other than Francesco Mazzuoli, who was the first who
with beautiful judgment began the magnificent ornamentation of that
church, which, so it is said, was built after the designs and directions
of Bramante.

[Illustration: FOUR SAINTS

(_After =Begarelli=. Modena: S. Pietro_)

_Anderson_]

As for the masters of our arts in Mantua, besides what has been said of
them up to the time of Giulio Romano, I must say that he sowed the seeds
of his art in Mantua and throughout all Lombardy in such a manner that
there have been able men there ever since, and his own works are every
day more clearly recognized as good and worthy of praise. And although
Giovan Battista Bertano, the principal architect for the buildings of
the Duke of Mantua, has constructed in the Castle, over the part where
there are the waters and the corridor, many apartments that are
magnificent and richly adorned with stucco-work and pictures, executed
for the most part by Fermo Ghisoni, the disciple of Giulio, and by
others, as will be related, nevertheless he has not equalled those made
by Giulio himself. The same Giovan Battista has caused Domenico
Brusciasorzi to execute after his design for S. Barbara, the church of
the Duke's Castle, an altar-piece in oils truly worthy to be praised, in
which is the Martyrdom of that Saint. And, in addition, having studied
Vitruvius, he has written and published a work on the Ionic volute,
showing how it should be turned, after that author; and at the principal
door of his house at Mantua he has placed a complete column of stone,
and the flat module of another, with all the measurements of that Ionic
Order marked, and also the palm, inch, foot, and braccio of the
ancients, to the end that whoever so desires may be able to see whether
those measurements are correct or not. In the Church of S. Piero, the
Duomo of Mantua, which was the work and architecture of the above-named
Giulio Romano, since in renovating it he gave it a new and modern form,
the same Bertano has caused an altar-piece to be executed for each
chapel by the hands of various painters; and two of these he has had
painted after his own designs by the above-mentioned Fermo Ghisoni,
one for the Chapel of S. Lucia, containing that Saint and two children,
and the other for that of S. Giovanni Evangelista. Another similar
picture he caused to be executed by Ippolito Costa of Mantua, in which
is S. Agata with the hands bound and between two soldiers, who are
c