Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/286

278 278 LIVES OF THE ARTISTS. a great work beyond all doubt, and a most important opportunity, presenting an admirable occasion for the display of all the art and genius of a perfect master, and cne of whom the memory should never be extinguished. The model of the whole work, with a double series of drawings, which Baccio had made, were shown to the Duke, and these, as well for their number and variety as for their beauty, for Baccio worked boldly in wax and designed extremely well, pleased his Excellency very greatly. He commanded, therefore, that a commencement should be made forthwith in the hewing and preparation of the stone, employing for that purpose all the funds belonging to the Administration of Works, and ordering, moreover, that large quantities of marble should be brought from Carrara.

On his part also Bandinelli began to make a commencement with the statues, and among the first was one of Adam with an arm outstretched, the size of which was about four braccia. This figure was finished by Baccio, but finding it to prove too narrow in the flanks, and somewhat defective in other parts, he changed it into a Bacchus, which he afterwards presented to the Duke, by whom it was retained many years in an apartment of his palace; subsequently, however, and no long time since, that figure was removed to those lowermost chambers which his Excellency uses in the summer, and where it occupies one of the niches. Bandinelli had likewise prepared a seated figure of Eve, of similar size with that of the Adam, which he half finished; but this figure remained incomplete, on account of the failure of the Adam which it was to have accompanied. Having commenced a second Adam therefore, in a different form and attitude, it became needful that he should change the Eve also; and the first or seated figure he converted into one of Ceres, which he gave to the most illustrious the Duchess Leonora, together with an Apollo; the last being another nude figure, executed by the hand of Baccio Bandinelli. These her Excellency caused to be placed in front of the fish-ponds formed in the Pitti Gardens, and designed by Giorgio Vasari, who likewise directed the construction of the same.