{"id":25049,"date":"2025-02-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/areademo.beculture.it\/?p=25049"},"modified":"2025-02-07T09:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T08:42:11","slug":"dome-brunelleschi-florence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/areademo.beculture.it\/en\/dome-brunelleschi-florence\/","title":{"rendered":"Brunelleschi\u2019s dome: symbol of Florence and Renaissance architecture worldwide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An emblem of Florence, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore towers over the city and, six centuries after its construction, still dazzles with its unsurpassed grandeur. Indeed, it remains the largest masonry dome ever built<\/strong> – a testament to the brilliance of Filippo Brunelleschi<\/strong>, a visionary architect with a fiery temperament.
At the time of its construction, few would have bet on the project\u2019s success, which – according to Vasari\u00b9 – nearly failed on multiple occasions\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem of the dome<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Construction on the cathedral began at the end of the 13th<\/sup> century under a design by Arnolfo di Cambio (1245\u2013ca. 1302\/1310). The building was enlarged in the mid-14th<\/sup> century, but by 1400 it was still incomplete<\/strong>. The huge dome intended to surmount Arnolfo\u2019s octagonal presbytery area was missing, since he had died without leaving any drawings or written directions for its construction. Patrons, craftsmen, and citizens alike had been puzzling over how to finish it for some time.
This was no small problem: closing the dome would require wooden support structures unlikely to bear its weight<\/strong>. Moreover, gathering all that timber would mean deforesting entire regions.\u00a0
So how could they finally complete the city\u2019s cathedral?<\/p>\n\n\n