Ross King.  
Brunelleschi's Dome:  How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture
New York: Walker and Company, 2000. 192 pp. Index. $24.00
(cloth), ISBN 0-8027-1366-1; $13.00 (paper), ISBN 0-1420-0015-9.

Reviewed for H-Italy by Stanislao Pugliese
<Stanislao.Pugliese@Hofstra.edu>, Hofstra University

Few icons of the Renaissance are as recognizable as Brunelleschi's cupola
rising over Florence. On 19 August 1418, the citizens of Florence--the
"Athens of Italy"--were informed of an open competition calling for
proposals to complete the cupola over Santa Maria dei Fiore. Contestants
had little more than five weeks to complete a proposal. There was,
however, considerable reason to apply: besides the payment of 200 gold
florins by the Opera del Duomo, the winner would be assured of
immortality.

Built upon the ruins of Santa Reparata, Santa Maria dei Fiore was not only
one of the largest churches in Christendom, but a monument to the civic
pride of Florence. The commune of Florence stipulated that the church was
to be "a more beautiful and honorable temple than any other in all of
Tuscany." The problem of the dome was put off, but by the early fifteenth
century, the Opera del Duomo could no longer avoid a dilemma: how was the
church to be finished with what would have to be the highest and widest
vault ever raised? Hence the competition announced in August 1418. The
winner of the competition was Filippo Brunelleschi or "Pippo,"  a
forty-one year old goldsmith, clock maker, and scholar of Dante from the
San Giovanni quartiere of Florence. Living almost in the shadow of the
great church, Brunelleschi would walk past the construction site every day
of his life.

Ross King has reconstructed not only the mechanical problems and solutions
presented by cupola, but has also presented a vivid, colorful, and
delightful portrait of medieval and Renaissance Florence. Here is his
impressionistic depiction of the construction of the Duomo:

"Already at work on the building site, which sprawled through the heart of
Florence, were scores of other craftsmen: carters, bricklayers, lead
beaters, even cooks and men whose job it was to sell wine to the workers
on their lunch breaks. From the piazza surrounding the cathedral the men
could be seen carting bags of sand and lime, or else clambering about the
on the wooden scaffolds and wickerwork platforms that rose above the
neighboring rooftops like a great, untidy bird's nest. Nearby, a forge for
repairing their tools belched clouds of black smoke into the sky, and from
dawn to dusk the air rang with the blows of the blacksmith's hammer and
with the rumble of ox carts and the shouting of orders."

Before Brunelleschi proved his genius by designing and constructing the
cupola (without any internal wooden supports as was universal at the
time), he was involved in one the most famous competitions of the
Renaissance: the competition to cast the bronze doors of the Baptistery of
San Giovanni. Lorenzo Ghilberti was the eventual winner of that
competition and King's description of the life-long rivalry between
Ghilberti and Brunelleschi is a continuous thread of the narrative. Having
suffered the humiliation of losing that competition, Brunelleschi spent
time in Rome--time and experience that was to prove decisive for his
conception and construction of the cupola in Florence. The Pantheon and
pozzolana concrete that Brunelleschi discovered in Rome were to influence
his designs in Florence.

Besides a clear description of the building of the cupola, King gives the
reader some fascinating asides into the effects of the Black Death, the
changing conception of time in the Quattrocento, the internecine quarrels
between Florence, Milan and the Papacy, and the technical problems of
working with Carrara marble. These intellectual excursions are delightful
detours. The tale of Brunelleschi's practical joke on a local
carpenter--convincing the hapless and naive Manetto di acopo that he
(Manetto) was, in fact, not Manetto but another man named Matteo. What the
story reveals is not only Brunelleschi's sense of humor which resembled
that of Boccaccio, but his obsession with the properties of vision and
perception.

As most people know, Brunelleschi's ingenious solution was to construct
what were really two domes, one inside the other. In addition, the cupola
was not to be a round, Roman design but a "quinto acuto," or an octagonal
vault composed of four interpenetrating barrel vaults. His real stroke of
genius was to construct the external, octagonal, visible shell of the
cupola over a circular skeleton. As King points out, Brunelleschi's genius
was not limited to finding a solution to building the cupola but also in
solving dozens of mechanical problems related to the Duomo, from
constructing one-way, illuminated staircases for the workers to hoisting
tons of material to the roof of the Duomo.

Although Brunelleschi suffered severe setbacks in later life, he was still
alive when the first stone of the dome's lantern was consecrated in March
1446. He died a month later. According to Vasari, the people of Florence
appreciated Brunelleschi more in death than in life. What is indisputable
is that Brunelleschi--by changing our conception of what is possible in
the art of architecture--changed what is possible in our conception of
ourselves.

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