imposing than any of the others. Now it may
perchance appear to some, for the reason that all or the greater part of
those ornaments have been extolled by us as in the highest rank of
beauty and excellence of artistry, pomp, and richness, that this has
been done by reason of a certain manner of writing inclined to overmuch
praise and exaggeration. But everyone may take it as very certain that
those works, besides leaving a long way behind them all things of that
kind as were ever executed in that city, and perhaps in any other place,
were also such, and ordained with such grandeur, magnificence, and
liberality by those magnanimous Lords, and executed in such a manner by
the craftsmen, that they surpassed by a great measure every expectation,
and took away from no matter what writer all force and power to attain
with the pen to the excellence of the reality.

Now, to return, I say that in that place--in that part, namely, where
the street that leads from the Archbishop's Palace into the Borgo S.
Lorenzo, dividing the above-named Strada della Paglia, forms a perfect
crossing of the ways, was made the ornament already mentioned, much
after the likeness of the ancient four-fronted Temple of Janus; and, for
the reason that from there the Cathedral Church could be seen, it was
ordained by those truly religious Princes that it should be dedicated to
sacrosanct Religion, in which how eminent all Tuscany, and Florence in
particular, has been at all times, I do not believe that it is necessary
for me to take much pains to demonstrate. And therein the intention was
that since Florence had brought with her, as was told at the beginning,
as her handmaids and companions, to give the first welcome to the new
bride, some of the virtues or attributes that had raised her to
greatness, and in which she could well vaunt herself, the intention, I
say, was to show that there also, for a no less necessary office, she
had left Religion, that she, awaiting the bride, might in a certain
manner introduce her into the vast and most ornate church so near at
hand. That arch, then, which was in a very broad street, as has been
told, was seen formed of four very ornate facades, the first of which
presented itself to the eyes of one going in the direction of the
Carnesecchi, and another, following the limb of the cross, faced towards
S. Giovanni and the Duomo of S. Maria del Fiore, leaving two other
facades on the cross-limb of the cross, one of which