In a few days the foundations of the palace on the side next to the Piazza were filled in and work had begun, to the great discomfort of the neighbours; particularly of the chemist, Luca Landucci, who notes in his diary: “The pulling down of houses by great numbers of master-masons and workmen continues, so that all the streets around are choked with mountains of stone and lime, and with mules and donkeys carrying away rubbish and bringing rough stone. The worst is for the shopkeepers, who are bothered with dust and the plague of people who stand and look on, and for those who cannot get past with their laden beasts.” On the 21st August building commenced, and on the 18th May, 1490, the wall below the “_bozzi_” was finished on the side next the Piazza; on the 2nd June a mast, and a crane for raising the stones, were set up, and six days afterwards the first of the large “_bozzi_” was put in its place. “Every day,” writes Rossi, “eight or ten of these were set,” and Landucci the chemist notes, “on the 20th July, the ring at the corner of Tornaquinci, the one with the serpent or dragon, was put into its place.” On the 18th May, 1491, Filippo Strozzi died, and Rossi writes: “In all the land has arisen great respect for the beautiful building, and he [Filippo] is held to be the good man he was. He had begun to put in the irons of the windows, five were already set in the front and the others were ready.” The day before his death Filippo made his will, containing most minute directions for finishing pictures and buildings commenced by him, particularly with regard to the “big house, which not being finished inside and out according to plan and model, so that both houses can be inhabited, my heirs are to see that it is completed; therefore fifty men at the least, between master-masons, men, and stone-cutters, are to be kept continually at work, so that without loss of time it shall be finished at the latest in the year 1496.” Filippo deputes “Messer Andrea Buondelmonti to hasten matters and to command everybody, at a salary of 50 ‘fiorini larghi’ a year for so long as he gives his time to the building, but the salary is to cease in 1496.” If not then finished he begs “the magnificent Lorenzo de’ Medici, if then living, and willing to undertake the charge, to see that it be completed in two years from that date, and if he be not alive or is unwilling to accept such charge, then the Consuls of the Guild of Merchants of Calimala, with two governors of the hospital of Messer Bonifazio and two elders of the house of Strozzi, are to have authority to finish it.” The will is far too long to transcribe, but the following clause is too characteristic to omit. “In order that the said Lorenzo, or the said Consuls, etc., may see to the work, I direct that between 1496 and 1498, or for whatever less time may be needful to finish the said house, they be authorized to come once every fifteen days to dine in the said house, in whatever part thereof seems