, that he
would criticize Lorenzo; and he replied, "The selling of Lepriano."
Finally, having now grown very old--he was sixty-nine years of age--he
passed to a better life on April 16, in the year 1446, after having
exhausted himself greatly in making the works that enabled him to win an
honoured name on earth and to obtain a place of repose in Heaven. His
death caused infinite grief to his country, which recognized and
esteemed him much more when dead than it had done when he was alive;
and he was buried with the most honourable obsequies and distinctions in
S. Maria del Fiore, although his burial-place was in S. Marco, under the
pulpit opposite to the door, where there is a coat of arms with two
fig-leaves and certain green waves on a field of gold, because his
family came from the district of Ferrara, that is, from Ficaruolo, a
township on the Po, as it is shown by the leaves, which denote the
place, and by the waves, which signify the river. He was mourned by
innumerable brother-craftsmen, and particularly by the poorer among
them, whom he was ever helping. Thus then, living the life of a
Christian, he left to the world the sweet savour of his goodness and of
his noble talents. It seems to me that it can be said for him that from
the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans to our own there has been no
rarer or more excellent master than Filippo; and he is all the more
worthy of praise because in his times the German manner was held in
veneration throughout all Italy and practised by the old craftsmen, as
it may be seen in innumerable edifices. He recovered the ancient
mouldings and restored the Tuscan, Corinthian, Doric and Ionic Orders to
their original forms. He had a disciple from Borgo a Buggiano, called Il
Buggiano, who made the lavatory of the Sacristy of S. Reparata, with
certain boys who pour out water; and he made a head of his master in
marble, taken from the life, which was placed after the death of Filippo
in S. Maria del Fiore, beside the door on the right hand as one enters
the church, where there is also the following epitaph, placed there by
public decree in order to honour him after his death, even as he had
honoured his country when alive:

D.S.

QUANTUM PHILIPPUS ARCHITECTUS ARTE DAEDALEA VALUERIT, CUM HUJUS
CELEBERRIMI TEMPLI MIRA TESTUDO, TUM PLURES ALIAE DIVINO INGENIO
AB EO ADINVENTAE MACHINAE DOCUMENTO ESSE POSSUNT; QUAPROPTER
OB EXIMIAS SUI ANIMI