These works being finished, Bandinelli gave them to the Duchess, whose favour he was anxious to secure, for the sake of the assistance which he obtained therefrom in his various troubles and difficulties. It is indeed true, that if it had not been for that lady, who valued him for his abilities and upheld him accordingly, Baccio would have been totally ruined with the Duke, and must have lost his favour entirely. The Duchess availed herself of his assistance, moreover, in the Bitti garden, where she had caused a grotto to be constructed of tufa and various petrified substances, with a fountain in the midst of it; for this Baccio had commissioned Giovanni Fancelli, his disciple, to execute a large Yase in marble, adorned with Goats the size of life, throwing forth water. He furthermore caused Fancelli to complete a figure for the decoration of a fish-pond, after a model prepared by himself, this last representing a Peasant, employed in pouring water from a large vessel in the form of a cask or barrel.
For all these things the Duchess constantly promoted the interests of Baccio with the Duke, who "was ultimately induced to give that sculptor permission to commence the great model for the Neptune; for which reason Bandinelli once more sent to Rome for Vincenzio de’ Rossi, who had already left Florence, intending that the latter should assist him in that work.
While these matters were in preparation, Baccio took it into his head to complete the statue of Our Saviour, represented as already dead and supported by Nicodemus, which had previously been commenced and brought to an advanced state of forwardness by Clemente his son. And this he did because he had heard that Michelagnolo was finishing a work of somewhat similar kind in Rome. The group of Buonarroto was one of five figures executed in a single block of marble, and had been commenced by the master with the intention of placing it on his own tomb, in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore.[1] Incited by this spirit of rivalry, Baccio set himself to work at his group with the most earnest care, and so laboured, with the aid of assistants, that he
- ↑ This group, which is of four and not five figures, was left unfinished by Michael Angelo, but was subsequently placed by command of Cosimo III., behind the High Altar of the Cathedral, where it now remains.
