The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 5 September 2014
by Ross King
Soaring domes over great open interior spaces are one of those prominent architectural feats that make for drama and wonder. This is perhaps more expected in great sports arenas, but yet more emotionally significant in other structures, government buildings, arts spaces and cathedrals. The world's largest masonry dome is that of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy. Despite being nearly six hundred years old, it is still the record holder for a span of bricks at about 193 feet in diameter. The building is famous for the mysteries of its construction. Its designer, Filippo Brunelleschi, was originally an inventor, a goldsmith and clock maker. He won the commission for the dome in a competition held in 1418, after decades of previous builders had failed to come up with a reliable method for its construction. Its sheer height and breadth made the dome a huge challenge to builders in early Renaissance Florence. The most significant problem was how to support the partially-completed dome, as it rose over two hundred feet above the church floor. Previously, arches and domes required a wooden support to hold the shape as the masonry was built around it. In the case of Santa Maria del Fiore, the size made this approach impractical (requiring the leveling of an entire forest of giant and expensive trees). The mystery of the cupola's construction has been puzzling along the lines of the supposed problem that bumblebees should not be able to fly. And yet they do. And yet the dome stands, and has done so for six centuries. Brunelleschi, working in a time when even brilliant architects were considered little more than manual laborers, was very careful to only slowly reveal the secrets of the construction. Indeed, he may only have been inclined not to reveal that he was making it up as he went along. On the other hand, his brilliance at designing construction machinery implies he had carefully studied historical domes and was building this one according to his scaled-up plans. In the end, the broad arching dome of brick and marble was constructed in a way that it essentially supported itself as it rose. It is still a jaw-dropping achievment, but it wasn't magic. This little book gives us a brief and fast-moving overview of Brunelleschi's work and the medieval environment in which he worked. There are precious few details available, except from two hagiographic biographies by near contemporaries. Much of the mystery of the dome's construction remains hidden within the thick stone walls and foundations of Santa Maria del Fiore. And the author was previously a novelist. But he works with the details he has, and his character drawing skills to give us a good picture of Brunelleschi and the political and artistic environment of the early Florentine Renaissance in which he lived. The dome still stands. You can go climb its nearly forty stories of steps to the top to take in its view of Florence, and to appreciate the audacity and ingenuity it took to build it in a time when all the power came from horses, oxen and bare human hands.