The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance -- Cathedral of Florence

The subject of our Architecture history course this semester is the architecture of the Italian Renaissance. I read a book written by Murray, which indeed raise my interest in Renaissance architecture. One of my favorite buildings during that time is the Cathedral of Florence. It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnoflo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.

Cathedral of Florence, Italy, 1436

The reason why I chose this building is because I am interested in the construction of the big dome of the building. The workmanship of this dome is unprecedented, and no one can build a new dome more beautiful than that. Filippo Brunelleschi, a craftsman with expertise in ancient Roman architecture, won as chief architect. In the construction of the dome, instead of the popular round dome wooden frame of "arch eagle", the novel "fishbone" construction method was adopted, which was built successively from the bottom to the top.

Dome of FlorencCathedrale

Brunelleschi made a brave decision that their building plans eschewed the flying buttresses and pointed arches of the traditional Gothic style. To build the difficult dome, Brunelleschi also designed a number of special construction machines, such as a stone cutter and a crane. To make the dome more efficient, he also built a restaurant in the sky for construction workers to reduce the time it takes to get down to the ground to eat. Brunelleschi's experiment proved successful, not only because of his inspiration from ancient Roman architecture but also because of his bold innovation. Without a doubt, this dome has made the Cathedral of Florence known as the greatest building in Florence.

Dome of FlorencCathedrale

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