Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/401

Rh namely, entirely surrounded by wide and handsome loggie, for the convenience of the merchants and the use of that vast assemblage of people perpetually resorting, for the purposes of their trade and commerce to that city, which is the Custom House of all Italy, or rather of Europe. Under these loggie were then to be arranged the shops of the bankers, goldsmiths, and jewellers, and in the centre of all there was to be a most beautiful church, dedicated to St. Matthew, in v/hich the noble gentlemen wont to assemble there might have attended divine service in the mornings. It is nevertheless affirmed by some, that as to the church, Fra Giocondo had altered his mind, and had determined to make two beneath the loggie instead of one in the centre, to the end that the Piazza itself might remain unencumbered. This most superb edifice was furthermore to have had many other conveniences, embellishments, and decorations of various kinds, and they who now see the design which Fra Giocondo had prepared to that intent, declare that nothing more beautiful can be conceived, nor could the highest inspiration of genius in the most exalted artist imagine any thing more magnificent, more perfectly ordered, and in every way more admirable than it would have been.

For the perfection of the whole, it was then proposed to construct the Bridge of the Rialto of stone, under the direction of the same master, with shops along its whole length. The entire work would, without doubt, have been a most admirable thing; but there were two causes wherefore these plans were never carried into execution: the first was that the republic, exhausted by the enormous expenses incurred in that war, was without money; and the other reason was that there then lived a gentleman in Yenice, it is said of the Valeresa family, who had great power, and was in much authority at that time, and who having but little judgment in matters of the kind, and moved perhaps by circumstances of private interest, began to favour a certain Maestro Zanfragnino, who, as I am told, is still living, and who had been employed by this gentleman for the private buildings. This Zanfragnino (a worthy and convenient name whereby to express the eminence of the master) made the design for that mass of confusion which was afterwards executed, and