unsuitability of the dome to this form, Sto. Spirito is the finest example of the independent adoption of the Roman basilica style for modern ecclesiastical architecture. Sta. Maria Novella was consecrated September 8, 1420, by Pope Martin V., for whom a part of the adjoining convent had been converted into a dwelling the year before. This was followed the next day by the consecration of Sta. Maria Nuova (Sant’Egidio) by Cardinal Antonio Correr, Bishop of Bologna, to which ceremony the frescoes refer with which Bicci di Lorenzo, who superintended the building, adorned the façade under the modern portico of the present day. Filippo degli Scolari, who, under the name of Pippo Spano, had been influential in Hungary in the days of King Sigismund, ordered upon his death, in 1426, the construction, by Brunellesco, of a great central building for the Camaldolensians of the Angeli, but it went no further than a portion of the vast octagon, which was vulgarly called _Il Castellaccio_.[35] The Place of the Signory was still too small, and the wish to procure more space for the palace on the south side occasioned the demolition in 1410 of a side-aisle of San Piero Scheraggio. This church, after being gradually more and more mutilated, made way a century and a half later for the edifice of the Uffizi, by whom this quarter of the city, in which streets and houses were crowded together down to the river-side, was completely transformed. The splendour and beauty of the public buildings necessarily influenced the construction of private dwellings. The narrow houses, lofty in proportion to their base, fell gradually into disuse, the more as the city, which had been considerably enlarged, afforded greater space. The beginning of the fifteenth century, which reached its climax in the Florentine palaces, turned the scale in this respect; but, as already remarked in the introduction, the mediæval traditions were here more faithfully adhered to than in ecclesiastical architecture. Moreover, a sense of timidity in passing certain limits existed in this case, which was connected with the circumstances of a free republic. This feeling has been recognised in Cosmo de’ Medici, and will be found again in Filippo Strozzi. We are reminded of the same fact even in the following century by the history of the Bartoline house on the Piazza Sta. Trinità, the door and window frames of which were considered unsuitable for a private dwelling, though they were soon to appear simple enough. In earlier times, too, there were large private houses, but their number appears to have been inconsiderable. In the first decade of the fifteenth century several were erected, which we still behold essentially in their original form. The house of Nicolò da Uzzano in Via de’ Bardi, already mentioned, built probably about 1420, is of large proportions, but perfectly plain, and without any sign of the modern spirit. The palace of the Bardi family in Via del