Now, to come to the court of the Ducal Palace, into which one entered by the door already described; in order not to pass it by without saying anything about it, we must relate that, although it seemed dark and inconvenient, and almost incapable of receiving any kind of ornamentation, nevertheless with marvellous novelty and with incredible rapidity it was carried to that perfection of beauty and loveliness in which it may be seen by everyone at the present day. In addition to the graceful fountain of hardest porphyry that is placed in the centre, and the lovely boy that pours water into it from the dolphin held in his arms, in an instant the nine columns were fluted and shaped in a most beautiful manner in the Corinthian Order, which surround the square court named above, and which support on one side the encircling loggie constructed very roughly of hard-stone, according to the custom of those times; overlaying the ground of those columns almost entirely with gold, and filling them with most graceful foliage over the flutings, and shaping their bases and capitals together according to the good ancient custom. Within the loggie, the vaults of which were all filled and adorned with most bizarre and extravagant grotesques, there were seen represented, as in many medallions made for the same purpose, some of the glorious deeds of the magnanimous Duke, which--if smaller things may be compared with greater--I have considered often in my own mind to be so similar to those of the first Octavianus Augustus, that it would be difficult to find any greater resemblance; for the reason that--not to mention that both the one and the other were born under one and the same ascendant of Capricorn, and not to mention that both were raised almost unexpectedly to the sovereignty at the same immature age, and not to speak of the most important victories gained both by the one and by the other in the first days of August, and of their having similar constitutions and natures in their private and intimate lives, and of their singular affection for their wives, save that in his children, in the election to the principality, and perhaps in many other things, I believe that our fortunate Duke might be esteemed more blessed than Augustus--is there not seen both in the one and in the other a most ardent and most extraordinary desire to build and embellish, and to contrive that others should build and embellish? Insomuch that, if the first said that he found Rome built of bricks and left her built of solid stone, the second will be able to say not less truthfully that he received Florence already of stone, indeed, ornate and beautiful, but leaves her to his successors by a great measure more ornate and more beautiful, increased and magnified by every kind of convenient, lovely, and magnificent adornment.