with togas
reaching to their feet and with capes of miniver, such as it was the
ancient custom for Doctors to wear. The grooms who carried their
torches, a great number, were scriveners, copyists, and notaries, with
books and writings in their hands.

After these six came the car, or rather, triumphal chariot, of the Age
or Era of Gold, wrought with the richest and most beautiful artistry,
with many figures in relief executed by Baccio Bandinelli, and very
beautiful paintings by the hand of Pontormo; among those in relief the
four Cardinal Virtues being highly extolled. From the centre of the
car rose a great sphere in the form of a globe of the world, upon
which there lay prostrate on his face, as if dead, a man clad in
armour all eaten with rust, who had the back open and cleft, and from
the fissure there issued a child all naked and gilded, who
represented the new birth of the age of gold and the end of the age of
iron, from which he was coming forth into that new birth by reason of
the election of that Pontiff; and this same significance had the dry
trunk putting forth new leaves, although some said that the matter of
that dry trunk was an allusion to the Lorenzo de' Medici who became
Duke of Urbino. I should mention that the gilded boy, who was the son
of a baker, died shortly afterwards through the sufferings that he
endured in order to gain ten crowns.

The chant that was sung in that masquerade, as is the custom, was
composed by the above-named Jacopo Nardi, and the first stanza ran
thus:

Colui che da le leggi alla Natura
E i varii stati e secoli dispone,
D'ogni bene e cagione;
E il mal, quanto permette, al Mondo dura;
Onde questa figura
Contemplando si vede,
Come con certo piede
L'un secol dopo l'altro al Mondo viene
E muta il bene in male, e 'l male in bene.

From the works that he executed for this festival Pontormo gained,
besides the profit, so much praise, that probably few young men of his
age ever gained as much in that city; wherefore, Pope Leo himself
afterwards coming to Florence, he was much employed in the festive
preparations that were made, for he had attached himself to Baccio da
Montelupo, a sculptor advanced in years, who made an arch of wood at
the head of the Via del Palagio, at the steps of the Badia, and
Pontormo painted it all with very beautiful scenes, which afterwards
came to an evil end through the scant diligence of those who had
charge of them. Only one r