the saint, and of St Andrew and St Nicholas. On the vaulting and the
wall is Pope Honorius confirming the rule, and a representation of
Taddeo from life, in profile, with a hood folded over his head. At
the bottom of this scene are these words:

_Magister Taddeus Gaddus de Florentia pinxit hanc hittoriam Sancti
Francisci et Sancti Andreae et Sancti Nicolai anno Domini MCCCXLII.
de mense Augusti._

In the cloister of the same convent he further made a Madonna in
fresco, with the child at her neck, very well coloured. In the middle
of the church, on the left hand on entering, is seated a St Louis the
bishop, to whom St Gherardo da Villamagna, who was a friar of the
order, is recommending one fra Bartolommeo, then superior of the
convent. The figures of this work, being drawn from life, exhibit the
utmost vivacity and grace, in that simple style which was in some
respects better than Giotto's, particularly in the expression of
intercession, joy, grief, and other feelings, the good representation
of which always constitutes the highest claim of the painter to
honour. Taddeo then returned to Florence and continued for the
commune the work of Orsan-michele, refounding the pillars of the
Loggia, using dressed and hewn stones in place of the original
bricks, but without making any change in the design left by Arnolfo,
who provided that a palace with two vaults should be made above the
Loggia for the preservation of the provisions of grain made by the
people and commune of Florence. For the completion of this work the
Art of the Porta S. Maria, to whom the charge of the structure had
been entrusted, ordained the payment of the gabelle of the piazza and
of the grain market, and some other changes of very small importance.
But an ordinance of far more importance was that each of the arts of
Florence should make a pilaster for itself, placing on a niche in it
the patron saint of each, and that every year the consuls of the arts
should go to make offerings on their saints' feast days and keep
their standard and insignia there all that day, but that the alms so
collected should be made to the Virgin for the needy poor.

In the year 1333 a great flood had carried away the parapets of the
Ponte Rubaconte, thrown down the castle of Altafronte, left nothing
of the Ponte Vecchio except the two middle piles, entirely destroyed
the Ponte S. Trinita, a single shattered pile alone standing, and
half the Ponte alla Carraia, breakin