with the Aretine painter and architect, Giorgio Vasari, as well as with the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammannati, from whom he acquired much useful knowledge appertaining to the arts. At length, and after he had remained three years in Florence, he returned to his father, who was then occupied with the construction of the church of San Giovanni Battista in Pesaro; then the father perceived by the drawings of Bartolommeo that his son acquitted himself much better in architecture than in painting, and it appeared to him that he had a very fair aptitude to that vocation. He consequently retained the young man under his own care for some months, during which time he taught him the modes of proceeding in accordance with the laws of perspective, and then sent him to Rome, to the end that Bartolommeo might behold the wonderful buildings, both ancient and modern, which abound in that city. Of all these therefore, during the four years that Bartolommeo Genga remained in Rome, he took the admeasurements, making very great progress during his abode in that place.
Returning at the end of the above-mentioned period to Urbino, he passed through Florence, there to visit Francesco Sanmarino his kinsman, who was then in the service of the Signor Duke Cosimo, as engineer; the Signor Stefano Colonna da Palestrina, who was then General of the Duke’s armies, heard of his abilities on that occasion, and made efforts to secure for himself the services of Bartolommeo, to whom he offered a good stipend, but the latter, considering himself much bound to the Duke of Urbino, would not take service with any other and returned to Urbino, where he was at once received into that of his native sovereign, by whom he was ever after treated with distinguished favour.
No long time after the return of Bartolommeo, and when the Duke was about to take the Signora Vittoria Farnese to wife, our artist received commission from that prince to take charge of the preparations for those nuptials, which he made of the most magnificent and honourable character
- accordingly, erecting among other things an arch of Triumph
in the Borgo of Valbuona, which was most splendid, and so beautiful, that a larger or finer construction of the kind could not well be imagined; hereby moreover there was an
