Like most citizens of Florence Filippo would go to the church of St. Mary of the flower- the church that people considered doomed to remain unfinis!
             hed. He would try do imagine a great dome capping the crossing rising higher than the brown hills that surrounded Florence. In the back of his mind a dream was beginning to grow. But since he had no idea how to accomplish this he mentioned it to no one. In 1401 the magistrates of the city decided that the Baptistery of St. John needed a new pair of doors, these doors were to be enormous and made of bronze, depicting scenes from the bible. Well Filippo and Lorenzo Ghiberti basically came in a tie. The magistrates could not choose between the two sculptors. Filippo feeling that Ghiberti's worked surpassed his said that he would not work that way. That only one person should have the authority to make the statues as he wished and let him be the sole winner. To come out second best, as Filippo believed he had done was discouraging. He realized that as a sculptor he had more than met his match, and furthermore his chief rival was a man four years younger than himself. !
             At this point in his life Filippo decided to sell a farm he had inherited and make way to Rome. Some say he was going to see and study antique sculpture, but others say he was going to teach himself the lost arts of Roman architecture.
             In this way he planned to surpass Ghiberti as he believed architecture surpassed sculpture. Filippo asked his friend 14-year-old friend Donatello if he wanted to join him. Donatello was young but his enthusiasm for sculpture and to see it in Rome was enormous. So when the said goodbye to their friends and family the two young men set out for a long and dusty road to Rome. They traveled for many days and nights across hills, farms, villages, and valleys. They felt somewhat let down when they arrived, here was Rome a city which once ruled the known world, here they found m...