g of the above-named upper Hall, called
the Sala degli Elementi, painting in the compartments, which are eleven,
the Castration of Heaven in the air. In a terrace beside that Hall I
painted on the ceiling the actions of Saturn and Ops, and then on the
ceiling of another great chamber all the story of Ceres and Proserpine;
and in a still larger chamber, which is beside the last, likewise on the
ceiling, which is very rich, stories of the Goddess Berecynthia and of
Cybele with her Triumph, and the four Seasons, and on the walls all the
twelve Months. On the ceiling of another, not so rich, I painted the
Birth of Jove and the Goat Amaltheia nursing him, with the rest of the
other most notable things related of him; in another terrace beside the
same room, much adorned with stones and stucco-work, other things of
Jove and Juno; and finally, in the next chamber, the Birth of Hercules
and all his Labours. All that could not be included on the ceilings was
placed in the friezes of each room, or has been placed in the
arras-tapestries that the Lord Duke has caused to be woven for each room
from my cartoons, corresponding to the pictures high up on the walls. I
shall not speak of the grotesques, ornaments, and pictures of the
stairs, nor of many other smaller details executed by my hand in that
apartment of rooms, because, besides that I hope that a longer account
may be given of them on another occasion, everyone may see them at his
pleasure and judge of them.

While these upper rooms were being painted, there were built the others
that are on the level of the Great Hall, and are connected in a
perpendicular line with the first-named, with a very convenient system
of staircases public and private that lead from the highest to the
lowest quarters of the Palace. Meanwhile Tasso died, and the Duke, who
had a very great desire that the Palace, which had been built at
haphazard, in various stages and at various times, and more for the
convenience of the officials than with any good order, should be put to
rights, resolved that he would at all costs have it reconstructed in so
far as that was possible, and that in time the Great Hall should be
painted, and that Bandinelli should continue the Audience-chamber
already begun. In order, therefore, to bring the whole Palace into
accord, harmonizing the work already done with that which was to be
done, he ordained that I should make several plans and designs, and
finally a wooden model aft