Brunelleschi - Dovlatov Style

If i were to name my favorite book this past year, it would be Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov. I found the pace of his sentences, his humor, his use of time, the blurring or reality introspection and fantasy so interesting that i rewrote my introductory writing about the Duomo by Brunelleschi in Dovlatov's style.

So this fucker says to me “You’re an ass and a babbler. Everyone knows you need centering even for the smallest arch.”

No point in arguing, but of course I argued.

“If you know so much, why haven’t you put a dome on your fucking roof? It’s only been what, 122 years? Every year you guys pray that god will put a roof on your church and every year you stand in your open church with rain falling on your heads”
“Fine. Tell us how to do it.”
“Whoever can make an egg stand on its head should win the commission.”
You should’ve seen the other 10 entrants for the dome competition trying to stand their eggs up like a bunch of douchebags, I took my egg, cracked it on the bottom, and stood it up.
“Ecco!”
“You’re cheating. We would’ve done the same,” they whined.
“Yeah. And you would have also constructed the dome without scaffolding if you knew my plans too!”

A couple months later, I was awarded the dome commission jointly with that smug fuck Ghiberti. Last time, this happened was in 1402 when we competed for the baptistery door commission. Ghiberti kept kissing the judges’ asses and adjusting his entry to appease the judges to influence the outcome. It was disgusting... I gave up bronze sculpting and went to Rome with Donatello for 16 years after that. I almost wept in self pity. Meanwhile Ghiberti’s been making bank, with a summer home and a teen wife. I was 41 years old and had worked 26 of them, started out as a goldsmith like Leonardo and Verrochio since the age of 15, made the world’s first alarm clock, figured out perspective drawing, and just spent the last 16 years with Donatello studying ancient Rome. I had spent too much time on the dome to walk away.

"Shit, here comes that jerk ass babbler again."
"When was the last time that bum bathed?"
"Now he's really gone mad... babbling that he's going to cover this church with 50 tons of bricks without using scaffolding... next thing you know, he's going to say the earth is round."
"Ever since he lost to Ghiberti, he's been a sore loser.... walking lost around the ruins of rome like a hobo."

This was the scene in 1418. Brunelleschi was 41 and pissed off. Becoming bald agitates most men in middle age. Hair retention is out of man's control, dome construction isn't. This was his midlife crisis moment. He had wanted to put the dome on the church since he was a kid running around the streets. Now was his chance...