In addition to tanks of thls nature, Sixtus afforded him the oppor tunity of displaying his talents as an architect, giving him charge of the varlet's works at the Lateran church, to which he attaohed, on one of Its sides, a kind of portioo consisting of an upper and lower gallery, in five open &rendes, the pier. of the former ornamented with a Doric and them of the other with a Corinthian order. Immediately adjoining this portico be also erected the palace of the Lateran, a uniform square pile of building, with two series of window. above the lower floor. all of which have pediments Alternately angular and curved, and the whole is surmounted by a massive and riot' cornice. By the same pontiff lie was likewise charged to construct the Vatican library, and thus destroy the noble court formed by Bramante. He also erected the lofty lama of building on the side toward, the piazza of St- Peter's, which, linprosairo as It Is in Itself, does not bespeak touch fertility of invoutiou, it being little more than a repetition of him palace of the Lateran. Another papal residence, which was partly erected by him, was that of the Quirinal, or Monte Cavallo, so called from the two colossal figures before it, which he removed thither from the Baths of Conatantiue. Among his other work. may be mentioned
the restoration of the columns of Trojan and Antoniuus, and the fountain of Termini. lie was preparing to erect a vast edifice for a cloth inanufactory within the Coliseum, the plan of which was to have been elliptical like that of the amphitheatre, when Sixtus, with whom the idea originated, died ; and thus was frustrated a scheme that would irreparably have injured the sublime and majestic character of that great monument of antiquity.
The death of that pope brought a change of circumstances to Fontana, who was dismissed by Clement VIII. from his situation as papal architect. Still his prosperous fortune did not desert him, for he was immediately invited to Naples by the viceroy, the Count de Miranda. In that capital, to which ho repaired in 1592, he was employed on a variety of works, and among others he executed the fountain Medina; but the most important of them all was the royal palace, a grand and imposing, although not particularly elegant edifice. He died in that city in 1007, possessed of considerable wealth, and of a distinguished reputation.