n, the hour of supper having come, they were
placed at table according to the quality of their clothes--those who
were dressed as Princes in the first places, the rich and noble after
them, and those dressed as poor persons in the last and lowest places.
And whether they had games and merrymaking after supper, it is better to
leave that to everyone to imagine for himself than to say anything about
it.

[Footnote 15: Threshing-floor.]

At another repast, which was arranged by the same Bugiardini and by
Giovan Francesco Rustici, the men of the Company appeared, as the master
had commanded, all in the dress of masons and their labourers; that is,
those who were "going for the Great" had the trowel with the cutting
edge and hammer in their girdles, and those "going for the Less" were
dressed as labourers with the hod, the levers for moving weights, and in
their girdles the ordinary trowel. When all had arrived in the first
room, the lord of the feast showed them the ground-plan of an edifice
that had to be built by the company, and placed the master-masons at
table around it; and then the labourers began to carry up the materials
for making the foundations--hods full of cooked lasagne and ricotta
prepared with sugar for mortar, sand made of cheese, spices, and pepper
mixed together, and for gravel large sweetmeats and pieces of
berlingozzo.[16] The wall-bricks, paving-bricks, and tiles, which were
brought in baskets and hand-barrows, were loaves of bread and flat
cakes. A basement having then come up, it appeared to the stone-cutters
that it had not been executed and put together well enough, and they
judged that it would be a good thing to break it and take it to pieces;
whereupon, having set upon it and found it all composed of pastry,
pieces of liver, and other suchlike things, they feasted on these, which
were placed before them by the labourers. Next, the same labourers
having come on the scene with a great column swathed with the cooked
tripe of calves, it was taken to pieces, and after distributing the
boiled veal, capons, and other things of which it was composed, they eat
the base of Parmesan cheese and the capital, which was made in a
marvellous manner of pieces carved from roasted capons and slices of
veal, with a crown of tongues. But why do I dally over describing all
the details? After the column, there was brought up on a car a very
ingenious piece of architrave with frieze and cornice, composed in