where he founded the Castel dell’ Uovo and Castel Capoano, which were afterwards completed by others, as will be related hereafter. While Domenico Morosini was Doge of Venice, Buono founded the Campanile of San Marco, in that city, with great judgment and foresight, having so ably constructed the foundations, and fixed the piles, that this tower has never sunk, even by a hair’s breadth, as many other buildings, constructed in Venice before his time, were, and still are, found to do. And it is from him, perhaps, that the Venetians received the art of founding the very rich and beautiful edifices which they are now daily causing to be magnificently erected in that most noble city. It is true that this tower has nothing particularly meritorious in itself, whether in the manner of construction or the decorations. There is nothing in it, in short, that deserves high praise, its solidity excepted ; it was finished under the pontiffs Anastasius IV and Adrian IV, in the year 1154. Buono was also the architect of the church of Sant’ Andrea of Pistoia ; the marble architrave over the door was sculptured by his hand ; it comprises many figures in the Gothic manner, and bears his name, with the date of the work, namely 1166. Being then invited to Florence, Buono gave the designs for enlarging the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which was then without the city and held in high veneration, as having been consecrated many years previously by Pope Pelagius. With respect to size and style, this is a very tolerable specimen of a church of that day.
Buono was next invited to Arezzo by the people of that city, and constructed the ancient palace of its governors, the lords of Arezzo, a building in the Gothic manner, with a bell-tower by the side of it.[1] The whole edifice, which was sufficiently handsome of its kind, was demolished in the year 1533, because it was too near to the fortifications of the city. The art now began to make visible progress; being aided by the efforts of a certain Guglielmo,[2] whom I believe to have
- ↑ This palace, “Il Palazzo de’ Signori”, of which there yet remains a small fragment between the Duomo and the Citadel, was not founded, until the year 1232, and could not therefore have been built by Buono, whom Vasari places a full century earlier.— Ed. Leghorn.
- ↑ Della Valle considers this Guglielmo to be a Pisan, principally because a Pisan artist of that name took part in the construction of the
