the monks in July, 1533, to execute the required works in the choir for the price of thirty golden crowns each stall.  It will be observed that this price is about fifty per cent. higher than that for which Maestro Bino had contracted to do the work, which is an indication of the then rapidly-falling value of the precious metals.  But this increased price was still insufficient, for on the 17th of July, 1534, the monks enter into an amended contract with Maestro Stefano, in which the terms of the original contract are rehearsed, and it is then declared that Maestro Stefano having shown and proved to the abbot’s satisfaction that those terms could not stand, and that he should be greatly the loser by the bargain, and it being by no means the wish of the fathers that Maestro Stefano should be deprived of a fair reward for his work, but rather that he should make a suitable profit by the job, it was now agreed that the maestro should undertake to labor uninterruptedly and with all possible diligence, that the convent should find all materials and tools, and should maintain Maestro Stefano and his wife and a journeyman, and should pay sixty golden crowns a year as long as the work was in progress.  Further, the convent undertakes to pay half a golden crown monthly to the wife of the said Maestro Stefano, “on the understanding that the said wife of the maestro shall serve and cook and wash clothes for all the family engaged on the work of the choir;” and further, half a golden crown monthly to the journeyman.  Under this arrangement it was of course the interest of the convent that the work should be completed as quickly as possible.  And we find, accordingly, the abbot commissioning Antonio of Florence to carve six of the backs of the stalls; Battista of Bologna and Ambrose, a Frenchman, to carve the reading-desk; and Fra Damiano of Bergamo, who was then at Bologna, to execute the four sculptures in bas-relief which adorn the door.  This Fra Damiano, who signs himself on his work “Fr. Damianus de Bergamo, Ordinis Predicatorum,” seems to have been a brother of the principal artist, Maestro Stefano.  But a curious peep at the manners of that time is afforded by the fact of a professed monk working for hire as a wood-carver.  The main portion of the work, however, and the general design, were due to Maestro Stefano da Zambelli of Bergamo, and just two years and half from the signing of the contract the work was completed and signed in intarsia, as we see it to this day, “Hoc opus fecit M^{r.} Stephanus di Bergamo.”

For a long time it was supposed that the very beautiful designs for the entirety and for each detail of this noble work was due to Raphael.  The guide-books all copied the statement one after the other; and they were indeed excusable in doing so, for the large and magnificent folio which was published at Rome by the abbot and monks in 1845, containing engravings of every detail of the celebrated carvings, declares on the title-page that the work was executed “by