patronage Until 1237 the meeting place of the Arte di Calimala was in the ground floor of one of the tower houses of the Cavalcanti facing the Mercato Nuovo. Then at the end of the century a new palazzo was built in via Calimaruzza. The facade still bears the guild's insignia of the gilded eagle. Here the guild members met weekly to discuss and regulate their closely guarded and exclusive activities, placing all business contention before the council, with the resoundingly Roman name of the Collegio dei Consoli. The Consoli were required to be at least thirty years of age, to be Florentine by birth, needless to say, and to subscribe, in the civic politics, to the Guelph partisans. The guild supported its members, backed their credit in the city and abroad, provided an annuity to aged members and those of long standing, and cared for their widows and children. At its own expense the corporation maintained an armed night guard protecting the shops and warehouses, and interceded with innkeepers for the lodging of their foreign clients, a service that kept these stranieri under the Calimala'''s watchful eye. The Consuls of the Arte di Calimala were entrusted with maintaining the Baptistery of San Giovanni by the mid-twelfth century, according to Giovanni Villani; thus it was the Calimali that commissioned from Lorenzo Ghiberti the gilded bronze doors called the "Gates of Paradise" and the bronze statue of their patron, John the Baptist, for a niche at Orsanmichele. The Calimala held also the patronage over San Miniato al Monte and several hospitals. Demise The Arte di Calimala, for generations reduced to little more than a confraternity, was finally suppressed in 1770 by the enlightened despot Pietro Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who instituted in its stead a modern chamber of commerce, the Camera di Comercio'', which lay more directly under his guidance. Notes Guilds of Florence Cloth merchants