"In the year 1420, all these foreign masters were at length assembled in Florence, with those of Tuscany, and all the best Florentine artists in design. Filippo likewise then returned from Rome. They all assembled, therefore, in the hall of the wardens of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Syndics and Superintendents, together with a select number of the most capable and ingenious citizens being present, to the end that having heard the opinion of each on the subject, they might at length decide on the method to be adopted for vaulting the tribune. Being called into the audience, the opinions of all were heard one after another, and each architect declared the method which he had thought of adopting. And a fine thing it was to hear the strange and various notions then propounded on that matter: for one said that columns must be raised from the ground up, and that on these they must turn the arches, whereon the woodwork for supporting the weight must rest. Others affirmed that the vault should be turned in cysteolite or sponge-stone (spugna), thereby to diminish the weight; and several of the masters agreed in the opinion that a column must be erected in the centre, and the cupola raised in the form of a pavilion, like that of San Giovanni in Florence. Nay, there were not wanting those who maintained that it would be a good plan to fill the space with earth, among which small coins (quatrini) should be mingled, that when the cupola should be raised, they might then give permission that whoever should desire the soil might go and fetch it, when the people would immediately carry it away without expense. Filippo alone declared that the cupola might be erected without so great a mass of woodwork, without a column in the centre, and without the mound of earth; at a much lighter expense than would be caused by so many arches, and very easily, without any framework whatever.