Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/161

Rh therefore determined to> remove those chapels, and to place two figures, with their pedestals, on the site which thej had occupied. He caused the San Paolo, of which we have before spoken as a work of Paolo Romano, to be.erected on one side accordingly, and commanded that another, representing San Pietro, should be prepared by Lorenzetto; this artist acquitted himself tolerably well in that work, but did not surpass Paolo Romano: the two statues were in due time erected in the positions assigned to them at the entrance to the bridge of Sant’ Angelo, where they may still be seen.

When Pope Clement VII, died, his sepulchral monument, and that for Pope Leo X., were confided to Baccio Bandinelli; Lorenzo also receiving the charge of certain portions of the same work, to be executed in marble, and over these he employed a considerable amount of time. Finally, Paul III. w^as elected Pope, and this happened at a moment when Lorenzo was in very evil plight, burdened with five children, and exhausted by difierent expenses; he had indeed come to a very low ebb, and possessed nothing but a house w'hich he had built for himself at the Macello de’ Corbi. But fortune now changed, resolving effectually to raise him up and enrich him; Pope Paul, therefore, having determined that the fabric of San Pietro should be continued, and neither Baldassare of Siena, nor any of the other architects who had contributed to that work, being in life at that time, Antonio da San Gallo caused Lorenzo to be appointed architect; the erection of the walls being then in progress at a fixed price of so much the yard. By this appointment the merits of Lorenzo became more widely known, and in a few years, his affairs, without any pains on his own part, took a more prosperous turn than he had found them to do in many previous years, with all the labours and toils to which he had subjected himself; for at that precise point of time, God, men, and fortune were alike propitious to his endeavours; nay, had he lived some time longer, he would have found himself still more completely raised above those trials which a cruel fate, while he was labouring worthily, had unjustly