Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/507

Rh work of which none more perfect in design, or more important in the results to be expected from it, has ever been executed in that kind. His Excellency, that is to say, has caused a room of considerable extent to be prepared on the second floor of his palace, as a continuation of and addition to the Guardaroba; around this room he has had cabinets arranged seven braccia high, and richly carved in walnut wood, intending to place within them the most valuable and beautiful works of art in his possession; and on the doors of the same he is causing fifty-seven pictures, about two braccia high and of proportionate width, to be painted in oil on the wood in the manner of miniatures. The subjects delineated are the Ptolomaic Tables, measured by Don Ignazio with the most exact perfection, and corrected according to the latest authorities; sea-charts of the utmost accuracy are added, the scale and degrees being adjusted with all possible care, and all having the ancient as well as modern names; the division made of these works being as follows:—

At the principal entrance into the room are seen four pictures executed on the sides of the cabinets, and representing in perspective the halves of four spheres, those below showing the Earth and those above the Heavens, with all their signs and celestial figures. Proceeding towards the right we have all Europe depicted in fourteen compartments, the pictures succeeding each other to the centre of the wall which is at the head of the room, and opposite to the principal door, that namely whereon is placed the Horologe with its wheels, and the daily motions made by the planets in their spheres; I mean, that so much renowned clock made by the Florentine Lorenzo della Volpaia. Above the compartments representing Europe, are those of Africa in eleven divisions; these extend to the Horologe itself, beyond which and on the lower part is Asia, which occupies a consecutive range of fourteen compartments, extending to the principal door. There are besides the West Indies, which commence from the clock, and continue to the principal door; the whole series forming the fifty-seven divisions before-mentioned.

On the lower part of the walls and immediately beneath the geographical delineations, in an equal number of compart-