in the country, to
the end that I might be able the more advantageously to serve him.
Besides which, he has honoured me with the supreme magistracy of
Gonfalonier and other offices in my native city of Arezzo, with the
right to substitute in them one of the citizens of that place, not to
mention that to my brother Ser Piero he has given offices of profit in
Florence, and likewise extraordinary favours to my relatives in Arezzo;
so that I shall never be weary of confessing the obligation that I feel
towards that Lord for so many marks of affection.

Returning to my works, I must go on to say that my most excellent Lord
resolved to carry into execution a project that he had had for a long
time, of painting the Great Hall, a conception worthy of his lofty and
profound spirit; I know not whether, as he said, I believe jesting with
me, because he thought for certain that I would get it off his hands, so
that he would see it finished in his lifetime, or it may have been from
some other private and, as has always been true of him, most prudent
judgment. The result, in short, was that he commissioned me to raise the
crossbeams and the whole roof thirteen braccia above the height at that
time, to make the ceiling of wood, and to overlay it with gold and paint
it full of scenes in oils; a vast and most important undertaking, and,
if not too much for my courage, perhaps too much for my powers.
However, whether it was that the confidence of that great Lord and the
good fortune that he has in his every enterprise raised me beyond what I
am in myself, or that the hopes and opportunities of so fine a subject
furnished me with much greater faculties, or that the grace of God--and
this I was bound to place before any other thing--supplied me with
strength, I undertook it, and, as has been seen, executed it in
contradiction to the opinion of many persons, and not only in much less
time than I had promised and the work might be considered to require,
but in less than even I or his most illustrious Excellency ever thought.
And I can well believe that he was astonished and well satisfied,
because it came to be executed at the greatest emergency and the finest
occasion that could have occurred; and this was (that the cause of so
much haste may be known) that a settlement had been concluded about the
marriage which was being arranged between our most illustrious Prince
and the daughter of the late Emperor and sister of the present one, and
I