g down the flood-gates of
Ognissanti. For this cause the rulers of the city took counsel
together, because they did not wish that those who dwelt beyond the
Arno should again suffer this inconvenience of having to cross by
barques. Accordingly they called in Taddeo Gaddi, because his master
Giotto had gone to Milan, and instructed him to make the model and
design of the Ponte Vecchio, directing him to render it as strong and
as beautiful as it could possibly be. To this end he spared neither
pains nor expense, building it with such strong piers and such fine
arches, all of hewn stone, that it now sustains twenty-two shops on
either side, making forty-four in all, to the great benefit of the
commune, who that year expended upon it eight hundred florins of
rent. The length of the span from one side to the other is 32
braccia, the middle way is 16, and the shops on either side 8
braccia. For this work, which cost sixty thousand gold florins,
Taddeo not only deserved the praise accorded by his contemporaries,
but he merits our commendation to-day to an even greater degree, for,
not to speak of many other floods, the bridge did not move in the
year 1537, on 13th September, when the Ponte a Santa Trinita, two
arches of the Carraia, and a great part of the Rubaconte all fell,
and more damage was done. Certainly no man of judgment can refrain
from amazement, or at least wonder, when he considers how firmly the
Ponte Vecchio resisted the impetus of the water, the timber, and
other debris, without yielding. At the same time Taddeo laid the
foundations of the Ponte a Santa Trinita, which was finished with
less success in the year 1346 at a cost of twenty thousand gold
florins. I say with less success, because, unlike the Ponte Vecchio,
it was ruined by the flood of 1557. It was also under Taddeo's
direction that the wall on the side of S. Gregorio was made at the
same time, with driven piles, two piers of the bridge being taken to
enlarge the ground on the side of the piazza de' Mozzi, and to set up
the mills which are still there.

Whilst all these things were being done under Taddeo's direction and
from his plans, he did not allow them to stop his painting, and did
the tribunal of the old Mercanzia, where, with poetical imagination,
he represented the tribunal of six men, that being the number of the
chief of that magistracy, who are watching Truth taking out
Falsehood's tongue, the former clothed in velvet over her naked skin