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never do so. And this I did also, because that Giovanni, the German
who makes the mirrors, was there always in the workshop, and wanted
to see and to know all that was being done there and made it known
outside ... strongly criticising it; and because he dined with those
of the Pope's guard, and then they went out with guns killing birds
among the ruins; and this went on from after dinner till the
evening; and when I sent Lorenzo to urge him to work he said that he
would not have so many masters over him, and that his work was for
your Excellency's Wardrobe; and thus two months passed and so it
went on; and one day finding Gian Niccolo of the Wardrobe and asking
whether the German had finished the work for your Magnificence, he
told me this was not true, but only that he had given him two guns
to clean. Afterwards, when I had urged him farther, be left the
workshop and began to work in his room, and lost much time in making
another pair of pincers and files and other tools with screws; and
there he worked at mills for twisting silk which he hid when any one
of my people went in, and with a thousand oaths and mutterings, so
that none of them would go there any more.
I was so greatly rejoiced, most Illustrious Lord, by the desired
restoration of your health, that my own illness almost left me. But
I am greatly vexed at not having been able to completely satisfy
your Excellency's wishes by reason of the wickedness of that German
deceiver, for whom I left nothing undone by which I could have hope
to please him; and secondly I invited him to lodge and board with
me, by which means I should constantly see the work he was doing and
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