also erected on the Piazza. The care of conducting it thither in safety was trusted to Antonio, and he, in taking Baccio d’Agnolo to assist him, by the use of very powerful machinery, elfected the removal of the statue without injury, placing it safely on the pedestal which had been prepared to receive it.
When Antonio had become old, he took pleasure in no other occupation than that of agriculture, which he understood perfectly well. Finally, being rendered by the weight of his years unable to support any longer the cares of this world, he resigned his soul to God in the year 1534, and was laid to his repose, together with his brother Giuliano, in the burial place of the Giamberti family, which is in the church of Santa Maria Novella.
The admirable works of these two brothers will supply to the world sufficient proof of the fine genius wherewith they were endowed, while their blameless life and honourable conduct in every action caused them to be held in esteem by the whole city, and by all who knew them. Giuliano and Antonio bequeathed to architecture the inheritance of better methods in the Tuscan manner of building, with more beautiful forms than had previously been in use; they added finer proportion, and more exact measurement to the Doric order than had ever before, according to the opinion and rule of Vitruvius, been attained.
In their houses in Florence, these masters had collected a large number of beautiful antiquities in marble—treasures, which contributed, and still contribute, to adorn their native city, while they also do honour to the artists themselves, and redound to the glory of art. Giuliano brought from Rome the method of constructing vaulted ceilings, in materials which permit the carvings and other decorations to be executed in one piece:[1] of this we have an example in an apartment of his own house, and at Poggio-a -Cajano,. the ceiling of the Great Hall, still to be seen there, is constructed after this manner. Large is the debt of gratitude due to these artists, by whose labours the Florentine state has been fortified, while the city itself has received great increase of
- ↑ An invention of Bramante, as we learn from his life.—See ante, p. 439.
