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Florence Italy Research Paper

Decent Essays

In 2008 my husband and I went to Florence, Italy. Prior to going, I did some research about a few particular sites we should visit and why they were important. Florence has been considered the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance (Walther, Suckale, Eschenbur, Williams). The key tipping point of that birth was the creation of IL Duomo that Fillipo Brunelleschi designed. We visited it while we were there. The structure was massive. It is the largest massonry dome in the world. When I saw the article options for this assignment I was anxious to learn more about this amazing building.

The problems Brunelleschi faced were immense. First, no one had ever built a dome at this size and scale. Often, the domes that were built during, or …show more content…

With this existing architecture, flaws were built in that Brunelleschi had to work around, such as the enormous height of the original building and the non linear 8 sided figure he was supposed to build it on top of.

Third, since a structure of this magnitude and height had never been successfully attempted in Europe, he had to invent a wide array of tools, cranes, and platforms just to build the dome itself.

Fourth, gravity fought him every step of the way. It wanted to pull the dome down which caused him to work with exacting specifications to keep it up. He had to create a design that fought the gravitational pull to the earth.

Fifth, though he was a genius, Brunelleschi was not an architect, he was a gold-smith and watchmaker (Mueller).

With these hurdles in mind, he had some big problems to overcome. Previously, he had gone throughout Italy studying architecture, sculpture and art. He understood mechanics and mathematics, from being a watchmaker, that gave him the scientific frame of mind to call upon all of his other disciplines in order to understand how to overcome the problems he faced. According to Tom Mueller, who wrote “Brunelleschi’s Dome” for National Geographic, he “apply(ed) his theoretical and mechanical knowledge to observation of the natural world, he single-handedly worked out the rules of linear

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