possible industry and
diligence, and brought it quickly to perfect completion. And
although it was not a work of perfect beauty, it gave him a very
great name, since there were not many in Rome who followed the
profession of architecture with such zeal, study, and resolution as
Bramante.

At the beginning he served as under-architect to Pope Alexander VI
for the fountain of Trastevere, and likewise for that which was made
on the Piazza di S. Pietro. He also took part, together with other
excellent architects, when his reputation had increased, in the
planning of a great part of the Palace of S. Giorgio, and of the
Church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, at the commission of Raffaello
Riario, Cardinal of S. Giorgio, near the Campo di Fiore; which
palace, whatever better work may have been executed afterwards,
nevertheless was and still is held, on account of its greatness, to
be a commodious and magnificent habitation; and the building of this
edifice was carried out by one Antonio Montecavallo. Bramante was
consulted with regard to the enlargement of S. Jacopo degli
Spagnuoli, on the Piazza Navona, and likewise in the deliberations
for the building of S. Maria de Anima, which was afterwards carried
out by a German architect. From his design, also, was the Palace of
Cardinal Adriano da Corneto in the Borgo Nuovo, which was built
slowly, and then finally remained unfinished by reason of the flight
of that Cardinal; and in like manner, the enlargement of the
principal chapel of S. Maria del Popolo was executed from his
design.

These works brought him so much credit in Rome, that he was
considered the best architect, in that he was resolute, prompt, and
most fertile in invention; and he was continually employed by all
the great persons in that city for their most important
undertakings. Wherefore, after Julius II had been elected Pope, in
the year 1503, he entered into his service. The fancy had taken that
Pontiff to so transform the space that lay between the Belvedere and
the Papal Palace, as to give it the aspect of a square theatre,
embracing a little valley that ran between the old Papal Palace and
the new buildings that Innocent VIII had erected as a habitation for
the Popes; and he intended, by means of two corridors, one on either
side of this little valley, to make it possible to go from the
Belvedere to the Palace under loggie, and also to go from the Palace
to the Belvedere in the same way, and likewise, by means o