possession of Messer Giovanni Ricasoli, bishop of Pistoja, by whom, as well as by all intelligent artists, this work is held in great estimation for its beauty and variety, and the rather, as no capital resembling this has ever been found among the antiquities which at different times have been discovered, even to the present day. But this Cloister of Cestello remained incomplete, the monks of the monastery not having at that time the means for meeting so great an expense.
The credit of Giuliano with Lorenzo de’ Medici had meanwhile much increased, the latter, proposing to erect an edifice at Poggio-a -Cajano, a place between Florence and Pistoja, had caused several models of what he desired to be made by Francione and other masters; he now commissioned Giuliano also to prepare one. This he did accordingly, making his model so entirely unlike those of all others and so completely to Lorenzo’s wish,[1] that the latter began to have it instantly put in execution, as the best of all that had been presented to him; and the favour of Giuliano so greatly increased with him in consequence, that he ever afterwards paid him a yearly stipend.
The architect subsequently desiring to construct the ceiling of the great hall of that palace in the manner which we call coved, Lorenzo was not to be persuaded that it was possible to do this, the extent of the space considered; whereupon Giuliano, who was at that time building a house of his own in Florence, constructed the ceiling of his hall as he desired to have that in the palace, when the illustrious Lorenzo, being thus convinced, immediately caused the hall of the Poggio to be vaulted in like manner, a work which was completed very successfully.
The reputation of Giuliano constantly increased, and at the entreaty of the Duke of Calabria, Lorenzo gave him a commission to prepare the model for a palace, which was to be erected in Naples;[2] he spent a long time over this work, and was still occupied with it when the Castellan of Ostia, then Bishop of Rovere, and afterwards Pope Julius II., desiring
