1354. Filippo alone said it could be built without a great deal of woodwork, without piers or earth, at far less expense than arches would entail , and very easily without any framework. It seemed to those assembled that Filippo was talking nonsense. They mocked and laughed at him and turned away saying he should talk about something else as his ideas were as mad as he was.
1355. Filippo grew more and more heated as he talked, and the more he tried to explain his concept so that they might understand and accept it the more skeptical their doubts about his proposal made them, until they dismissed him as an ass and a babbler. Several times he was told to leave, but he absolutely refused to go, and then he was carried out bodily by the ushers, leaving all the people at the audience convinced he was deranged.
1356. This ignominious affair was the reason why Filippo had later to admit that he dared not walk anywhere in the city for fear of hearing people call out: "There goes the madman."
1357. At a second meeting of the council Filippo was asked to explain his plan in detail and to also show his model. He was unwilling to do this, but he suggested to the other masters, both foreign and Florentine, that whoever could make an egg stand on end on a flat piece of marble should be the one to build the cupola, since this would show how intelligent each man was.
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