executed
with such delicacy and perfection. Wherefore it well deserved that for
many years a succession of sonnets and various other learned
compositions should be attached to it, of which the friars of that
place have a book full, which I myself have seen, to my no little
marvel. And in truth the world was right in doing this, for the reason
that the work can never be praised enough.

[Illustration: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH S. ANNE

(_After_ Andrea dal Monte Sansovino [Andrea Contucci]. _Rome: S.
Agostino_)

_Alinari_]

The fame of Andrea having thereby grown greater, Leo X, who had resolved
that the adornment with wrought marble of the Chamber of the Madonna in
S. Maria at Loreto should be carried out, according to the beginning
made by Bramante, ordained that Andrea should bring that work to
completion. The ornamentation of that Chamber, which Bramante had begun,
had at the corners four double projections, which, adorned by pillars
with bases and carved capitals, rested on a socle rich with carvings,
and two braccia and a half in height; over which socle, between the two
aforesaid pillars, he had made a large niche to contain seated figures,
and, above each of these niches, a smaller one, which, reaching to the
collarino of the capitals of those pillars, left a frieze of the same
height as the capitals. Above these were afterwards laid architrave,
frieze, and richly carved cornice, which, going right round all the four
walls, project over the four corners; and in the middle of each of the
larger walls--for the Chamber is greater in length than in breadth--were
left two spaces, since there was the same projection in the centre of
those walls as there was at the corners; whence the larger niche below,
with the smaller one above it, came to be enclosed by a space of five
braccia on either side. In this space were two doors, one on either
side, through which one entered into the chapel; and above the doors was
a space of five braccia between one niche and another, wherein were to
be carved scenes in marble. The front wall was the same, but without
niches in the centre, and the height of the socle, with the projection,
formed an altar, which was set off by the pillars and the niches at the
corners. In the same front wall, in the centre, was a space of the same
breadth as the spaces at the sides, to contain some scenes in the upper
part, while below, the same in height as the spaces of the sides, but
beginning immed