Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/46

38 regarded the vaultings. The distribution also was remarkably good, and the vestibules were very richly adorned; all which induced the Marquis to change his purpose, and from a small beginning, he determined that the whole edifice should be arranged after the manner of a great palace.

Giulio thereupon constructed a most beautiful model, the outer walls, as also the interior towards the court-yard, being in the rustic manner, all which pleased the Marquis so greatly, that having ordered a good provision of money to be made, and numerous builders being assembled by Giulio, the work was brought to a conclusion with great promptitude, and the form of that structure was on this wise: The building is a rectangle with an open court in the centre, which is rather like a meadow or public square, into which open four ways in the form of a cross; one conducts into a very wide and extensive Loggia, whence another entrance leads into the gardens, while two others open into various apartments, all which are decorated with stucco-work and paintings. In the hall to which the first of these doors gives entrance, is a ceiling divided into numerous compartments, and the walls are adorned with portraits of all the most beautiful and most valued blood-horses of the Marquis, with those of his dogs also; the latter being of the same colour and having the same marks with the horses, and each having his name depicted with his portrait. All these portraits were designed by Giulio, and painted in fresco on the plaster by Benedetto Pagni and Rinaldo of Mantua, both painters who were his disciples; and these animals are in truth so well portrayed that they seem to be alive.