Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/442

434 ancients; but, as we have said, of the second corridor the foundations only were completed, nor has the whole been finished even to our own times, although Pius IV. has at length almost brought it to a conclusion.

Bramante likewise erected the cupola which covers theHall of Antiquities, and constructed the range of niches for the statues. Of these, the Laocoon, an ancient statue of the most exquisite perfection, the Apollo, and the Venus, were placed there during his own life, the remaindeT of the statues were afterwards brought thither by Leo X., as for example, the Tiber and the Nile, with the Cleopatra; others were added by Clement VII.; while in the time of Paul III. and that of Julius III., many important improvements were made there at very great cost.

But to return to Bramante: when not impeded by the parsimony of those with whom he had to act, he conducted his various undertakings with extraordinary promptitude, and possessed a profound and thorough knowledge of all things appertaining to the builder’s art. He carried forward the buildings of the Belvedere with excessive rapidity, and such was the zeal with which he seconded the eagerness of the Pope—who would have had the edifice receive birth at a wish, rather than await the slow process of erection— that the men who were labouring at the foundations carried away at night the sand and earth which they had dug out in the presence of Bramante during the day, and he then without further precautions permitted the foundations to be laid. The result of this inadvertence on the part of the master has been that his work has cracked in various parts, and is now in danger of ruin, nay, as regards this Corridor, a portion, to the extent of eighty braccia fell to the ground during the pontificate of Clement VIL, and was afterwards rebuilt by Paul III., who caused the foundations of the whole to be repaired and strengthened. There are besides in the Belvedere many beautiful stair-