Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/72

lantern is 36 braccia high, exclusive of the ball, which is four braccia, and the cross eight, making the whole height of the cupola, from the ground to the top of the cross, 202 braccia. Arnolfo, being now considered, as he was, a most excellent architect, had so completely acquired the confidence of the Florentines, that no work of importance was undertaken without his advice ; thus, having finished in that same year the foundations of the outer-wall of the city, which he had commenced as above related, together with the towers of the gates, all of which he nearly completed, he next planned and commenced the Palazzo de’ Signori, the design of which is similar to that of Casentino, built by his father, Lapo, for the Counts of Poppi. But however grand and magnificent the design of Arnolfo, he was not permitted to give his work that perfection which his art and judgment had destined for it. For it had chanced that the houses of those Ghibelline rebels, the Uberti, who had roused the people of Florence to insurrection, had been razed to the ground, and the site of them levelled ; nor would the governor of that day permit Arnolfo to sink the foundations of his edifice on the ground of those rebel Uberti, notwithstanding all the reasons that he alleged. Nay, the stupid obstinacy of these men would not even suffer him to place his building on the square, rather preferring that he should demolish the church of San Piero Scheraggio, of which the north aisle was taken down accordingly, than permit him to work freely in the midst of the space before him, as his plans required. They insisted, moreover, that the tower of Foraboschi, called “Torre della Vacca”, fifty braccia high, which was used for the great bell, should be united to and comprised within the palace, together with certain houses purchased by the commune for this edifice. These things considered, we cannot wonder if the foundations of the palace be proved awry and out of square ; Arnolfo having been compelled to bring the tower into the centre of the building : and in order to strengthen the latter edifice, he was obliged to surround it with the walls of the palace, which were found to be still in excellent preservation on being examined, in 1551, by the painter and architect, Giorgio Vasari, when he restored the palace by the command of the Duke Cosmo. Arnolfo, having thus rendered the tower secure by the excellence of his