Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/564

552 brought to an end by the Duke in fourteen months. These events collectively will be found partly on the ceiling and partly on the walls, which are eighty braccia long and twenty high; the frescoes I am still proceeding with, and of these I shall speak in the Dialogue before-mentioned. All this I say, for no other cause than the wish I have to show the earnest persistence with which I have laboured and do labour in these our arts; and with what just reasons I may excuse myself when I have in some places (and I am conscious these are many) fallen short in my works of what might and ought to have been effected.

I may here add that, about this time I was charged with the care of designing and laying before his Excellency the various Arches of Triumph to be erected for the Nuptials, a great part of which I had likewise to construct. I was also commissioned to complete the remainder of the preparations so largely made in Florence for the Marriage of the illustrious Signor Prince; and had, moreover, to delineate in ten pictures, each fourteen braccia high and eleven wide, all the Piazzas of the principal cities in the Florentine dominions, with the most important edifices and distinctive characteristics of the same. Furthermore, I had to see that part of the Hall which had been commenced by Bandinelli brought to completion, and to make a scene for the opposite