Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/187

Rh executed for transmission into France, whither he was sending them to the King Francis L, but was also buying antiquities of all kinds, and pictures on every subject, provided only that they were by the hands of good masters. These Giovan-Battista was daily packing up and sending away; and exactly at the moment of Tribolo’s return it so chanced, that Palla had an antique vase in granite of a most beautiful form, which he desired to have arranged in such sort as to serve for a fountain to be placed in the pleasure-house of the King. Having made known his mind to Tribolo, therefore, and described what he wished to have done, the artist took the matter in hand accordingly, and made him a Goddess of Nature, who, raising one arm, holds that vase, the foot of which is placed on her head, with her hand; hovering around the multiform breast of the Goddess and standing on the upper part thereof, are beautiful boys in marble, holding festoons in their hands, their figures are entirely detached from the marble, and display attitudes of the most exquisite grace: around the second range of the all-sustaining breast, are seen various kinds of quadrupeds, while the feet of the figure are surrounded by fishes of numerous kinds. This work was completed by Tribolo with so much care, and exhibited so high a degree of perfection, that, being sent to France, with other productions, it received, as it well merited, the highest commendations from the King, by whom, as a rare work of art, it was carefully deposited at Fontainebleau.

In the year 1529, when the war with Florence and the siege of that city was determined on, Pope Clement VII., desiring to ascertain in what manner and on what points his army could most advantageously be posted, was anxious to see the exact site of the town, and had commanded that a plan of Florence, with its environs of an entire mile around the city, should be secretly made; the hills, mountains, rivers, rocks, houses, churches, and every other particular of the outskirts being carefully included, while the squares and streets of the interior, together with the walls, bastions, and other defences, were also to be represented with the utmost exactitude. The charge of all this was given to Benvenuto di Lorenzo della Volpaia, a good master of horologes and quadrants, as well as an admirable astrologer, but who was most of all excellent in the taking of plans.