In Verona the same architect built the house of the Lazzevoli family, with its façade, a work which has been much commended:[1] and in Venice he raised the magnificent and very richly decorated palace of the Cornaro family,[2] even from the foundations: this edifice is situate near San Polo. He also restored another palace, which likewise belonged to the house of Cornaro, and is situate near San Benedetto all’ Albore.[3] This he did for Messer Giovanni Cornaro, who was a particular friend of Michele, and by whose intervention Giorgio Vasari was commissioned to paint nine pictures in oil for the ceiling of a magnificent apartment of the same palace, which was all richly decorated with gilding and carvings in wood.
It was by Michele San Michele that the house of the Bragadini family, which is opposite to Santa Marina, in Venice, was restored, and very commodious as well as handsome did he render it. In the same city he also laid the foundations of, and raised to some height above the ground, that magnificent palace of the most noble Messer Girolamo Grimani, which is situate on the grand canal, near San Luca, and which was erected after a model by that master at an incredible expense.[4] It is true that San Michele, being overtaken by death, could not conduct it to the end himself, and the architects who succeeded him in the service of Messer Girolamo have changed much of the design and widely departed from the model of San Michele.
On the borders of the Paduan and Trevisan territories, and near to Castel-Franco, was constructed by the same architect that most renowned palace of the Soranzi, called after that family, Soranza: this palace, to be, as it is, but a villa, is considered the most beautiful and most commodious which, up to that period, had ever been erected in those parts.[5] San
- ↑ It now belongs to the noble family of the Pompei. — Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
- ↑ Now the Palazzo Mocenigo.—Ibid.
- ↑ This is now called the Palazzo Spinelli.
- ↑ In this very beautiful palace the Post Office is now established.
- ↑ The Palace of the Soranzi has been demolished, but the Venetian Edition of our author informs us that the frescoes of Paolo Veronese and his school, which formed the most valuable part of its decorations, have been preserved from destruction. The German translator of Vasari adds, that they were presented to the Church of San Liberale by Filippo Balbi, by whose care it was, as the Venetian Edition of our author assures us; that they were saved from destruction.
