one long wall with a battle scene celebrating a famous Florentine victory. He was always trying new methods and materials and decided to mix wax into his pigments. Da Vinci had finished painting part of the wall, but it was not drying fast enough, so he brought in braziers stoked with hot coals to try to hurry the process. As others watched in horror, the wax in the fresco melted under the intense heat and the colors ran down the walls to puddle on the floor. A legend exists that Giorgio Vasari, wanting to preserve Da Vinci's work, had a false wall built over the top of The Battle of Anghiari before painting his fresco. Attempts made to find Da Vinci's original work behind the Vasari fresco have so far been inconclusive. Michelangelo never proceeded beyond the preparatory drawings for the fresco he was commissioned to paint on the opposite wall. Pope Julius II called him to Rome to paint the Sistine Chapel, and the master's sketches were destroyed by eager young artists who came to study them and took away scraps. The surviving decorations in this hall were made between 1555 and 1572 by Giorgio Vasari and his helpers, among them Livio Agresti from Forlì. They mark the culmination of mannerism and make this hall the showpiece of the palace. On the walls are large and expansive frescoes that depict battles and military victories by Florence over Pisa and Siena: The Taking of Siena The Conquest of Porto Ercole The Victory of Cosimo I at Marciano in Val di Chiana Defeat of the Pisans at the Tower of San Vincenzo Maximilian of Austria Attempts the Conquest of Leghorn Pisa Attacked by the Florentine Troops The ceiling consists of 39 panels constructed and painted by Vasari and his assistants, representing Great Episodes from the life of Cosimo I, the quarters of the city, and the city itself. Toward the center is the apotheosis: Scene of His Glorification as Grand Duke of Florence and Tuscany. On the north side of the hall, illuminated by enormous windows, is the raised stage called the Udienza, built by Bartolommeo Bandinelli for Cosimo I as a place to receive citizens and ambassadors. Above are frescoes of historical events; among these, that of Boniface VIII receiving the ambassadors of foreign States and, seeing that were all Florentines, saying: "You Florentines are the quintessence." In the niches