The Transportation of the Vatican Obelisk

...was the easiest, safest, and best understood to achieve a prosperous end out of all the others that were offered there; and by common consent of the whole congregation, it was chosen and approved to be used in transporting the Spire, leaving all the others aside. It is true that, due to the great desire that those gentlemen had for the matter to succeed well, they fell into fear regarding my age, saying that I was too young for such a task, as I was not passing forty-two years, believing that it was necessary for a man aged in the art of moving weights so that, with mature and slow discourse, he might execute piece by piece what was shown in the model. However, they established that the enterprise should be handed over to Messer Bartolomeo Amannati the Florentine, a man of sixty-five years of age, assigning to him as an aid Messer Giacopo della Porta, so that both of them together, with my discovery, would have to bring to a good end what was desired. In this manner the congregation was concluded, and to my great contentment, certainly in this part at least, that among so many beautiful wits, designs, and diverse models, my invention was put forward, chosen, and approved as the best, and assigned to two valiant Architects to be employed for such an effect; and I remained free from any thought that could bring me to finish a work so important, difficult, and full of risks and dangers, not yet attempted by anyone in our age.

Having finished this, I stayed for seven days without having occasion to go or let myself be seen by Our Lord, waiting for the aforementioned Masters to gird themselves for the enterprise. Afterward, needing to treat with his Holiness on some matters, I went to Monte Cavallo, and while discussing other things, he asked me for my opinion regarding the matters of the Spire, and how I judged it. I answered that I judged it well, except that, being very desirous that the enterprise should succeed in reaching port, and doubting that (if by chance, in executing what others had done with my invention, some mishap should intervene) someone might believe that this had happened due to a defect in my model; I had fallen into great thought, and it seemed to me that I suffered a little wrong for this reason, considering that I judged that no one could ever execute another's invention as well as the inventor himself, since there is no man who can ever fully understand the intention or thought of another man. At that point, Our Lord ordered that I alone should give the start to the work and execute my intention. So, I immediately set out with fifty men to have the pit dug where the foundation was to be cast on the Piazza of Saint Peter in the same place where a beam had previously been planted as a marker by Amannati and Messer Giacopo della Porta, which is opposite the main door of the aforementioned Church. And this was on Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of the said Month of September, a day truly notable and fortunate in the course of the life, actions, and greatness of Our Lord, because on such a day he was created Bishop, and subsequently exalted to the dignity of Cardinal, and at the last happily assumed to the supreme grade of Pontiff and crowned on the same day, events for certain memorable in such a continued order.

Now, having begun to dig, the foundation was made square, sixty palms by side, thirty-three palms deep. Because a good foundation was not found, it being muddy and clayey terrain with much water, it was necessary to drive piles into the bottom of the pit with barked oak and chestnut beams, which are wont to be kept perpetual under the earth; they were twenty-five palms long and one palm in diameter, driven with the pile-driver with great diligence. The material of the foundation is broken stone likely "pietra felice," a type of hard, durable stone broken into small pieces and brick fragments with good lime made with pozzolana a volcanic ash used as a hydraulic cement, which makes a very great hold; and in the said foundation in many places...