been restored to life by him and by his predecessor, Julius II; and his
successor was Adrian VI, in whose pontificate all arts and talents were
so crushed down, that, if the government of the Apostolic Seat had
remained long in his hands, that fate would have come upon Rome under
his rule which fell upon her on another occasion, when all the statues
saved from the destruction of the Goths, both the good and the bad, were
condemned to be burned. Adrian, perhaps in imitation of the Pontiffs of
those former times, had already begun to speak of intending to throw to
the ground the Chapel of the divine Michelagnolo, saying that it was a
bagnio of nudes; and he despised all good pictures and statues, calling
them vanities of the world, and shameful and abominable things, which
circumstance was the reason that not only Antonio, but all the other
beautiful intellects were kept idle, insomuch that, not to mention other
works, scarcely anything was done in the time of that Pontiff on the
building of S. Pietro, to which at least he should have been friendly,
since he wished to prove himself so much the enemy of worldly things.
For that reason, therefore, attending under that Pontiff to works of no
great importance, Antonio restored the aisles of the Church of S. Jacopo
degli Spagnuoli, and furnished the façade with most beautiful windows.
He also caused a tabernacle of travertine to be constructed for the
Imagine di Ponte, which, although small, is yet very graceful; and in it
Perino del Vaga afterwards executed a beautiful little work in fresco.
The poor arts had already come to an evil pass through the life of
Adrian, when Heaven, moved to pity for them, resolved by the death of
one to give new life to thousands; wherefore it removed him from the
world and caused him to surrender his place to one who would fill that
position more worthily and would govern the affairs of the world in a
different spirit. And thus a new Pope was elected in Clement VII, who,
being a man of generous mind, and desiring to follow in the steps of Leo
and of the other members of his illustrious family who had preceded him,
bethought himself that, even as he had created beautiful memorials of
himself as Cardinal, so as Pope he should surpass all others in
restoring and adorning buildings. That election, then, brought
consolation to many men of talent, and infused a potent and heaven-sent
breath of life in those ingenious but timid spirits who had sunk into
abasement; and they, thus revived, afterwards executed the beautiful
works that we see at the present day. And first, having been set to work
at the commission of His Holiness, Antonio straightway reconstructed a
court in front of the Loggie, which had been painted previously under
the direction of Raffaello, in the Palace; which court was a vast
improvement in beauty and convenience, for it was formerly necessary to
pass through certain narrow and tortuous ways, and Antonio, widening
these and giving them better form, made them spacious and beautiful. But
this part is not now in the condition in which Antonio left it, for Pope
Julius III took away the columns of granite that were there, in order to
adorn his villa with them, and altered everything. Antonio also executed
the façade of the old Mint of Rome, a work of great beauty and grace, in
the Banchi, making a rounded corner, which is held to be a difficult and
even miraculous thing; and in that work he placed the arms of the Pope.
And he refounded the unfinished part of the Papal Loggie, which had
remained incomplete at the death of Pope Leo, and had not been
continued, or even touched, through the negligence of Adrian. And thus,
at the desire of Clement, they were carried to their final completion.
His Holiness then resolving to fortify Parma and Piacenza, after many
designs and models had been made by various craftsmen, Antonio was sent
to those places, and with him Giuliano Leno, the supervisor of those
fortifications. When they had arrived there, Antonio having with him his
pupil L'Abacco, Pier Francesco da Viterbo, a very able engineer, and the
architect Michele San Michele of Verona, all of them together carried
the designs of those fortifications into execution. Which done, the
others remaining, Antonio returned to Rome, where Pope Clement, since
the Palace was poorly supplied in the matter of apartments, ordained
that Antonio should begin those in which the public consistories are
held, above the Ferraria, which were executed in such a manner, that the
Pontiff was well satisfied with them, and caused other apartments to be
constructed above them for the Chamberlains of His Holiness. Over the
ceilings of those apartments, likewise, Antonio made others which were
very commodious--a work which was most dangerous, because it
necessitated so much refounding. In this kind of work Antonio was in
truth very able, seeing that his buildings never showed a crack; nor was
there ever among the moderns any architect more cautious or more skilful
in joining walls.
In the time of Pope Paul II, the Church of the Madonna of Loreto, which
was small, and had its roof immediately over brick piers of rustic work,
had been refounded and brought to that size in which it may be seen at
the present day, by means of the skill and genius of Giuliano da Maiano;
and it had been continued from the outer string-course upwards by Sixtus
IV and by others, as has been related; but finally, in the time of
Clement, in the year 1526, without having previously shown the slightest
sign of falling, it cracked in such a manner, that not only the arches
of the tribune were in danger, but the whole church in many places, for
the reason that the foundations were weak and wanting in depth.
