rtraits of distinguished
persons, which were scattered throughout that church, which was the
principal church of all Christendom. He preserved only the altar of
S. Pietro, and the old tribune, round which he made a most beautiful
ornament of the Doric Order, all of peperino-stone, to the end that
when the Pope came to S. Pietro to say Mass, he might be able to
stand within it with all his Court and with the Ambassadors of the
Christian Princes; but death prevented him from finishing it
entirely, and the Sienese Baldassarre afterwards brought it to
completion.

Bramante was a very merry and pleasant person, ever delighting to
help his neighbour. He was very much the friend of men of ability,
and favoured them in whatever way he could; as may be seen from his
kindness to the gracious Raffaello da Urbino, most celebrated of
painters, whom he brought to Rome. He always lived in the greatest
splendour, doing honour to himself; and in the rank to which his
merits had raised him, what he possessed was nothing to what he
would have been able to spend. He delighted in poetry, and loved to
improvise upon the lyre, or to hear others doing this: and he
composed some sonnets, if not as polished as we now demand them, at
least weighty and without faults. He was much esteemed by the
prelates, and was received by an endless number of noblemen who made
his acquaintance. In his lifetime he had very great renown, and even
greater after his death, because of which the building of S. Pietro
was interrupted for many years. He lived to the age of seventy, and
he was borne to his tomb in Rome, with most honourable obsequies, by
the Court of the Pope and by all the sculptors, architects, and
painters. He was buried in S. Pietro, in the year 1514.

[Illustration: PALAZZO GIRAUD

(_After_ Bramante da Urbino. _Rome_)

_Anderson_]

Very great was the loss that architecture suffered in the death of
Bramante, who was the discoverer of many good methods wherewith he
enriched that art, such as the invention of casting vaults, and the
secret of stucco; both of which were known to the ancients, but had
been lost until his time through the ruin of their buildings. And
those who occupy themselves with measuring ancient works of
architecture, find in the works of Bramante no less science and
design than in any of the former; wherefore, among those who are
versed in the profession, he can be accounted one of the rarest
intellects that have adorned ou