The Standing Egg
The well-known trick of Columbus in making an egg stand on end during a dispute after his return from his first voyage was anticipated by Brunelleschi, the architect of the magnificent dome of the Duomo in Florence. During the heated controversy which preceded his selection over his competitors, “he proposed,” according to Vasari’s amusing account, “to all the masters, foreigners, and compatriots, that he who could make an egg stand upright on a piece of smooth marble should be appointed to build the cupola, since in doing that his genius would be made manifest. They took an egg accordingly, and all those masters did their best to make it stand upright, but none discovered the method of doing so. Wherefore Filipo (Brunelleschi), being told that he might make it stand himself, took it daintily into his hand, gave the end of it a blow on the plane of the marble, and made it stand upright. Beholding this the artists loudly protested, exclaiming that they could all have done the same, but Filipo replied, laughingly, that they might also know how to construct the cupola if they had seen the model and design.”
This was in the year 1420, fifteen years before Columbus was born.