o the hands of the
Guild of Silk, which, according to Vasari, employed Taddeo Gaddi as
architect. The first stone of the new building was laid on July 29,
1337, the old brick piers, according to Villani, being removed, and
pillars of stone set up in their stead.[94] In 1339 the Guild of Silk
won leave from the Commune to build in each of these stone piers a
niche, which later should hold a statue; while above the loggia was
built a great storehouse for corn, as well as an official residence for
the officers of the market.

[Illustration: OR SAN MICHELE]

Nine years later there followed the great plague, of which Boccaccio has
left us so terrible an impression. In this dreadful calamity, which
swept away nearly two-thirds of the population, the Compagnia di Or San
Michele grew very wealthy, many citizens leaving it all their
possessions. No doubt very much was distributed in charity, for the
Company had become the greatest charitable society in the city, but by
1347, so great was its wealth, that it resolved to build the most
splendid shrine in Italy for the Madonna di Or San Michele. The loggia
was not yet finished, and after the desolation of the plague the Commune
was probably too embarrassed to think of completing it immediately. Some
trouble certainly seems to have arisen between the Guild of Silk, who
had charge of the fabric, and the Company, who were only concerned for
their shrine, the latter, in spite of their wealth, refusing in any way
to assist in finishing the building. Whether from this cause or another,
a certain suspicion of the Company began to rise in Florence, and Matteo
Villani roundly accuses the Capitani della Compagnia of peculation and
corruption. However this may be, by 1355 Andrea Orcagna had been chosen
to build the shrine of Madonna, which is still to-day one of the wonders
of the city. It seems to have been in a sort of recognition of the
splendour and beauty of Orcagna's work that the Signoria, between 1355
and 1359, removed the corn-market elsewhere, and thus gave up the whole
loggia to the shrine of Madonna. Thus the loggia became a church, the
great popular church of Florence, built by the people for their own use,
in what had once been the corn-market of the city. The architect of this
strange and secular building, more like a palace than a church, is
unknown. Vasari, as I have said, speaks of Taddeo Gaddi; others again
have thought it the work of Orcagna himself; while Francesco Talen