Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/140

132 to bathe there, but worthy to be the lodging of the greatest princes. All these buildings were executed at the command of Pope Nicholas V., by Bernardo, in places distant from Rome; but for that city itself he restored, and in many places renewed, the walls which were for the most part in ruins; adding to them certain towers, and comprehending in these, additional fortifications, which he erected outside of the Castle St. Angelo, besides numerous rooms and decorations which he constructed within. This Pontiff had it also in mind to restore and gradually to rebuild, as the occasion should demand, the forty Churches of the Stations instituted by Pope Gregory I., who was called Gregory the Great, and he did complete that work in a great measure, having restored Santa Maria Trastevere, Santa Prassedia, San Teodoro, San Pietro in Yincula, and many others of the minor churches. But with still greater spirit, magnificence, and care was the same work accomplished for six of the greater and principal churches—San Giovanni Laterano, for example, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santo Stephano, in Monte Celio, Sant’Apostolo, San Paolo, and San Lorenzo, extra muros. Of San Pietro I do not speak, because this constitutes an undertaking apart.

Pope Nicholas V. had also proposed to make the Vatican itself into a separate city, and to surround it with fortifications; in pursuance of this plan, he had three roads laid out which should lead to San Pietro; two of these being, as I believe, where the Borgo Vecchio and Borgo Nuovo now are. These he was covering in certain parts with Loggie, containing very convenient shops: the richer and more important trades being separated from the minor and poorer, each class of trades established being in a street by itself. The Round Tower, still called Torrione di Niccola, was already completed. Over these shops and Loggie were to be erected commodious and magnificent houses in a fine style of architecture, and these were so designed that they were defended and sheltered from ail those winds which in Rome are considered insalubrious, and were moreover freed from all the inconveniences of water and other disadvantages likely to generate malaria. All which would have been