d worthy of being considered
to-day. He then gave the design for the first cloisters of the old
convent of that church, and a little time after he caused to be removed
from round the Church of S. Giovanni, on the outer side, all the arches
and tombs of marble and grey-stone that were there, and had part of them
placed behind the campanile on the facade of the Canon's house, beside
the Company of S. Zanobi; and then he incrusted with black marble from
Prato all the eight outer walls of the said S. Giovanni, removing the
grey-stone that there had been before between these ancient marbles. The
Florentines, in the meanwhile, wishing to build walls in the Valdarno di
Sopra round Castello di San Giovanni and Castel Franco, for the
convenience of the city and of their victualling by means of the
markets, Arnolfo made the design for them in the year 1295, and
satisfied them in such a manner, as well in this as he had done in the
other works, that he was made citizen of Florence.

After these works, the Florentines determined, as Giovanni Villani
relates in his History, to build a principal church in their city, and
to build it such that in point of greatness and magnificence there could
be desired none larger or more beautiful from the industry and knowledge
of men; and Arnolfo made the design and the model of the never to be
sufficiently praised Church of S. Maria del Fiore, ordering that it
should be all incrusted, without, with polished marbles and with the so
many cornices, pilasters, columns, carved foliage, figures, and other
ornaments, with which to-day it is seen brought, if not to the whole, to
a great part at least of its perfection. And what was marvellous therein
above everything else was this, that incorporating, besides S. Reparata,
other small churches and houses that were round it, in making the site,
which is most beautiful, he showed so great diligence and judgment in
causing the foundations of so great a fabric to be made broad and deep,
filling them with good material--namely, with gravel and lime and with
great stones below--wherefore the square is still called "Lungo i
Fondamenti," that they have been very well able, as is to be seen
to-day, to support the weight of the great mass of the cupola which
Filippo di Ser Brunellesco raised over them. The laying of such
foundations for so great a church was celebrated with much solemnity,
for on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady, in 1298, the first stone was
la