Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/511

Rh he was resolved on doing so, salFered him to return to Florence amicably, and retaining all his favour: after having conferred his benediction, Julius finally presented him with a purse of scarlet satin containing five hundred ducats, telling him that he might return home to take repose, but that he would always remain his friend. Having then kissed the sacred foot, Giuliano departed to Florence, where he arrived exactly at the time when Pisa was surrounded and besieged by the Florentine army. He had no soonei entered the city therefore, than he was despatched by Piero Soderini—after the due ceremonies of reception—to the camp; where the commissaries found themselves unable to devise any efiectual method for preventing the Pisans from supplying their beleaguered city with provisions, by means of the Arno. Giuliano, after due examination, declared that when the season should be more favourable, a bridge of boats must be constructed, he then returned to Florence. But when the spring was come, he took with him Antonio his brother, and again repaired to Pisa, where they made a bridge of boats, which was a work of much ingenuity; for besides that this fabric could be removed at pleasure, the power of rising or sinking, within fixed limits, which it derived from its form, secured the structure to a certain extent, against injury from floods, while it nevertheless remained perfectly firm, being well chained and fastened together through all its parts. The impediment to supplies by means of the river, so much desired by the commissaries, was also effectually presented by this bridge, the city being thereby cut off from all aid by sea and up the Arno; insomuch that the Pisans, having no longer any help in their distress, were compelled to make conditions with the*-Florentines and surrendered accordingly.

Nor did any long time elapse before Giuliano was again despatched to Pisa by the same Piero Soderini, together with an almost innumerable company of builders, when they constructed, with extraordinary celerity, the fortress which is at the gate of San Marco, with that gate itself, which was erected in the Doric order. While Giuliano was busied with this undertaking, which occupied him until the year 1512, Antonio travelled throughout the whole state, inspecting all the fortresses and public buildings of the