accommodated within the tower in such a
manner, that the fabric remains stable and very strong.

For the noble Counts della Torre of Verona, Michele built a very
beautiful chapel in the manner of a round temple, with the altar in
the centre, at their villa of Fumane. And in the Church of the Santo,
at Padua, a very handsome tomb was built under his direction for
Messer Alessandro Contarini, Procurator of S. Mark, who had been
Proveditor to the Venetian forces; in which tomb it would seem that
Michele sought to show in what manner such works should be done,
departing from a kind of commonplace method which, in his opinion, had
in it more of the altar or chapel than of the tomb. This work, which
is very rich in ornamentation, solid in composition, and warlike in
character, has as ornaments a Thetis and two prisoners by the hand of
Alessandro Vittoria, which are held to be good figures, and a head, or
rather, effigy from life of the above-named lord, with armour on the
breast, executed in marble by Danese da Carrara. There are, in
addition, other ornaments in abundance; prisoners, trophies, spoils of
war, and others, of which there is no need to make mention.

In Venice he made the model of the Convent of the Nuns of S. Biagio
Catoldo, which was much extolled. It was then resolved at Verona to
rebuild the Lazzaretto, a dwelling, or rather, hospital, which serves
for the sick in times of plague, the old one having been destroyed
together with other edifices that had been in the suburbs; and Michele
was commissioned to make a design for this (which proved to be
beautiful beyond all expectations), to the end that it might be put
into execution on a spot near the river, at some distance from the
city and beyond the esplanade. But this design, truly most beautiful
and excellently well considered in every part, which is now in the
possession of the heirs of Luigi Brugnuoli, Michele's nephew, was not
carried completely into execution by certain persons, by reason of
their little judgment and poverty of spirit, but much restricted,
curtailed, and reduced to mean proportions by those persons, who used
the authority that they had received in the matter from the public in
disfiguring the work, in consequence of the untimely death of some
gentlemen who were in charge of it at the beginning, and who had a
greatness of spirit equal to their nobility of blood.

A work of Michele's, likewise, was the very beautiful palace that the
nobl