rivalry and contention Baccio finished his figure of God the
Father, which he arranged to have placed in the church on the base
beside the altar. This figure was clothed and six braccia high, and he
erected and completely finished it. But, in order not to leave it
unaccompanied, he summoned from Rome the sculptor Vincenzio de' Rossi,
his pupil, wishing to execute in clay for the altar all that remained
to be done in marble; and he caused Vincenzio to assist him in
finishing the two Angels who are holding the candelabra at the
corners, and the greater part of the scenes on the predella and the
base. Having then set everything upon the altar, in order to see how
his work, when finished, was to stand, he strove to prevail on the
Duke to come and see it, before he should uncover it. But the Duke
would never go, and, although entreated by the Duchess, who favoured
Baccio in this matter, he would never let himself be shaken, and did
not go to see it, being angered because among so many works Baccio had
never finished one, even after his Excellency had made him rich and
had won odium among the citizens by honouring him highly and doing him
many favours. For all this his Excellency was disposed to assist
Clemente, the natural son of Baccio--a young man of ability, who had
made considerable proficience in design--because it was likely to fall
to him in time to finish his father's works.

At this same time, which was in the year 1554, there came from Rome,
where he had been working for Pope Julius III, Giorgio Vasari of
Arezzo, in order to serve his Excellency in many works that he was
intending to execute, and in particular to decorate the Palace on the
Piazza, and to renovate it with new constructions, and to finish the
Great Hall, as he was afterwards seen to do. In the following year
Giorgio Vasari summoned from Rome and engaged in the Duke's service
the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammanati, to the end that he might execute
the other facade in the above-named Hall, opposite to the
audience-chamber begun by Baccio, and a fountain in the centre of that
facade; and a beginning was straightway made with executing a part of
the statues that were to go into that work. Baccio, perceiving that
the Duke was employing others, recognized that he did not wish to use
his services any longer; at which, feeling great displeasure and
vexation, he had become so strange and so irritable that no one could
have any dealings with him either in his hous