Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/224

216 profit from the other. For it is certain that he did not succeed in his efforts to bring the rivers within bounds, while he made himself numerous enemies, more particularly in the district of Prato, on account of the ravages committed by the Bisenzio, and in the Yal di Nievole, for similar causes, to say nothing of other places.

The Duke Cosimo having then bought the Palazzo de’ Pifti, of which we have made mention in another place, and desiring to adorn the building more richly with gardens, groves, fish-ponds, fountains, and other decorations of similar kind, caused Tribolo to undertake this work; when he made that distribution of the ground, which is the declivity of a hill, which we now see, arranging all, and putting everything into its due place with great judgment: but many things were subsequently much altered in various parts of the garden. Respecting this Palace of the Pitti, which is the most beautiful edifice in Europe, I propose to speak at greater length on another occasion.

After all these things, Tribolo was sent by the Duke to the Island of Elba, not only that he might see the city and examine the new port which had been constructed there, but also that he might take order-for the transport of a piece of granite, twelve braccia in diameter, of which it was proposed to make a Tazza for the great lawn of the Pitti palace, and which was intended to serve as the basin for receiving the waters of the principal fountain. To that Island Tribolo therefore repaired accordingly, and caused a skiff to be built purposely for the transport of the piece of granite, he likewise made all other arrangements required to that end, and having given the stone-cutters directions as to the manner in which the Tazza was to be shipped, he returned to Florence.

But no sooner had he reached that city than he found all in uproar, and maledictions innumerable sounding against himself; great floods and inundations having in those days caused infinite mischief in the very districts where Tribolo had worked at the embankments of the rivers, although it was very possibly not altogether by his fault that these mis-