Brunelleschi' Dome
After lunch of Margarita Pizza (yum) we made our way back to the Santa Maria Del Fiori, also called the Duomo where we spent more time meditating on Burnellischi's dome, the Giotto Bell Tower (1334) and the Ghiberti Bronze Doors.
The tower, the baptistry and the huge cathedral are all elaborately faced in three colors of marble: white carrara, red of San Giusto and green of Monte Ferrato. Brunelleschi was an obscure jack of all trades when he solved the problem of putting a dome atop the 140 foot span of the Duomo. The cathedral was designed to be the largest in the world, at time in competition with St. Peters'. It had been constructed up to the part where the dome was to be added without a clear idea of how to do that, though it was clear the usual method of scaffolding would not carry to the top of the 180 foot dome envisioned, because the scaffolding would collapse of its own weight. Brunelleschi's idea was to build TWO domes, one inside the other, connecting them with ribs in each of the eight exterior panels which are, incredibly faced with marble. It was completed in 1436.
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