5 things you didn’t know about... Il Duomo di Firenze
Credit: Mark Smith
1. Construction began on the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Del Fiore, Italy, in 1296, but by 1418 it was still incomplete. The cathedral’s original architect, Arnolfo di Cambio, died in 1310 before finishing his project and left no indication of how the cathedral’s crowning dome was to be constructed.
2. To dome was to be built atop the cathedral walls at a height of around 55m on an imprecise octagonal base – the difference between the longest and shortest sides being 0.57m
3. An architecture competition, offering a prize of 200 gold florins, was held in 1418 to find the ideal design.
4. In 1420, the design of goldsmith Filippo Brunelleschi was accepted. He planned to build the dome without supporting scaffolding.
5. The inner shell of Brunelleschi’s dome, more than two metres thick, is self-supporting. An estimated four million bricks make up the dome, which sits on a sandstone base. But no one knows exactly how Brunelleschi built such a large dome with no support...
To find out more about Brunelleschi’s dome and the theories surrounding its construction see the upcoming September issue of Materials World.