Madeline

After Brunelleschi lost to Ghiberti in the competition of the Florentine Baptistery doors, his interest slowly began turning towards architecture. This love and fascination pushed him towards Rome where the ruins of the ancient empire fascinated him. His numerous studies of these ancient structures allowed him to develop a revolutionary system of geometric linear perspective that revolutionized the world of architecture.

Madeline

When he returned to Florence, he brought back many of the ideas he had developed in Rome. It is around this time that The Works Department of Florence decided that it was time to build a dome on top of the cities medieval cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. Many ideas were presented at this point in time, but with the outlaw of buttresses in Florence combined with the lack of domes built in the medieval ages, many came up short. Having brought back many of his observations of ancient architecture, Brunelleschi suggested that they should take off the existing roof and instead construct a frieze fifteen arms lengths in height, making a large eye in the middle of each side thus allowing for the dome to be vaulted more easily. He desired to execute the building of the dome in the style of the Pantheon’s rotunda form in Rome.

Chaos ensued for months as the Works Department and architects tried to figure out how they were going to build a dome like the one that Brunelleschi had envisioned. They again called upon Brunelleschi who chose to follow a design that employed a double shell, made of sandstone and marble. Brunelleschi would have to build the dome out of bricks, due to its lightweight compared to stone and easier to form, and with nothing under it during construction. A complex internal stone and an iron and wood chain network were imbedded in the inner dome, aiding in the overall shape and form of the dome. The dome itself having no supports, is a centered design. The octagonal inner dome was thick enough for an imaginary circle to be embedded in it at each level, a feature that would hold the dome up eventually, but could not hold the bricks in place while the mortar was still wet. Instead of the traditional stacking of bricks, Brunelleschi’s herringbone brick pattern transferred the weight of the freshly laid bricks to the nearest vertical ribs of the non-circular dome.

To this day the dome has not undergone any significant repairs or modifications, therefore attesting to Brunelleschi’s genius. Its height is still a dominating part of Florence’s skyline and is a miracle of design and engineering.