se buildings the
vaulting was made of small tubes and with partitions of stucco,
praiseworthy enough for these times. And from the mouldings and other
parts it is seen that the craftsmen were going on striving in order to
find the good way.

Innocent III afterwards caused two palaces to be built on the Vatican
Hill, which were passing good, in so far as it has been possible to
discover; but since they were destroyed by other Popes, and in
particular by Nicholas V, who pulled down and rebuilt the greater part
of one palace, there will be nothing said of them but this, that a part
of them is to be seen in the great Round Tower and part in the old
sacristy of S. Pietro. This Innocent III, who ruled for nineteen years
and took much delight in building, made many edifices in Rome; and in
particular, with the design of Marchionne Aretino, both architect and
sculptor, the Conti Tower, so called from his own surname, seeing that
he was of that family. The same Marchionne, in the year when Innocent
III died, finished the building of the Pieve of Arezzo and likewise the
campanile, making in sculpture, for the facade of the said church, three
rows of columns one above the other, with great variety not only in the
fashion of the capitals and the bases but also in the shafts of the
columns, some among them being thick, some slender, some joined together
two by two, and others four by four. In like manner there are some
twined in the manner of vines, and some made in the shape of figures
acting as supports, with diverse carvings. He also made therein many
animals of diverse sorts that support on the middle of their backs the
weights of those columns, and all with the most strange and extravagant
inventions that can possibly be imagined, and not only wide of the good
order of the ancients but almost wide of all just and reasonable
proportion. But with all this, whosoever sets out well to consider the
whole sees that he went on striving to do well, and thought peradventure
to have found it in that method of working and in that whimsical
variety. The same man made in sculpture, on the arch that is over the
door of the said church, in barbaric manner, a God the Father with
certain angels, in half-relief and rather large; and in the arch he
carved the twelve months, placing his own name underneath in round
letters, as was the custom, and the date--namely, the year 1216. It is
said that Marchionne built in the Borgo Vecchio in Rome, for th