e of the Consuls and of the Wardens, together with a
select body of the most ingenious citizens, to the end that these might
hear the mind of each master on the question and might decide on a
method of vaulting this tribune. Having called them, then, into the
audience, they heard the minds of all, one by one, and the plan that
each architect had devised for that work. And a fine thing it was to
hear their strange and diverse opinions about the matter, for the reason
that some said that piers must be built up from the level of the ground,
which should have the arches turned upon them and should uphold the
wooden bridges for sustaining the weight; others said that it was best
to make the cupola of sponge-stone, to the end that the weight might be
less; and many were agreed that a pier should be built in the centre,
and that the cupola should be raised in the shape of a pavilion, like
that of S. Giovanni in Florence. Nor were there wanting men who said
that it would have been a good thing to fill it with earth mingled with
small coins, to the end that, when it had been raised, anyone who wanted
some of that earth might be given leave to go and fetch it, and thus the
people would carry it away in a moment without any expense. Filippo
alone said that it could be raised without so much wood-work, without
piers, without earth, without so great expenditure on so many arches,
and very easily without any framework.
It appeared to the Consuls, who were expecting to hear of some beautiful
method, and to the Wardens of Works and to all those citizens, that
Filippo had talked like a fool; and deriding him with mocking laughter,
they turned away, bidding him talk of something else, seeing that this
was the plan of a madman, as he was. Whereupon Filippo, feeling himself
affronted, answered: "My Lords, rest assured that it is not possible to
raise the cupola in any other manner than this; and although you laugh
at me, you will recognize, unless you mean to be obstinate, that it
neither must nor can be done in any other way. And it is necessary, if
you wish to erect it in the way that I have thought of, that it should
be turned with the curve of a quarter-acute arch, and made double, one
vault within, and the other without, in such wise that a man may be able
to walk between the one and the other. And over the corners of the
angles of the eight sides the fabric must be bound together through its
thickness by dove-tailing the stones, and
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