supported.

So profound were his researches that he was called the treasure-hunter
by those who saw him coming and going through the streets of Rome, a
title so far justified that he is said in one instance to have actually
found an ancient earthenware jar full of old coins. While engaged in
these studies, his money failing him, he worked for a jeweller according
to the robust practise of the time, and after making ornaments and
setting gems all day, set to work on his buildings, round and square,
octagons, basilicas, arches, colosseums, and amphitheaters, perfecting
himself in the principles of his art.

In 1407 he returned to Florence, and then there began a series of
negotiations between the artist and the city, to which there seemed at
first as if no end could come. They met, and met again, assemblies of
architects, of city authorities, of competitors less hopeful and less
eager than himself. His whole heart, it is evident, was set upon the
business. Hearing Donatello at one of these assemblies mention the
cathedral at Orvieto, which he had visited on his way from Rome,
Filippo, having his mantle and his hood on, without saying a word to
anyone, set straight off from the Piazza on foot, and got as far as
Cortona, from whence he returned with various pen-and-ink drawings
before Donato or any one else had found out that he was away.

Thus the small, keen, determined, ugly artist, swift and sudden as
lightning, struck through all the hesitations, the consultations, the
maunderings, the doubts, and the delays of the two authorities who had
the matter in hand, the Signoria and the Operai, as who should say the
working committee, and who made a hundred difficulties and shook their
wise heads, and considered one foolish and futile plan after another
with true burgher hesitation and wariness.

At last, in 1420, an assembly of competitors was held in Florence, and a
great many plans put forth, one of which was to support the proposed
vault by a great central pillar, while another advised that the space to
be covered should be filled with soil mixed with money, upon which the
dome might be built, and which the people would gladly remove without
expense afterward for the sake of the farthings! An expedient most droll
in its simplicity. Brunelleschi, impatient of so much folly, went off to
Rome, it is said, in the middle of these discussions, disgusted by the
absurd ignorance which was thus put in competition with his care