I have not had much luck in it; for Master Bernardino, either by ignorance or misfortune, did not sufficiently melt the bronze.

How it happened would be long to tell; it is enough that my figure has come out up to the girdle; the rest of the stuff, that is to say the metal, remained in the furnace; it was not melted; so that to get it out I shall have the furnace taken to pieces, and that I am doing now, and I will have it remade again this week.

Next week I will recast the upper part and finish filling the mould, and I believe that this bad business will go very well, but not without the greatest devotion, labour, and expense.

I would have believed that Master Bernardino could have cast it without fire, so much faith had I in him; all the same, it is not that he is not a good master and that he did not work with a will.

But he who fails, fails.