o and Domizio Calderino, his companion and compatriot, were
always most deeply devoted. Of this book Poliziano makes mention in his
Mugellane, in which he uses various parts of it as authorities, calling
Fra Giocondo a profound master in antiquities.

The same Giocondo wrote some observations, which are in print, on the
Commentaries of Caesar; and he was the first who made a drawing of the
bridge built by Caesar over the River Rhone, and described by him in
those same Commentaries, but misunderstood in the time of Fra Giocondo.
Him the aforesaid Bude confesses to have had as his master in the study
of architecture, thanking God that he had been taught his Vitruvius by a
teacher so learned and so diligent as was that monk, who corrected in
that author a vast number of errors not recognized up to that time; and
this he was able to do with ease, because he was a master of every kind
of learning, and had a good knowledge of both the Greek tongue and the
Latin. This and other things declares Bude, extolling Fra Giocondo as an
excellent architect, and adding that by the researches of the same monk
there were discovered in an old library in Paris the greater part of the
Epistles of Pliny, which, after having been so long out of the hands of
mankind, were printed by Aldus Manutius, as may be read in a Latin
letter written by him and printed with the same.

When living in Paris in the service of King Louis XII, Fra Giocondo
built two superb bridges over the Seine, covered with shops--works truly
worthy of that magnanimous King and of the marvellous intellect of Fra
Giocondo. Wherefore that master, in addition to the inscription in his
praise that may still be seen on those works, won the honour of being
celebrated by Sannazzaro, a rare poet, in this most beautiful distich:

Jocundus geminum imposuit tibi, Sequana, pontem;
Hunc tu jure potes dicere pontificem.

Besides this, he executed a vast number of other works for that King
throughout all his kingdom; but of these, after having made mention of
those above, as being the greatest, I shall say no more.

Then, happening to be in Rome at the death of Bramante, he was placed,
in company with Raffaello da Urbino and Giuliano da San Gallo, in charge
of the Church of S. Pietro, to the end that the structure begun by
Bramante might be carried forward. Now, from the circumstance that it
had been erected in haste, and for other reasons given in another place,
it was threatenin