Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/212

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All these decorations would without doubt have rendered this the most beantiful, most magnificent, and most richly adorned garden in Europe, but the works were not brought to completion, because Tribolo did not take such measures as he might have done for pressing the works vigorously forward, while the Signor Duke was in the mind to have them executed, and for conducting the whole to completion, as it is certain that he could have done, seeing that he had abundance of men to assist him, and that the Duke was then quite ready to expend money for the purpose: those impediments which afterwards presented themselves, not having arisen at that time. Nay, the Duke, not content with the large stores of water already provided, was then disposed to bring those of Valcenni, where they abound in vast quantities, first to Castello, and thence, by an aqueduct similar to the abovementioned, to conduct them to Florence itself, and so to the Piazza whereon stands his own palace. And, of a truth, if this work had been pressed forward by a man of more energy, and one more desirous of glory than was Tribolo, the whole would at least have been brought into a state of forwardness; but as Tribolo, besides that he was much engaged by the Duke in various matters of business, was not very prompt in his movements, nothing further was done; and in all the time that he worked at Castello, he completed nothing with his own hand, except the two fountains, with their two rivers, Arno and Mugnone; and the statue of Fiesole; yet this arose from no other cause, so far as I can ascertain, than from the one just given, and from his having besides been too frequently occupied, as before remarked, with the different affairs of the Duke.

Among other, matters for example the Signor Duke caused Tribolo to build a bridge over the Mugnone, at a short distance without the G-ate of San Gallo, where that river crosses the high road which leads to Bologna, and the arch of this bridge, seeing that the river crosses the road in a diagonal line, Tribolo constructed in a similar direction, which was then a new thing, and was much commended; the masonry of the stone arch was more particularly praised, being all worked in pieces, each piece having the proper degree of inclination from the square in every direction, and all were so admirably conjoined that the bridge has proved to be a struc-