the year of Christ 1013, begun on the 26th day of April, by the commandment and authority of the Catholic and holy Emperor, Henry II of Bavaria, and of his wife, the holy Empress Gunegonda, which was reigning in those times; and they presented and endowed the said church with many rich possessions in Florence and in the country, for the good of their souls, and caused the said church to be repaired and rebuilt of marble, as it is now.  And they caused the body of the blessed Miniato to be translated to the altar, which is beneath the vaulting of the said church, with much reverence and solemnity, by the said bishop and the clergy of Florence, with all the people, both men and women of the city of Florence; but afterwards the said church was completed by the commonwealth of Florence, and the stone steps were made which lead down by the hill; and the consuls of the Art of the Calimala were put in charge of the said work of S. Miniato, and were to protect it.”

Thus far Villani:  to-day S. Miniato, the church, and the great palace built in 1234 by Andrea Mozzi, Bishop of Florence, come to us with memories, not of S. Miniato alone, that somewhat shadowy martyr of so long ago, but of S. Giovanni Gualberto also, of the Benedictines too, and of the Olivetans, of the siege of 1529, when Michelangelo fortified the place in defence of Florence, saving the tower from destruction, as it is said, by swathing it in mattresses; of Cosimo I, who from here held the city in leash.  It is the most beautiful of the Tuscan-Romanesque churches left to us in Florence; built in 1013 in the form of a basilica, with a great nave and two aisles, the choir being raised high above the rest of the church on twenty-eight beautiful red ancient pillars, over a crypt where, under the altar, S. Miniato sleeps through the centuries.  The fading frescoes of the aisles, the splendour and quiet of this great and beautiful church that has guarded Florence almost from the beginning, that has seen Buondelmonte die at the foot of the Statue of Mars, that has heard the voice of Dante and watched the flight of Corso Donati, have a peculiar fascination, almost ghostly in their strangeness, beyond anything else to be found in the city.  And if for the most part the church is so ancient as to rival the Baptistery itself, the Renaissance has left there more than one beautiful thing.  For between the two flights of steps that lead out of the nave into the choir, Michelozzo built in 1448, for Piero de’ Medici a chapel to hold the crucifix, now in S. Trinita, which bowed to S. Giovanni Gualberto when he forgave his brother’s murderer,[114] and in the left aisle is the chapel, built in 1461 by Antonio Rossellino, where the young Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal lies in one of the loveliest of all Tuscan tombs, and there Luca della Robbia has placed some of his most charming terracottas, and Alessio Baldovinetti has painted in fresco.  In all Tuscany there is nothing more lovely than that tomb carved in 1467 by Antonio Rossellino for the