Aless. Leopardi (1450-1521) raised Venetian sculpture to its highest plane of technical perfection. The Venetian artist was peculiarly privileged. Unlike the Pisani and other Tuscans who drew their inspiration from Roman antiques, he was able to draw from the fountain-head. The lands of Hellas were subject to the Republic, and, doubtless, many a young apprentice spent his _Wanderjahre_ there. Enthusiasm gave insight, and both in technique and design we seem to trace in Tullio Lombardo and Aless. Leopardi the influence of Greek originals. To Leopardi are due the Vendramin tomb in S. Zanipolo, the finest of renaissance sepulchral monuments, and the completion of the Colleoni statue. He modelled the Six Virtues and the Madonna Della Scarpa in the Cappella Zen. The three magnificent bronze bases for the flagstaffs in front of St Mark’s were wrought by him. But soon aversion from the study of nature, and the growing pomp of private and public life reacted on the renaissance artists; their work became mannered and feeble; they lost individuality and character. They found in Venice a rich field for exploitation. She was not only the wealthiest, she was the most tranquil of European states. Imperial in policy, oligarchical in government, she sought by the splendour of the arts and by magnificent pageantry to feed the pride of her nobles, and lay any spirit of political freedom that might have survived in her people. A giant among the sixteenth century masters who were attracted to Venice was Jacopo Tatti (1477-1570) of Florence, the bosom friend and colleague of Andrea del Sarto, known as Sansovino, from his intimate association with his master, Andrea Contucci, of Monte Sansovino. Jacopo, while sketching from the antique at Rome, attracted the notice of Bramante, who was charmed by a wax model of the Laocoon executed by the young student, and judged by Raphael to be the best of four others. It was cast in bronze, and subsequently found its way to the Signory of Venice. In 1527, after the sack of Rome, he came to Venice, and was employed by Doge Gritti to strengthen the domes of St Mark’s. He did his work so amazingly well (_fece stupire Venezia_, says Vasari) that he was appointed in 1529 chief architect, with a house and a salary of 80 ducats, afterwards increased to 180. In 1536 the Senate decreed the erection of a library to contain the books left to the Republic by Petrarch and Cardinal Bassarione. Sansovino was charged with the building, now known as the _Libreria Vecchia_, and esteemed by Palladio to be probably the richest and most ornate edifice erected since the time of the ancients. The Signory were royal pay-masters, but intolerant of bad work; and when, on December 18, 1545, part of the vaulting fell, Sansovino was imprisoned, fined a thousand crowns, and deprived of his office. He succeeded, however, in proving his innocence, and was released and compensated by a solatium of 900 crowns, and restored to his former position.