Wherefore Antonio was sent by the said Pope Clement to put right so
great a mischief; and when he had arrived at Loreto, propping up the
arches and fortifying the whole, like the resolute and judicious
architect that he was, he refounded all the building, and, making the
walls and pilasters thicker both within and without, he gave it a
beautiful form, both as a whole and in its well-proportioned parts, and
made it strong enough to be able to support any weight, however great.
He adhered to one and the same order in the transepts and in the aisles
of the church, making superb mouldings on the architraves, friezes, and
cornices above the arches, and he rendered beautiful and well
constructed in no common way the socles of the four great piers around
the eight sides of the tribune which support the four arches--namely,
three in the transepts, where the chapels are, and the larger one in the
central nave. This work certainly deserves to be celebrated as the best
that Antonio ever executed, and that not without sufficient reason,
seeing that those who erect some new building, or raise one from the
foundations, have the power to make it high or low, and to carry it to
such perfection as they desire or are able to achieve, without being
hindered by anything; which does not fall to the lot of him who has to
rectify or restore works begun by others and brought to a sorry state
either by the craftsman or by the circumstances of Fortune; whence it
may be said that Antonio restored a dead thing to life, and did that
which was scarcely possible. Having finished all this, he arranged that
the church should be covered with lead, and gave directions for the
execution of all that still remained to do; and thus, by his means,
that famous temple received a better form and more grace than it had
possessed before, and the hope of a long-enduring life.
He then returned to Rome, just after that city had been given over to
sack; and the Pope was at Orvieto, where the Court was suffering very
greatly from want of water. Thereupon, at the wish of the Pontiff,
Antonio built in that city a well all of stone, twenty-five braccia
wide, with two spiral staircases cut in the tufa, one above the other,
following the curve of the well. By these two spiral staircases it is
possible to descend to the bottom of the well, insomuch that the animals
that go there for water, entering by one door, go down by one of the two
staircases, and when they have come to the platform where they receive
their load of water, they pass, without turning round, into the other
branch of the spiral staircase, which winds above that of the descent,
and emerge from the well by a different door, opposite to the other.
This work, which was an ingenious, useful, and marvellously beautiful
thing, was carried almost to completion before the death of Clement; and
the mouth of the well, which alone remained to be executed, was finished
by order of Pope Paul III, but not according to the directions drawn up
by Clement with the advice of Antonio, who was much commended for so
beautiful a work. Certain it is that the ancients never built a
structure equal to this in workmanship or ingenuity, seeing, above all,
that the central shaft is made in such a way that even down to the
bottom it gives light by means of certain windows to the two staircases
mentioned above.
While this work was in progress, the same Antonio directed the
construction of the fortress of Ancona, which in time was carried to
completion. Afterwards, Pope Clement resolving, at the time when his
nephew Alessandro de' Medici was Duke of Florence, to erect an
impregnable fortress in that city, Signor Alessandro Vitelli, Pier
Francesco da Viterbo, and Antonio laid out that castle, or rather,
fortress, which is between the Porta al Prato and the Porta a S. Gallo,
and caused it to be built with such rapidity, that no similar structure,
whether ancient or modern, was ever completed so quickly. In a great
tower, which was the first to be founded, and was called the Toso, were
placed many inscriptions and medals, with the most solemn pomp and
ceremony; and this work is now celebrated over all the world, and is
held to be impregnable.
By order of Antonio were summoned to Loreto the sculptor Tribolo,
Raffaello da Montelupo, Francesco da San Gallo, then a young man, and
Simone Cioli, who finished the scenes of marble begun by Andrea
Sansovino. To the same place Antonio summoned the Florentine Mosca, a
most excellent carver of marble, who was then occupied, as will be
related in his Life, with a chimney-piece of stone for the heirs of
Pellegrino da Fossombrone, which proved to be a divine work of carving.
This master, I say, at the entreaty of Antonio, made his way to Loreto,
where he executed festoons that are absolutely divine. Thus, with
rapidity and diligence, the ornamentation of that Chamber of Our Lady
was completely finished, although Antonio had five works of importance
on his hands at one and the same time, to all of which, notwithstanding
that they were in different places, distant one from another, he gave
his attention in such a manner that he never neglected any of them; for
when at any time he could not conveniently be there in person, he
availed himself of the assistance of his brother Battista. These five
works were the above-mentioned Fortress of Florence, that of Ancona, the
work at Loreto, the Apostolic Palace, and the well at Orvieto.
