"1452. December 31.—To Maestro Pietro da Varese, nephew of Maestro Beltramo, 1000 gold ducats for part of the Tower he is building behind the Campidoglio, at the side where they sell salt by retail. T. S. 1452, fol. 216, cf. fol. 194."
"1453. March 9.—D. 112, b. 56, d. c., for remainder and completion of the contract of the Tower he (Pietro) has made at the Campidoglio, which in full amounts to 1212 ducats, of which he received last year at different times, 1000 (and 100) ... and thus it is registered by Janni di Jordani (Notary V. fl. 126. 10. 93)."[300]
We find Pietro in 1450 sculpturing in the cathedral at Orvieto, where in a public act he is described as a good and clever sculptor ("lapidum sculptor bonus et doctus"), and prayed to remain at Orvieto in the service of the lodge there.
Muntz speaks very highly in praise of the Lombard sculptor, Giacomo di Cristoforo[301] da Pietrasanta, saying that although his name is little known to biographers, he holds a high place in Roman art of the fifteenth century, and merits to be ranked among the most celebrated artists of his time. Many of the buildings which Vasari ascribes to Giuliano da Majano and Baccio Pontelli are in reality due to him; for instance, the Palazzo Venezia, which was rebuilt under Pope Paul II. (Pietro Barbo, who succeeded to the papal throne in 1464). Now Giuliano da Majano only came to Rome towards the end of the reign of Pope Sixtus IV., and could not therefore have been employed by Paul II. In fact, Muntz, after many researches, concludes that the chief architect was Maestro Giacomo da Pietrasanta, who is in the registers of 1467 qualified by the title of Soprastante in the laborerium of the church and palace of S. Marco at Rome, and in 1468 is written as the president of the building of the Palazzo Apostolico or Vatican.[302] In fact, Giacomo da Pietrasanta, the Lombard, was Grand Master of the whole Roman Lodge during these years.
But Maestro Giacomo was not the only Comacine employed in the Palazzo Venezia. A contract dated June 16, 1466, names Magister Manfred of Como and Andrea of Arzo, whom we have seen in Venice, as magistros architectos,[303] and the registers reveal a whole army of master builders and sculptors whose names will be found in the list appended. Muntz quotes no less than twenty-five, many of whom have been familiar to us at Milan, Siena, and Florence.
Although when Calixtus III. (Alfonso Borgia) succeeded Nicholas V. in 1455, he had no great ideas about resuscitating the architectural glories of ancient Rome, he nevertheless employed the Lombard Masters to finish the works begun. Maestro Pietro da Varese, and Maestro Paolo da Campagnano, with Maestro Antonio di Giovanni from Milan, and Maestro Paolino da Binasco, were joint architects of the Pontifical Palace. Maestro Bartolommeo da Como, whom we have known at Milan and Pavia, was director of the works of fortification at Castel S. Angelo, while Maestro Stefano da Bissone di Como is named as a sculptor in the church of S. Spirito.
The next Pope, Pius II. (Æneas Silvio Piccolomini), did so much building and embellishing in Siena—where the Lombard Masters divided the honours with their colleagues born in Siena, and trained by them—that he did little for Rome. He employed the same Pietro da Giovanni and Paolo da Campagnano between 1460 and 1463, for the roof of S. Pietro, which menaced destruction. The palace of the Vatican was placed under the architectural superintendence of Maestro Manfred of Como and Domenico of Lugano. The first appears to have been designing architect, and the second master builder, as he commanded squadrons of workmen, and was assisted in ruling them by his brother Antonio.
Maestro Angelo da Como, and a certain Martino Lombardo, rebuilt the chambers which had been destroyed by fire, and adorned the "Hall of the Pavilion" and "Hall of the Parrot."
In the time of Sixtus IV. (Francesco della Rovere, 1471-1484) the Lombards of the Roman Lodge were joined by their brethren from Florence, and now we find the two groups inextricably mixed. Baccio Pontelli and Giuliano da Majano work together with Manfred the Lombard and Paolo da Campagnano in the administration of the works of the Vatican; while Francesco and Andrea, both Lombards, are found carving in wood and executing beautiful doors in intarsia, together with Giovanni and Marco di Dolci, Florentines; Giovanni de' Dolci with his colleagues (chiefly Comacines) worked at the Sixtine Chapel, some parts of the Vatican, and the fortress of Civita Vecchia, which Baccio Pontelli finished. Pope Innocent VIII. (Cibo, 1484-92) added the Loggia Belvedere to the already immense palace of the Vatican, and Alexander VI., a Spaniard, built the Borgia apartment, for which he employed Antonio di San Gallo, or from St. Gall, a Lombard naturalized Florentine, whose assistants in the work seem to have been chiefly Lombards.