ors and Princes who have possessed those lands; and on the plain
walls up to the cornice of the ceiling, which is all of carved wood and
painted in twelve great pictures, each with four celestial signs, making
in all forty-eight, and little less than lifesize, with their
stars--there are beneath, as I have said, on those walls, three hundred
portraits from life of distinguished persons for the last five hundred
years or more, painted in pictures in oils (and a note will be made of
them in the table of portraits, in order not to make too long a story
here with their names), all of one size, and with one and the same
ornament of carved walnut-wood--a very rare effect. In the two
compartments in the centre of the ceiling, each four braccia wide, where
there are the celestial signs, which open with ease without revealing
the secret of the hiding-place, in a part after the manner of a heaven,
will be accommodated two large globes, each three braccia and a half in
height. In one of them will be the whole earth, marked distinctly, and
this will be let down by a windlass that will not be seen, down to the
floor, and will rest on a balanced pedestal, so that, when fixed, there
will be seen reflected all the tables that are right round in the
pictures of the presses, and they will have a countermark in the globe
wherewith to find them with ease. In the other globe will be the
forty-eight celestial signs arranged in such a manner, that it will be
possible with it to perform all the operations of the Astrolabe to
perfection. This fanciful invention came from Duke Cosimo, who wished to
put together once and for all these things both of heaven and of earth,
absolutely exact and without errors, so that it might be possible to
see and measure them separately and all together, according to the
pleasure of those who delight in this most beautiful profession and
study it; of which, as a thing worthy to be recorded, it has seemed to
me my duty to make mention in this place on account of the art of Fra
Ignazio and the greatness of the Prince, who holds us worthy to enjoy
such honourable labours, and also to the end that it may be known
throughout the whole world.

And now to return to the men of our Academy; although I have spoken in
the Life of Tribolo of Antonio di Gino Lorenzi, a sculptor of
Settignano, I must record here with better order, as in the proper
place, that he executed under his master Tribolo the statue of
AEsculapius descri