Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/90

78 or pails that is to say, full of boiled Lasagne and Ricotta prepared with sugar, for lime to make mortar; the sand was represented by a mixture of cheese, pepper, and spices of different kinds; for gravel they brought coarse sugar-plums and pieces of Berlingozzo cake; the bricks, great or small, and the tiles, were represented by loaves of bread and cakes, which were served in, or rather thrown out from, baskets and hods brought on hand-barrows.

After this there was borne in the pedestal or socle of a column, but the construction of that basement was not approved by the stone-cutters, who, declaring it to be not well executed, adjudged it to be taken to pieces, whereupon they threw themselves on the same, and found it to be entirely composed of pasties, livers, cutlets, and other eatables of similar kind; all which being placed before the masters by the labourers, were eaten accordingly. Next was presented a column wound around with the tripe of calves, and this ornament being removed, the boiled veal and capons of which the column was composed were consumed; when the master builders proceeded to eat the base, which was of Parmesan cheese; and the capital, which was marvellously compounded of pieces carved from roasted capons and slices of veal, the mouldings being most fancifully made of tongues.

But why do I linger over all these particulars? Let it suffice to say, that after the column there was presented on a car, a piece of an architrave very completely formed, with frieze and cornice so admirably arranged, and for the construction of which so many kinds of eatables were employed, that to enumerate the whole of them would make much too long a story; it shall be sufficient to say, therefore, that when it was time to break up the party, after many peals of thunder, there fell a most cleverly contrived shower of rain, which instantly drove all these builders, masters, and workmen from their labours, and every man departed to his home.

Another time, and when Matteo da Panzano was master of the feast, the supper was ordered after the manner following:—Ceres, seeking Proserpine her daughter, who had been carried off by Pluto, entered the apartment wherein all the men of the Trowel were assembled, and presenting herself before the Signore, she begged that he, with his guests, would be pleased to accompany her to the infernal