Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/142

134 present day. What dignity would it not have imparted to the holy Eoman church, to see the supreme Pontiff, the chief thereof, assemble around him all the servants and ministers of God dwelling in the city of Rome, and unite them as in a renowned and most holy monastery, where, as it were in a new terrestrial Paradise, they might have lived a heavenly, angelic, and most holy life, presenting an example to all Christendom, and awakening even the minds of infidels to the true worship of God and the blessed Saviour! But this vast work was left incomplete by the death of the Pope, nay, rather it was scarcely commenced; the little that was done may be known by his arms, or what he used as arms, which were two keys laid cross-wise on a field of red. The fifth work which this Pontiff had proposed to himself to execute, was the church of San Pietro, which he had designed to make so vast, so rich, and so splendidly adorned, that it were better to be silent respecting it than to commence the recital, since I could not fittingly describe even the smallest part of the work, and should fail all the more certainly, because the model prepared for this building has been lost, and others have since been made by other architects. But whoever shall desire to form a clear conception of the great designs entertained in this matter by Pope Nicholas V., let him read what Giannozzo Manetti, a noble and learn''Ed. Flor.''ntine citizen, has written very circumstantially in the life of that Pontiff. For the designs of all the works projected as above described by Pope Nicholas, as well as for others, the latter is said to have availed liimself of the genius and great industry of Bernardo Rossellino.

Antonio, the brother of Bernardo, (to return at length to the point, whence, for so fair a purpose, I departed), Antonio executed his labours in sculpture, about the year 1490; and as men for the most part admire such works