After the death of Clement, when Cardinal Farnese was elected supreme
Pontiff under the title of Paul III, Antonio, having been the friend of
the Pope while he was a Cardinal, came into even greater credit; and His
Holiness, having created his son, Signor Pier Luigi, Duke of Castro,
sent Antonio to make the designs of the fortress which that Duke caused
to be founded in that place; of the palace, called the Osteria, that is
on the Piazza; and of the Mint, built of travertine after the manner of
that in Rome, which is in the same place. Nor were these the only
designs that Antonio made in that city, for he prepared many others of
palaces and other buildings for various persons, both natives and
strangers, who erected edifices of such cost that it would seem
incredible to one who has not seen them, so ornate are they all, so
commodious, and built with so little regard for expense; which was done
by many, without a doubt, in order to please the Pope, seeing that even
by such means do many contrive to procure favours for themselves,
flattering the humour of Princes; and this is a thing not otherwise than
worthy of praise, for it contributes to the convenience, advantage, and
pleasure of the whole world.
Next, in the year in which the Emperor Charles V returned victorious
from Tunis, most magnificent triumphal arches were erected to him in
Messina, in Apulia, and in Naples, in honour of so great a victory; and
since he was to come to Rome, Antonio, at the commission of the Pope,
made a triumphal arch of wood at the Palace of S. Marco, of such a shape
that it might serve for two streets, and so beautiful that a more superb
or better proportioned work in wood has never been seen. And if in such
a work splendid and costly marbles had been added to the industry, art,
and diligence bestowed on its design and execution, it might have been
deservedly numbered, on account of its statues, painted scenes, and
other ornaments, among the Seven Wonders of the world. This arch, which
was placed at the end of the corner turning into the principal Piazza,
was of the Corinthian Order, with four round columns overlaid with
silver on each side, and capitals carved in most beautiful foliage,
completely overlaid with gold. There were very beautiful architraves,
friezes, and cornices placed with projections over every column; and
between each two columns were two painted scenes, insomuch that there
were four scenes distributed over each side, which, with the two sides,
made eight scenes altogether, containing, as will be described elsewhere
in speaking of those who painted them, the deeds of the Emperor. In
order to enhance this splendour, also, and to complete the pediment
above that arch on each side, there were two figures in relief, each
four braccia and a half in height, representing Rome, with two Emperors
of the House of Austria on either side, those on the front part being
Albrecht and Maximilian, and those on the other side Frederick and
Rudolph. And upon the corners, likewise, were four prisoners, two on
each side, with a great number of trophies, also in relief, and the arms
of His Holiness and of His Majesty; which were all executed under the
direction of Antonio by excellent sculptors and by the best painters
that there were in Rome at that time. And not only this arch was
executed under the direction of Antonio, but also all the preparations
for the festival that was held for the reception of so great and so
invincible an Emperor.
The same Antonio then set to work on the Fortress of Nepi for the
aforesaid Duke of Castro, and on the fortification of the whole city,
which is both beautiful and impregnable. He laid out many streets in the
same city, and made for its citizens the designs of many houses and
palaces. His Holiness then causing the bastions of Rome to be
constructed, which are very strong, and the Porta di S. Spirito being
included among those works, the latter was built with the direction and
design of Antonio, with rustic decorations of travertine, in a very
solid and beautiful manner, and so magnificent, that it equals the works
of the ancients. After the death of Antonio, there were some who sought,
moved more by envy than by any reasonable motive, and employing
extraordinary means, to have this structure pulled down; but this was
not allowed by those in power.
Under the direction of the same architect was refounded almost the whole
of the Apostolic Palace, which was in danger of ruin in many other parts
besides those that have been mentioned; in particular, on one side, the
Sistine Chapel, in which are the works of Michelagnolo, and likewise the
façade, which he did in such a way that not the slightest crack
appeared--a work richer in danger than in honour. He enlarged the Great
Hall of that same Sistine Chapel, making in two lunettes at the head of
it those immense windows with their marvellous lights, and with
compartments pushed up into the vaulting and wrought in stucco; all
executed at great cost, and so well, that this hall may be considered
the richest and the most beautiful that there had been in the world up
to that time. And he added to it a staircase, by which it might be
possible to go into S. Pietro, so commodious and so well built that
nothing better, whether ancient or modern, has yet been seen; and
likewise the Pauline Chapel, where the Sacrament has to be placed, which
is a work of extraordinary charm, so beautiful and so well proportioned
and distributed, that through the grace that may be seen therein it
appears to present itself to the eye with a festive smile.
Antonio built the Fortress of Perugia, at the time when there was
discord between the people of that city and the Pope; and that work, for
which the houses of the Baglioni were thrown to the ground, was finished
with marvellous rapidity, and proved to be very beautiful. He also built
the Fortress of Ascoli, bringing it in a few days to such a condition
that it could be held by a garrison, although the people of Ascoli and
others did not think that it could be carried so far in many years;
wherefore it happened that, when the garrison was placed in it so
quickly, those people were struck with astonishment, and could scarce
believe it. He also refounded his own house in the Strada Giulia at
Rome, in order to protect himself from the floods that rise when the
Tiber is swollen; and he not only began, but in great part completed,
the palace that he occupied near S. Biagio, which now belongs to
Cardinal Riccio of Montepulciano, who has finished it, adding most
ornate apartments, and spending upon it vast sums in addition to what
had been spent by Antonio, which was some thousands of crowns.
