which reasons no one must marvel if the foundation of the Palace is awry and out of the square, it having been necessary, in order to incorporate the tower in the middle and to render it stronger, to bind it round with the walls of the Palace; which walls, having been laid open in the year 1561 by Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect, were found excellent. Arnolfo, then, having filled up the said tower with good material, it was afterwards easy for other masters to make thereon the very high campanile that is to be seen there to-day; for within the limits of two years he finished only the Palace, which has subsequently received from time to time those improvements which give it to-day that greatness and majesty that are to be seen. After all these works and many more that Arnolfo made, no less convenient and useful than beautiful, he died at the age of seventy, in 1300, at the very time when Giovanni Villani began to write the Universal History of his times. And because he not only left S. Maria del Fiore founded, but its three principal tribunes, which are under the cupola, vaulted, to his own great glory, he well deserved that there should be made a memorial of him on the corner of the church opposite the Campanile, with these verses carved in marble in round letters: ANNIS . MILLENIS . CENTUM . BIS . OCTO . NOGENIS . VENIT . LEGATUS . ROMA . BONITATE . DOTATUS . QUI . LAPIDEM . FIXIT . FUNDO . SIMUL . ET . BENEDIXIT . PRAESULE . FRANCISCO . GESTANTE . PONTIFICATUM . ISTUD . AB . ARNOLFO . TEMPLUM . FUIT . AEDIFICATUM . HOC . OPUS . INSIGNE . DECORANS . FLORENTIA . DIGNE . REGINAE . C[OE]LI . CONSTRUXIT . MENTE . FIDELI . QUAM . TU . VIRGO . PIA . SEMPER . DEFENDE . MARIA .