thing short of the greatest marvels can be looked
for from them, for the reason that they strive to embellish the ugliness
of the body with the beauty of the intellect; as it is clearly seen in
Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, who was no less insignificant in person than
Messer Forese da Rabatta and Giotto, but so lofty in intellect that it
can be truly said that he was sent to us by Heaven in order to give new
form to architecture, which had been out of mind for hundreds of years;
for the men of those times had spent much treasure to no purpose, making
buildings without order, with bad method, with sorry design, with most
strange inventions, with most ungraceful grace, and with even worse
ornament. And Heaven ordained, since the earth had been for so many
years without any supreme mind or divine spirit, that Filippo should
bequeath to the world the greatest, the most lofty, and the most
beautiful building that was ever made in modern times, or even in those
of the ancients, proving that the talent of the Tuscan craftsmen,
although lost, was not therefore dead. Heaven adorned him, moreover,
with the best virtues, among which was that of kindliness, so that no
man was ever more benign or more amiable than he. In judgment he was
free from passion, and when he saw worth and merit in others he would
sacrifice his own advantage and the interest of his friends. He knew
himself, he shared the benefit of his own talent with many, and he was
ever succouring his neighbour in his necessities. He declared himself a
capital enemy of vice, and a friend of those who practised virtue. He
never spent his time uselessly, but would labour to meet the needs of
others, either by himself or by the agency of other men; and he would
visit his friends on foot and ever succour them.

It is said that there was in Florence a man of very good repute, most
praiseworthy in his way of life and active in his business, whose name
was Ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi, who had had a grandfather called
Cambio, who was a learned person and the son of a physician very famous
in those times, named Maestro Ventura Bacherini. Now Ser Brunellesco,
taking to wife a most excellent young woman from the noble family of the
Spini, received, as part payment of her dowry, a house wherein he and
his sons dwelt to the day of their death. This house stands opposite to
one side of S. Michele Berteldi, in a close past the Piazza degli Agli.
The while that he was occupying himself th