But all that Antonio did to the benefit and advantage of the world is as
nothing in comparison with the model of the venerable and stupendous
fabric of S. Pietro at Rome, which, planned in the beginning by
Bramante, he enlarged and rearranged with a new plan and in an
extraordinary manner, giving it dignity and a well-proportioned
composition, both as a whole and in its separate parts, as may be seen
from the model made of wood by the hand of his disciple, Antonio
L'Abacco, who carried it to absolute perfection. This model, which gave
Antonio a very great name, was published in engraving after the death of
Antonio da San Gallo, together with the ground-plan of the whole
edifice, by the said Antonio L'Abacco, who wished to show in this way
how great was the genius of San Gallo, and to make known to all men the
opinion of that architect; for new plans had been proposed in opposition
by Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and out of this change of plans many
contentions afterwards arose, as will be related in the proper place. It
appeared to Michelagnolo, and also to many others who saw the model of
San Gallo, and such parts as were carried into execution by him, that
Antonio's composition was too much cut up by projections and by members
which are too small, as are also the columns, the arches upon arches,
and the cornices upon cornices. Besides this, it seems not to be
approved that the two bell-towers in his plan, the four little tribunes,
and the principal cupola, should have that ornament, or rather, garland
of columns, many and small. In like manner, men did not much approve,
nor do they now, of those innumerable pinnacles that are in it as a
finish to the work; and it appears that in that model he imitated the
style and manner of the Germans rather than the good manner of the
ancients, which is now followed by the best architects. The
above-mentioned model of S. Pietro was finished by L'Abacco a short time
after the death of Antonio; and it was found that, in so far as
appertained merely to the woodwork and the labour of the carpenters, it
had cost four thousand one hundred and eighty-four crowns. In executing
it, Antonio L'Abacco, who had charge of the work, acquitted himself very
well, having a good knowledge of the matters of architecture, as is
proved by the book of the buildings of Rome that he printed, which is
very beautiful. This model, which is now to be found in the principal
chapel of S. Pietro, is thirty-five palme[24] in length, twenty-six in
breadth, and twenty palme and a half in height; wherefore, according to
the model, the work would have been one thousand and forty palme in
length, or one hundred and four canne,[25] and three hundred and sixty
palme in breadth, or thirty-six canne, for the reason that the canna
which is used in Rome, according to the measure of the masons, is equal
to ten palme.
For the making of this model and of many designs, there were assigned to
Antonio by the Wardens of the building of S. Pietro fifteen hundred
crowns, of which he received one thousand in cash; but the rest he never
drew, for a short time after that work he passed to the other life. He
strengthened the piers of the same Church of S. Pietro, to the end that
the weight of the tribune might be supported securely; and he filled all
the scattered parts of the foundations with solid material, and made
them so strong, that there is no reason to fear that the building may
show any more cracks or threaten to fall, as it did in the time of
Bramante. This masterly work, if it were above the ground instead of
being hidden below, would amaze the boldest intellect. And for these
reasons the name and fame of this admirable craftsman should always have
a place among the rarest masters.
We find that ever since the time of the ancient Romans the men of Terni
and those of Narni have been deadly enemies with one another, as they
still are, for the reason that the lake of the Marmora, becoming choked
up at times, would do injury to one of those communities; and thus, when
the people of Narni wished to release the waters, those of Terni would
by no means consent to it. On that account there has always been a
difference between them, whether the Pontiffs were governing Rome, or
whether it was subject to the Emperors; and in the time of Cicero that
orator was sent by the Senate to compose that difference, but it
remained unsettled. Wherefore, after envoys had been sent to Pope Paul
III in the year 1546 for the same purpose, he despatched Antonio to them
to settle that dispute; and so, by his good judgment, it was resolved
that the lake should have an outlet on the side where the wall is, and
Antonio had it cut, although with the greatest difficulty. But it came
to pass by reason of the heat, which was great, and other hardships,
that Antonio, being now old and feeble, fell sick of a fever at Terni,
and rendered up his spirit not long after; at which his friends and
relatives felt infinite sorrow, and many buildings suffered,
particularly the Palace of the Farnese family, near the Campo di Fiore.
[Illustration: PALAZZO FARNESE
(_After_ Antonio di San Gallo (_with_ Michelangelo). _Rome_.)
_Anderson_]