Piero Polani being then Doge, from the plans of several masters who were all Greeks, as I have said. Erected at the same time, and also in the Byzantine style, were the seven abbeys built in Tuscany by Count Hugh, Marquis of Brandenburg, such as the Badia of Florence, the abbey of Settimo, and the others. All these structures and the vestiges of others which are not standing bear witness to the fact that architecture maintained its footing though in a very bastard form far removed from the good antique style. Further evidence is afforded by a number of old palaces erected in Florence in Tuscan work after the destruction of Fiesole, but the measurements of the doors and the very elongated windows and the sharp-pointed arches after the manner of the foreign architects of the day, denote some amount of barbarism. In the year after 1013 the art appears to have received an access of vigour in the rebuilding of the beautiful church of S. Miniato on the Mount in the time of M. Alibrando, citizen and bishop of Florence, for, in addition to the marble ornamentation both within and without, the facade shows that the Tuscan architects were making efforts to imitate the good ancient order in the doors, windows, columns, arches and cornices, so far as they were able, having as a model the very ancient church of S. Giovanni in their city. At the same period, pictorial art, which had all but disappeared, seems to have made some progress, as is shown by a mosaic in the principal chapel of the same church of S. Miniato. From such beginnings design and a general improvement in the arts began to make headway in Tuscany, as in the year 1016 when the Pisans began to erect their Duomo. For in that time it was a considerable undertaking to build such a church, with its five aisles and almost entirely constructed of marble both inside and out. This church, built from the plans and under the direction of Buschetto, a clever Greek architect from Dulichium, was erected and adorned by the Pisans when at the zenith of their power with an endless quantity of spoils brought by sea from various distant parts, as the columns, bases, capitals, cornices and other stones there of every description, amply demonstrate. Now since all these things were of all sizes, great, medium, and small, Buschetto displayed great judgment in adapting them to their places, so that the whole building is excellently devised in every part, both within and without. Amongst other things he devised the facade, which is made up of a series of stages, gradually diminishing toward the top and consisting of a great number of columns, adorning it with other columns and antique statues. He carried out the principal doors of that facade in the same style, beside one of which, that of the Carroccio, he afterwards received honourable burial, with three epitaphs, one being in Latin verse, not unlike other things of the time: