richly adorned with marble and mosaic which permits the tomb to be seen. On one side of the building were erected two sacristies and a lofty campanile, five times as high as it is broad. Above it there was originally a lofty spire of eight sides, but it was removed because it threatened to fall down. The work was brought to a conclusion in the space of four years and no more by the ability of Master Jacopo the German, and by the industry of friar Elias. After the friar's death twelve strong towers were erected about the lower church in order that the vast erection should never be destroyed; in each of these is a spiral staircase ascending from the ground to the summit. In the course of time, moreover, several chapels were added and other rich ornaments, of which it is not necessary to speak further, as enough has been said about the matter for the present, especially as it is in the power of every one to see how much that is useful, ornamental, and beautiful has been added to this beginning of Master Jacopo, by popes, cardinals, princes, and many other great persons of all Europe. And now to return to Master Jacopo. By means of this work he acquired such renown throughout Italy that he was invited to Florence by the government of the city, and was afterwards received there with the utmost goodwill. But the Florentines, in accordance with a custom of abbreviating names which they practised then as they do now, called him not Jacopo, but Lapo, all his life, for he settled permanently in that city with all his family. And although at divers times he went away to erect a number of buildings in Tuscany his residence was always at Florence. As examples of such buildings I may cite the palace of the Poppi at Casentino which he built for the count there, who had married the beautiful Gualdrada, with the Casentino as her dower; the Vescovado for the Aretines, and the Palazzo Vecchio of the lords of Pietramela. It was at Florence that he laid the piles of the ponte alla Carraia, then called the ponte Nuovo, in 1218, and finished them in two years. A short while afterwards it was completed in wood, as was then the custom. In the year 1221 he prepared plans for the church of S. Salvadore del Vescovado which was begun under his direction, as was the church of S. Michele on the piazza Padella where there are some sculptures in the style of those days. He next designed a system of drainage for the city, raised the piazza S. Giovanni, and in the time of M. Rubaconte da Mandella of Milan, constructed the bridge which still bears his name. It was he who discovered the useful method of paving the streets with stone, when they had previously been paved only with bricks. He designed the existing Podesta palace, which was originally built for the _amziani_, and finally, after he had designed the tomb of the Emperor Frederick for the abbey of Monreale in Sicily, by the order of Manfred, he died, leaving Arnolfo, his son, heir to his ability, no