The Dome: The Motivation Of Brunelleschi

Florence announced a contest “for the ideal dome design” to their cathedral that had been

This humongous building is 142 feet tall. Today still it is the largest unsuported dome in the world.In front there is a Parthenon look but in the back it is a huge dome. Even though it was built 44 BC. It is famous for its dome which is a 142 foot wide hole. This hole was to give light to the temple below. When it rained, smartly the romans designed invisible holes in the floors to drain water that went through the hole at the top. This building was used as a temple for all of the Roman gods. This building is still today the largestworking spiritual place (today it is now Christian)in the

The authors aims were to educate the reader upon the history of the Dome and to show how it was built, why it was an amazing feat, and why Filippo was an ingenious architecture. King achieved his aims very well. Through out the book, he expressed the importance of Filippo and everything that he did. King tells about how Filippo built and designed the Dome. He supported the claim that Filippo was before his time, and that no one could duplicate his work; “A proud Florentine, Michelangelo claimed that he could equal it, Filippo’s dome but never surprises it. In fact, he did not even equal it…” (Page 163)

During all of this Brunelleschi not only built the dome in the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral (what today is still the biggest dome in the world), but mechanical marvels of worker platforms and lifts that managed to carry workers and hundreds pounds of materials hundreds feet in the air over the course of 28 years with only a single death. This showed how Brunelleschi was a mastermind in architecture and how he revived it.

Brunelleschi proposed to build an inner and outer shell for the doom, and place a lantern capstone on top of it. There are two major problems that Brunelleschi faces; one is that as gravity presses down, the bottom of any dome will bulge outward, second is that no lift machine during that time can carry a great weight of bricks to the top of the cathedral.

The structure, approved and paid for by the city council, was a feat of amazing architecture on the part of Fillippo Brunelleschi. This was the largest dome created in that time and it was Brunelleschi’s ingenious design that won the commission against Ghiberti and other artists. The Church’s possession of grand cathedrals like this one served to demonstrate to the people the greatness of the faith and the power of God. There was a religious aspect to the construction of the immense cathedrals and basilicas; the people were paying homage to their god and constructing churches they felt were worthy for him. However, it was also somewhat political, as the grandeur of the churches was displayed to all the people in the city. No one could question the Catholic church’s might and colossal influence after viewing a cathedral such as the

Filippo Brunelleschi proposed you build two domes, one inside of the other. But he refused to explain how he’d achieve this design, in fear that his ideas would be taken. Brunelleschi’s stubbornness led to a huge shouting match with the directors of the meeting. He was called “a buffoon and a babbler.” And had to be thrown out.

Paul Robert Walker writes the novel, almost biography, by the name of The Feud That Sparked The Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed The Art World. The book opens with history of Italy and the many epidemics of the bubonic plague that hit with strong force. He states that many of the artists in Italy at the time were brought to a large competition to make a new set of sculpted doors for the St. John’s Chapel where John the Baptist is said to have baptized followers of Jesus. Lorenzo Ghiberti won the competition due to his higher skill in the craft; however, the judges also kept Brunelleschi’s door panel as second place. After the competition, Brunelleschi, who feels distraught and defeated, begins a new career as an architect, and studies the laws of perspective.

By examining existing domes, Brunelleschi was able to build on past knowledge, and take architecture, and engineering to a new level.

There were several critical success factors for the construction of the dome including access to financial resources, raw materials, and product equipment. The building of the Santa Maria del Fiore was not something that could be done overnight, in fact it took the better of two centuries until it was complete.

In 1296 the town fathers of Florence had built a cathedral to showcase their place as one of the cultural and economic capitals of Europe. The one problem with this cathedral was that for over a century it was without a dome and so snow, wind, rain and sunshine poured into the cathedral all through the seasons. They decided that it was time to fix this issue and so issued a challenge and contest to create a dome that could stand unsupported and cover the cathedral. It would be the largest unsupported dome in the world. This challenge was taken up by a gold smith by the name of Filippo Brunelleschi.

One of the designers, who was not a designer or architect at all, was a goldsmith named Filippo Brunelleschi who applied “his theoretical and mechanical knowledge to observation of the natural world…”1 Proposed a peculiar design: no one dome, but two domes one nested inside the other.

Brunelleschi’s Dome is the story of Fillipo Brunelleschi - or Pippo, as he was often known - and the ingenious methods he employed in raising the famous duomo over Santa Maria del Fiore. On August 19th in the summer of 1418, all the citizens of Florence, Italy were called upon to devise a solution for what was to be one of the greatest conundrums of the Renaissance - the vaulting of the cupola over the city’s new church. Santa Maria del Fiore, built upon the ruins of Santa Reparata, was to be the grandest and most lauded accomplishment in renaissance architecture. The vaulting of the dome was truly a daunting endeavor for any that toed up to the challenge. When Neri di Fiorivanti, the original Capo Maestri - or head architect for the project -

An example of the Medici support to artists involves The Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. The dome of the chapel was built so large that no architect knew how to complete the rooftop structure and was a humiliating point in Florentine history. A contest to see who could develop a solution to complete the dome was won by a Florentine engineer named Brunelleschi, who felt he had found the solution. With the successful completion of the chapel, support from Cosimo de Medici and the holy consecration performed by the Pope, a great structure was once again a source of pride to the Florentines and the

“The idea was to incorporate a building that could be easily be built and taken down both constructively and economically. Most ideas involved a long, one-story building made of brick. The problem was that it looked far too solid difficult to remove later and it might be even harder to light- not to mention that it probably could not be built in time. Further debates and redrafting delayed the project even further.” (1)