on rampant with two tails, as anyone can
see who examines it with diligence. For the same Duke Andrea built many
towers round the walls of the city, and he not only made a magnificent
beginning for the Porta a S. Friano and brought it to the completion
that is seen, but also made the walls for the vestibules of all the
gates of the city, and the lesser gates for the convenience of the
people. And because the Duke had it in his mind to make a fortress on
the Costa di S. Giorgio, Andrea made the model for it, which afterwards
was not used, for the reason that the work was never given a beginning,
the Duke having been driven out in the year 1343. Nevertheless, there
was effected in great part the desire of that Duke to bring the palace
to the form of a strong castle, because, to that which had been made
originally, he added the great mass which is seen to-day, enclosing
within its circuit the houses of the Filipetri, the tower and the houses
of the Amidei and Mancini, and those of the Bellalberti. And because,
having made a beginning with so great a fabric and with the thick walls
and barbicans, he had not all the material that was essential equally in
readiness, he held back the construction of the Ponte Vecchio, which was
being worked on with all haste as a work of necessity, and availed
himself of the stone hewn and the wood prepared for it, without the
least scruple. And although Taddeo Gaddi was not perhaps inferior in the
matters of architecture to Andrea Pisano, the Duke would not avail
himself of him in these buildings, by reason of his being a Florentine,
but only of Andrea. The same Duke Gualtieri wished to pull down S.
Cecilia, in order to see from his palace the Strada Romana and the
Mercato Nuovo, and likewise to destroy S. Pietro Scheraggio for his own
convenience, but he had not leave to do this from the Pope; and
meanwhile, as it has been said above, he was driven out by the fury of
the people.

Deservedly then did Andrea gain, by the honourable labours of so many
years, not only very great rewards but also the citizenship; for he was
made a citizen of Florence by the Signoria, and was given offices and
magistracies in the city, and his works were esteemed both while he
lived and after his death, there being found no one who could surpass
him in working, until there came Niccolo Aretino, Jacopo della Quercia
of Siena, Donatello, Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, and Lorenzo Ghiberti,
who executed the sculptures a