Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/449

Rh furnished with opportunities for the construction of edifices equal in grandeur to those of antiquity. He would not unfrequently prepare plans and designs with as much care and exactitude as he could have given had he been at once to have put the same in execution; nay, in such occupations as these, he lost himself, if we may so speak, to such a degree, that he would not deign to prepare designs for private dwellings of the gentry, whether for the city or the country, although very frequently urged to do so.

Giovan-Maria Falconetto frequently visited Rome, having been there many times besides those here named; the journey thither was consequently so familiar to him, that he would undertake it on any occasion, however slight, while his youth and vigour remained to him. On this subject people still living relate that, being one day in dispute with a foreign architect, who chanced to be in Yerona, respecting the proportions of some ancient cornice, I know not what, in Rome, Giovan-Maria, after many wmrds had passed, remarked, “On this point I will soon make myself certain,” and departing at once to his house, he set off without more ado to Rome.

This architect gave two very beautiful designs for places of sepulture, which were to be erected for the Cornaro family, in the church of San Salvadore at Venice; one of these was intended for the Queen of Cyprus, who belonged to the above-named house of Cornaro: the other was for the Cardinal Marco Cornaro, who was the first of that family honoured with the dignity of the purple. With the view to carrying these designs into execution, marbles to a large amount were prepared at Carrara, and transported to Venice, where they still remain in that fragmentary condition in the palace of the above-named Cornari.

Giovan-Maria was the first architect by whom the good and true methods of building were carried to Verona, to Venice, and to all parts where, before himself, there had not been any single person who could ever have produced a cornice or a capital, or who understood the measures and proportions of a column or the arrangement of any building according to rule, as may be clearly perceived in the fabrics erected before his day- The knowledge of these things was much promoted and advanced by Fra Giocondo, who was contem-