facade containing the three doors, was suffering from a
dearth of masters to make the scenes that Giotto had designed for the
beginning of the said fabric. Andrea, then, betook himself to Florence,
for the service of the said Office of Works. And because the Florentines
desired at that time to gain the friendship and love of Pope Boniface
VIII, who was then Supreme Pontiff of the Church of God, they wished
that, before anything else, Andrea should make a portrait in marble of
the said Pontiff, from the life. Wherefore, putting his hand to this
work, he did not rest until he had finished the figure of the Pope, with
a S. Peter and a S. Paul who are one on either side of him; which three
figures were placed in the facade of S. Maria del Fiore, where they
still are. Andrea then made certain little figures of prophets for the
middle door of the said church, in some shrines or rather niches, from
which it is seen that he had brought great betterment to the art, and
that he was in advance, both in excellence and design, of all those who
had worked up to then on the said fabric. Wherefore it was resolved that
all the works of importance should be given to him to do, and not to
others; and so, no long time after, he was commissioned to make the four
statues of the principal Doctors of the Church, S. Jerome, S. Ambrose,
S. Augustine, and S. Gregory. And these being finished and acquiring for
him favour and fame with the Wardens of Works--nay, with the whole
city--he was commissioned to make two other figures in marble of the
same size, which were S. Stephen and S. Laurence, now standing in the
said facade of S. Maria del Fiore, at the outermost corners. By the hand
of Andrea, likewise, is the Madonna in marble, three braccia and a half
high, with the Child in her arms, which stands on the altar of the
little Church of the Company of the Misericordia, on the Piazza di S.
Giovanni in Florence; which was a work much praised in those times, and
above all because he accompanied it with two angels, one on either side,
each two braccia and a half high. Round this work there has been made in
our own day a frame of wood, very well wrought by Maestro Antonio,
called Il Carota; and below, a predella full of most beautiful figures
coloured in oil by Ridolfo, son of Domenico Ghirlandajo. In like
manner, that half-length Madonna in marble that is over the side door of
the same Misericordia, in the facade of the Cialdonai, is by the hand of
Andr