upervisor of those
fortifications. When they had arrived there, Antonio having with him his
pupil L'Abacco, Pier Francesco da Viterbo, a very able engineer, and the
architect Michele San Michele of Verona, all of them together carried
the designs of those fortifications into execution. Which done, the
others remaining, Antonio returned to Rome, where Pope Clement, since
the Palace was poorly supplied in the matter of apartments, ordained
that Antonio should begin those in which the public consistories are
held, above the Ferraria, which were executed in such a manner, that the
Pontiff was well satisfied with them, and caused other apartments to be
constructed above them for the Chamberlains of His Holiness. Over the
ceilings of those apartments, likewise, Antonio made others which were
very commodious--a work which was most dangerous, because it
necessitated so much refounding. In this kind of work Antonio was in
truth very able, seeing that his buildings never showed a crack; nor was
there ever among the moderns any architect more cautious or more skilful
in joining walls.

In the time of Pope Paul II, the Church of the Madonna of Loreto, which
was small, and had its roof immediately over brick piers of rustic work,
had been refounded and brought to that size in which it may be seen at
the present day, by means of the skill and genius of Giuliano da Maiano;
and it had been continued from the outer string-course upwards by Sixtus
IV and by others, as has been related; but finally, in the time of
Clement, in the year 1526, without having previously shown the slightest
sign of falling, it cracked in such a manner, that not only the arches
of the tribune were in danger, but the whole church in many places, for
the reason that the foundations were weak and wanting in depth.
Wherefore Antonio was sent by the said Pope Clement to put right so
great a mischief; and when he had arrived at Loreto, propping up the
arches and fortifying the whole, like the resolute and judicious
architect that he was, he refounded all the building, and, making the
walls and pilasters thicker both within and without, he gave it a
beautiful form, both as a whole and in its well-proportioned parts, and
made it strong enough to be able to support any weight, however great.
He adhered to one and the same order in the transepts and in the aisles
of the church, making superb mouldings on the architraves, friezes, and
cornices above the arches, and he ren