therefore determined to> remove those chapels, and to place two figures, with their pedestals, on the site which thej had occupied. He caused the San Paolo, of which we have before spoken as a work of Paolo Romano,[1] to be.erected on one side accordingly, and commanded that another, representing San Pietro, should be prepared by Lorenzetto; this artist acquitted himself tolerably well in that work, but did not surpass Paolo Romano: the two statues were in due time erected in the positions assigned to them at the entrance to the bridge of Sant’ Angelo, where they may still be seen.[2]
When Pope Clement VII, died, his sepulchral monument, and that for Pope Leo X., were confided to Baccio Bandinelli; Lorenzo also receiving the charge of certain portions of the same work, to be executed in marble, and over these he employed a considerable amount of time. Finally, Paul III. w^as elected Pope, and this happened at a moment when Lorenzo was in very evil plight, burdened with five children, and exhausted by difierent expenses; he had indeed come to a very low ebb, and possessed nothing but a house w'hich he had built for himself at the Macello de’ Corbi. But fortune now changed, resolving effectually to raise him up and enrich him; Pope Paul, therefore, having determined that the fabric of San Pietro should be continued, and neither Baldassare of Siena,[3] nor any of the other architects who had contributed to that work, being in life at that time, Antonio da San Gallo caused Lorenzo to be appointed architect; the erection of the walls being then in progress at a fixed price of so much the yard. By this appointment the merits of Lorenzo became more widely known, and in a few years, his affairs, without any pains on his own part, took a more prosperous turn than he had found them to do in many previous years, with all the labours and toils to which he had subjected himself; for at that precise point of time, God, men, and fortune were alike propitious to his endeavours; nay, had he lived some time longer, he would have found himself still more completely raised above those trials which a cruel fate, while he was labouring worthily, had unjustly
