graceful; and in it
Perino del Vaga afterwards executed a beautiful little work in fresco.

The poor arts had already come to an evil pass through the life of
Adrian, when Heaven, moved to pity for them, resolved by the death of
one to give new life to thousands; wherefore it removed him from the
world and caused him to surrender his place to one who would fill that
position more worthily and would govern the affairs of the world in a
different spirit. And thus a new Pope was elected in Clement VII, who,
being a man of generous mind, and desiring to follow in the steps of Leo
and of the other members of his illustrious family who had preceded him,
bethought himself that, even as he had created beautiful memorials of
himself as Cardinal, so as Pope he should surpass all others in
restoring and adorning buildings. That election, then, brought
consolation to many men of talent, and infused a potent and heaven-sent
breath of life in those ingenious but timid spirits who had sunk into
abasement; and they, thus revived, afterwards executed the beautiful
works that we see at the present day. And first, having been set to work
at the commission of His Holiness, Antonio straightway reconstructed a
court in front of the Loggie, which had been painted previously under
the direction of Raffaello, in the Palace; which court was a vast
improvement in beauty and convenience, for it was formerly necessary to
pass through certain narrow and tortuous ways, and Antonio, widening
these and giving them better form, made them spacious and beautiful. But
this part is not now in the condition in which Antonio left it, for Pope
Julius III took away the columns of granite that were there, in order to
adorn his villa with them, and altered everything. Antonio also executed
the facade of the old Mint of Rome, a work of great beauty and grace, in
the Banchi, making a rounded corner, which is held to be a difficult and
even miraculous thing; and in that work he placed the arms of the Pope.
And he refounded the unfinished part of the Papal Loggie, which had
remained incomplete at the death of Pope Leo, and had not been
continued, or even touched, through the negligence of Adrian. And thus,
at the desire of Clement, they were carried to their final completion.

His Holiness then resolving to fortify Parma and Piacenza, after many
designs and models had been made by various craftsmen, Antonio was sent
to those places, and with him Giuliano Leno, the s