Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/449

Rh lie bad caused to be done to these strong places into writing and drawings, to the end that he might be able to render his lords an exact acount of the whole. But while thus devoting himself with too much care and solicitude to the duties of his office, he had but little regard to his own life; exposing himself too boldly, he sank beneath the burning heats which prevail in those parts at that season, and was seized with a pestilential fever, which deprived him of life in six days. There are not wanting, however, those who affirm that he had been poisoned.

However this may be, Giovan-Girolamo departed content, since he died in the service of his masters, by whom he had been employed in the most important undertakings, and who had more faith in his fidelity, as well as in his skill as a military engineer, than in those of any other person whatsoever. No sooner was he attacked, than, knowing his illness to be mortal, he gave all his designs and the writings which he had prepared, in relation to the fortified places and other affairs of the island, to his brother-in-law, Luigi Brugnuoli, who was also an architect, to the end that they might be taken to the Signori, Luigi being then employed at the fortifications of Famagosta, which is the key of the island in that direction.

When the news of Giovan-Girolamo’s death arrived in Venice, there was not one of the Senate who did not feel indescribable grief at the loss of so distinguished a man, and one so truly devoted to their Republic. He died at the age of forty-five, and received honourable sepulture from his above-named brother-in-law, in San Niccolò of Famagosta.

That duty performed by Luigi Brugnuoli, he then returned to Venice, and presented the designs and writings of Gian Girolamo to the Senate, which, when he had done, he was sent to complete the fortifications of Legnago, where he had already been employed many years, in the execution of the designs and models of his uncle Michele San Michele.

But no long time had elapsed before Luigi also died at Legnago, leaving two sons, who are men of tolerably fair ability in design and in the. practice of architecture, for which cause Bernardino, the elder of the two, has at this moment many undertakings in his hands. The Campanile of the Duomo is among the number of the works now in progress under the direction of Bernardino Brugnuoli, as is that of San Giorgio,