Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/469

Rh extraordinary buildings in Italy; since that which we see of it cannot be sufficiently praised. The drawings for the groundplan, and those for the completion of this octagonal tempel by the hand of Filippo, are preserved in our book with othre designs of the same master.

In a place called Ruciano, outside the gate of San Niceolo at Florence, Filippo constructed a rich and magnificent for, but this was not by any means equal to that which he commenced for the same person within the city of Florence, and which he completed to the second range of windows, with so much grandeur and magnificence, that no more splendid or more beautiful edifice in the Tuscan manner has yet been seen. The doors of this palace are double; the height of each fold being sixteen braccia and the breadth eight: the first and second ranges of windows being similar to the doors; the vaultings are also double, and the whole building is of such high art, that richer, more beautiful, or more magnificent architecture cannot be imagined. The builder of this palace was the Florentine architect Luca Fanelli, who executed many buildings for Filippo, and who constructed the principal chapel of the Nunziata in Florence, for Leon Batista Alberti, by whom it was designed at the command of. Luca Fanelli was afterwards taken by Gonzaga to Mantua, where he executed many works, and having chosen a wife in that city, he there lived and died, leaving heirs, who, from his name, are still called the Luchi. The palace designed for Luca Pitti was purchased, not many years since, by the most illustrious lady,, duchess of Florence, advised to do so by the most illustrious Signor, the duke Cosmo, her consort, and she so greatly enlarged the property in all directions, that she succeeded in forming a very extensive garden, partly in the plain, partly on the summit of the hill, and partly on the declivities: this she filled with all kinds of trees, indigenous and exotic, very finely arranged, and caused beautiful groves to be planted of various kinds of evergreens, which flourish all the year round; to say nothing of the waters, fountains, fishponds, and aviaries, the espaliers, and many other things truly worthy of a magnanimous prince, which I do not describe, because it is impossible that he who does not see them