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Brunelleschi’s Dome

I’ve been pretty curmudgeonly lately, posting lots of bad news of greed and human inadequacy, so it’s high time I mentioned a story of people getting something right. We have to go back to the 15^th century.

Brunelleschi’s Dome by Ross King is a wonderful look at one of the greatest achievements in the entire history of architecture, the Duomo of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Composed of seventy million pounds (or thereabouts) of sandstone and marble, the dome is still the largest masonry vault ever raised. It was built without centering (i.e., internal supports used to prevent the arches from collapsing before they’re capped). In fact, it’s construction was so radical that Brunellschi had to invent new methods and machines – machines that a yound Leonardo da Vinci later drew and studied and received some undue credit for.

King writes in a lively, engaging style and is very good at conveying the technicalities of the construction without ever getting lost in complexity or unnecessary detail. He’s also got a great eye for anecdotes and the book is as entertaining as it is informative. Highly recommended.