bly
certain that one guild sheltered them all, proficiency being required in
several crafts and mastery in one. We find the same man acting in one
place as master builder or architect, and sometimes only giving advice,
while elsewhere he is sculptor or woodworker. The painter, the
mosaicist, and the designer for intarsia are confused in a similar
manner. Borsieri calls Giovanni de' Grassi, the Milanese painter (known
as Giovanni de Melano at first, a pupil of Giotto and Taddeo Gaddi;
pictures of his are in the Academy, Florence, and in the cloister of S.
Caterina Milan), "an excellent architect"; and he also worked in relief,
besides conducting very important architectural works. He says that
about 1385 Giovanni Galeazzo opened an academy of fine art in his
palace, which was conducted by Giovanni de' Grassi and Michelino da
Besozzo. On June 19, 1391, he was paid five florins for models executed
by him, and something for the expense of execution in marble by another
hand. In 1391 he was called upon by the Council of the Duomo, and after
four months of uncertainty was assigned the position and pay of first
engineer, with a servant who was paid by the Council. He did the door of
the S. Sacristy; it was finished in July, 1395, when he was ordered to
decorate it with gilding and blue. He also made designs for capitals and
window traceries, and carved a God the Father for a centre boss of the
vault of the N. Sacristy. He illuminated the initials, &c., of a copy of
the Ambrosian ritual of Berold for the "Fabbriceria," and this was his
last work, as he died July 5, 1398, and the price was paid to his son
Solomon, the officials declaring that it was most moderate. His pupils
were nearly all both painters and sculptors, and some of them became
stained-glass painters. It is well known that Taddeo Gaddi was painter,
architect, and mosaicist, and Giotto, painter, sculptor, and architect,
and these details are an example of what was then continually going on.
Both in mediaeval times and at the beginning of the Renaissance the most
celebrated architects often called themselves by the most humble
titles--"Magister lignaminio," "maestro di legname," "faber lignarius,"
"carpentarius." Minerva, the worker, was the patron of all workmen from
Pheidias to the lowest pottery thrower, and in Christian times the
Quattro Coronati, the four workmen-saints, were the patrons of all who
worked with their hands.

The oldest of the differentiated guil