Brunelleschi's Dome (King - paperback)

Author: Ross King

ISBN: 9781620401934

Binding: paperback

Section: Art

On August 19, 1418, a competition concerning Florence's magnificent new cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore was announced: "Whoever desires to make any model or design for the vaulting of the main Dome . . . shall do so before the end of the month of September." The proposed dome was regarded far and wide as all but impossible to build—it would literally need to be erected over thin air. One stood out ff the many plans submitted, made by a goldsmith and clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi, then forty-one, who would dedicate the next twenty-eight years to solving the puzzles of the dome's construction. In the process, he reinvented the field of architecture.