"September 26, 1353.—Operai: Simone, Migliorozzo, Francescho, Piero." (This time the head architect, Francesco Talenti, was in council.) "To elect a salaried lawyer. About a notary for citations. About the nine hundred and fifty lire which the Commune has of ours. To pay by the piece, rather than by the day. To send to Carrara (for marble). Put it off till All Saints' Day. Of the many documents we need.... To reason with the Regolatori.[248] To speak with the captains of the Misericordia about our many legacies.... Tell them to let us know when they meet. About the Wills. To discuss it with Ser Francescho Federigi (a notary). To find means to get ready money. Try and get a discount on the tax on assignments. About the wine for the Masters. Take it away entirely. About Francesco and the window ... to pay the Master who had the commission ... and when the work is done, have it valued, and the surplus, or the deficit, will be entered to Francesco" (head architect).
Truly it was no sinecure to be Provveditore for the guild of architects in those days. He must have had his hands full indeed! When the Masters were not satisfied with their pay, and a work had to be appraised, like this window, a special council was called, consisting of the Consuls of the Arte della Lana, who were the Presidents of the Opera, the members of the Opera, and all the Magistri of the laborerium. The Masters were then called on one by one to give an estimate of the work, and discuss its merits; a ratio was taken, and the medium price fixed.
The same kind of council was called to consider any designs. Generally, several of the Magistri sent in their designs, or models made of wood. These were discussed in council, and votes taken before the final commission was given. The report of one of these meetings, where each Master naïvely voted for his own design, is very amusing.
The Masters were strictly bound by contract to the laborerium. In some cases they were paid by the day. We find, on May 29, 1355, that the salaries of Masters were lessened by two soldi a day, and workmen by one soldo. Sometimes the Commune found them wine and rations; at others they were paid by the piece, by contract. On June 7, 1456, the Provveditore writes—"It is desired that on no account shall any Master go to work outside the Opera, without the deliberation and consent of all four Operai. If any absent himself without this permission, he shall be considered as discharged."
The schools attached to the laborerium must have been very complete. They trained pupils in the three sister arts—architecture, sculpture, and painting. One sees the remains of them in the Belle Arti at Florence, Siena, and other towns, and the Academy of St. Luke at Rome. Not all the Magistri were teachers, but there were certain of them who held office as Professors. Niccolò di Pisa was certainly one of these, and so were Cimabue and Magister Giotto.
This full art-education accounts for the artist of the Renaissance being such an all-round man. One finds a painter like Giotto, or a sculptor like Niccolò Pisano, building grand architectural works. Sometimes they graduated in all three arts, as did Landi, Giotto, and Leon Battista Alberti.
When they graduated in the schools, they became Magistri of the guild, and could then undertake commissions. Besides the Magistri fratelli, there were the undergraduates as it were; in old Latin documents they are written as fratres; below these were the novices or pupils. The workmen employed by them were quite unconnected with the guild, and were paid daily wages as manual labourers.
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.