This was Maestro Stefano de Antoniolo da Zambelli of Bergamo, who agreed
with 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.
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