the bridge was shortly afterwards finished in wood, as was then the custom. In 1221, he gave plans for the church of San Salvadore del Vescovado, which was commenced under his superintendence, as also those for San Michele in the Piazza Padella,[1] where many fragments of sculpture, after the manner of those days, may still be seen. He next gave plans for the drainage of the city, raised the Piazza of San Giovanni, and erected the bridge which bears the name of the Milanese, Messer Rubaconte da Mandella, from having been finished in his time. Finally, he invented that most useful method of paving the streets with stone, they having previously been covered with bricks only ; he prepared the model for the palace, now of the Podesta,[2] but then of the Anziani (Elders), and sent to the abbey of Monreale, in Sicily, the designs for a sepulchral monument to the Emperor Frederick, for which he had received the commands of Manfred. These works completed, Maestro Jacopo died, leaving Arnolfo, his son, heir to his talents, no less than to his fortune.[3]
Arnolfo, by whose labours architecture made equal progress with that of painting under the influence of Cimabue, was born in the year 1232, and was thirty years old when his father died. He had already attained high repute, having not only acquired from his father whatever the latter could teach, but also studied the art of design under Cimabue, for the purpose of employing it in sculpture. He was now considered the best architect in Tuscany, and the Florentines confided to him the construction of the outer circle of their city walls, which were founded in 1284 ; they also erected the Loggia of Or San Michele, their corn market, after his plans, covering it with a simple roof, and building
- ↑ Of the first of these churches, there remains only a part of the façade belonging to the ancient building. The second, now St. Michael of the Antinori, was rebuilt, after the design of Nigetti, in the seventeenth century. —Schorn.
- ↑ Now the palace of the Bargello.
- ↑ That Arnolfo was neither a son of Lapo, who was but his fellow-disciple, nor yet of the German architect Jacopo (who appears to have been a different person from Lapo the sculptor), has long been known, from various authorities. The father of Arnolfo was called Cambio, and was of Colle, in the Val d’Elsa. See Baldinucci; Del Migliore, Firenze illustrata; Cicognara, Storia della Scultura; Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen; and Gaye, Carteggio Inedito d’Artisti.
