Giotto’s works, which adorned all Italy, had excited in his native city, the talents that were ascribed to him outside the art to which he had especially devoted himself, are shown by a decree passed by the Signory on April 12, 1334,[25] in concert with the Buonuomini—an act redounding no less to the honour of the State than of the painter. By this decree Giotto was nominated architect of the Sta. Maria del Fiore, of the boundary wall, and of the other architectural undertakings of the Corporation. ‘Let it be done,’ so it ran, ‘in order that the public works may progress effectually and in fitting manner, which can only be the case if a practised and celebrated man conduct the management of them, and for this purpose no one can be found in the whole world able to do more excellently in this, as in many other things, than Master Giotto di Bondone of Florence, painter, whom, as a great artist, his native city will lovingly receive and honour.’ Giotto lived two years after his praises were thus proclaimed. After death he was honoured with the erection in the cathedral, with the building of which he had been entrusted, of a monument adorned by one of the finest inscriptions of the Renaissance period. During the time that the façade of this church, which was destined to undergo many a change, was building, together with its side-walls, doors, and the walls and gates of the quarter Oltr’arno; and while the belfry of the cathedral, the most graceful, rich, and perfect work of its style, arose, great efforts had to be made to clear away the last traces of the fire of 1304, and the ravages of the great inundation of November 1, 1333. Three bridges were broken up; the old bridge, with those of Santa Trinità and Carraia, and even the column before the Baptistery, which had been raised in memory of St. Zanobi, was thrown down. Every nerve was strained to the work of restoration. One of the most active among the artists was Giotto’s pupil, Taddeo Gaddi, who, in the summer of 1337, began building the new Hall of Or San Michele, on the site of the one burnt down, which was, however, no longer destined to serve the former purpose, but to be used as an Oratorium, while two upper stories were to be employed for the garnering of corn. So arose this magnificent edifice, which forms one of the most remarkable ornaments of Florence, and, seen from the neighbouring hills, towers above the clustering houses. It forms a quadrangle, of which the sides are of unequal length. The character of a hall is still visible in the ground-floor, with its wide tripartite arched windows, which are richly panelled, and in the two upper stories with their arched windows, in groups, alternately, of two and three, divided by columns; the whole being surmounted by a moulded cornice. In this cornice are niches with statues and groups of marble, which had been built at the cost of the guilds, and set on the pilasters of the older hall; and here, as on