FLORENCE.
50
in fire, and the people again closed round them. The flames had
caught the cords by which the arms of Savonarola were pinioned, and
the heat caused the hand to move ; so that, in the eyes of the faithful,
he seemed to raise his right hand in the midst of the mass of the flame
to bless the people who were burning him.’— Villari.
The Palazzo Vecchio della Signoria was built for the Gon¬
falonier and Priors, in whose hands was the government of
the Florentine Republic, by Arnolfo di Lapo. The architect
was restricted as to size and form, by the resolve of the then
powerful Guelfs, that no foot of ground should be used
which had ever been occupied by a Ghibelline building, and
to which one of that faction might put forward any possible
future claim. Arnolfo entreated to trespass upon the open
space where the palace of the traitor Überti had stood, but
the people absolutely refused— Where the traitor’s nest had
been, there the sacred foundations of the house of the
people should not be laid.’ The square battlements are
typical of the Guelfs; the forked battlements on the tower
were added later when the Ghibellines came into power.
To build the palace, part of an ancient church was de¬
molished, called San Piero Scheraggio, in which the Carroccio
of Fiesole, taken in 101o, was preserved, as well as a beau-
tiful marble pulpit, also brought from Fiesole, which still
exists in the church of S. Leonardo in Arcetri, outside the
Porta San Giorgio. The tower of the Vacca family was
used by Arnolfo as the substructure of his own tower, which
is 330 feet high. Its bell continued to bear the name of
•La Vacca, and when it tolled, men said, “La Vacca
mugghia’— the cow lows.' The Via de’ Leoni, on the
east of the Palace, commemorates the lions which were
kept by the city of Florence, partly in honour of William of
Scotland, who interceded with Charlemagne for the liberties
of the town ; and partly on account of the Marzocco, the
emblem of the city. These were maintained in an enclosure
called the Serraglio till 1550, when Cosimo I. removed
them to S. Marco, and they werę only finally discarded in
1777.