Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/460

446 not until our own days, that, even a fragment was executed on a part of one of the eight sides, (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, 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. 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-