"Il mille cento trempta nato. Fo questo templo a Zorzi (Giorgio) consacrato. Fo Nicolao scultore, e Ghelmo fo lo auctore." These are evidently the same Guglielmo and Nicolao who sculptured Lanfranco's front at Modena. Guglielmo was the leading man, and made the design (_auctore_); Nicolaus chiefly executed it. But these two were not the only Comacines employed at Ferrara; a MS. copy of an ancient inscription on some old reliefs in the front of the church of St. George, records the names of Meo and Antonio of Como. "Da Meo di Checco, e da Antonio di Frix. da Como."[147] [Illustration: FAÇADE OF FERRARA CATHEDRAL, 12TH CENTURY. _See page 198._] Before the middle of the thirteenth century, Padua had become the shrine of a miraculous saint. St. Anthony had come over from Lisbon in 1220, and founded at Padua a new order of monks, called _Minori Conventuali_, under similar rules to the Franciscans. St. Anthony attracted great crowds of people by his preaching and miracles, and at his death in 1231 he was canonized, and his devotees desired to build a beautiful church over his tomb. The first attempt failed from not having means to pay a good architect, or competent builders, and in 1265 the commune set to work to remedy their mistake. They assigned four thousand lire a year to the re-edification, until such time as the church should be completed. By 1307 all was complete except the cupola, which was added a century later. Vasari attributes the design to Niccolò Pisano; but his able commentator, Milanesi, who lived all his life studying archives, asserts that neither document, inscription, nor tradition remain to prove Niccolò's connection with Padua, while the style of the building is utterly unlike the edifices known to be his. Some documents in the archives of Padua, unearthed by Padre Gonzali, prove that in 1263, on May 11, there were working in the church as builders, Egidio, son of Magister Gracii; Ubertino, son of Lanfranco; Niccola, son of Giovanni; and Pergandi, son of Ugone of Mantua; and that, in 1264, a Zambono of Como and a Benedetto of Verona, who lived in the district of Rovina, are recorded as builders. There is no record of the architect who designed the church; but judging from the Moorish innovations of style it was very probably either planned by the monks, or designed by them. St. Anthony was a Portuguese. On his way here he would have passed through Spain, and may have been attracted by the Moorish architecture. He may have even brought a drawing or two of some many-domed building, and have given them to the Lombard architects to work from. Probably some of his monks were--like many Franciscans and Dominicans--members of the Guild of Freemasons, and so trained in the science of architecture.