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It was not until 1419 that Brunelleschi's persistence and belief in his own powers satisfied the controllers of the cathedral works that he might perhaps be as good as his word and was the right man to build the dome; but at last he was able to begin.
Ghirlandajo was lavish in his employment of rich Florentine costumes and architecture. He even made the legends of the saints and the histories of the Bible appear as if they had happened under the shadow of Brunelleschi's duomo and Giotto's campanile, and within sound of the flow of the Arno. In the peculiar colouring used in fresco painting Ghirlandajo excelled.
He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned To Brunelleschi's church. And after tea there was the bridge of Trinita from which to watch the sunsets turning the Arno to pure gold while the moon and the evening-star hung aloft. It was a life of retirement and of quiet work.
They enable us to infer that the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo may have been walled and roofed in before the end of April 1524; for, in an undated letter to Pope Clement, Michelangelo says that Stefano has finished the lantern, and that it is universally admired. With regard to this lantern, folk told him that he would make it better than Brunelleschi's. "Different perhaps, but better, no!" he answered.
To pass from Michelangelo's sacristy to this is an error; see it, if see it you must, first. While the façade of S. Lorenzo is still neglected and the cornice of Brunelleschi's dome is still unfinished, this lapidary's show-room is being completed at a cost of millions of lire. Ever since 1888 has the floor been in progress, and there are many years' work yet.
Next morning I walked forth to find what had happened, first to the cathedral, to see if anything was left of Giotto's tower and Brunelleschi's dome, and, to my great joy, found them standing; but, as I entered the vast building, I saw one of the enormous iron bars which take the thrust of the wide arches of the nave pulled apart and broken as if it had been pack-thread; there were also a few cracks in one of the piers supporting the dome, but all else was as before.
Both of these undertakings, as well as the construction of a façade for the front of the church, were assigned to Michelangelo. The ground plan of the monumental chapel corresponds to Brunelleschi's sacristy, and is generally known as the Sagrestia Nuova. Internally Buonarroti altered its decorative panellings, and elevated the vaulting of the roof into a more ambitious cupola.
Is not that ribbed dome, with its purple mass domineering over the huddled roofs, Brunelleschi's? It is a faithful copy of Vasari's hatching; but no matter. So with the Baptistery, the towers, the grim old corniced palaces, the sdruccioli and gloomy clefts which serve for streets. But you would be wrong. Pisa is the real parent of Pistoja, as indeed she is of Florence-Dante's Florence.
Giotto's coloured tower in Florence, that carries the bells for Santa Maria del Fiore and Brunelleschi's silent dome, does not ring more than four contralto notes, tuned with sweetness, depth, and dignity, and swinging one musical phrase which softly fills the country. The village belfry it is that grows so fantastic and has such nimble bells.
Arnolfo only lived to see a portion of this, his greatest work, completed "the three principal tribunes which were under the cupola," and which Vasari tells us were so solid and strongly built as to be able to bear the full weight of Brunelleschi's dome, which was much larger and heavier than the one the original architect had himself designed.
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