welled out and shaken by the wind, which is always very powerful in
that place, as everyone knows, yet it was never disturbed or damaged in
any way whatever. This awning was made of five pieces, to the end that
it might be easier to handle, but, when set into place, they were all
joined and fastened and sewn together in such a manner that it appeared
like one whole. Three pieces covered the piazza and the space that is
between S. Giovanni and S. Maria del Fiore; and in the middle piece, in
a straight line between the principal doors, were the aforesaid circles
containing the arms of the Commune. And the remaining two pieces covered
the sides--one towards the Misericordia, and the other towards the
Canon's house and the Office of Works of S. Giovanni.

The Clouds, which were made of various kinds and with diverse inventions
by the Companies, were generally fashioned in the following manner. A
square framework was made of planks, about two braccia in height, with
four stout legs at the corners, contrived after the manner of the
trestles of a table, and fastened together with cross-pieces. On this
framework two panels were laid crosswise, each one braccio wide, with a
hole in the middle half a braccio in diameter, in which was fixed a high
pole, whereon there was placed a mandorla all covered with cotton-wool,
cherubim, lights, and other ornaments, and within this, on a horizontal
bar of iron, there sat or stood, according as might be desired, a person
representing that Saint whom the particular Company principally honoured
as their peculiar patron and protector--to be exact, a Christ, or a
Madonna, or a S. John, or some other--and the draperies of this figure
covered the iron bar in such a manner that it could not be seen. Round
the same pole, lower down, below the mandorla, there radiated four or
five iron bars in the manner of the branches of a tree, and at the end
of each, attached likewise with irons, stood a little boy dressed like
an angel. These boys could move round and round at pleasure on the iron
brackets on which their feet rested, for the brackets hung on hinges.
And with similar branches there were sometimes made two or three tiers
of angels or of saints, according to the nature of the subjects to be
represented. The whole of this structure, with the pole and the iron
bars (which sometimes represented a lily, sometimes a tree, and often a
cloud or some other similar thing), was covered with cotton-wool, and,