King Francis I of France; and then he resolved to return to Florence.
Whereupon orders were given to Sansovino that he should make a
triumphal arch at the Porta S. Gallo, and he, not falling back in any
way from his own standard, executed it similar to the other works that
he had done--namely, beautiful to a marvel, and full of statues and
painted pictures wrought excellently well. His Holiness having then
determined that the façade of S. Lorenzo should be executed in marble,
the while that Raffaello da Urbino and Buonarroti were expected from
Rome, Sansovino, by order of the Pope, made a design for it; which
giving much satisfaction, Baccio d'Agnolo was commissioned to make a
model of it in wood, which proved very beautiful. Meanwhile,
Buonarroti had made another, and he and Sansovino were ordered to go
to Pietrasanta; where, finding much marble, but difficult to
transport, they lost so much time, that when they returned to
Florence they found the Pope departed for Rome. Whereupon, both
following after him with their models, each by himself, Jacopo arrived
at the very moment when Buonarroti's model was being shown to his
Holiness in the Torre Borgia; but he did not succeed in obtaining what
he hoped, because, whereas he believed that he would at least make
under Michelagnolo part of the statues that were going into that work,
the Pope having spoken of it to him and Michelagnolo having given him
so to understand, he perceived on arriving in Rome that Buonarroti
wished to be alone in the work. Nevertheless, having made his way to
Rome and not wishing to return to Florence without any result, he
resolved to remain in Rome and there give his attention to sculpture
and architecture. And so, having undertaken to execute for the
Florentine Giovan Francesco Martelli a Madonna in marble larger than
life, he made her most beautiful, with the Child in her arms; and this
was placed upon an altar within the principal door of S. Agostino, on
the right hand as one enters. The clay model of this statue he
presented to the Priore de' Salviati, in Rome, who placed it in a
chapel in his palace on the corner of the Piazza di S. Pietro, at the
beginning of the Borgo Nuovo. After no long lapse of time he made for
the altar of the chapel that the very reverend Cardinal Alborense had
caused to be built in the Church of the Spaniards in Rome, a statue in
marble of four braccia, worthy of no ordinary measure of praise, of a
S. James, which has a movement full of grace and is executed with
judgment and perfect art, so that it won him very great fame. And the
while that he was executing these statues, he made the ground-plan and
model, and then began the building, of the Church of S. Marcello for
the Servite Friars, a work of truly great beauty. Continuing to be
employed in matters of architecture, he built for Messer Marco Coscia
a very beautiful loggia on the road that leads to Rome, at Pontemolle
on the Via Appia.[11] For the Company of the Crocifisso, attached to
the Church of S. Marcello, he made a Crucifix for carrying in
procession, a thing full of grace; and for Cardinal Antonio di Monte
he began a great fabric at his villa without Rome, on the Acqua
Vergine. And by the hand of Jacopo, perhaps, is a very beautiful
portrait in marble of that elder Cardinal di Monte which is now in the
Palace of Signor Fabiano at Monte Sansovino, over the door of the
principal chamber off the hall. He directed, also, the building of the
house of Messer Luigi Leoni, a most commodious edifice, and in the
Banchi a palace beside the house of the Gaddi, which was bought
afterwards by Filippo Strozzi--certainly a commodious and most
beautiful fabric, with many ornaments.
[Footnote 11: Via Flaminia.]
