DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61668#0045
BIOGRAPHY
21
“ To our most learned and magnificent Orator. Antonio
del Pollaiuolo, a very celebrated sculptor of our city, having
died in Rome within the past days, we are begged by his
wife to recommend her to you. Her said husband remaining
creditor for certain sums of money to the Most Reverend
Cardinal di Benevento and to Monsignor Ascanio, for
certain works of art executed for them, we desire that you
should go to the said Most Reverend Cardinal, and in our
name exhort them to pay their debt to the said Antonio
and his wife and heirs, so that if it be possible they may
receive their money; for the said Antonio having been a
citizen of our town and unique in his art, it is meet that
for his sake we should aid his wife and heirs, as those who
ever hold all excellence in the highest esteem. ” ( See
Doc. VIII. p. 257.)
Vasari says that it was currently reported that
while in Rome Antonio designed the Villa of the
Belvedere in the Vatican Gardens, for Innocent VIII.
This seems improbable, since there is no mention of
his name in the documents of payment for the building.
On the contrary, the name of the architect is given —
Giacomo da Pietrasanta, who was employed both by
Innocent and Sixtus IV. The plans of the now almost
demolished Villa show, however, the influence of Flor-
entine architecture, square and fortress-like, with the
castellations, machicolated walls, and open loggia of the
Florentine buildings.* That he was a practical archi-
* Several plans are in existence. The Pianta di Roma by Sebas-
tiano Munster, published 1549; an unpublished drawing by Heem-
skerk in the Royal Library, Berlin, and a third, published in the
21
“ To our most learned and magnificent Orator. Antonio
del Pollaiuolo, a very celebrated sculptor of our city, having
died in Rome within the past days, we are begged by his
wife to recommend her to you. Her said husband remaining
creditor for certain sums of money to the Most Reverend
Cardinal di Benevento and to Monsignor Ascanio, for
certain works of art executed for them, we desire that you
should go to the said Most Reverend Cardinal, and in our
name exhort them to pay their debt to the said Antonio
and his wife and heirs, so that if it be possible they may
receive their money; for the said Antonio having been a
citizen of our town and unique in his art, it is meet that
for his sake we should aid his wife and heirs, as those who
ever hold all excellence in the highest esteem. ” ( See
Doc. VIII. p. 257.)
Vasari says that it was currently reported that
while in Rome Antonio designed the Villa of the
Belvedere in the Vatican Gardens, for Innocent VIII.
This seems improbable, since there is no mention of
his name in the documents of payment for the building.
On the contrary, the name of the architect is given —
Giacomo da Pietrasanta, who was employed both by
Innocent and Sixtus IV. The plans of the now almost
demolished Villa show, however, the influence of Flor-
entine architecture, square and fortress-like, with the
castellations, machicolated walls, and open loggia of the
Florentine buildings.* That he was a practical archi-
* Several plans are in existence. The Pianta di Roma by Sebas-
tiano Munster, published 1549; an unpublished drawing by Heem-
skerk in the Royal Library, Berlin, and a third, published in the