Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/253

Rh part, and in all the parts together, the utmost excellence that could be desired in such an enterprize. Many athrm that Filippo Strozzi the elder, when proposing to build his palace, requested the advice of Benedetto da M aiano, who thereupon constructed a model, after which tiie building was commenced; but the fabric was afterwards continued and completed by Cronaca, when Benedetto da Maiano was dead.

Plaving acquired sufficient to enable him to live, Benedetto would DO longer undertake works in marble after those enumerated above, except that he finished the Santa Maria Maddalena which had been commenced by Desiderio da Settignano, in the church of Santa Trinita, and executed the Crucifix which is above the altar in Santa Maria del Fiore, with some others of a similar kind.

With respect to architecture, although this master undertook but few works in that branch of art, he yet proved his skill in those few no less than in sculpture, more especially in the management of certain alterations undertaken at an enormous cost under his direction and by his counsels, in the palace of the Signoria of Florence. The first was that in the hall, now called the Hall of the Dugento, over which the Signoria desired to erect, not one similar room, but two rooms, a hall and an audience chamber. A wall was thus required to be raised, and not a slight one either; in this wall there was to be a marble door, and one of tolerable thickness, nor was less skill and judgment than were possessed by Benedetto required for the execution of such a work.

In order to avoid diminishing the hall first-mentioned, therefore, and yet secure the proper division of those above, Benedetto proceeded in the following manner: on a beam of ' one braccio in thickness, and extending in length the whole breadth of the hall, he fastened another consisting of two