imagine this it’s 14 18 in Florence
Italy you’ve been challenged to build a
great dome for the santa maria del fiore
one of the grandest cathedrals ever
built and you have no formal
architectural training no pressure right
for Filippo Brunelleschi a goldsmith and
clock maker it was the opportunity of a
lifetime he considered the challenge
carefully then proposed a daring plan
using methods that experts don’t fully
understand even to this day at the time
domes are often built as semi circles
but the town fathers required that
Brunelleschi build an eight sided dome
that would be even taller and stronger
it would also have no central support
system to hold it up during construction
even worse the domes base was an
imprecise octagon with no true center
but Brunelleschi had that covered there
would be two domes instead of one an
inner and an outer shell held together
by giant brick arches and interlocking
rings of stone and wood the Rings would
work like hopes on a barrel keeping the
dome from expanding outward
to move heavy loads hundreds of feet up
Brunelleschi designed ingenious new
machines including an ox driven oyster
and massive lifting devices far ahead of
their time
so revolutionary design check
groundbreaking engineering check can-do
attitude check but with no central
support system how would he actually
build it first off the masonry would
have to support itself during
construction to do this Brunelleschi
lays the bricks in a herringbone pattern
which spiraled to the top of the dome
with vertical bricks acting his bookends
to hold the others in place they laid
about one roll a week giving the mortar
time to cure at this rate the dome grew
at a snail’s pace of about a foot a
month but perhaps most puzzling is how
he was able to place the bricks with
such precision many experts agree that
he used guide ropes one theory states
that ropes ran from a flower pattern on
the work platform that showed exactly
where the bricks should go another has
ropes running from the dome center
tracing a series of cones that grew
smaller as they ascended to the top
still another suggest a different
arrangement of central ropes and wooden
templates however it was done it worked
the eight phases of the dome met at the
top precisely
just at Brunelleschi at planned
in all it took 16 years to complete the
dome when he dies in 1446 Brunelleschi
left behind no sketches and no details
as to exactly how he achieved his
masterpiece today it remains the largest
masonry dome in the world more than 500
years after it was built
you
you
Italy you’ve been challenged to build a
great dome for the santa maria del fiore
one of the grandest cathedrals ever
built and you have no formal
architectural training no pressure right
for Filippo Brunelleschi a goldsmith and
clock maker it was the opportunity of a
lifetime he considered the challenge
carefully then proposed a daring plan
using methods that experts don’t fully
understand even to this day at the time
domes are often built as semi circles
but the town fathers required that
Brunelleschi build an eight sided dome
that would be even taller and stronger
it would also have no central support
system to hold it up during construction
even worse the domes base was an
imprecise octagon with no true center
but Brunelleschi had that covered there
would be two domes instead of one an
inner and an outer shell held together
by giant brick arches and interlocking
rings of stone and wood the Rings would
work like hopes on a barrel keeping the
dome from expanding outward
to move heavy loads hundreds of feet up
Brunelleschi designed ingenious new
machines including an ox driven oyster
and massive lifting devices far ahead of
their time
so revolutionary design check
groundbreaking engineering check can-do
attitude check but with no central
support system how would he actually
build it first off the masonry would
have to support itself during
construction to do this Brunelleschi
lays the bricks in a herringbone pattern
which spiraled to the top of the dome
with vertical bricks acting his bookends
to hold the others in place they laid
about one roll a week giving the mortar
time to cure at this rate the dome grew
at a snail’s pace of about a foot a
month but perhaps most puzzling is how
he was able to place the bricks with
such precision many experts agree that
he used guide ropes one theory states
that ropes ran from a flower pattern on
the work platform that showed exactly
where the bricks should go another has
ropes running from the dome center
tracing a series of cones that grew
smaller as they ascended to the top
still another suggest a different
arrangement of central ropes and wooden
templates however it was done it worked
the eight phases of the dome met at the
top precisely
just at Brunelleschi at planned
in all it took 16 years to complete the
dome when he dies in 1446 Brunelleschi
left behind no sketches and no details
as to exactly how he achieved his
masterpiece today it remains the largest
masonry dome in the world more than 500
years after it was built
you
you
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