masters to make thereon the very high
campanile that is to be seen there to-day; for within the limits of two
years he finished only the Palace, which has subsequently received from
time to time those improvements which give it to-day that greatness and
majesty that are to be seen.

After all these works and many more that Arnolfo made, no less
convenient and useful than beautiful, he died at the age of seventy, in
1300, at the very time when Giovanni Villani began to write the
Universal History of his times. And because he not only left S. Maria
del Fiore founded, but its three principal tribunes, which are under the
cupola, vaulted, to his own great glory, he well deserved that there
should be made a memorial of him on the corner of the church opposite
the Campanile, with these verses carved in marble in round letters:

ANNIS . MILLENIS . CENTUM . BIS . OCTO . NOGENIS .
VENIT . LEGATUS . ROMA . BONITATE . DOTATUS .
QUI . LAPIDEM . FIXIT . FUNDO . SIMUL . ET . BENEDIXIT .
PRAESULE . FRANCISCO . GESTANTE . PONTIFICATUM .
ISTUD . AB . ARNOLFO . TEMPLUM . FUIT . AEDIFICATUM .
HOC . OPUS . INSIGNE . DECORANS . FLORENTIA . DIGNE .
REGINAE . C[OE]LI . CONSTRUXIT . MENTE . FIDELI .
QUAM . TU . VIRGO . PIA . SEMPER . DEFENDE . MARIA .

Of this Arnolfo we have written the Life, with the greatest brevity that
has been possible, for the reason that, although his works do not
approach by a great measure the perfection of the things of to-day, he
deserves, none the less, to be celebrated with loving memory, having
shown amid so great darkness, to those who lived after him, the way to
walk to perfection. The portrait of Arnolfo, by the hand of Giotto, is
to be seen in S. Croce, beside the principal chapel, at the beginning of
the story, where the friars are weeping for the death of S. Francis, in
one of two men that are talking together. And the picture of the Church
of S. Maria del Fiore--namely, of the outer side with the cupola--by the
hand of Simone Sanese, is to be seen in the Chapter-house of S. Maria
Novella, copied from the original in wood that Arnolfo made; wherein it
is noticeable that he had thought to raise the dome immediately over the
walls, at the edge of the first cornice, whereas Filippo di Ser
Brunellesco, in order to relieve them of weight and to make it more
graceful, added thereto, before he began to raise it, all that height
wherein to-day are the round windows; whic