Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/521

Rh the promises of this world are for the most part but vain phantoms; and that to confide in one’s self, and become something of worth and value, is the best and safest course. After the works above-named, perceiving the Duke to be principally interested in fortifications and buildings of various kinds, 1 set myself to study Architecture, that I might the more effectually render him service, and in this labour I expended much time. The preparations for receiving Charles V. on the visit of that Emperor to Florence in 1536 were then to be made; and in giving orders for the same, Duke Alessandro commanded those deputed to the care thereof to join me with them, as has been related in the Life of Tribolo, for the designing of all the arches and other decorations to be erected in honour of the Monarch’s entry.

This being done, I also received for my benefit the appointment, not only for preparing the great Banners of the Castello and Fortress, as we have before said, but also the commission for constructing that Fa9ade in the manner of a triumphal arch, which was erected at San Felice in Piazza, with the decorations of the Gate of San Piero Gattolini; the Arch was forty braccia high and twenty wide. These works were indeed too great for my strength; but what was worse, the favour by which I obtained them, attracted a host of envious rivals around me, and at their suggestion, about twenty men who were assisting me in the execution of those banners and the other operations, left me on the spur of the moment, in the midst of my labours, hoping thereby to render my completion of those important undertakings impossible.

But I had in some sort foreseen the malignity of those persons, whom I had nevertheless always endeavoured to assist; wherefore, partly by working day and night with my own hand, partly by the help of painters who came to me from other places, I contrived, in despite of their efforts, to keep the works in progress; and, attending closely to my business, I sought to overcome the difficulties thus presented, while I replied to the malevolence of these enemies by the works themselves. Meanwhile, Bertoldo Corsini, who was then Proveditore-general to the Duke, had reported to