tramezzo[12] of the said church, when this book of the
Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects was printed the first
time, there was a little panel in distemper painted by Giotto with
infinite diligence, wherein was the death of Our Lady, with the
Apostles round her and with a Christ who is receiving her soul into His
arms. This work was much praised by the craftsmen of painting, and in
particular by Michelagnolo Buonarroti, who declared, as was said another
time, that the quality of this painted story could not be more like to
the truth than it is. This little panel, I say, having come into notice
from the time when the book of these Lives was first published, was
afterwards carried off by someone unknown, who, perhaps out of love for
art and out of piety, it seeming to him that it was little esteemed,
became, as said our poet, impious. And truly it was a miracle in those
times that Giotto had so great loveliness in his painting, considering,
above all, that he learnt the art in a certain measure without a master.

After these works, in the year 1334, on July 9, he put his hand to the
Campanile of S. Maria del Fiore, whereof the foundation was a platform
of strong stone, in a pit sunk twenty braccia deep from which water and
gravel had been removed; upon this platform he made a good mass of
concrete, that reached to the height of twelve braccia above the first
foundation, and the rest--namely, the other eight braccia--he caused to
be made of masonry. And at this beginning and foundation there
officiated the Bishop of the city, who, in the presence of all the
clergy and all the magistrates, solemnly laid the first stone. This
work, then, being carried on with the said model, which was in the
German manner that was in use in those times, Giotto designed all the
scenes that were going into the ornamentation, and marked out the model
with white, black, and red colours in all those places wherein the
marbles and the friezes were to go, with much diligence. The circuit
round the base was one hundred braccia--that is, twenty-five braccia for
each side--and the height, one hundred and forty-four braccia. And if
that is true, and I hold it as of the truest, which Lorenzo di Cione
Ghiberti has left in writing, Giotto made not only the model of this
campanile, but also part of those scenes in marble wherein are the
beginnings of all the arts, in sculpture and in relief. And the said
Lorenzo declares that he saw models in