Now we know the state of the building as it stood in this fourteenth century, we realize that it was not left for centuries without a dome. The old chronicler Buoninsegni, in his Storia Florentina, lib. iv. p. 642, says—"A di venti di giugno 1380 si cominciarono a riempire et murare i fondamenti della cupola di S. Maria del Fiore." Up till this time the nave only seems to have been built.
On August 7 a meeting of Magistri was called to consult on the foundation for the cupola, and on November 12, 1380, there is a long document commissioning "Bartolommeus Stefani, Johannes Mercati, and Leonardus Cecchii, Magistri Florentini," to build the pilasters to support the dome, which are to be of good stone and cement, and the builders are cautioned not to work in times of frost or snow, etc. etc. These pilasters caused much anxiety in the guild; in 1384 constant meetings were held about them. The Masters were afraid the foundations of the one towards Via dei Servi were not firm; day after day in July 1384 they met in scores to examine and report on it. Then they called in the consuls of the Art of Wool, the Operai, and all the chief men of the city; and everybody, excepting a certain Messer Biagio Guasconi (who after all was not an architect), agreed that the foundation of the pilaster was perfectly safe. However, good Messer Biagio still held his own opinion and refused to sign approval.
From the steady way in which the work went on, it is certainly possible and probable that there would in the natural course of the work have been a dome to the cathedral even without Filippo Brunelleschi. It was in the original plan, and the foundations and pilasters were placed in readiness for it. There was much talk of the difficulty of placing the framework of the scaffolding for it, but there seems to have been no doubt that it would be accomplished. In fact numbers of the Masters sent in plans for it at different times.
The first time that Brunellesco appears in the records is at a meeting of consuls, Opera, and Masters, convened on November 10, 1404, to consider a certain error in measurement committed by the capo maestro, Giovanni di Ambrogio. The question turned on the placing of the (sprone) brackets on the façade which interfered with the windows.
It does not seem that Brunellesco belonged to the brotherhood. He is merely mentioned as Filippo the goldworker, son of the notary Brunelleschi (Filippus ser Brunelleschi aurifex). In no place, either here or elsewhere, is he ever called Magister, and throughout his life his every action was a protest against what he called "the Maestranze" a term of contempt like "their Master-ships," which Brunelleschi applied to the Arte dei Maestri. He had matriculated in 1398, when twenty-one years old, in the Arte della Seta, but as his tastes were strongly artistic, and he refused to follow his father's profession of lawyer, he enrolled himself in 1404 in the Arte degli Orafi (goldsmiths), in which so many painters were already eminent. The goldsmiths or metal-sculptors, who seem to have seceded from the Freemasons, were still in some measure colleagues of the Masonic Guild, and their members were often called to vote or advise in the councils of the Opera.
Thus we find Brunellesco as one of the orafi called into council about the construction of the brackets. He appears to have held office as councillor in the Opera for a year till 1405, when he was paid off. He was probably one of the Operai on the part of the city.
When in the famous competition of 1402 Brunellesco lost the commission for the doors of the Baptistery, he left Florence in dudgeon, and with his friend Donatello went to Rome. His studies of the methods of the ancient Romans in making their great domes, suggested to him a way of vindicating his amour propre by defeating the whole guild of "Masters" on their own ground. He had made architecture a special study, and now thoroughly investigated the classic methods. He got to the roof of the Pantheon, and made studies of the stone-work in the ribs of the cupola, investigated the foundations, the supports, etc., and came back to Florence, where he let drop mysterious hints among the influential members of his own trade company, and in the studios of one or two artists, that even if the "maestranze were to call their Masters from France or Germany, and all parts of the world, none of them would be able to make a dome equal to the one he could make." The Masters of the laborerium at length heard of these assertions, and called on him to show his plans, which he declined to do.
Then the Opera, on August 19, 1418, announced a competition. Any artist whatsoever who had made a model of the projected cupola was to produce it, before the end of September, the model accepted to have a prize of 200 gold florins. The date of decision was prolonged to October, and then to December, when a number of models were sent in, the competitors being Magister Giovanni di Ambrogio, C.M. of the laborerium, Manno di Benincasa, Matteo di Leonardo, Vito da Pisa, Lorenzo Ghiberti, all Magistri of the Masonic Guild; Piero d'Antonio, nicknamed Fannulla (do nothing), Piero di Santa Maria in Monte, masters in wood. There were several models by members of the civic company, the Arte dei Scarpellini (stone-cutters); and last, not least, a model in brick and mortar without scaffolding, made by Brunellesco, Donatello, and Nanni di Banco,[260] so he was obliged after all to show his design. This last won the prize, but the Arte dei Maestri had not evidently faith enough in one outside their ranks to commence at once with the building. In Signor Cesare Guasti's collection of archivial documents regarding the building of the Duomo, we find that from October to December 23, 1418, several of the Masters, including Magistro Aliosso, Mag. Andrea Berti Martignoni, Mag. Paolo Bonaiuti, Cristofero di Simoni, and Giovanni Tuccio, were receiving payment for building a model in masonry of Brunellesco's plan for the cupola. I do not find that Brunellesco himself was employed in this, the only payment to him being "50 lib. 15 soldi" for his work on the lantern of the model, between July 11 and August 12, 1419; proving that he put the finishing touch, but that the Masters of the guild themselves tested his design for the great dome before finally adopting it. This brick model, which was built on the Piazza del Duomo, remained there till 1430, when the Opera ordered its destruction. Guasti[261] gives in full this order, which is dated January 23, 1430, and is in the usual low Latin of contemporary documents. When the model was finished, the Magistri of the guild assembled on May 14, 1421, to hold council on it. There are entries of expenses for a breakfast to the Masters, and for torch-bearers to accompany them on their internal investigations. We find the same ceremony of refreshment to the Magistri who visited the works of the real cupola in 1424, when six flasks of Trebbiano (the best Tuscan wine) with fruit and bread were provided. In 1420 Brunellesco was definitely commissioned to superintend the cupola, but even then the Magistri could not admit an outsider to full Masonic privileges. He was not named caput magister, as one of the guild would have been, but he and Ghiberti (whose model had been next best) were named provisori of the dome, while the Magister Baptista di Antonio was caput magister proper of the lodge. The terms of the contract were that "the provisori were to superintend the works, providing, ordering, building, and causing to build, the cupola from beginning to end, etc. etc."
At first both Ghiberti and Brunellesco drew three florins a month. The head Magister, Baptista, had the usual salary of the guild as head master.
The story of Brunellesco's restiveness at his old rival Ghiberti being associated with him in carrying out a design peculiarly his own, and how he tried to throw scorn on him, by locking up his plans and feigning illness, thus leaving Ghiberti to work in the dark, is too well known to need repetition here.[262] Perkins[263] is very hard on Ghiberti's ignorance, which, he asserts, was so great that he was obliged to resign because he could not do the work. But there are two sides to every question. How could a man carry out a work designed and begun by another without seeing his plans? Besides, Ghiberti's resignation, or rather relinquishment of his work at the cupola just then, was, I believe, due to the fact that he had a few months before received a commission for the second bronze gates of the Baptistery, and wanted his time free for them. This commission is dated January 2, 1425. His salary as provisore of the cupola ceased for a few months from June 28, 1425. The dates speak for themselves. He still, however, held office, or returned to it with partial pay, for in 1428 we find a decree of the Opera which raises the salary of Brunellesco to 100 gold florins a year, while Ghiberti only draws his usual three florins a month. But even then not an order is ever given in Brunellesco's own name; every document and every receipt was signed by Baptista d'Antonio, caput magister, and Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, provisore.