Brunelleschi's Dome: The Crown of Santa Maria del Fiore
Architecture • 1h 26m
The octagonal dome that was to crown Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral begun in Florence in 1294, presented the most daunting architectural puzzle of the age: how to raise the highest and widest vault ever attempted. The cupola was to have a span greater than the Roman Pantheon - the world’s largest dome - and vaulting higher than any Gothic cathedral. The logistical problems were enormous.
How could this enormous octagonal structure be made self-supporting? How could the tons of masonry be raised more than 200 feet in the air and laid into place with micrometric accuracy?
This illustrated lecture examines the procedures developed by Filippo Brunelleschi as he worked on the dome between 1420 and 1436, successfully executing what is still the world’s largest masonry dome.
Dr Ross King is the author of many books on Italian and French art and history, including Brunelleschi’s Dome and, most recently, The Bookseller of Florence. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he has won both the Governor General’s Award in Canada and the BookSense Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the United States. He has lectured widely in both North America and Europe, and given lectures and guided tours in Florence, Rome, Milan, and Paris
Up Next in Architecture
-
Staying In Style: Architectural Fashi...
Old parish churches are wonderful ways of experiencing the ways in which architectural tastes changed over many centuries. As well as being rewarding in their own right, these ever-shifting styles can be used to help put a date on the parts of a building as it develops. They also help make it a ‘...
-
Imperial Captial, Gothic Kingdom, Byz...
From AD 402 to 751 the small city of Ravenna, on the NE coast of Italy, became the capital of the Roman Empire in the West, then the centre of a Gothic kingdom and finally the western outpost of Byzantine government from Constantinople. During these centuries the construction of many early Christ...
-
The Element Of Surprise: Church Desig...
Many of you will be aware that Victorian elements are present in almost every church in Britain, but did you realise that this applies to the twentieth century too? Did you know that as many new churches were built in the 1960s as in the 1860s at the height of the Gothic revival? In this lecture ...
