whose office is of the most honourable in Florence. If I seem to have been too prolix in all this it must be excused, because having told, in the _Life of Arnolfo_, how the palace was first built in 1298, crooked, lacking every rational measurement, with columns in the courtyard that did not match, large and small arches, inconvenient stairs, and dark and ill-proportioned rooms, it was fitting that I should point but how it was changed by the genius and judgment of Michelozzi.” About the same time the Ten of Balìa, _considerato defectu et penuria presentis Palatii circa pannos darazza et circa gausape seu tovaglias et argentum seu vasa argentea, et quod multum condecens esset in hujus modi tali Palatio_, voted two thousand golden florins for refurnishing the palace, and also commissioned Neri di Bicci to paint and gild the tabernacle in which the celebrated _Pandects_ of Justinian were kept. Neri thus describes his work: “I undertook to paint and gild for fiorini 56 a tabernacle of wood made according to ancient fashion, at each side were columns, above was an architrave, a frieze, a cornice and a lunette, and below the base was all of fine gold. In the picture of the said tabernacle I painted Moses and the four animals of the Evangelists, and in the lunette S. John the Baptist; round Moses and the animals I put golden lilies, and inside was the picture, which is to be the front of the cupboard where the _Pandects_, and another book which came from Constantinople, and certain other most rare things of the Florentine people, are kept, and it is to stand in the Hall of Audience of the Signori.”