Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/76

a tomb, in marble, to San Domenico, of Calahorra, founder of the order of Preaching Friars, who had then but recently died. Concerting his measures, therefore, with those who had the direction of the matter, Niccola constructed the tomb, with the many figures still to be seen on it, finishing the whole in the year 1231, to the great extension of his fame, the work being then considered one of extraordinary merit, and superior to any thing of the kind that had been seen. He also prepared plans for the rebuilding of the church^[1] and of the greater part of the convent. When Niccola returned to Tuscany, he found that Fuccio, having left Florence, had gone to Rome, at the time when the Emperor Frederick was crowned by Pope Honorius,^[2] and from Rome to Naples with that monarch. In Naples, Fuccio completed the Castel Capuano, now called the Vicaria, wherein all the law-courts of the kingdom are held. He also finished the Castel dell’ Uovo ; founded the towers, and built the gate, which commands the Volturno, for the city of Capua ; laid out a chase, for the sport of fowling, near Gravina ; and a second, for hunting in winter, at Melfi ; besides many other labours, which are omitted for the sake of brevity. Niccola, meanwhile, remained in Florence, occupied not only in sculpture, but with architecture also ; in the buildings which were then in course of construction, and not without merit of design, in all parts of Italy, but particularly in Tuscany. He gave no small aid, at this time, towards the construction of the abbey of Settimo, which had not received its completion, from the executors of Count Ugo of Brandenburg, like the other six founded by the same noble, as mentioned above (page 27). For although we find engraved on the campanile of this abbey the words “Guglielm me fecit”, yet we know certainly, from its style, that it was constructed under the direction of Niccola, who built the old palace of the Anziani, in Pisa, at the same time. This latter edifice has been demolished, in our own days, by Duke Cosmo, for the purpose of erecting on its site, while retaining a portion of the old building, the magnificent palace and convent of the new order of the Knights of St. Stephen, built after the plans

1. That of San Domenico, namely.
2. This took place in 1221 ; which shews the confusion of dates and events into which Vasari has fallen in this life of Niccola.—Ed. Flor.