Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/309

Rh that Michelagnolo should undertake the charge of the whole Palace, where he constructed the great window with its beautiful columns of vari-coloured marble, which is over the principal entrance, adding a large escutcheon, also in marble, and bearing the arms of Paul III. the founder of that edifice.

He continued the great Court also, constructing two ranges of columns over those first erected, with the most beautiful windows, and a great variety of rich ornaments, ending with the great cornice; all of these works being so beautiful, that this Court, by the labour of Michelagnolo, has now become the finest in ail Europe. Our artist likewise enlarged the great Hall, and made arrangements for the vestibule, which he vaulted after a new manner, in the form of a half oval. It chanced that in this year an antique group of Hercules, in marble, standing on a mountain, and holding a bull by the horns, was discovered at the warm baths of Antoninus; a second figure, is assisting Hercules, the group is seven braccia square: around the hill are nymphs, herdsmen, and different animals. The whole work is certainly one of great beauty, the figures being in full relief: it was adjudged to have been intended for a fountain, and Michelagnolo advised that it should be placed in the second Court, where, being restored, it might be used for the same purpose. This advice pleased every one, and by command of the Signori Farnesi, the group is now receiving the most careful restoration to that effect.

It was at this time that Michelagnalo proposed the erection of a bridge, to cross the Tiber at the point where it would form a road from the Farnese Palace in the Trastevere, to another palace belonging to the same family; when a view might be obtained from the principal entrance on the Campo di Fiori across the Court, and comprising the Fountain, the Strada Julia, this bridge, and the beautiful gardens, even to the opposite gate which opens on the road of the Trastevere; a magnificent idea, and one fully worthy of that Pontiff, as well as of the genius and judgment of Michelagnolo.

In the year 1547, Bastiano Viniziano, the Monk of the leaden seal, departed this life; and as the Pope was then pro-