e, as before.

While Baccio was living there, his Holiness resolved to fulfil a vow
that he had made when he was shut up in the Castello di S. Angelo;
which vow was that he would place on the summit of the great round
tower of marble, which is in front of the Ponte di Castello, seven
large figures of bronze, each six braccia in length, and all lying
down in different attitudes, as it were vanquished by an Angel that he
wished to have set up on the centre of the tower, upon a column of
variegated marble, the Angel being of bronze with a sword in the hand.
By this figure of the Angel he wished to represent the Angel Michael,
the guardian and protector of the Castle, whose favour and assistance
had delivered him and brought him out of that prison; and the seven
recumbent figures were to personify the seven Mortal Sins,
demonstrating that with the help of the victorious Angel he had
conquered and thrown to the ground his enemies, evil and impious men,
who were represented by those seven figures of the seven Mortal Sins.
For this work his Holiness caused a model to be made; which having
pleased him, he ordained that Baccio should begin to make the figures
in clay of the size that they were to be, in order to have them cast
afterwards in bronze. Baccio began the work, and finished in one of
the apartments in the Belvedere one of those figures in clay, which
was much extolled. At the same time, also, in order to divert himself,
and wishing to see how he would succeed in casting, he made many
little figures in the round, two-thirds of a braccio in height, as of
Hercules, Venus, Apollo, Leda, and other fantasies of his own, which
he caused to be cast in bronze by Maestro Jacopo della Barba of
Florence; and they succeeded excellently well. He presented them
afterwards to his Holiness and to many lords; and some of them are now
in the study of Duke Cosimo, among a collection of more than a hundred
antique figures, all very choice, and others that are modern.

At this same time Baccio had made a scene of the Deposition from the
Cross with little figures in low-relief and half-relief, which was a
rare work; and he had it cast with great diligence in bronze. When
finished, he presented it in Genoa to Charles V, who held it very
dear; and a sign of this was that his Majesty gave Baccio a Commandery
of S. Jago, and made him a Chevalier. From Prince Doria, also, he
received many courtesies; and from the Republic of Genoa he had the
co