rty-four
braccia in length.

The while that this edifice was building, Cosimo de' Medici determined
to have a palace made for himself, and therefore revealed his intention
to Filippo, who, putting aside every other care, made him a great and
very beautiful model for the said palace, which he wished to place
opposite to S. Lorenzo, on the Piazza, entirely isolated on every side.
In this the art of Filippo had achieved so much that Cosimo, thinking it
too sumptuous and great a fabric, refrained from putting it into
execution, more to avoid envy than by reason of the cost. While the
model was making, Filippo used to say that he thanked his fortune for
such an opportunity, seeing that he had such a house to build as he had
desired for many years, and because he had come across a man who had the
wish and the means to have it built. But, on learning afterwards the
determination of Cosimo not to put this project into execution, in
disdain he broke the design into a thousand pieces. Deeply did Cosimo
repent, after he had made that other palace, that he had not adopted the
design of Filippo; and this Cosimo was wont to say that he had never
spoken to a man of greater intelligence and spirit than Filippo. He also
made the model of the most bizarre Temple of the Angeli, for the family
of the Scolari; but it remained unfinished and in the condition wherein
it is now to be seen, because the Florentines spent the money which lay
in the Monte for this purpose on certain requirements of their city, or,
as some say, in the war that they waged formerly against the people of
Lucca, wherein they also spent the money that had been left in like
manner by Niccolo da Uzzano for building the Sapienza, as it has been
related at length in another place. And in truth, if this Temple of the
Angeli had been finished according to the model of Brunellesco, it would
have been one of the rarest things in Italy, for the reason that what is
seen of it cannot be sufficiently extolled. The drawings by the hand of
Filippo for the ground-plan and for the completion of this octagonal
temple are in our book, with other designs by the same man.

[Illustration: THE OLD SACRISTY OF S. LORENZO

(_After_ Filippo Brunelleschi. _Florence_)

_Alinari_]

Filippo also designed a rich and magnificent palace for Messer Luca
Pitti at a place called Ruciano, without the Porta a San Niccolo in
Florence, but this failed by a great measure to equal the one that he
began i