Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/195

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The second and third of these statues were colossal figures, each eight braccia high, the one representing the river Bagrada, and reposing on the skin of the monster which was brought to Rome; the other signifying the Ebro, and holding the horn of Amalthea in the one hand with the rudder of a ship in the other; both were coloured to imitate bronze and had inscriptions on their pedestals; that on the basement of the Ebro being Hiberus ex Hispania, and that on the other Bagradas ex Africa. The fourth figure was a statue five braccia high, erected at the corner of the Medici, and representing Peace, having in one hand a branch of olive, and in the other a lighted torch, wherewith she was setting fire to a pile of arms gathered upon the basement whereon she was placed, and which presented the following inscription, Fiat pax in virtute tua.

Tribolo was also to have executed a colossal horse whereon the figure of the Emperor in armour was to have been placed, but this he could not fully complete, because his' intimate friend the wood-carver Tasso, to whom the decorations in wood work for the pedestal and other parts had been entrusted, did not proceed with the needful expedition; being a man who suffered the moments to slip through his fingers while he was talking and jesting, he was not ready in time, and it was not without great difficulty that the Horse itself was hastily covered with tin, placed over the fresh clay, the pedestal whereon he was placed having the following inscription.

''Imperatori Carolo Augusto vicloriosissimo post devictos hostes, Italiae pace restiluta et salutato Ferdin. fratre, expulsis iterum Turcis Africaque perdomita, Alexander Med. Dux Florentiae,''.

His Majesty having left Florence, a commencement was made, his daughter being then expected, towards the preparations required for the nuptials, and to the end that the Signora Margherita, with the Vice-Queen of Naples, who was of her company, should be fittingly and commodiously lodged, according to the orders of his Excellency, in the house of Messer Ottaviano de’ Medici, there was made an