beholders to imitation of their goodness and perfection, it was thought
right and proper, since there had been placed on the right hand, as has
been related, the statue of the Duke, founder of the holy military Order
of S. Stephen, to set on the other side that of S. Giovanni Gualberto,
who was likewise a knight of the household, according to the custom of
those times, and the first founder and father of the Order of
Vallombrosa. Most fittingly, even as the Duke was beneath the armed
statue, in like manner he was seen standing beneath the sacerdotal
statue of Religion, in the habit of a knight, pardoning his enemy;
having in the frontispiece over the niche a similar escutcheon of the
Medici, with three Cardinal's hats, and on the base the story of the
miracle that took place at Badia di Settimo, when the friar, by the
command of the above-named S. Giovanni Gualberto, to the confusion of
the heretics and simonists, passed with his benediction and with a
cross in his hand through the midst of a raging fire; with the
inscription likewise in a little tablet above him, which made all that
manifest, saying:

JOANNES GUALBERTUS, EQUES NOBILISS. FLOREN., VALLIS UMBROSAE
FAMILIAE AUCTOR FUIT, ANNO MLXI.

With which was terminated that most ornate and beautiful principal
facade.

Entering beneath the arch, one saw there a passing spacious loggia, or
passage, or vestibule, whichever we may choose to call it; and in
exactly the same manner were seen formed the three other entrances,
which, being joined together at the intersection of the two streets,
left in the centre a space about eight braccia square. There the four
arches rose to the height of those without, and the pendentives curved
in the manner of a vault as if a little cupola were to spring over them;
but when these had reached the cornice curving right round, at the point
where the vault of the cupola would have had to begin to rise, there
sprang a gallery of gilded balusters, above which was seen a choir of
most beautiful Angels, dancing most gracefully in a ring and singing in
sweetest harmony; while for greater grace, and to the end that there
might be light everywhere beneath the arch, in place of a cupola there
was left the free and open sky. And in the spaces or spandrels,
whichever they may be called, of the four angles, which of necessity,
narrow at their springing, opened out as they rose nearer to the cornice
in accordance with the curve of the arch