At this time, with the favour of Pope Leo, the Florentine colony had
bestirred itself out of emulation of the Germans, Spaniards, and
Frenchmen, who had either begun or finished the churches of their
colonies in Rome, and had begun to perform their solemn offices in
those already built and adorned; and the Florentines had sought leave
likewise to build a church for themselves. For which the Pope having
given instructions to Lodovico Capponi, the Consul of the Florentine
colony at that time, it was determined that behind the Banchi, at the
beginning of the Strada Giulia, on the bank of the Tiber, an immense
church should be built, to be dedicated to S. John the Baptist; which
might surpass in magnificence, grandeur, cost, ornamentation, and
design, the churches of all the other colonies. There competed, then,
in making designs for this work, Raffaello da Urbino, Antonio da San
Gallo, Baldassarre da Siena, and Sansovino; and the Pope, when he had
seen all their designs, extolled as the best that of Sansovino,
because, besides other things, he had made at each of the four corners
of that church a tribune, and a larger tribune in the centre, after
the likeness of the plan that Sebastiano Serlio placed in his second
book on Architecture. Whereupon, all the heads of the Florentine
colony concurring with the will of the Pope, with much approval of
Sansovino, the foundations were begun for a part of that church,
altogether twenty-two canne[12] in length. But, there being not enough
space, and yet wishing to make the façade of the church in line with
the houses of the Strada Giulia, they were obliged to stretch out into
the stream of the Tiber at least fifteen canne; which pleasing many of
them, because the grandeur as well as the cost was increased by making
the foundations in the river, work was begun on this, and they spent
upon it more than forty thousand crowns, which would have been enough
to build half the masonry of the church.
[Footnote 12: A "canna" is equal to about four braccia.]
In the meantime Sansovino, who was the head of this fabric, while the
foundations were being laid little by little, had a fall and suffered
a serious injury; and after a few days he had himself carried to
Florence for treatment, leaving the charge of laying the rest of the
foundations, as has been related, to Antonio da San Gallo. But no long
time passed before the Florentine colony, having lost by the death of
Leo so great a support and so splendid a Prince, abandoned the
building for the duration of the life of Pope Adrian VI. Then, Clement
having been elected, it was ordained, in order to pursue the same
order and design, that Sansovino should return and carry on that
fabric in the same manner wherein he had first arranged it; and so a
beginning was made once more with the work. Meanwhile, Sansovino
undertook to make the tomb of the Cardinal of Arragon and that of
Cardinal Aginense; and he had caused work to be begun on the marbles
for the ornaments, and had made many models for the figures, and
already Rome was in his hands, and he was executing many works of the
greatest importance for all those lords, when God, in order to
chastise that city and abate the pride of the inhabitants of Rome,
permitted that Bourbon should come with his army on the 6th of May,
1527, and that the whole city should be sacked and put to fire and
sword.
In that ruin, besides many other beautiful intellects that came to an
evil end, Sansovino was forced to his great loss to depart from Rome
and to fly to Venice, intending from there to pass into France to
enter the service of the King, whither he had been already invited.
But, halting in that city in order to make himself ready and provide
himself with many things, for he was despoiled of everything, it was
announced to the Prince Andrea Gritti, who was much the friend of
every talent, that Jacopo Sansovino was there. Whereupon there came to
Gritti a desire to speak with him, because at that very time Cardinal
Domenico Grimani had given him to understand that Sansovino would have
been the man for the cupolas of S. Marco, their principal church,
which, because of age and of weak foundations, and also from their
being badly secured with chains, were all opening out and threatening
to fall; and so he had him summoned. After many courtesies and long
discussions, he said to Sansovino that he wished, or rather, prayed
him, that he should find a remedy for the ruin of those tribunes;
which Sansovino promised to do, and to put it right. And so, having
agreed to do the work, he caused it to be taken in hand; and, having
contrived all the scaffoldings in the interior and made supports of
beams after the manner of stars, he propped in the central hollow of
woodwork all the timbers that sustained the vault of each tribune, and
encircled them on the inner side with curtains of woodwork, going on
then to bind them on the outer side with chains of iron, to flank them
with new walls, and to make at the foot new foundations for the piers
that supported them, insomuch that he strengthened them vastly and
made them for ever secure. By doing which he caused all Venice to
marvel, and not only satisfied Gritti, but also--which was far
more--rendered his ability so clearly manifest to that most
illustrious Senate, that when the work was finished, the Protomaster
to the Lords Procurators of S. Mark being dead, which is the highest
office that those lords give to their architects and engineers, they
gave it to him with the usual house and a passing handsome salary.
Whereupon Sansovino, having accepted it most willingly and freed his
mind of all doubt, became the head of all their fabrics, with honour
and advantage for himself.
