the kingdom enjoyed a few years’ peace—there is no need to suppose that he took up his abode there permanently, for artists were generally given to wandering. The famous triumphal arch of King Alfonso in Castelnuovo—not finished till the sixteenth century—is probably in no part his work; but certainly to him may be attributed the Porta Capuana, excellent in point of architecture but disfigured by modern additions.[171] Giuliano died at Naples in the autumn of 1490, and Lorenzo’s expressions concerning his loss, in a letter to the Duke of Calabria,[172] show how highly he esteemed him: ‘Your Excellency’s letter informs me of the death of Giuliano da Majano, which causes me sincere regret, both on account of our intimacy and because he was engaged in your Excellency’s service, and his death will leave many a work unfinished. As you contemplate continuing these, I hear that you want me to procure you another architect, on which subject Paol’ Antonio Soderini writes to me in detail. It will give me pleasure if your Excellency will command my services and be satisfied with my arrangements, as was the case with Giuliano; at whose death I have at least the satisfaction that you have been pleased with the work of one who entered your service on my recommendation.’ Giuliano’s brother Benedetto, ten years his junior, was not employed as an architect by Lorenzo. His share—as wood-carver—in the works at the palace of the Signoria has been already referred to. But his masterpiece was a work of architecture executed in the last years of Lorenzo’s life, and—if we except the Pitti Palace, which stands alone—the most perfect specimen of palatial architecture that Florence has to show. The story of the building begun by Filippo Strozzi the elder in 1489 makes a curious study of manners and an interesting chapter in the history of art. When Cosimo de’ Medici contemplated building himself a house, he was afraid of rousing disapproval by too much splendour; more than half a century later another rich citizen felt the same anxiety. He saw the commonwealth and city in altered circumstances, and had before his eyes the warning example of Luca Pitti. Lorenzo Strozzi, who wrote a life of his father, tells of this grand undertaking:[173] ‘When Filippo had made due provision for his descendants—as he thought more of fame than of money, was fond of building, and intelligent in the art—he decided, as the surest way of handing down his name to posterity, to erect such a building as should make a name for him and his throughout Italy and beyond it. He found, however, one great hindrance in the way. The man who was at the head of the Government might take it into his head that the reputation of another would put his own into the shade, and Filippo was in great dread of exciting envy. So he had it rumoured about the city that his children were so numerous and his house so small that, now they were grown up, he must provide an abode for them, which could be better