r a woman with the balance, representing
Equity; these two being intended to signify that just laws must always
unite with the severity of the supreme power the equity of the
discerning judge. The next two were concerned with military life,
demonstrating the virtues of soldiers and the fidelity incumbent on
them; for the first of these things there was seen painted a woman armed
in the ancient fashion, and for the other many soldiers who, laying one
hand upon an altar, were shown presenting the other to their captain.
In the two that remained, representing the just and desired fruits of
all these fatigues, namely, Victory, the whole was seen fully expressed,
as is customary, by the figures of two women, one standing in one of the
pictures upon a great chariot, and the other in the other picture upon a
great ship's beak; and both were seen holding in one of the hands a
branch of glorious palm, and in the other a verdant crown of triumphal
laurel. And in the encircling frieze that ran right round the vaulting,
the front and the back, there followed the third part of the motto
already begun, saying: MORIBUS ORNES.

OF THE PIAZZA, AND OF THE NEPTUNE.

Next, all the most noble magistrates of the city, distributing
themselves one by one over the whole circuit of the great Piazza, each
with his customary devices and with very rich tapestries divided evenly
by most graceful pilasters, had rendered it all magnificently imposing
and ornate; and there in those days great care and diligence were
devoted to hastening the erecting in its place, at the beginning of the
Ringhiera, of that Giant in the finest white marble, so marvellous and
so stupendous in grandeur, in beauty, and in every part, which is still
to be seen there at the present day; although it had been ordained as a
permanent and enduring ornament. That Giant is known by the trident that
he has in the hand, by the crown of pine, and by the Tritons that are at
his feet, sounding their trumpets, to be Neptune, God of the sea; and,
riding in a graceful car adorned with various products of the sea and
two ascendant Signs, Capricorn for the Duke and Aries for the Prince,
and drawn by four Sea-horses, he appears in the guise of a benign
protector to be promising tranquillity, felicity, and victory in the
affairs of the sea. At the foot of this, in order to establish it more
securely and more richly, there was made at that time in a no less
beautiful manner an immense and mo