whose work perfection of design, delicacy of execution, rich invention, knowledge of art, and •well-finished figures, were all combined. Nor was the story of Filippo greatly inferior to that of Lorenzo: the subject was Abraham proceeding to sacrifice Isaac, and among the figures was that of a servant, who, whilst he is awaiting his master, with the ass feeding beside him, is drawing a thorn from his foot. This figure merits considerable praise.
All these stories having been exhibited together, and Filippo and Donato not being satisfied with any, except that of Lorenzo, they judged him to be better adapted to execute the work than themselves or the masters who had produced the other stories. They consequently persuaded the syndics, by the good reasons which they assigned, to adjudge the work to Lorenzo, showing that the public and private benefit would be thus most effectually secured. Now this was, in truth, the sincere rectitude of friendship; it was talent without envy, and uprightness of judgment in a decision respecting themselves, by which these artists were more highly honoured than they could have been by conducting the work to the utmost summit of perfection.[1] Happy spirits! who, while aiding each other, took pleasure in commending the labours of their competitors. How unhappy, on the contrary, are the artists of our day, labouring to injure each other, yet still unsatisfied, they burst with envy while seeking to wound others. Filippo was requested by the superintendants to undertake the work, in concert with Lorenzo, but he would not consent to this, desiring rather to be the first in some other art, than merely an equal, and perhaps secondary, in that undertaking.[2] Wherefore he gave the story in bronze, which he had prepared, to Cosirno de’ Medici, who caused it at a sub-
- ↑ “A rare thing indeed, and perhaps unique in all times wherein artists have existed”, has here been written on the margin, in large capitals, by an early annotator. — Masselli.
- ↑ The anonymous biographer, partial to Brunellesco, places his specimen above that of Lorenzo, and affirms the former artist to have yielded to the latter, not from the conviction of his own inferiority, but from anger against the Syndics, for their wish to give the work to him in concert with Lorenzo, when he (Filippo) was desirous of undertaking the whole. But Ghiberti himself relates the fact, in his manuscript, as Vasari gives it, and adds.— “The palm of victory was yielded to me by all these experienced judges, and by all those who had competed with me.”—Ibid.
