In the 14th century, a terrible plague devastated Europe and kills half of the population of Florence. As it recovered, the city gained independance from feudal lords and started to gain its own identity: the city hall appeared, as well as the foundations of today's Western societies. A new attitude arose: patriotism. "We shall make this city our own", said the Florentines, who then turned to urban architecture to turn it into one large monument. This was now the turning point, the very beginning of the Renaissance: what style of architecture would be suitable for the new city? Certainly not the imported Gothic.
In the middle of Florence there was an old octagonal Baptistry. It was Romanesque, but the inhabitants thought it was classical: it was therefore much more worthy of imitation than these strange French ideas. A new style arose that would influence all of Italy, with a new concept of architecture: Architecture was a public event, and was everyone's concern. Buildings mattered, they were a source of pride and an exportable commodity.

Santa Maria del Fiore would therefore be built in assorted style to the Baptistry. Its scheme was somewhat gothic, but very different from France in that it was very open and transparent, everyone had an equal relation to the center (in Gothic, the columns hid the center from the aisles, so the believers in the side aisles were prevented from seeing the clergy perform mass): the church had a social dimension.

The Cathedral was built big. The Florentine wanted to outdo Pisa and Siena's large domed cathedrals, and they overreached themselves so much that the problem of the dome, too big to be built, remained unsolved for 125 years. No laughs please. The Milanese did worse: they were so excited and possessive about their famous cathedral that they kept "importing" engineers from France and Germany and firing them, ending up with a structure they built entirely themselves, and which stands today by sheer beginner's luck.

Though the inside looks quite stark, the outside is lavishly decorated in Romanesque style (following the principle of conformità). It was not finished during the Renaissance, though. The cathedral was consecrated in 1436, but the facade remained incomplete, and projects were presented by Botticelli, Verrocchio, Filippino Lippi and even Lorenzo di Medicis (who virtually ruled Florence). The jury was so hard put to decide that the work was done in 1887 after the project of Emilio di Fabbris. As for the gallery (inside), it was never completed after Michelangelo compared it to a "cricket cage "...

But back to the Dome, this problematic dome. No-one had ever tried to build one that big, for the simple reason that it could not be done with the technology of the time. The only way would have been to heavily buttress it, but that was considered visually unacceptable and anyway, there was no room for these buttresses around the cathedral. In 1418, once SMF was complete, a competition was organized to solve this problem. Filippo Brunelleschi presented himself. He was a rather obscure engineer-architect who had just lost the competition for the decoration of the Gates of Paradise (the doors of the Baptistry) to his rival Lorenzo Ghiberti the sculptor. After that failure he went to Rome, and there closely studied the construction principles of Roman ruins. His idea, and his genius, was not copy them but to understand them so as to adapt them to modern needs. He therefore submitted a model for a dome with a double shell and a pointed shape to cause less side-thrust (imagine a chick inside an egg pushing hard on the sides... that's a side-thrust, and every dome ever built had to face this problem. The bigger the dome, the stronger the thrust, and the more chances the dome has to collapse); to make it light, it would be ribbed with the least possible filling between the ribs. His method for building it was just as revolutionary, designed for the unique problems raised by this dome. The judges' reaction? Brunelleschi was physically expelled from the room twice! At the next meeting he destroyed all the other models. To bring his point home about the validity of his idea, he dared the commission to make an egg stand on the table. He achieved that by flattening its bottom, and when he was told that anyone could do it, he replied that in the same way, anyone could build the dome with his plans. His assurance won him the project, BUT... his rival Ghiberti was imposed onto him as an assistant.

Brunelleschi was an old fox. When the workers arrived, he pretended to be ill and sent them to Ghiberti for instructions. The latter knew nothing about the work, and so would say: "I'm not doing anything without Filippo!". When it became obvious that he was not up to the task, the sculptor was fired.

The Duomo was completed 15 years after the death of Brunelleschi, who was buried inside it. The splendid Dome became the city's ultimate symbol, a sculpture in the round, with every view of it valid: it focuses and holds together the city, but also gathers about itself the jurisdictional territory outside the walls and the hill range beyond. Regardless of social standing, the Florentines now had the perfect standard for their proud city and its aspirations.

Michelangelo, who later on built the dome of St Peter, the one rival to Brunelleschi's, said of his own work in construction: "Sarà più grande, ma non più bella" -- "It will be larger, but not more beautiful".

Article by Joumana Medlej