Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/73

Rh workmanship, it was not difficult for the masters who succeeded him, to erect upon it the lofty campanile that we now see there,—he not having been able to do more in the remaining two years of his life than complete the palace, which has since received, from time to time, those improvements which render it the noble and majestic edifice we now behold.

After having accomplished all these things, and many others, no less useful than beautiful, Arnolfo died, in the year 1300, and in the seventy-first of his age ; he departed exactly at the time when Giovanni Villani began to write the Universal History of his own times ; and since he not only founded Santa Maria del Fiore, but also erected the apsis with the three principal arches, (those under the cupola,) to his great glory, he well deserved the inscription to his memory afterwards placed on that side of the church which is opposite to the campanile ; these verses were engraved on marble in round letters :— “ Annis millenis centum bis octo nogenis Venit legatus Roma bonitate dotatus Qui lapidem fixit fundo simul et benedixit Praesule Francisco, gestante pontificatum Istud ab Arnolpho templum fuit sedificatum Hoc opus insigne decorans Florentia digne. Reginae coeli construxit mente fideli Quam, tu Virgo pia, semper defende, Maria.” We have thus written the life of Arnolfo as briefly as possible ; and if his works are far from approaching the perfection attained in our day, he yet well deserves to be held in grateful remembrance, since, being himself in the midst of so much darkness, he yet showed to those who came after him the true path towards perfection. The portrait of Arnolfo by the hand of, may be seen in Santa Croce, beside the principal chapel ; it is in the figure of one of two men who are speaking together in the foreground of a painting, which represents monks lamenting the death of St.