He would have found that much had been accomplished on the cathedral. The tambour, or drum, had been constructed between 1410 and 1413, with walls fourteen feet thick in order to support the weight of the cupola. In 1413 a large new crane had been built to raise materials, and two of the three tribunes of the octagon had been vaulted. The church had also just acquired its new name, Santa Maria del Fiore, “Our Lady of the Flower,” having previously been referred to as Santa Reparata, the name of the older cathedral, which was now completely demolished.Now in middle age, Filippo was short, bald, and pugnacious looking, with an aquiline nose, thin lips, and a weak chin. His appearance was not helped by his dirty and disheveled clothing. Yet in Florence such an unsightly display was almost a badge of genius, and Filippo was simply the latest in a long and illustrious line of ugly or unkempt artists. The name of the painter Cimabue means “ox head,” and Giotto was so unattractive that Giovanni Boccaccio devoted a tale to his appearance in the Decameron, marveling at how “Nature has frequently planted astonishing genius in men of monstrously ugly appearance.”
