not until our own days, that, even a fragment was executed on a part of one of the eight sides,[1] (to the end that the building might be completed,) but as it was not in accordance with the plan of Filippo, it was removed by the advice of Michelagnolo Buonarotti,[2] and was not again attempted.
Filippo also constructed a model for the lanthorn, with his own hand; it had eight sides, the proportions were in harmony with those of the Cupola, and for the invention as well as variety and decoration, it was certainly very beautiful. He did not omit the stair-case for ascending to the ball, which was an admirable thing; but as he had closed the entrance with a morsel of wood fixed at the lower part, no one but himself knew its position. Filippo was now highly renowned, but notwithstanding this, and although he had already overcome the envy and abated the arrogance of so many opponents, he could not yet escape the vexation of finding that all the masters of Florence, when his model had been seen, were setting themselves to make others in various manners; nay, there was even a lady of the Gaddi family, who ventured to place her knowledge in competition with that of Filippo.[3] The latter, meanwhile, could not refrain from laughing at the presumption of these people, and when he was told by certain of his friends that he ought not to show his model to any artist lest they should learn from it, he replied that there was but one true model, and that the others were good for nothing. Some of the other masters had used parts of Fi-
- ↑ On the south-east, and opposite to the Guadagni (now Ricardi) palace. The design was by Baccio d’Agnolo, and the work was executed in Carrara marble.—Schorn. See also Masselli.
- ↑ Who, returning from Rome, made a great outcry respecting this gallery, which was in the style of a portico, and which he called a flycage, “gabbia da grillo” (more literally, perhaps, a cage for crickets). “Grillo” is also a whim; and such indeed it may well have appeared to him, comparing it, as he did, with the magnificent ornament by which the drum of the great Cupola of the Vatican is enriched
- ↑ Five artists presented models for the lanthorn—Lorenzo Ghiberti, Antonio Manetti (respecting whom see Gaye, Carteggio Inedito, etc., i, 167, et seg.), Bruno di Ser Lapo Mazzei, Domenico Stagnaio, and finally Filippo Brunelleschi. We are indebted for these notices to the author of the Descrizione della Cattedrale di Prato, Prato, 1846.
neath the drum, and two of machines for raising weights. There is, besides, one small but well-preserved model of the lanthorn; but it cannot be that of Brunellesco, since it wants the staircase formed within the pillar, with all that would serve to show the internal construction.
