de over the Loggia a palace with
two vaults for storing the provisions of grain that the people and
Commune of Florence used to make. To the end that this work might be
finished, the Guild of Porta S. Maria, to which the charge of the fabric
had been given, ordained that there should be paid thereunto the tax of
the square of the grain-market and some other taxes of very small
importance. But what was far more important, it was well ordained with
the best counsel that each of the Guilds of Florence should make one
pier by itself, with the Patron Saint of the Guild in a niche therein,
and that every year, on the festival of each Saint the Consuls of that
Guild should go to church to make offering, and should hold there the
whole of that day the standard with their insignia, but that the
offering, none the less, should be to the Madonna for the succour of the
needy poor. And because, during the great flood of the year 1333, the
waters had swept away the parapets of the Ponte Rubaconte, thrown down
the Castle of Altafronte, left nothing of the Ponte Vecchio but the two
piers in the middle, and completely ruined the Ponte a S. Trinita except
one pier that remained all shattered, as well as half the Ponte alla
Carraia, bursting also the weir of Ognissanti, those who then ruled the
city determined no longer to allow the dwellers on the other side of the
Arno to have to return to their homes with so great inconvenience as was
caused by their having to cross in boats. Wherefore, having sent for
Taddeo Gaddi, for the reason that Giotto his master had gone to Milan,
they caused him to make the model and design of the Ponte Vecchio,
giving him instructions that he should have it brought to completion as
strong and as beautiful as might be possible; and he, sparing neither
cost nor labour, made it with such strength in the piers and with such
magnificence in the arches, all of stone squared with the chisel, that
it supports to-day twenty-two shops on either side, which make in all
forty-four, with great profit to the Commune, which drew from them eight
hundred florins yearly in rents. The extent of the arches from one side
to the other is thirty-two braccia, that of the street in the middle is
sixteen braccia, and that of the shops on either side eight braccia. For
this work, which cost sixty thousand florins of gold, not only did
Taddeo then deserve infinite praise, but even to-day he is more than
ever commended for it, for the reas