Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/150

142 decorated with stories in basso-rilievo, the subjects being events in the life of the Saint, a work which he conducted to great perfection, adding the portrait of the cardinal taken from the life.

Pope Paul II., a Venetian, was at this time erecting his palace of San Marco, and employed Mino to execute certain armorial bearings for its decoration. After the death of that Pontiff, the commission for constructing his tomb was given to Mino, who erected it in San Pietro, where he completed the whole in the space of two years. This tomb was at that time considered the most magnificent and most richly decorated sepulchre that had ever been erected to any Pontiff whatever; it was cast down by Bramante in the demolition of San Pietro, and remained buried amidst the rubbish for several years; but in 1547, certain Venetians caused it to be reconstructed in the old building of San Pietro, against a wall near the chapel of Pope Innocent. And although some believe that that tomb is by the hand of Mino del Reame, who lived about the same time with Mino da Fiesole, it is without doubt by the latter. It is true that some of the small figures of the basement, which can be distinguished from the rest, were executed by Mino del Reame, if, indeed, his name were Mino, and not Dino, as some affirm that it was. But to return to our artist. When he had acquired a name in Rome by this tomb, and by the sarcophagus which he constructed in the church of the Minerva, for Francesco Tornabuoni, whose statue in marble, after the life, and considered an admirable work, he placed upon it. After these and other works had secured him an esteemed name I say, he returned to Fiesole with but short delay, bearing thither a tolerable amount of money which he had saved, and there he took a wife. No long time after that, he was employed by the Nuns of the Murate to construct a marble tabernacle, decorated in mezzo-rilievo, for the sacrament, a work which he conducted to perfection with all the diligence of which he was