[Illustration: THE LIBRARY OF S. MARCO
(_After =Jacopo Sansovino=. Venice_)
_Alinari_]
First, then, he erected the public building of the Mint, which he
designed and distributed in the interior with so much order and
method, for the convenience and service of the many artificers, that
in no place is there a Treasury ordered so well or with greater
strength than that one, which he adorned altogether in the Rustic
Order, very beautifully; which method, not having been used before in
Venice, caused no little marvel in the men of that city. Wherefore,
having recognized that the genius of Sansovino was equal to their
every need in the service of the city, they caused him to attend for
many years to the fortifications of their State. Nor did any long time
pass before he took in hand, by order of the Council of Ten, the very
rich and beautiful fabric of the Library of S. Marco, opposite to the
Palazzo della Signoria, with such a wealth of carvings, cornices,
columns, capitals, and half-length figures over the whole work, that
it is a marvel; and it is all done without any sparing of expense, so
that up to the present day it has cost one hundred and fifty thousand
ducats. And it is held in great estimation in that city, because it is
full of the richest pavements, stucco-work, and stories, distributed
among the halls of the building, with public stairs adorned by various
pictures, as has been related in the Life of Battista Franco; besides
many other beautiful appurtenances, and the rich ornaments that it has
at the principal door of entrance, which give it majesty and grandeur,
making manifest the ability of Sansovino. This method of building was
the reason that in that city, into which up to that time there had
never entered any method save that of making their houses and palaces
with the same order, each one always continuing the same things with
the same measure and ancient use, without varying according to the
sites as they found them or according to convenience--this, I say, was
the reason that buildings both public and private began to be erected
with new designs and better order.
The first palace that he built was that of M. Giorgio Cornaro, a most
beautiful work, erected with all proper appurtenances and ornaments at
a cost of seventy thousand crowns. Moved by which, a gentleman of the
Delfino family caused Sansovino to build a smaller one, at a cost of
thirty thousand crowns, which was much extolled and very beautiful.
Then he built that of Moro, at a cost of twenty thousand crowns, which
likewise was much extolled; and afterwards many others of less cost in
the city and the neighbourhood. Wherefore it may be said that at the
present day that magnificent city, in the quantity and quality of her
sumptuous and well-conceived edifices, shines resplendent and is in
that respect what she is through the ability, industry, and art of
Jacopo Sansovino, who therefore deserves the highest praise; seeing
that with those works he has been the reason that the gentlemen of
Venice have introduced modern architecture into their city, in that
not only has that been done there which has passed through his hands,
but also many--nay, innumerable--other works which have been executed
by other masters, who have gone to live there and have achieved
magnificent things. Jacopo also built the fabric of the loggia in the
Piazza di S. Marco, in the Corinthian Order, which is at the foot of
the Campanile of the said S. Marco, with a very rich ornamentation of
columns, and four niches, in which are four figures the size of life
and in bronze, of supreme beauty. And that work formed, as it were, a
base of great beauty to the said campanile, which at the foot has a
breadth, on one of the sides, of thirty-five feet, which is about the
extent of Sansovino's ornamentation; and a height from the ground to
the cornice, where are the windows of the bells, of one hundred and
sixty feet. From the level of that cornice to the other above it,
where there is the corridor, is twenty-five feet, and the other dado
above is twenty-eight feet and a half high; and from that level of the
corridor to the pyramid, spire, or pinnacle, whatever it may be
called, is sixty feet. At the summit of that pinnacle the little
square, upon which stands the Angel, is six feet high, and the said
Angel, which revolves, is ten feet high; insomuch that the whole
height comes to be two hundred and ninety-two feet. He also designed
and executed for the Scuola, or rather, Confraternity and Company of
the Misericordia, the fabric of that place, an immense building which
cost one hundred and fifty thousand crowns; and he rebuilt the Church
of S. Francesco della Vigna, where the Frati de' Zoccoli have their
seat, a vast work and of much importance.
[Illustration: LOGGETTA
(_After =Jacopo Sansovino=. Venice: Piazza di S. Marco_)
_Anderson_]
Nor for all this, the while that he has been giving his attention to
so many buildings, has he ever ceased from executing every day for his
own delight great and beautiful works of sculpture, in marble and in
bronze; and over the holy-water font of the Friars of the Cà Grande
there is a statue executed in marble by his hand, representing a S.
