in detail, and often, in
speaking of those craftsmen, either confused their names, surnames,
birthplaces, and works, or did not relate things exactly as they were,
but rather, as I have said, in gross. When Giovio had finished his
discourse, the Cardinal turned to me and said: "What do you say,
Giorgio? Will not that be a fine work and a noble labour?" "Fine,
indeed, most illustrious Excellency," I answered, "if Giovio be assisted
by someone of our arts to put things in their places and relate them as
they really are. That I say because, although his discourse has been
marvellous, he has confused and mistaken many things one for another."
"Then," replied the Cardinal, being besought by Giovio, Caro, Tolomei,
and the others, "you might give him a summary and an ordered account of
all those craftsmen and their works, according to the order of time; and
so your arts will receive from you this benefit as well." That
undertaking, although I knew it to be beyond my powers, I promised most
willingly to execute to the best of my ability; and so, having set
myself down to search through my records and the notes that I had
written on that subject from my earliest youth, as a sort of pastime and
because of the affection that I bore to the memory of our craftsmen,
every notice of whom was very dear to me, I gathered together everything
that seemed to me to touch on the subject, and took the whole to Giovio.
And he, after he had much praised my labour, said to me: "Giorgio, I
would rather that you should undertake this task of setting everything
down in the manner in which I see that you will be excellently well able
to do it, because I have not the courage, not knowing the various
manners, and being ignorant of many particulars that you are likely to
know; besides which, even if I were to do it, I would make at the most a
little treatise like that of Pliny. Do what I tell you, Vasari, for I
see by the specimen that you have given me in this account that it will
prove something very fine." And then, thinking that I was not very
resolute in the matter, he caused Caro, Molza, Tolomei, and others of my
dearest friends to speak to me. Whereupon, having finally made up my
mind, I set my hand to it, with the intention of giving it, when
finished, to one of them, that he might revise and correct it, and then
publish it under a name other than mine.

Meanwhile I departed from Rome in the month of October of the year 1546,
and came to Floren