SAN MICHELI, MICHELE, an Italian architect of considerable celebrity, was born at Verona in 1484. He acquired his art under the eye of his father Giovanni and his uncle Bartolomeo, who were both architects of distinction. The ancient amphitheatre of his native town was a constant object of interest for the young architect, and his future designs are much indebted for their massive rusticated work to this period of youthful study. He went to Rome about 1500, where he was fortunate enough to gain the intimacy of all the famous artists of the day, Bramante, Michael Angelo, and the Sangalli. While in the ecclesiastical states, he constructed many buildings of celebrity, among others the cathedral of Montefiascone. On his return to the Venetian Republic, in 1525, he was engaged in erecting the new fortifications of Verona. Here he introduced, for the first time, the use of triangular and heptagonal bastions, since so much employed by military engineers. He was subsequently engaged in fortifying many places in Cyprus, Candia, Istria, and Dalmatia, some of which were confided to his nephew, Gian-Girolamo. Both uncle and nephew had pressing offers from Francis I. and the Emperor Charles V. to enter their service, but to all such flattering proposals they gave an emphatic refusal. The palazzi or mansion-houses of San Micheli are many of them not to be imitated, abounding, as they do, in irregularities of design, and in a curious mixture of highly ornamented work, with decidedly bald construction. San Micheli enjoyed an honourable old age, and died in 1559 in his seventy-fifth year.