John the Baptist, very beautiful and much extolled. At Padua, in the
Chapel of the Santo, there is a large scene in marble by the same
hand, with very beautiful figures in half-relief, of a miracle of S.
Anthony of Padua; which scene is much esteemed in that place. For the
entrance of the stairs of the Palace of S. Marco he is even now
executing in marble, in the form of two most beautiful giants, each of
seven braccia, a Neptune and a Mars, signifying the power that is
exercised both on land and on sea by that most illustrious Republic.
He made a very beautiful statue of a Hercules for the Duke of
Ferrara; and for the Church of S. Marco he executed four scenes of
bronze in half-relief, one braccio in height and one and a half in
length, for placing around a pulpit, and containing stories of that
Evangelist, which are held in great estimation for their variety. Over
the door of the same S. Marco he has made a Madonna of marble, the
size of life, which is held to be a very beautiful thing, and at the
entrance of the sacristy in that place there is by his hand the door
of bronze, divided into two most beautiful parts, with stories of
Jesus Christ all in half-relief and wrought excellently well; and over
the door of the Arsenal he has made a very lovely Madonna of marble,
who is holding her Son in her arms. All which works not only have
given lustre and adornment to that Republic, but also have caused
Sansovino to become daily more known as a most excellent craftsman,
and to be loved by those Signori and honoured by their magnificent
liberality, and likewise by the other craftsmen; for every work of
sculpture and architecture that has been executed in that city in his
time has been referred to him. And in truth the excellence of Jacopo
has well deserved to be held in the first rank in that city among the
craftsmen of design, and his genius is rightly loved and revered by
all men, both nobles and plebeians, for the reason that, besides other
things, he has brought it about, as has been said, with his knowledge
and judgment, that that city has been almost entirely made new and has
learned the true and good manner of building.
But, if she has received from him beauty and adornment, he, on the
other hand, has received many benefits from her. Thus, in addition to
other things, he has lived in her, from the time when he first went
there to the age of seventy-eight years, full of health and strength;
and the air and that sky have done so much for him, that he does not
seem, one might say, more than forty. He has had, and still has, from
a most talented son--a man of letters--two grandchildren, one male and
the other female, both of them pictures of health and beauty, to his
supreme contentment; and, what is more, he is still alive, full of
happiness and with all the greatest conveniences and comforts that any
man of his profession could have. He has always loved his
brother-craftsmen, and in particular he has been very much the friend
of the excellent and famous Tiziano, as he also was of M. Pietro
Aretino during his lifetime. For all these reasons I have judged it
well to make this honourable record of him, although he is still
living, and particularly because now he is by way of doing little in
sculpture.
Sansovino had many disciples in Florence: Niccolò, called Tribolo, as
has been related, and Solosmeo da Settignano, who finished with the
exception of the large figures the whole of the tomb in marble that is
at Monte Casino, wherein is the body of Piero de' Medici, who was
drowned in the River Garigliano. His disciple, likewise, was Girolamo
da Ferrara, called Lombardo, of whom there has been an account in the
Life of Benvenuto Garofalo of Ferrara; which Girolamo has learned his
art both from the first Sansovino and from this second one in such a
manner, that, besides the works at Loreto of which we have spoken,
both in marble and in bronze, he has executed many works in Venice.
This master, although he came under Sansovino at the age of thirty and
knowing little of design, being rather a man of letters and a courtier
than a sculptor, although he had previously executed some works in
sculpture, nevertheless applied himself in such a manner, that in a
few years he made the proficience that may be perceived in his works
in half-relief that are in the fabrics of the Library and the Loggia
of the Campanile of S. Marco; in which he acquitted himself so well,
that he was afterwards able to make by himself alone the statues of
marble and the Prophets that he executed, as has been related, at the
Madonna of Loreto.
