tion should never be destroyed; in
each of these is a spiral staircase ascending from the ground to the
summit. In the course of time, moreover, several chapels were added
and other rich ornaments, of which it is not necessary to speak
further, as enough has been said about the matter for the present,
especially as it is in the power of every one to see how much that is
useful, ornamental, and beautiful has been added to this beginning of
Master Jacopo, by popes, cardinals, princes, and many other great
persons of all Europe.

And now to return to Master Jacopo. By means of this work he acquired
such renown throughout Italy that he was invited to Florence by the
government of the city, and was afterwards received there with the
utmost goodwill. But the Florentines, in accordance with a custom of
abbreviating names which they practised then as they do now, called
him not Jacopo, but Lapo, all his life, for he settled permanently in
that city with all his family. And although at divers times he went
away to erect a number of buildings in Tuscany his residence was
always at Florence. As examples of such buildings I may cite the
palace of the Poppi at Casentino which he built for the count there,
who had married the beautiful Gualdrada, with the Casentino as her
dower; the Vescovado for the Aretines, and the Palazzo Vecchio of the
lords of Pietramela. It was at Florence that he laid the piles of the
ponte alla Carraia, then called the ponte Nuovo, in 1218, and
finished them in two years. A short while afterwards it was completed
in wood, as was then the custom. In the year 1221 he prepared plans
for the church of S. Salvadore del Vescovado which was begun under
his direction, as was the church of S. Michele on the piazza Padella
where there are some sculptures in the style of those days. He next
designed a system of drainage for the city, raised the piazza S.
Giovanni, and in the time of M. Rubaconte da Mandella of Milan,
constructed the bridge which still bears his name. It was he who
discovered the useful method of paving the streets with stone, when
they had previously been paved only with bricks. He designed the
existing Podesta palace, which was originally built for the
_amziani_, and finally, after he had designed the tomb of the Emperor
Frederick for the abbey of Monreale in Sicily, by the order of
Manfred, he died, leaving Arnolfo, his son, heir to his ability, no
leas than to his fortune.

Arnolfo, by whose tale