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The architect of this strange and secular building, more like a palace than a church, is unknown. Vasari, as I have said, speaks of Taddeo Gaddi; others again have thought it the work of Orcagna himself; while Francesco Talenti and his son Simone are said to have worked on it. The question is to a large extent a matter of indifference.
Giotto died in 1386, and after his death, as I have said, Andrea Pisano came in for a while; to be followed by Talenti, who is said to have made considerable alterations in Giotto's design and to be responsible for the happy idea of increasing the height of the windows with the height of the tower and thus adding to the illusion of springing lightness.
Rumours of the disaffection of the Milanese and of the perils which threatened his ally had reached Maximilian's ears at Worms, and on the 18th of June he sent Lodovico a grave warning by his envoy, Angelo Talenti, begging the duke to place German troops in the fortress of Lombardy, and to provide guards for the castles of Milan and Como, "in order that he may be able to sleep in peace."
He was seated on a daïs, draped with cloth of gold, with the Duke of Milan on his right hand, and the Cardinal di Santa Croce on his left. The ambassadors of Naples and Spain were also present, as well as the Count of Caiazzo, the Marchesino Stanga, Don Angelo de' Talenti, the Bishops of Como and Piacenza, the secretary de' Negri, and other well-known Milanese courtiers.
Four experienced councillors, Count Girolamo Tuttavilla, Galeazzo Visconti, Angelo Talenti, and Pietro Landriano, were chosen to accompany her, and an elaborate paper of secret directions was drawn up by Lodovico himself, dated the 10th of May. On the same day a still more important paper of instructions was delivered by the Moro to Erasmo Brasca, the envoy whom he sent that week to Germany.
He, too, died in 1348 before the tower was finished. Francesco Talenti was next called in, again to superintend both buildings, and not only to superintend but to extend the plans of the cathedral. Arnolfo and Giotto had both worked upon a smaller scale; Talenti determined the present floor dimensions.
The S. Maria Novella architects were brothers of the order, but Talenti, whom we saw at work both on Giotto's tower and on San Michele, built the campanile, and Leon Battista Alberti the marble façade, many years later.
And then has he not built as only a painter could have done, in white and rose and green? He died too soon to see the fairest of his dreams, and it is really to two other artists Taddeo Gaddi and Francesco Talenti that the actual work, after the first five storeys those windows, for instance, that add so much to the beauty of the tower is owing. By Nanni di Banco. Duomo, Florence
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