The name was the Company of the Brothers of Mercy.

That was in 1240 to 1250.

To-day no Florentine is too grand to take his part, and at the head of the porter's band of brethren is the King.
Passing along the Via Calzaioli we come on the right to a noble square building with statues in its niches--Or San Michele, which stands on the site of the chapel of San Michele in Orto.

San Michele in Orto, or more probably in Horreo (meaning either in the garden or in the granary), was once part of a loggia used as a corn market, in which was preserved a picture by Ugolino da Siena representing the Virgin, and this picture had the power of working miracles.

Early in the fourteenth century the loggia was burned down but the picture was saved (or quickly replaced), and a new building on a much larger and more splendid scale was made for it, none other than Or San Michele, the chief architect being Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's pupil and later the constructor of the Ponte Vecchio.