Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/432

420 and engineers), assigning to him the house of his predecessor, who had just died, with a suitable stipend.

Having entered on his office, Sansovino began to fulfil the duties thereof with diligence; those connected with the books and accounts of expenditure, as well as with the building, giving his most earnest care to the details of that employment, which are very numerous, and displaying the most courteous consideration for the Senators. And not only did he devote himself zealously to whatever could promote the grandeur, beauty, and ornament of the Church, the Piazza, and the whole city, to an extent never before done by any man who had held his office; but by the ingenuity of his inventions, the promptitude of his actions, and the prudence of his administration, he lessened the outlay and improved the revenue, so that the Signoria was burdened with little if any expense. Among the ameliorations made by Jacopo, was the following:— In the year 1529, there were butchers’ stalls between the two columns of the Piazza, with a number of small wooden booths, used for the vilest purposes, and a shame as well as deformity to the place, offending the dignity of the Palace and the Piazza, while they could not but disgust all strangers who made their entry into Venice, by the side of San Giorgio.

Sansovino, therefore, having convinced Andrea Gritti of the excellence of his plan, caused these booths and stalls to be removed; he then erected the butchers’ shops where they now are, and, adding to these certain stalls for the dealers in vegetables, he increased the revenues of the Procuranzia by seven hundred ducats yearly, while he beautified the Piazza and the city by the same act. No long time afterwards, he observed that by removing one house in the Merceria (near the clock, and on the way to the Rialto), which paid a rent of twenty-six ducats only, he could open a street into the Spadaria by which the value of the houses and shops all around would be much increased, he took down that house accordingly, thereby adding a hundred and fifty ducats to the income of the Procuranzia. He built the Hostelry of the Pellegrino, moreover, on the same site with another on the Campo Rusolo; and these together brought in four hundred ducats. His buildings in the Pescaria and other parts of the city, houses as well as shops, and erected at various times, were also of the utmost utility; and altogether the Procuranzia