much security as they would have done on the ground beneath, drawing up all the requisite weights and standing themselves in perfect safety.  The models of these scaffolds were deposited in the hall of the wardens.  Lorenzo executed the chain-work on one of the eight walls with the utmost difficulty, and when it was finished the wardens caused Filippo to look at it.  He said nothing to them, but with some of his friends he held discourse on the subject, declaring that the building required a very different work of ligature and security to that one, laid in a manner altogether unlike the method there adopted; for that this would not suffice to support the weight which was to be laid on it, the pressure not being of sufficient strength and firmness.  He added that the sums paid to Lorenzo, with the chain-work which he had caused to be constructed, were so much labor, time, and money thrown away.  The remarks of Filippo became known, and he was called upon to show the manner that ought to be adopted for the construction of such a chain-work; wherefore, having already prepared his designs and models, he exhibited them immediately, and they were no sooner examined by the wardens and other masters, than they perceived the error into which they had fallen by favoring Lorenzo.  For this they now resolved to make amends; and desiring to prove that they were capable of distinguishing merit, they made Filippo chief and superintendent of the whole fabric for life, commanding that nothing should be done in the work but as he should direct.  As a further mark of approbation, they presented him moreover with a hundred florins, ordered by the syndics and wardens, under date of August 13, 1423, through Lorenzo Paoli, notary of the administration of the works, and signed by Gherardo di Messer Filippo Corsini:  they also voted him an allowance of one hundred florins for life.  Whereupon, having taken measures for the future progress of the fabric, Filippo conducted the works with so much solicitude and such minute attention, that there was not a stone placed in the building which he had not examined.  Lorenzo on the other hand, finding himself vanquished and in a manner disgraced, was nevertheless so powerfully assisted and favored by his friends, that he continued to receive his salary, under the pretext that he could not be dismissed until the expiration of three years from that time.[4]

“Drawings and models were meanwhile continually prepared by Filippo for the most minute portions of the building, for the stages or scaffolds for the workmen, and for the machines used in raising the materials.  There were nevertheless several malicious persons, friends of Lorenzo, who did not cease to torment him by daily bringing forward models in rivalry of those constructed by him, insomuch that one was made by Maestro Antonio da Verzelli, and other masters who were favored and brought into notice—­now by one citizen and now by another, their fickleness and mutability betraying the insufficiency of their knowledge and the weakness of their judgment, since having perfection within their reach, they perpetually brought forward the imperfect and useless.