ugh a manner,
and having made some trial of his powers, Baccio began to be held in
such credit in Florence, that the most magnificent buildings that were
erected in his time were entrusted to him and were put under his
direction. When Piero Soderini was Gonfalonier, Baccio took part, with
Cronaca and others, as has been related above, in the deliberations that
were held with regard to the great Hall of the Palace; and with his own
hand he executed in wood the ornament for the large panel-picture which
was begun by Fra Bartolommeo, after the design by Filippino. In company
with the same masters he made the staircase that leads to that Hall,
with a very beautiful ornamentation of stone, and also the columns of
variegated marble and the doors of marble in the hall that is now called
the Sala de' Dugento.

He built a palace for Giovanni Bartolini, which is very ornate within,
on the Piazza di S. Trinita; and he made many designs for the garden of
the same man in Gualfonda. And since that palace was the first edifice
that was built with ornaments in the form of square windows with
pediments, and a portal with columns supporting architrave, frieze, and
cornice, these things were much censured by the Florentines with spoken
words and sonnets, and festoons of boughs were hung upon them, as is
done in churches for festivals, men saying that the facade was more like
that of a temple than of a palace; so that Baccio was like to go out of
his mind. However, knowing that he had imitated good examples, and that
his work was sound, he regained his peace of mind. It is true that the
cornice of the whole palace proved, as has been said in another place,
to be too large; but in every other respect the work has always been
much extolled.

For Lanfredino Lanfredini he erected a house on the bank of the Arno,
between the Ponte a S. Trinita and the Ponte alla Carraja; and on the
Piazza de' Mozzi he began the house of the Nasi, which looks out upon
the sandy shore of the Arno, but did not finish it. For Taddeo, of the
Taddei family, he built a house that was held to be very beautiful and
commodious. For Pier Francesco Borgherini he made the designs of the
house that he built in Borgo S. Apostolo, in which he caused ornaments
for the doors and most beautiful chimney-pieces to be executed at great
expense, and made for the adornment of one chamber, in particular,
coffers of walnut-wood covered with little boys carved with supreme
diligence. S