e Counts of Canossa have at Verona, which was built at the
commission of the very reverend Monsignor di Bajus, who once was Count
Lodovico Canossa, a man so much celebrated by all the writers of his
time. For the same Monsignor Michele built another magnificent palace
in the Villa of Grezzano, in the Veronese territory. Under the
direction of the same architect the facade of the Counts Bevilacqua
was reconstructed, and all the apartments were restored in the castle
of those lords, called La Bevilacqua. And at Verona, likewise, he
built the house and facade of the Lavezzoli, which were much extolled.

In Venice he built from the foundations the very rich and magnificent
palace of the Cornaro family, near S. Polo, and restored another
palace, also of the Cornaro family, which is by S. Benedetto
all'Albore, for M. Giovanni Cornaro, of whom Michele was much the
friend; and this led to Giorgio Vasari painting nine pictures in oils
for the ceiling of a magnificent apartment, all adorned with woodwork
carved and richly overlaid with gold, in that palace. In like manner,
he restored the house of the Bragadini, opposite to S. Marina, and
made it very commodious and ornate. And in the same city he founded
and raised above the ground after a model of his own, at incredible
cost, the marvellous palace of the most noble M. Girolamo Grimani,
near S. Luca, on the Grand Canal; but Michele, being overtaken by
death, was not able to carry it to completion himself, and the other
architects chosen in his stead by that nobleman altered his design and
model in many parts.

Near Castelfranco, on the borders of the territories of Padua and
Treviso, there was built under the direction of the same Michele the
most famous Palace of the Soranzi, called by that family La Soranza;
which palace is held to be, for a country residence, the most
beautiful and the most commodious that had been built in those parts
up to that time. He also built the Casa Cornara at Piombino, in that
territory, and so many other private houses, that it would make too
long a story to attempt to speak of them all; let it be enough to have
made mention of the most important. I will not, indeed, refrain from
recording that he made most beautiful gates for two palaces, one of
which was that of the Rectors and of the Captain, and the other that
of the Palazzo del Podesta, both in Verona and worthy of the highest
praise, although the latter, which is in the Ionic Order, with dou