After these things, Tribolo was sent by his Excellency to the island of Elba, not only that he might see the city and port that the Duke had caused to be built there, but also that he might make arrangements for the transport of a round piece of granite, twelve braccia in diameter, from which was to be made a tazza for the great lawn of the Pitti Palace, which might receive the water of the principal fountain. Tribolo, therefore, went thither and caused a boat to be made on purpose for transporting the tazza, and then, after giving the stone-cutters directions for the transportation, he returned to Florence; where he had no sooner arrived, than he found the whole country full of murmurings and maledictions against him, since about that time floods and inundations had done infinite havoc in the neighbourhood of those rivers that he had patched up, although it was, perhaps, not altogether through his fault that this had happened. However that may have been, whether it was the malignity of some of his assistants, or perchance envy, or that the accusation was indeed true, the blame for all that damage was laid on Tribolo, who, being a man of no great spirit, and rather wanting in resolution than otherwise, and doubting that the malice of some enemy might make him lose the favour of the Duke, was in a state of great despondency, when, being of a feeble habit of body, on the 20th of August in the year 1550, there came upon him a most violent fever. At that time Giorgio Vasari was in Florence, for the purpose of having sent to Rome the marbles for the tombs that Pope Julius III caused to be erected in S. Pietro a Montorio; and he, as one who sincerely esteemed the talents of Tribolo, visited and comforted him, beseeching him that he should think of nothing save his health, and that, when cured, he should return to finish the work of Castello, letting the rivers go their own way, for they were more likely to drown his fame than to bring him any profit or honour. This, which he promised to attempt to do, he would, I believe, have done at all costs, if he had not been prevented by death, which closed his eyes on the 7th of September in the same year. And so the works of Castello, begun and carried well forward by him, remained unfinished; for although some work has been done there since his day, now in one part and now in another, nevertheless they have never been pursued with the diligence and resolution that were shown when Tribolo was alive and when the Lord Duke was hot in the undertaking. Of a truth, he who does not press great works forward while those who are having them done are spending money willingly and devoting their best attention to them, brings it about that those works are put on one side and left unfinished, which zeal and solicitude could have carried to perfection. And thus, by the negligence of the workers, the world is left without its adornment, and they without their honour and fame, for the reason that it rarely