Talenti's office was no sinecure; we often find him disputing with other Masters. Indeed, the lodge greatly lacked unity. Disintegration was beginning. On August 5, 1353, the Provveditore, Filippo Marsili, writes—"I must get Neri di Fioravanti and Francesco Talenti to settle that dispute within fifteen days. They must choose an arbiter each, and may elect the third arbiter by joint consent." They chose Benozzi as mutual third. Again on October 4, 1353—"The Master who executes Francesco Talenti's design for the window must be paid his demands. When the work is done, have it valued, and the balance more or less to go to Francesco's account."
He seems also to have been an improvident sort of man. Here are two tell-tale entries in Filippo Marsili's memorandum book—"July 12, 1353. Advance him as soon as convenient the pay for four months. Take it out, by deducting half his salary weekly." Again in November the entry is—"Lend him what he wants."
In 1376 Francesco's son Simone became joint capo maestro with Benci Cione, Orcagna's father, at a salary of eight gold florins a month. Simone graduated also in the sculpture school, and executed a figure for the façade, for which he was paid thirteen florins on September 4, 1377. Zanobi Bartoli, also a Magister lapidum (sculptor), was at the same time paid twenty gold florins each for two marble figures, though he received only eighteen florins for his statue of the Archangel Michael in December of the same year.
Francesco's colleague, Giovanni di Lapo Ghino, is a good instance—one of many—of the hereditary nature of the guild. We first hear of Ghino at Siena in the thirteenth century. On February 7, 1332, his sons Simone and Jacopo, or Lapo di Ghino, sign a contract with Agostino and his son Giovanni of Siena, to build a chapel in the Pieve S. Maria at Arezzo—that of Bishop Tarlati, Bindo de' Vanni and his son Francesco, with two other Magistri, being witnesses.[255]
In 1362 a certain Ambrosius Ghino is named in a list of the lodge. He may have been a brother or nephew of Lapo. Then comes the third generation, and we find Giovanni, son of Lapo di Ghino, at Orvieto. He afterwards came to Florence, where he was elected capo maestro, at first in unison with Jacopo Talenti, and later by himself. In 1388 old Ghino's great-grandson, whose whole pedigree is given in the books as "Michele, Johannis, Lapi, Ghini," became in his turn capo maestro of the Duomo of Florence. His descendant, Antonio Ghino, also graduated in the Florentine Lodge, but he went back to Siena, where he appears as one of the Magistri employed there in 1472.
This family is only one of many hereditary Masonic brethren. The Cione family is another instance. The first Masters of the name appear in Florence on July 1355, as Ristoro and Benci Cione, two members attending the Council on Francesco Talenti's design for the chapels, but whether they were brothers or father and son I cannot tell; I presume brothers, or Benci would have been written down as Benci Ristori di Cione.[256] We have seen Benci Cione called to Siena as an arbiter. He was much occupied in Florence, where he worked at the building, or rather adaptation, of Or San Michele. He and Laurentius Filippi (Lorenzo, son of Filippo Talenti) were joint architects of the Loggia dei Lanzi, Lorenzo superintending the sculpture, and Cione the architecture. Lorenzo has set the sign of the guild on the base of his columns by surrounding them with small pillars on which lions are crouching; the proportions and ornamentation of the building are beautiful. Orcagna has always been credited as the architect of this Loggia, but he is here proved not to be the original designer, though he probably worked with his father.
Orcagna's name, Andrea di Cione, first appears in the great Council with monks and Magistri, held on June 18, 1357, to decide on the space which should be left between the columns of the Duomo.[257]
Andrea's nickname of Orcagna, a corruption of Arcangelo (Archangel), has clung to him through centuries, and over-shadowed his real patronymic of Cione. The relation between him and Benci di Cione remains rather obscure. Orcagna has also had the credit of building the church of Or San Michele. Probably writers confuse Orcagna, or Andrea di Cione, the sculptor of the beautiful shrine in that church, which is his masterpiece, with the Benci di Cione who was architect of the building. From the close connection of the two in the guild, and from Orcagna having worked so much with Benci, I think it probable they were father and son. Milanesi is rather uncertain about the father of Orcagna, and in the genealogical table at the end of his life he writes him as Cione with a note of interrogation, and no Christian name, which may well have been Benci.
