that Agostino and Agnolo bestowed infinite pains and labour on this altar, and that they did their utmost to produce a work of merit, as in truth it is. The names of the artists, with the date, although partially obliterated, may still be read on it, and, as we learn from these when it was begun, so we perceive that the masters occupied eight years in its completion ; but it is true that they performed many other smaller works in different places, and for different persons, within the same period.[1]
Now while Agostino and Agnolo were employed in Bologna, that city, by the intervention of the Papal legate, bestowed herself as a free gift on the church, the Pope promising, in return, that he would transfer his habitation, and that of his court, to Bologna ; but, premising, that for his security he must build himself a castle, or rather a fortress, in the city. This being agreed to by the Bolognese, the edifice was immediately commenced, after the designs, and under the direction of Agostino and Agnolo ; but the work was of very short duration, for the people of Bologna, quickly discovering that the many promises of the Pope were altogether vain, demolished and destroyed the fortress, much more rapidly than they had made it.[2]
It is further related, that while these two masters dwelt in Bologna, the Po burst its banks, to the grievous damage of the Mantuan territory and that of Ferrara, destroying more than ten thousand lives, and devastating the whole country for many miles round ; when, Agostino and Agnolo being called on in this strait, as able and ingenious men, found means to reconduct that terrible stream
- ↑ Disputes have arisen among the learned as to the authorship of this work. Ghirardacci and Baldinucci follow Vasari, but Masini, and after him Oretti, maintain that it was executed by Jacopo and Pietro Paolo delle Masegne, sculptors of Venice. Cicognara was unwilling to decide the question, which remained unsettled until 1843, when ail doubts were removed by the Marquis Virgilio Pavia, who discovered the original document by which the Priars-Minors of Bologna appointed Jacopo and Pietro Paolo de Masigni (the same of whom Vasari makes mention at the close of this life) to prepare a new table of marble for the high altar of the aforesaid church ; this document bears date 16th November 1388.—Ed. Flor.
- ↑ The Roman edition of Vasari, 1759, quoting Masini, attributes the fortress, erected at the gate of Galliera, also to these architects.
