The factual accuracy of this story is called into question by its similarity to another tale published fifteen years earlier (while Benzoni was still traveling in the Americas) by painter and architect Giorgio Vasari.[3] According to Vasari, the young Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi had designed an unusually large and heavy dome for Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral (Duomo) in Florence, Italy. City officials had asked to see his model, but he refused, proposing instead: