The light thus thrown on the organization of the Masonic Guild by the valuable collection of documents made by Cesare Guasti, seems to me to explain much that was puzzling in the Florentine city guilds. For instance, why, among all the _Arti_, is there none which includes architects, sculptors, or painters? It would have been supposed that in the early days of the republic, when the Commune spent its wealth and enthusiasm on erecting great and noble buildings, architecture would certainly have ranked among the greater _Arti_, even in competition with the wool-combers and silk-weavers. But there was no such civic guild. There was a minor one for masons and stone-cutters, but it was established later for workmen and mere house-builders, and had nothing to do with great architects or master sculptors; while painters who wished to be members of the Commune and have any hand in the government, had to enroll themselves in the Goldsmith Guild, or the "Arte degli speziali" (doctors and apothecaries). The existence of this Freemasonic Guild would explain this hiatus in the greater arts. While such a powerful and self-governing body existed, which had evidently the monopoly for Italy in the art of church-building, a mere city guild would never have been able to compete with it, and would have been superfluous. That it really held the monopoly is more than probable. We have traced the Comacines through each gradation, have seen the successive schools and branches started by them in each place where they had great works in hand. The Buoni family at Modena going on to the south of Italy and then to Pistoja, founded that school. The Campione branch at Verona and Parma hence passed to Assisi and Florence. The Lucca school of Lombard Masters spread to Pisa and gathered into it native talent. The later gathering of Lombards and Pisans at Siena thence moved to Orvieto, and sent a branch to Florence in the persons of Jacopo Tedesco and Arnolfo. There taking root it grew into the goodly flower of the Renaissance. And after efflorescence,--decay; the old organization, by degrees, dissolved in the greater freedom of art. Each Master aimed to stand alone on his own merits, and was no longer necessarily enrolled as one in a guild. A great many things besides are revealed to us by Guasti's collection of documents. We find that Arnolfo died in 1310; Vasari read it wrongly as 1300, so that Arnolfo would only have worked a year or two at his Duomo. The correct entry in the archives is--"IIII idus (martii) Quiescit magister Arnolfus de l'opera di Santa Reparata MCCCX."[249] It is a strange coincidence that the death registered before Arnolfo in the Necrology should be a man named Cambio, a locksmith, but he seems to have no connection with Arnolfo, whose parentage as usual is not indicated.