sculptor Tribolo, Baffaello da Monte Lupo, Francesco da San Gallo, who was then very young, and Simon Cioli, were invited to Loretto, when the stories in marble, which had been commenced by Andrea Sansovino, were completed by those masters. Antonio likewise invited to the same place, the Florentine Antonio II Mosca, an excellent worker in marbles, and who was at that time occupied, as will be related in his life, with the execution of a mantel-piece, in stone for the heirs of Pellegrino da Fossombrone, which proved to be a most divine work of carving, when fully completed.[1] This Mosca, I say, complying with the request of Antonio, repaired to Loretto, where he executed certain festoons and garlands in stone, which are most exquisitely beautiful; and the decoration of that Chamber of Our Lady was thus completed with diligence and promptitude by the cares of Sangallo, although he had at that time five works of importance on his hands. Nay, though all of these were in different places, and distant each from the other, yet did Antonio so arrange his time that he never suffered any one to be neglected, and if at any time he was unable to be present when required at either of them, he sent his brother Battista as his substitute. These five works were: first the above-named Fortress of Florence,[2] next that of Ancona, thirdly the Chapel of Loretto, fourthly the Apostolic Palace, and finally the Well of Orvieto.
On the death of Pope Clement VII., and when Cardinal Farnese had been elected High Pontiff, taking the name of Paul III., Antonio San Gallo, who had been the friend of the new Pope during his cardinalate, rose into still higher credit, and his Holiness having created his son, Pier-Luigi, Duke of Castro, despatched Antonio to Castro, there to prepare designs for the Fortress, which the Duke Pier-Luigi proposed to construct at that place, as also other designs for the Palace to be erected on the Piazza, called l’Osteria, and for the Mint, which is built in the same place of Travertine, and
- ↑ This work, of which more in the Life of Mosca, is now in the Casa Falciai at Borgo Maestro.—Förster.
- ↑ From the letters of Nanni Unghero to Antonio, and which will be found in the Lettere Pittoriche, we learn that Sangallo sent plans and directions for this work from Loretto to Florence, for the guidance of those to whom the superintendence of the works had been committed.
