ch recedes with a
beautiful gradation excellently contrived; at which I do not marvel, he
having always much delighted in the studies of architecture, and having
had a very good knowledge of them. Thus I remember to have seen once in
the hands of Valerio Vicentino a very beautiful book of antiquities,
drawn with all the measurements by the hand of Bramantino, wherein were
those of Lombardy and the ground-plans of many well-known edifices,
which I drew from that book, being then a lad. In it was the Temple of
S. Ambrogio in Milan, built by the Lombards, and all full of sculptures
and pictures in the Greek manner, with a round tribune of considerable
size, but not well conceived in the matter of architecture; which temple
was rebuilt in the time of Bramantino, after his design, with a portico
of stone on one side, and with columns in the manner of trunks of trees
that have been lopped, which have in them something of novelty and
variety. There, likewise, was drawn the ancient portico of the Church of
S. Lorenzo in the same city, built by the Romans, which is a great work,
beautiful and well worthy of note; but the temple there, or rather, the
church, is in the manner of the Goths. In the same book was drawn the
Temple of S. Aquilino, which is very ancient, and covered with
incrustations of marble and stucco, very well preserved, with some large
tombs of granite. In like manner, there was the Temple of S. Piero in
Ciel d'Oro at Pavia, in which place is the body of S. Augustine, in a
tomb that is in the sacristy, covered with little figures, which,
according to my belief, is by the hands of Agostino and Agnolo, the
sculptors of Siena. There, also, was drawn the tower of brick built by
the Goths, which is a beautiful work, for there may be seen in it,
besides other things, some figures fashioned of terra-cotta after the
antique, each six braccia high, which have remained in passing good
preservation down to the present day. In that tower, so it is said, died
Boetius, who was buried in the above-named S. Piero in Ciel d'Oro, now
called S. Agostino, where there may be seen, even at the present day,
the tomb of that holy man, with the inscription placed there by
Aliprando, who restored and rebuilt the church in the year 1222. And,
besides all these, there was in that book, drawn by the hand of
Bramantino himself, the very ancient Temple of S. Maria in Pertica,
round in shape, and built with fragments by the Lombards; in which pla