Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/433

Rh be present at the disputations and preaching of learned men. From this practice he derived so much advantage, by help of his excellent memory, that the above-named Messer Paolo, alluding tohim, was accustomed to say that, to hear Filippo in argument, one might fancy oneself listening to a second Paul. At the same time he gave earnest study to the works of Dante, with whose description of localities, and their respective distances, he made himself very familiar, and frequently availed himself of them in his conversations, when he would cite them by way of comparison. Nor, indeed, were his thoughts ever occupied otherwise than in the consideration of ingenious and difficult enquiries; but he could never find any one who gave him so much satisfaction as did Donato, with whom he often held confidential discourse; these two artists found perpetual pleasure in the society of each other, and frequently conferred together on the difficulties of their art.

Now it happened in those days that Donato had completed a crucifix in wood, which was placed in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence, beneath the story of the girl restored to life by St. Francis, a picture painted by Taddeo Gaddi, and he desired to have the opinion of Filippo respecting his work; but he repented of having asked it, since Filippo replied that he had placed a clown on the cross. And from this time there arose, as is related at length in the life of Donato, the saying of “Take wood then, and make one thyself.” Thereupon Filippo, who never suffered himself to be irritated by anything said to him, however well calculated to provoke him to anger, kept silence for several months, meanwhile preparing a crucifix, also in wood, and of similar size with that of Donato, but of such excellence, so well designed, and so carefully executed, that when Donato, having been sent forward to his house by Filippo, who intended him a surprise, beheld the work (the undertaking of which by Filippo was entirely unknown to him), he was utterly confounded, and having in his hand an apron full of eggs and other things on which his friend and himself were to dine together, he suffered the whole to fall to the ground, while he regarded the work before him in the very extremity of amazement. The artistic and ingenious manner in which Filippo had disposed and united the legs, trunk, and arms of