridor, which forms a loggia within the Hall, and on one side extends over the apartment erected by Bandinelli; from this erection there will be a very fine view across the whole of the Piazza.

But of this Hall, and of other improvements, which have