Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/280

272 cuted with the Calandrino, and which recede at a sharp angle, on account of the wall being awry, and because of the consequent irregularity in the direction of the Hall. Nothing can be done more perfectly indeed, as regards the masonry, which is admirably put together, and shows great care.

But the whole work would have succeeded much better if Baccio, who never would be persuaded to take the requirements of architecture into account, had called to his aid a more enlightened judgment than that of Giuliano, who, though he was a good master in wood-work, and had some knowledge of architecture, was yet not equal, as the event proved, to the demands of such a work as that in question. Wherefore, in all the many years that this fabric was proceeding by slow degrees, there was but little more than one half of it erected. It is true that in the smaller niches of the front wall, Baccio did place the statue of the Signor Giovanni, with that of Duke Alessandro, both finished; he also fixed the statue of Pope Clement VII. on a pedestal in the large niche, and completed the statue of the Duke Cosimo likewise; but with respect to this last statue, it is to be remarked that Baccio gave himself considerable labour and took especial pains with the head; but the Duke and the men of his court declared, nevertheless, that it did not in the least resemble his Excellency.

Bandinelli had previously executed a bust of the Duke in marble, which is now in one of the upper rooms of the same palace; this was one of the best heads that Baccio overproduced, and stood admirably; wherefore he now excused himself, and sought to shelter the defects of the present work beneath the excellencies of the past. But hearing that every one censured the head of the statue, he one day struck it off in anger, intending to execute another, and fix it on the statue in place of that broken, but this purpose he never accomplished.

It was the custom of Baccio Bandinelli to join large and small pieces of marble together in the figures which he executed, not regarding the trouble occasioned by doing so,