ng, thirty-five broad,
and likewise thirty-five in height at the highest point of its
elevation; although it appears much larger, being isolated on every
side, and without any apartment or other building about it. On the
ceiling of this magnificent and most honourable hall, then, those two
brothers have been much employed, with very great credit to themselves;
having made a roof-truss for the roof (which is covered with lead) of
beams of wood that are very large, composed of pieces well secured with
clamps of iron, and having turned the ceiling with beautiful artistry in
the manner of a basin-shaped vault, so that it is a rich work. It is
true that in that great space there are included only three pictures
painted in oils, each of ten braccia, which were painted by the old
Tiziano; whereas many more could have gone there, with a richer, more
beautiful, and better proportioned arrangement of compartments, which
would have made that hall more cheerful, handsome, and ornate; but in
every other part it has been made with much judgment.

[Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY

(_After the panel by =Bramantino=. Milan: Brera, 279_)

_Anderson_]

Now, having spoken in this part of our book, up to the present, of the
craftsmen of design in the cities of Lombardy, it cannot but be well to
say something about those of the city of Milan, the capital of that
province, of whom no mention has been made here, although of some of
them we have spoken in many other places in this our work. To begin,
then, with Bramantino, of whom mention has been made in the Life of
Piero della Francesca of the Borgo, I find that he executed many more
works than I have enumerated above; and, in truth, it did not then
appear to me possible that a craftsman so renowned, who introduced good
design into Milan, should have executed works so few as those that had
come to my notice. Now, after he had painted in Rome, as has been
related, some apartments for Pope Nicholas V, and had finished over the
door of S. Sepolcro, in Milan, the Christ in foreshortening, the Madonna
who has Him on her lap, the Magdalene, and S. John, which was a very
rare work, he painted in fresco, on a facade in the court of the Mint in
Milan, the Nativity of Christ our Saviour, and, in the Church of S.
Maria di Brera, in the tramezzo,[4] the Nativity of Our Lady, with some
Prophets on the doors of the organ, which are foreshortened very well to
be seen from below, and a perspective-view whi