Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 04 (of 10): Filippino Lippi to Domenico PuligoVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 04 (of 10): Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
Now, by order of Pope Julius II, a commission was given to Bramante
da Urbino to have a number of glass windows made for the Palace;
whereupon he, making inquiries about the most excellent craftsmen,
received information of many who were working at that craft, and
among them of some who were executing marvellous works in France;
and of these he saw a specimen through the French Ambassador who was
then at the Court of his Holiness, and who had in the frame of a
window in his study a figure executed on a piece of white glass with
a vast number of colours, fixed on the glass by the action of fire.
Wherefore, by order of Bramante, a letter was written to France,
inviting them to come to Rome, and offering them good payments.
Thereupon Maestro Claudio, a Frenchman, the head of that art, having
received the intelligence, and knowing the excellence of Guglielmo,
so went to work with money and fair promises, that it was no
difficult matter to draw him out of the convent, particularly
because Guglielmo, on account of the discourtesy shown to him and
the jealousies that there always are among monks, was even more
eager to leave it than was Maestro Claudio to get him out. They
went, therefore, to Rome, where the habit of S. Dominic was changed
for that of S. Peter.
Bramante at that time had caused two windows of travertine to be made in
the Palace of the Pope, which were in the hall in front of the chapel,
now embellished by a vaulted ceiling by Antonio da San Gallo, and by
marvellous stucco-work from the hand of Perino del Vaga of Florence.
These windows were executed by Maestro Claudio and Guglielmo, although
afterwards, during the sack of Rome, they were broken to pieces, in
order to extract the lead to make harquebus-balls; and they were truly
marvellous. In addition to these, they made an endless number of them
for the apartments of the Pope, which met with the same fate as the
other two. And even now there is one to be seen in the room containing
Raffaello's Burning of the Borgo, in the Borgia Tower; in which are
angels who are holding the escutcheon of Leo X. They also made two
windows for the chapel behind the Madonna in S. Maria del Popolo, with
the stories of her life, which were highly praiseworthy examples of that
craft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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