cepted the defiance, when Mino, repenting of his boldness, would bet no more than a hundred ducats, and that merely to save his credit. The statue being finished, victory was adjudged to Paolo, as to an excellent and distinguished artist, which he was, while Mino made himself known as one who would do more in words than in works.
There is a tomb by Mino at Monte Casino, a house of the Black Friars in the kingdom of Naples, with certain works in marble at the city of Naples. The statues of San Pietro and San Paolo, which are at the foot of the steps of St. Peter’s at Rome,[1] are also by him, as is the Tomb of Pope Paul II.[2] in the Basilica of St. Peter’s. The statue executed by Paolo, in competition with Mino, was the San Paolo which is to be seen on a marble pedestal at the entrance of the bridge of Sant’ Angelo, and which had for a long time stood before the Chapel of Sixtus IV., its merit being then unperceived. But it chanced one day that Pope Clement VII. remarked this figure, and he being well informed on such subjects, and a most jhdicious critic in art, was much pleased with it; he therefore resolved to have a San Pietro executed of equal size, to stand with the work of Paolo Romano, at the entrance to the bridge of Sant’Angelo, where there were two small chapels in marble, dedicated to those apostles respectively: but these chapels impeded the view of the castle Sant’ Angelo; Pope Clement consequently determined to have them removed, and to substitute 'the statues here alluded to in their place.[3]
In the work of Antonio Filarete we read that Paolo was
- ↑ These statues retained their position until the year 1847, when they gave place to two colossal statues of the same apostles by living sculptors, and were removed to the sacristy of St. Peter’s.
- ↑ In the life of Mino da Fiesole, which follows, Vasari affirms that the tomb of Paul II. (afterwards removed to the “Grotte Vaticane ”) was executed by that artist, adding: ‘‘some suppose it to be by Mino del Reame, but that Mino (if indeed his name were Mino, and not Dino, as some assert) executed a few figures of the basement only; the tomb is without doubt by Mino of Fiesole.”—See Bottari, Roma Sotterranea. See also Gaye, who quotes a passage from the Trattato of Filarete, wherein a sculptor named Dino is mentioned.
- ↑ The statue of San Pietro was executed by Lorenzetto, a Florentine sculptor; but Vasari, in his life of that artist, which will be read hereafter remarks, that his work did not equal that of Paolo. See Platner and Bunsen, Beschreibung der Stadt Rom. vol. ii. p. 425.
