containing a hall and an
audience-chamber for that body, gave the commission to Francesco della
Luna, who began the work, and he had already raised it to the height of
ten braccia above the ground, making many errors therein, when it was
put into the hands of Filippo, who brought the said palace to that
magnificent form which we see. In this work he had to compete with the
said Francesco, who was favoured by many. Even so did he spend his whole
life, competing now with one man and now with another; for many were
ever making war against him and harassing him, and very often seeking to
gain honour for themselves with his designs, so that he was reduced in
the end to showing nothing and trusting no one. The hall of this palace
is no longer used by the said Captains of the Guelphs, because the flood
of the year 1557 did so great damage to the papers of the Monte, that
the Lord Duke Cosimo, for the greater security of the said papers, which
are of the greatest importance, removed them to the said hall together
with the institution itself. And to the end that the old staircase of
this palace might serve for the said body of Captains--who gave up that
hall in favour of the Monte and retired to another part of that
palace--Giorgio Vasari was commissioned by his Excellency to make the
very commodious staircase that now ascends to the said hall of the
Monte. In like manner, from a design by the same man there was made a
coffer-work ceiling which was placed, after the plans of Filippo, on
certain fluted pillars of grey-stone.

One year the Lenten sermons in S. Spirito had been preached by Maestro
Francesco Zoppo, who was then very dear to the people of Florence, and
he had strongly recommended the claims of that convent, of the school
for youths, and particularly of the church, which had been burnt down
about that time. Whereupon the chief men of that quarter, Lorenzo
Ridolfi, Bartolommeo Corbinelli, Neri di Gino Capponi, and Goro di
Stagio Dati, with very many other citizens, obtained an order from the
Signoria for the rebuilding of the Church of S. Spirito, and made Stoldo
Frescobaldi provveditore. This man, by reason of the interest that he
had in the old church, the principal chapel and the high-altar of which
belonged to his house, took very great pains therewith; nay, at the
beginning, before the money had been collected from the taxes imposed on
the owners of burial-places and chapels, he spent many thousands of
crowns of h