DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0132
112
THE MAHERS OE ELOREN OR.
tower called the Tower of the Vacca. or cow, in which the
great bell of Florence, so long in fierce wit and fondness
called by this name, was placed. To “accomodate” this
tower in the center of the building was a troublesome
business, Vasari tells us; but it was so skillfully accom-
plished by “ filling up the tower with good material, that
it was easy for other masters to add the lofty campanile
which we now see.” Who these altri maestri were who
actually completed the beautiful tower of the Palazzo in
which the great bell has hung for centuries, we are not
informed, nor who they were who carried out the design
of the Duomo. Arnolfo only lived to see a portion of this
his greatest work, completed—“ the three principal tribunes
which were under the cupola,” and which Vasari tells us
were so solid and strongly built as to be able to bear the
full weight of Brunelleschi’s dome, which was much larger
and heavier than the one the original architect had himself
designed. The cathedral, as Arnolfo planned it, may be
seen in Simone Memmi’s great picture in the Spanish
chapel at Santa Maria Novella, where its marble walls and
round red cupola form the background to a line of popes,
cardinals and emperors, less interesting figures than the
group of attendants, which comprises several contemporary
portraits—Cimabue, fine and dainty, Petrarch, Arnolfo
himself, our architect, and Giotto; and that fair Laura
whom the poet made famous, and by whose worship in
return he won for himself the laurel. Simone was the
friend of Petrarch, and knew Madonna Laura as we know
our next-door neighbors: and no doubt such a group might
have met any day, the poet and the painters—and even a
greater poet with them, and a lady still more devoutly wor-
shiped—lightly, as we meet our acquaintance; though the
picture of them gathered in a group is one of the things
we go half across the world to see.
Arnolfo died, as we have said—when he had built his
THE MAHERS OE ELOREN OR.
tower called the Tower of the Vacca. or cow, in which the
great bell of Florence, so long in fierce wit and fondness
called by this name, was placed. To “accomodate” this
tower in the center of the building was a troublesome
business, Vasari tells us; but it was so skillfully accom-
plished by “ filling up the tower with good material, that
it was easy for other masters to add the lofty campanile
which we now see.” Who these altri maestri were who
actually completed the beautiful tower of the Palazzo in
which the great bell has hung for centuries, we are not
informed, nor who they were who carried out the design
of the Duomo. Arnolfo only lived to see a portion of this
his greatest work, completed—“ the three principal tribunes
which were under the cupola,” and which Vasari tells us
were so solid and strongly built as to be able to bear the
full weight of Brunelleschi’s dome, which was much larger
and heavier than the one the original architect had himself
designed. The cathedral, as Arnolfo planned it, may be
seen in Simone Memmi’s great picture in the Spanish
chapel at Santa Maria Novella, where its marble walls and
round red cupola form the background to a line of popes,
cardinals and emperors, less interesting figures than the
group of attendants, which comprises several contemporary
portraits—Cimabue, fine and dainty, Petrarch, Arnolfo
himself, our architect, and Giotto; and that fair Laura
whom the poet made famous, and by whose worship in
return he won for himself the laurel. Simone was the
friend of Petrarch, and knew Madonna Laura as we know
our next-door neighbors: and no doubt such a group might
have met any day, the poet and the painters—and even a
greater poet with them, and a lady still more devoutly wor-
shiped—lightly, as we meet our acquaintance; though the
picture of them gathered in a group is one of the things
we go half across the world to see.
Arnolfo died, as we have said—when he had built his