Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/293

Rh sured. The altar itself has remained as we have described it above; nor has anything more ever been done to it, but the works of the choir were continued.

Many years before these things, there had been excavated in Carrara a block of marble of large size, being ten braccia and a half high, and five braccia in width; of which Bandinelli having received intelligence, he posted off to Carrara, and finding the owner thereof, he gave him fifty crowns as earnest money, and having made his bargain returned to Florence. Here he so besieged the Duke, that at length, and by the intervention of the Duchess, lie obtained permission to execute a colossal statue in that block of marble; this figure was to be placed at the corner of the Piazza, whereon the Lion stood, and where there was to be a large fountain constructed, with a copious jet of water: the figure of Neptune in his chariot, drawn by Sea-horses, was proposed as the central ornament, and this Bandinelli was to make from the block of marble above mentioned.

For that figure Baccio made more than one model, which he showed to his Excellency; but the matter went no further, until the year 1559, when the proprietor of the marble, having come from Carrara, required payment of the sum due to him, or in default of that payment, he proposed to break the block into various pieces, and sell it thus; seeing that he had numerous demands for such pieces. The Duke thereupon commanded Giorgio Vasari to see that the marble was paid for; but when, this being heard among those of the Art, it was perceived that Baccio had not obtained absolute possession of the block, Benvenuto, and with him Ammanato, quickly bestirred themselves in the matter, each of them entreating the Duke to permit him to prepare a model in competition with Baccio, and requesting that his Excellency would then be pleased to give the marble to him who should display the highest art in the model.

The Duke did not forbid either of those artists to prepare a model, nor did he deprive them of the hope that he who should acquit himself the best should be the one chosen to execute the work. He knew that Baccio was superior as regarded ability, knowledge, judgment, and the power of