Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/502

494 was totally destroyed, together with the suburb in which it stood. The piazza of the latter was entirely surrounded by very beautiful buildings, whereas there is now not a vestige of house, church, or convent to be seen.

The death of the king of Naples took place about this time, when Giuliano Gondi, a very rich Florentine merchant, returned to his native city, and then commissioned Giuliano da San Gallo, with whom he had become well acquainted during the sojourn of the latter at Naples, to build a palace in the Tuscan manner for his residence. The position of this building was to be opposite to San Francesco, above the place where the Lions stand; it would have formed the angle of the piazza, having one of its fronts towards the Mercatanzia, but the death of Giuliano Gondi put a stop to the work. For this palaee, Giuliano da San Gallo executed a mantel-piece among other things, so richly decorated with rich carvings, so finely varied in its different parts, and altogether so beautiful, that nothing equal to it, more especially as regarded the number of figures, had ever before been seen. The same architect built a palace for a Venetian, at a short distance from the Pinti Gate at Camerata, wdth numerous houses for private citizens, of which I need not make further mention.

Lorenzo the Magnificent, desiring to provide for the public utility and adornment of the state, as well as thereby to add another monument to the many wherewith he had already acquired so much renown, determined to undertake the fortification of the Poggio Imperiale, above Poggibonsi, on the road leading towards Rome. There he desired to found a city, but would not proceed without the advice and direction of Giuliano^ wherefore, the commencement of that most renowned fabric was made by that master, and after his designs were constructed that well-arranged series of fortifications and those beautiful edifices which we now see there.

These works so greatly inereased the fame of the architect, that the Duke of Milan applied to Lorenzo, requesting him to send that master to the above-named city, where he