h sculpture, and Donato related how, when
he was returning from Rome, he had made the journey through Orvieto, in
order to see that marble facade of the Duomo, a work greatly celebrated,
wrought by the hands of diverse masters and held to be something notable
in those times; and how, in passing afterwards by Cortona, he entered
the Pieve and saw a very beautiful ancient sarcophagus, whereon there
was a scene in marble--a rare thing then, when there had not been
unearthed that abundance which has been found in our own day. And as
Donato went on to describe the method that the master of that work had
used in its execution, and the finish that was to be seen therein,
together with the perfection and the excellence of the workmanship,
Filippo became fired with an ardent desire to see it, and went off on
foot just as he was, in his mantle, cap, and wooden shoes, without
saying where he was going, and allowed himself to be carried to Cortona
by the devotion and love that he bore to art. And having seen the
sarcophagus, and being pleased with it, he made a drawing of it with the
pen, and returned with that to Florence, without Donato or any other
person knowing that he had been away, for they thought he must have been
drawing or inventing something.

Having thus returned to Florence, he showed him the drawing of the
sarcophagus, which he had made with great patience, whereat Donato
marvelled not a little, seeing how much love Filippo bore to art. After
this he stayed many months in Florence, where he kept making models and
machines in secret, all for the work of the cupola, exchanging jokes the
while with his fellow-craftsmen--for it was then that he played the jest
of "the Fat Man and Matteo"--and going very often, for recreation, to
assist Lorenzo Ghiberti in polishing some part of his doors. But hearing
that there was some talk of providing engineers for the raising of the
cupola, and being taken one morning with the idea of returning to Rome,
he went there, thinking that he would be in greater repute and would be
more sought for from abroad than he would be if he stayed in Florence.
When he was in Rome, therefore, the work came to be considered, and so,
too, the great acuteness of his intellect, for he had shown in his
discourse such confidence and such courage as had not been found in the
other masters, who, together with the builders, were standing paralyzed
and helpless, thinking that no way of raising the cupola could e