In 1436 another competition of models for the lantern was proclaimed, and again Brunellesco won the palm against Ghiberti and others. It seems that when the commission was given to Brunellesco, the Masonic Guild must have felt it _infra dig._ to make a non-member _capo maestro_ of the dome. Consequently they matriculated him into the fraternity. But with his jealousy of the _maestranze_ and determination to show that one need not be a Freemason to build a church, he ignored this membership and never paid his fees, on which the Masters of the _laborerium_ sued him for debt, and he was imprisoned. This did not suit the City Patrons of the _Opera_, who were the all-powerful _Arte della Lana_, especially as Brunellesco's _Arte della Seta_ was also on his side. A stormy meeting was held in the _Opera_ on August 20, 1434, at which the civic party was too strong for the _Maestri_. It was decreed that Brunellesco should be liberated, and one of the _Arte dei Maestri_ was imprisoned, on the plea of hindering public works![264] After this triumph of independent architecture Brunellesco became in a manner architect in chief to the city. He built the pretty Loggie of the Foundling Hospital on Piazza della SS. Annunziata, and the Pazzi Chapel at Sta. Croce, both of which Luca della Robbia adorned with his beautiful blue and white reliefs. He erected the fine Palazzo Quaratesi on Piazza Ognissanti, and the remarkably grand church of Santo Spirito was after his death built from his designs. Brunellesco's strike for independence appears to have given the death-blow to the great Masonic Guild which, as it became more unwieldy, had been slowly disintegrating. The local members in large cities like Siena and Florence, becoming too strong for the original Lombard element, had asserted their independence by forming other guilds of a local nature, in which even the ancient quartette of patron saints was forgotten. How long the lodge in Florence kept together after Brunellesco's defiance I do not know, though its educative influence certainly lingered on till Michael Angelo's time, he being as all-round an artist as any _Magister_ of older days who could build a church and decorate it too. The _laborerium_ of the Florentine _Opera_ must, however, have been closed by the time of Michael Angelo; for Lorenzo de' Medici had to supplement it by giving up his garden in the Via Larga as a school of sculpture, there being then no place where the art was taught. His teaching, however, was a heritage from the ancient guild, for old Bertoldo, scholar of Donatello, was the Master there, and the works of the Masonic Brotherhood for two centuries, together with the classic treasures collected by the Medici, were his models. FOOTNOTES: [236] (The five preceding artists were in the Council of July 1355.) [237] Milanesi's _Vasari, Vita Niccolò e Giovanni Pisano_, vol. i. p. 388. [238] The Cardinal died in 1290, so he must have given the commission during his lifetime.