Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/447

Rh tion, insomuch, that the most difficult undertakings were safelycommitted to his care; in fortification more particularly, for in the details of military architecture he had ever taken the greatest delight. His ability becoming known to the Venetian Signori, he was placed among the number of their architects, although still very young, and early received a very considerable stipend, being continually sent, now to one place and now to another, with orders to inspect and set in order the fortresses of the Venetian states: sometimes also to put in execution the designs prepared by San Michele, his kinsman. Giovan-Girolamo was employed, for example, at the fortifications of Zara, among other places, where he laboured with infinite zeal and ability, as he did in the admirable fortress of San Niccolò, in Sebenico, which was erected, as we have said, at the entrance to the port. This last work. Giovan-Girolamo had raised from the foundations, and it is considered one of the strongest and best arranged fortresses of that class that can be seen.

After his own design and by the good counsels of his kinsman San Michele, Giovan-Girolamo likewise restored the great fortress of Corfu, which is esteemed the key of Italy on that side. He there reconstructed two great towers on the land side, making them much larger and stronger than they had previously been, adding embrasures and open squares, which flank the ditches in the modern manner, and according to the invention of San Michele, his kinsman. He caused the fosses also to be made much wider than they had been before, and levelled a hill, which being near the fortifications, appeared not unlikely to command them.

But of all the well-considered works executed at Sebenico, by Giovan-Girolamo, there was none which gave more general satisfaction than the large and strongly-defended place which he prepared at one angle of the fortress, for the reception of the people; in times of siege, this constituting a refuge of the most perfect security, to which the inhabitants of that island might resort, and where they might remain without danger of being taken prisoners by the enemy. By all these works Giovan-Girolamo obtained so much -credit with the Venetian Signori, that they ordered him a stipend equal in amount to that of San Michele, judging him to be by no means inferior to his kinsman; nay, rather, in matters connected with fortifications, they considered him superior.