hand to executing cartoons, in order to
have some pictures painted which were to adorn the apartments of the
Pitti Palace. These pictures were painted by a young man called Andrea
del Minga, who handled colour passing well. The stories painted in the
pictures were the Creation of Adam and Eve, and their Expulsion from
Paradise by the Angel, a Noah, and a Moses with the Tables; which
finished, he then presented them to the Duchess, seeking to obtain her
favour in his difficulties and contentions. And, in truth, if it had
not been for that lady, who loved him for his abilities and held him
on his feet, Baccio would have fallen headlong down and would have
lost completely the favour of the Duke. The Duchess also made much use
of Baccio in the Pitti garden, where she had caused to be constructed
a grotto full of tufa and sponge-stone formed by the action of water,
and containing a fountain; and for this Baccio had caused his pupil,
Giovanni Fancelli, to execute in marble a large basin and some goats
of the size of life, which spout forth water, and likewise, for a
fish-pond, after a model made by himself, a countryman who is
emptying a barrel full of water. For these reasons the Duchess was
constantly helping and favouring Baccio with the Duke, who finally
gave him leave to begin the great model of the Neptune; on which
account he once more sent to Rome for Vincenzio de' Rossi, who had
previously departed from Florence, with the intention of making him
help to execute it.

While these preparations were in progress, Baccio was seized with a
desire to finish the statue of the Dead Christ supported by Nicodemus,
which his son Clemente had carried well forward; for he had heard that
Buonarroti was finishing one in Rome that he had begun to carve from a
large block of marble, containing five figures, which was to be placed
on his tomb in S. Maria Maggiore. Out of emulation with him Baccio set
to work on his group with the greatest assiduity, with assistants,
until he had finished it. And meanwhile he was going about among the
principal churches of Florence, seeking for a place where he might set
up that work and also make a tomb for himself; but for long he found
no place for the tomb that could content him, until he resolved on a
chapel in the Church of the Servites which belongs to the family of
the Pazzi. The owners of this chapel, at the request of the Duchess,
granted the place to Baccio, without divesting themselves of the