ancient temple is all wrought, both without and within, with
marbles of the Corinthian Order, and that it is not only designed and
executed perfectly in all its parts and with all its proportions, but
also very well adorned with doors and with windows, and enriched with
two columns of granite on each wall-face, each eleven braccia high, in
order to make the three spaces over which are the architraves, that rest
on the said columns in order to support the whole mass of the double
vaulted roof, which has been praised by modern architects as something
remarkable, and deservedly, for the reason that it showed the good which
that art already had in itself to Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, to
Donatello, and to the other masters of those times, who learnt the art
by means of this work and of the Church of S. Apostolo in Florence, a
work so good in manner that it casts back to the true ancient goodness,
having all the columns in sections, as it has been said above, measured
and put together with so great diligence that much can be learnt by
studying it in all its parts. But to be silent about many things that
could be said about the good architecture of this church, I will say
only that there was a great departure from this example and from this
good method of working when the facade of S. Miniato sul Monte without
Florence was rebuilt in marble, in honour of the conversion of the
Blessed S. Giovanni Gualberto, citizen of Florence and founder of the
Order of the Monks of Vallombrosa; because that and many other works
that were made later were in no way similar in beauty to those
mentioned. The same, in like manner, came to pass in the works of
sculpture, for all those that were made in Italy by the masters of that
age, as has been said in the Preface to the Lives, were very rude, as
can be seen in many places, and in particular in S. Bartolommeo at
Pistoia, a church of the Canons Regular, where, in a pulpit very rudely
made by Guido da Como, there is the beginning of the life of Jesus
Christ, with these words carved thereon by the craftsman himself in the
year 1199:

SCULPTOR LAUDATUR, QUOD DOCTUS IN ARTE PROBATUR,
GUIDO DE COMO ME CUNCTIS CARMINE PROMO.

But to return to the Church of S. Giovanni; forbearing to relate its
origin, by reason of its having been described by Giovanni Villani and
by other writers, and having already said that from this church there
came the good architecture that is to-day in use, I w