After the murder of Duke Alessandro by his cousin Lorenzino de’ Medici in 1537, the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere succeeded to the throne as Cosimo I. He inhabited the Medici palace in the Via Larga for five years and then took up his abode in the Palazzo de’ Signori, “where,” writes Gianbattista Adriani, “he caused the rooms which once had been those of the Priors and of the Gonfaloniers to be arranged in princely fashion ... and this he did to show that he was absolute Prince and sole head of the Government, and to disabuse those who pretended, as some had done, that the government of the city was a separate thing from that of the Medici family. Also, as it was necessary to have a guard in the Palace, the principal seat of the State, he judged it to be safer, less expensive, more dignified and more conducive to authority to live there.” The Duke evidently mistrusted his subjects and had German soldiers, _Lanzknechte_, as his guards. Their quarters were close to the Loggia de’ Signori, in which they lounged during the day and which ever since has been called the Loggia de’ Lanzi. Having established himself in the old palace Cosimo called in Tasso, an admirable carver in wood and a good architect,[113] and ordered him to add to it by incorporating the two fine residences of the Captain and the Executor of Justice, and a large house with a courtyard where the lions were kept, which were then sent to S. Marco. These orders were only partially carried out as will be seen later on. Tasso superintended the works besides carving the windows, doors, ceilings and cornices, while Vasari, to whom the Duke took a fancy in 1550 when he presented him with a copy of his _Lives of the Painters_, began to paint the rooms. For the description of all he did I must refer my readers to his own delightful book, but no wonder he remarked, after he had raised the roof of the great Hall of the Five Hundred and, aided by his pupils, frescoed it all over, rebuilt the staircases, made two floors where originally there was but one, etc. etc., that Arnolfo, Michelozzo and others, who had worked at the palace from the beginning would not recognize it and would think it was not theirs, but a new marvel and another edifice. Vasari however omits to mention that he sacrilegiously destroyed the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Mr. Berenson has kindly called my attention to a letter written in 1549 by Anton Francesco Doni to Alberto Lollio who was going to visit Florence. Doni gives him excellent advice and after mentioning the “Giant” by Michelangelo at the door of Palazzo Vecchio, etc., he continues: “mount then the stairs to the great hall and carefully consider the group of horses and men (part of a battlepiece by Leonardo da Vinci), which you will see to be a miraculous thing.”[114] So that Leonardo’s fresco was in existence when Vasari began to paint in the Palazzo Vecchio.