as has been told, the whole
church was hung all round, wherever there were no painted scenes or
pictures, there were in each of the spaces of the chapels images of
death, devices, and other suchlike things, all different from those
that are generally made, and very fanciful and beautiful. Some of
these, as it were lamenting that they had been forced to deprive the
world of such a man, had these words in a scroll:

COEGIT DURA NECESSITAS.

And near them was a globe of the world, from which had sprung a lily,
which had three flowers and was broken in the middle, executed with
most beautiful fantasy and invention by the above-named Alessandro
Allori. There were other Deaths, also, depicted with other inventions,
but that one was most extolled upon whose neck, as she lay prostrate
on the ground, Eternity, with a palm in the hand, had planted one of
her feet, and, regarding her with a look of disdain, appeared to be
saying to her: "Be it necessity or thy will, thou hast done nothing,
for in spite of thee, come what may, Michelagnolo shall live." The
motto ran thus:

VICIT INCLYTA VIRTUS.

And all this was the invention of Vasari.

I will not omit to say that each of these Deaths had on either side
the device of Michelagnolo, which was three crowns, or rather, three
circlets, intertwined together in such a manner, that the
circumference of one passed through the centre of the two others, and
so with each; which sign Michelagnolo used either to suggest that the
three professions of sculpture, painting, and architecture are
interwoven one with another and so bound together, that each of them
receives benefit and adornment from the others, and they neither can
nor should be separated; or, indeed, being a man of lofty genius, he
may have had a more subtle meaning. But the Academicians, considering
him to have been perfect in all these three professions, and that each
of these had assisted and embellished the other, changed his three
circlets into three crowns intertwined together, with the motto:

TERGEMINIS TOLLIT HONORIBUS.

Which was intended to signify that in those three professions the
crown of human perfection was justly due to him.

On the pulpit from which Varchi delivered the funeral oration, which
was afterwards printed, there was no ornamentation, because, that work
having been executed in bronze, with scenes in half-relief and
low-relief, by the excellent Donatello, any adornment that might have
bee