king to draw back
in order to look at what he had done, one of his feet gave way under
him, the whole contraption turned topsy-turvy, and he fell from a
height of five braccia, bruising himself so grievously that he had to
be bled and properly nursed, or he would have died. And, what was
worse, being the sort of careless fellow that he was, one night there
slipped off the bandages that were on the arm from which the blood had
been drawn, to the great danger of his life, so that, if Stefano, who
was sleeping with him, had not noticed this, it would have been all up
with him; and even so Stefano had something to do to revive him, for
the bed was a lake of blood, and he himself was reduced almost to his
last gasp. Vasari, therefore, taking him under his own particular
charge, as if he had been his brother, had him tended with the
greatest possible care, than which, indeed, nothing less would have
sufficed; and with all this he was not restored until that work was
completely finished. After that, returning to S. Giustino, Cristofano
completed some of the apartments of the Abbot there, which had been
left unfinished, and then executed at Citta di Castello, all with his
own hand, an altar-piece that had been allotted to Battista, his
dearest friend, and a lunette that is over the side-door of S.
Fiorido, containing three figures in fresco.

Giorgio being afterwards summoned to Venice at the instance of Messer
Pietro Aretino, in order to arrange and execute for the nobles and
gentlemen of the Company of the Calza the setting for a most sumptuous
and magnificent festival, and the scenery of a comedy written by that
same Messer Pietro Aretino for those gentlemen, Giorgio, I say,
knowing that he was not able to carry out so great a work by himself
alone, sent for Cristofano and the above-mentioned Battista Cungi. And
they, having finally arrived in Venice after being carried by the
chances of the sea to Sclavonia, found that Vasari not only had
arrived there before them, but had already designed everything, so
that there was nothing for them to do but to set hand to painting. Now
the said gentlemen of the Calza had taken at the end of the Canareio a
large house which was not finished--it had nothing, indeed, save the
main walls and the roof--and in a space forming an apartment seventy
braccia long and sixteen braccia wide, Giorgio caused to be made two
ranges of wooden steps, four braccia in height from the floor, on
which the l