[Illustration: THE MIRACLE OF S. ANTHONY
(_After the relief by =Jacopo Sansovino=. Padua: S. Antonio_)
_Alinari_]
A disciple of Sansovino, also, was Jacopo Colonna, who died at Bologna
thirty years ago while executing a work of importance. This Jacopo
made for the Church of S. Salvadore in Venice a nude S. Jerome of
marble, still to be seen in a niche near the organ, which was a
beautiful figure and much extolled, and for S. Croce della Giudecca he
made a Christ also nude and of marble, who is showing His Wounds, a
work of beautiful artistry; and likewise for S. Giovanni Nuovo three
figures, S. Dorothy, S. Lucia, and S. Catharine. In S. Marina may be
seen a horse with an armed captain upon it, by his hand; and all these
works can stand in comparison with any that are in Venice. In Padua,
for the Church of S. Antonio, he executed in stucco the said Saint
and S. Bernardino, clothed. Of the same material he made for Messer
Luigi Cornaro a Minerva, a Venus, and a Diana, larger than life and in
the round; in marble a Mercury, and in terra-cotta a nude Marzio as a
young man, who is drawing a thorn from his foot, or rather, showing
that he has drawn it out, he holds the foot with one hand, looking at
the wound, and with the other hand seems to be about to cleanse it
with a cloth; which last work, because it is the best that Jacopo ever
did, the said Messer Luigi intends to have cast in bronze. For the
same patron he made another Mercury of stone, which was afterwards
presented to Duke Federigo of Mantua.
Another disciple of Sansovino was Tiziano da Padova, a sculptor, who
carved some little figures of marble in the Loggia of the Campanile of
S. Marco at Venice; and in the Church of the same S. Marco there may
be seen, likewise fashioned and cast in bronze by him, a large and
beautiful cover for a basin in bronze, in the Chapel of S. Giovanni.
This Tiziano had made a statue of S. John, with which were the four
Evangelists and four stories of S. John, wrought with beautiful
artistry for casting in bronze; but he died at the age of thirty-five,
and the world was robbed of an excellent and valiant craftsman. And by
the same hand is the vaulting of the Chapel of S. Antonio da Padova,
with a very rich pattern of compartments in stucco. He had begun for
the same chapel a grating of five arches in bronze, which were full of
stories of that Saint, with other figures in half-relief and
low-relief; but this, also, by reason of his death and of the
disagreement of those who had the charge of having it done, remained
unfinished. Many pieces of it had already been cast, which turned out
very beautiful, and many others were made in wax, when he died, and
for the said reasons the whole work was abandoned. The same Tiziano,
when Vasari executed the above-described decorations for the gentlemen
of the Company of the Calza in Canareio, made for that work some
statues in clay and many terminal figures. And he was employed many
times on ornaments for scenic settings, theatres, arches, and other
suchlike things, whereby he won much honour; having executed works all
full of invention, fantasy, and variety, and above all with great
rapidity.
Pietro da Salò, also, was a disciple of Sansovino; and after having
toiled at carving foliage up to the age of thirty, finally, assisted
by Sansovino, who taught him, he set himself to make figures of
marble. In which he so delighted, and studied in such a manner, that
in two years he was working by himself; to which witness is borne by
some passing good works by his hand that are in the tribune of S.
Marco, and the statue of a Mars larger than life that is in the façade
of the Palazzo Pubblico, which statue is in company with three others
by the hands of good craftsmen. He also made two figures for the
apartments of the Council of Ten, one male and the other female, in
company with two others executed by Danese Cattaneo, a sculptor of
highest renown, who, as will be related, was likewise a disciple of
Sansovino; which figures serve to adorn a chimney-piece. Pietro made,
in addition, three figures that are at S. Antonio, in the round and
larger than life; and these are a Justice, a Fortitude, and a statue
of a Captain-General of the Venetian forces, all executed with good
mastery. He also made a statue of Justice in a beautiful attitude and
with good design, which was placed upon a column in the Piazza of
Murano, and another in the Piazza del Rialto in Venice, as a support
for that stone where public proclamations are made, which is called
the Gobbo[13] di Rialto; and these works have made him known as a very
good sculptor. For the Santo, in Padua, he made a very beautiful
Thetis; and a Bacchus who is squeezing a bunch of grapes into a cup,
which figure, the most difficult that he ever executed, and the best,
he left at his death to his children, who have it still in their
house, seeking to sell it to him who shall best recognize and reward
the labour that their father endured for it.
[Footnote 13: Hunchback.]