Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/248

240 should be erected in their places, the San Piero of Bandinelli being one of the number.

In the year 1515 Pope Leo X., repairing to Bologna, passed through Florence on his way thither, when the latter city, desiring to do him honour, caused a colossal figure to be erected, among many other ornaments and preparations, beneath an arch of the Loggie near the Palace, and the execution of this was entrusted to Baccio. The figure in question was a Hercules, and the words of Baccio respecting the work he projected, caused many to believe that it would surpass the David of Buonarroti, which stood near the spot destined to receive the Hercules. But the act did not correspond to the word, nor was the work equal to the vaunting made of it, a circumstance which caused Baccio to lose much of the estimation in which he had previously been held by the artists as well as by all the city.

A great part of the marble ornaments by which the chamber of Our Lady at Loretto is decorated, with numerous statues and stories in relief, had been given by Pope Leo X.

to Maestro Andrea Contucci of the Monte Sansovino, who had completed many of the same to his great credit, and was occupied with others at the time when Baccio carried to the Pope in Pome a very beautiful model of a David; the figure is nude, and, having the giant Goliah beneath his feet, is in the act of striking off the Philistine’s head. Now Baccio had prepared this model with the intention of subsequently executing it in bronze or marble for the court of the Medici Palace in Florence, intending to place it exactly where the David of Donato had originally been, but which had afterwards been carried off, when the palace of the Medici was despoiled, and had been placed in the palace of the Signoria.

The Pope praised Bandinelli, but not finding the time suitable for causing the work to be executed, his Holiness despatched the artist to Loretto, where he desired Maestro Andrea to give him charge of one of the historical representations in basso-rilievo. Having arrived at Loretto accordingly, Baccio was very amicably received by Maestro Andrea, who treated him well for the sake of his reputation,