Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/504

496 on him to devote his attention to architecture in company with himself, he having many labours in hand, for the public use as well as for private individuals. But it happened in this case, as it so frequently has done in others, that Fortune, the adversary of talent, deprived the artists of that period of their best hope and support by the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, which was a grievous loss, not to his native city only, but to all Italy Giuliano, overwhelmed, as was every other man of genius by this event, remained for a long time inconsolable. In deep grief he retired to Prato, which is near Florence, and where he occupied himself with the construction of a church to the Madonna delle Carceri, all buildings in Florence, whether public or private, being for the nioment at a stand. In Prato, therefore, Giuliano remained three years, enduring his grief and cares as he best might. At the qnd of that time the church of the Madonna at Loretto requiring to be roofed, and the Cupola, which Giuliano da Maiano had commenced but had not completed, having to be vaulted, the wardens, who had charge of the work, became apprehensive lest the piers should be found incapable of supporting the weight of the vast erection to be reared on them. They consequently wrote to Giuliano to the effect that, if he were disposed to undertake that work, he might come and examine the state of things; the architect proceeded to Loretto accordingly, when, competent and bold as he was, he declared that the Cupola might be raised without difficulty, expressing his confidence in his own power to effect the task, and proving the truth of his assertions by so many good reasons, that the work was at once confided to his care. Having received this commission, Giuliano hastened the completion of the church at Prato, and, taking with him the masterbuilders and stone-cutters who had laboured under his orders at that place, he departed to Loretto.

The fabric Giuliano was now to erect demanding the utmost precaution, to secure it the requisite firmness and.