Jacopo, the inaugurator of Italian Gothic, spent all his later years in Florence, having left Colle many years before, when he had finished the castle there. Jacopo's work in Florence consisted of the building of the Bargello, which is a perfect specimen of the late Comacine style, built in modo gallico with large smoothly-hewn stones. The connection of the Masters of the guild with the south of Italy is shown here as well as at Pisa, for it is said that King Manfred commissioned Jacopo Tedesco to design the sepulchre of the Emperor Frederic in the abbey church of Monreale in Sicily. (Manfred died in 1266.)
Jacopo also introduced a reform into Florence. In the time when Messer Rubaconte of Como was Podestà of Florence (1236, 1237), his compatriot, Jacopo Tedesco of Campione, near Como, proposed to him that the streets should be paved with stones instead of bricks, to which Messer Rubaconte agreed, and the same method of paving still continues in Florence.
The second Lapo, Arnolfo's fellow-pupil, and perhaps brother, was the author of several buildings in the end of the thirteenth century, which Vasari falsely attributes to Jacopo the elder. He also continued Jacopo Tedesco's fortifications at Colle.[243]
Whether we look on Arnolfo as the son of Jacopo Tedesco, or only as the pupil of Niccolò Pisano, he was, either way, one of the guild; and more, a follower of Jacopo rather than of Niccolò, his bent being rather architectural than sculptural. We can, then, place Arnolfo as the first head of the laborerium of Florence; and in tracing the formation of this branch of the guild, we shall throw a light on all the former branches, which, from want of systematic documents, have remained as formless organizations of schola, laborerium, and Opera. After trying in vain to find something more explicit about these organizations at the National Library and State Archives, I consulted the director of the Opera del Duomo, who kindly saved me the work of long puzzling over old MSS., by lending me a copy of Cesare Guasti's valuable collection of abstracts from the books of the Opera, from the earliest days of Arnolfo to the completion of the cathedral.
Here the whole organization stands revealed. Here are the meetings of the lodge, and the subjects discussed; the names of the Magistri and Council of Administration from year to year; the payments to architects, artists, and men; the legal contracts and business reports.
It is clearly seen how the Opera is connected with the laborerium, and how the meetings are always composed of some civic members from the Council of Administration, and some from the working Masters of the lodge.
One, dated October 15, 1436, reports a meeting in the Opera del Duomo, at which the attendant Operai or councillors were Ugo Alessandri, Donato Velluti, Nicolo Caroli de Macignis, and Benedict Cicciaporci (pig's flesh); here's a nickname! They deliberated on the advisability of sending for a certain Francesco Livii de Gambasso, Comitatus Florentiæ, who was at Lubeck in Germany, to make the painted windows and mosaics. Francesco, when he came back to the city which he had known in his boyhood, and where he had learnt his art, bound himself to work in the laborerium of the Opera, "et in dicta civitate Florentiæ in Laboreriis dictæ Operæ toto tempore suæ vitæ eidem continuum, ac firmum inviamentum exhiberent, ita, et taliter, quod ipse una cum sua familia victum, et vestitum in præfata Civitate erogare posset."[244] This one document gives valuable proof on several points.
It proves that whether or not Italy got her architects from Germany, Italian Masters were employed in Germany.
It proves that there was a guild in Florence, "Comitatus Florentiæ," to which Francesco Livii belonged, and that there was a laborerium in Florence, in which Francesco, when a boy, had learned his art, and risen to the rank of Master. It proves, moreover, that the laborerium was connected with the Opera.
Another meeting of the same Opera on November 26, 1435, held to consider all the designs for the choir of the Duomo, marks this connection still more plainly.