The ability of Baccio Bintellf was so highly estinated by Pope Sixtus, that he would undertake no building without having first taken counsel with that architect, wherefore, having heard in the year 1480, that the church and convent of San Francesco d’ Assisi, was in danger of falling, he sent Baccio thither, and the latter constructed so massive a range of buttresses in support of the portion endangered, that he rendered the whole of that wonderful fabric perfectly secure: and, furthermore, erected a statue of the Pontiff on one of the piers. Some few years previously, the same Pope had caused several apartments, consisting of halls and chambers, to be added to the convent of San Francesco, and these are distinguished by their magnificence, as well as by the arms of Pope Sixtus. In the great court is one hall in particular, much larger than all the others, and here there are some Latin verses in praise of Sixtus IV., who gave proof in many ways of the profound veneration in which he held that holy place.
ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO OF MUGELLO, AND DOMENICO VENIZIANO, PAINTERS.
[Andrea, born within the first ten years of the fifteenth century, died about 1480.? Domenico born in the second decade of the same century, died about 1460.?]
How reprehensible is the vice of envy in a distinguished artist: envy, which never should be permitted to exist in any mind. Above all, how fearful and horrible a crime is that of seeking, under the guise of friendship, to annihilate the fame and honour, nay, to extinguish the life of another! How atrocious such a crime is no words can possibly express,
after his designs.” Many other buildings are attributed to this architect by Gaye in the Kunstblatt for 1836. See also his Carteggio Inedito, vol. i. p. 274—277, where will be found a letter from Baccio Fintelli to Lorenzo the Magnificent, written from Urbino in the year 1481, with a design for the house of the duke. From this it is to be inferred that Pintelli was engaged in the construction of that palace, on which the Sclavonian architect, Lucian Lauranna, had been occupied from the year 1468. The death of Baccio Pintelli is believed to have taken place about the year 1490 or 1491, and is supposed to have happened at Urbino.
