lans that sang the
soprano. Spillo presented as his dish a smith, which he had made from a
great goose or some such bird, with all the instruments wherewith to
mend the cauldron in case of need. Domenico Puligo represented by means
of a cooked sucking-pig a serving-girl with a distaff at her side, who
was watching a brood of chickens, and was there to scour the cauldron.
Robetta made out of a calf's head, with appurtenances formed of other
fat meats, an anvil for the maintenance of the cauldron, which was very
fine and very beautiful, as were also all the other contributions; not
to enumerate one by one all the dishes of that supper and of many others
that they gave.

[Footnote 11: Broad, flat strips of maccheroni.]

The Company of the Cazzuola,[12] which was similar to the other, and to
which Giovan Francesco belonged, had its origin in the following manner.
One evening in the year 1512 there were at supper in the garden that Feo
d'Agnolo the hunchback, a fife-player and a very merry fellow, had in
the Campaccio, with Feo himself, Ser Bastiano Sagginati, Ser Raffaello
del Beccaio, Ser Cecchino de' Profumi, Girolamo del Giocondo, and Il
Baia, and, while they were eating their ricotta,[13] the eyes of Baia
fell on a heap of lime with the trowel sticking in it, just as the mason
had left it the day before, by the side of the table in a corner of the
garden. Whereupon, taking some of the lime with that trowel, or rather,
mason's trowel, he dropped it all into the mouth of Feo, who was waiting
with gaping jaws for a great mouthful of ricotta from another of the
company. Which seeing, they all began to shout: "A Trowel, a Trowel!"
That Company being then formed by reason of that incident, it was
ordained that its members should be in all twenty-four, twelve of those
who, as the phrase was in those times, were "going for the Great,"[14]
and twelve of those who were "going for the Less"; and that its emblem
should be a trowel, to which they added afterwards those little black
tadpoles that have a large head and a tail, which are called in Tuscany
Cazzuole. Their Patron Saint was S. Andrew, whose festal day they used
to celebrate with much solemnity, giving a most beautiful supper and
banquet according to their rules. The first members of that Company,
those "going for the Great," were Jacopo Bottegai, Francesco Rucellai,
Domenico his brother, Giovan Battista Ginori, Girolamo del Giocondo,
Giovanni Miniati, Niccolo de