[142] This Giambono or Giovanni Buono was, I believe, the founder of the Lodge at Pistoja, or at least Master of it in about 1260. His works in Tuscany are many and important, as will be seen when the Tuscan link is under consideration.
[143] "Anno itaque MXCIX ab incolis præfatæ urbis quæstum est ubi tanti operis designator, ubi talis structuræ edificator invenire posset: et tandem Dei gratia inventus est vir quidam nomine Lanfrancus mirabilis ædificator, cujus concilio indicatum est ejus basilicæ fundamentum."—From Muratori, quoted by Merzario, I Maestri Comacini, Vol. I. chap. iv. p. 168.
[144] See [chapter] headed "Troublous Times."
[145] This tower, which is almost as light and elegant as that of Giotto in Florence, became historically famous in the wars between Modena and Bologna in 1325, when the famous Secchia was hidden there—the subject of that curious heroi-comic poem La Secchia rapita.
[146] Calvi, Notizie sulla vita e sulle opere dei principali architetti, pittori e scultori, etc., vol. i. p. 39.
[147] Frix is an abbreviation of Frixones, a name we find two centuries later in an artist of the same guild, working at Milan cathedral, Marco da Frixone a Campione. Another Frix worked at Ferrara a century later.
[148] See [chapter] on "The Florentine Lodge."
[149] Artisti Lombardi del Secolo XV, di Micheli Caffi.
[150] I Maestri Comacini, Vol. I. chap. iv. p. 161.
[151] The silence of that learned St. Thomas was so proverbial that his fellow-students called him the "Bue muto" (the dumb bull). Apropos of this, Albertus Magnus made his famous witty prophecy—"Tomaso may be a dumb bull, but the day will come when his bellowing will be heard throughout the world."