Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/100

92 The ability of Baccio Bintellf was so highly estinated by Pope Sixtus, that he would undertake no building without having first taken counsel with that architect, wherefore, having heard in the year 1480, that the church and convent of San Francesco d’ Assisi, was in danger of falling, he sent Baccio thither, and the latter constructed so massive a range of buttresses in support of the portion endangered, that he rendered the whole of that wonderful fabric perfectly secure: and, furthermore, erected a statue of the Pontiff on one of the piers. Some few years previously, the same Pope had caused several apartments, consisting of halls and chambers, to be added to the convent of San Francesco, and these are distinguished by their magnificence, as well as by the arms of Pope Sixtus. In the great court is one hall in particular, much larger than all the others, and here there are some Latin verses in praise of Sixtus IV., who gave proof in many ways of the profound veneration in which he held that holy place.

[, born within the first ten years of the fifteenth century, died about 1480.? born in the second decade of the same century, died about 1460.?] How reprehensible is the vice of envy in a distinguished artist: envy, which never should be permitted to exist in any mind. Above all, how fearful and horrible a crime is that of seeking, under the guise of friendship, to annihilate the fame and honour, nay, to extinguish the life of another! How atrocious such a crime is no words can possibly express,