| Book Name: | Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture |
| Category: | Architecture Books |
| Language: | English |
| Format: | |
| Free Download: | Available |
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Book Description:
Anyone in Florence on August 19, 1418, who heard about the competition for the city’s beautiful new cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, which had been under construction for more than a century, would have known what it meant. “Anyone who wants to make a model or plan for the vaulting of the main Dome must do so before the end of September.” People worldwide thought it would be nearly impossible to build the proposed dome. Not only would it be huge, but its original and sacred design did not include the flying buttresses that support cathedrals all over Europe. The dome would have to be built on nothing but air. One of the many plans that were submitted stood out. It was a bold and unusual way to vault what is still the largest dome in the world (143 feet in diameter). It was offered by a goldsmith and clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi, who was 41 years old at the time. He would spend the next 28 years figuring out how to build the dome. In doing so, he did nothing less than start the field of architecture from scratch. Brunelleschi’s Dome is the story of how a Renaissance genius used people, materials, and even the forces of nature to build an amazing building. At first, Brunelleschi was called crazy, but in the end, he was praised as a genius. He engineered the perfect placement of bricks and stones, built some of the most famous hoists and cranes of the Renaissance to lift an estimated 70 million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and planned the workers’ platforms and routines so carefully that only one person died during the decades of building. He did all this while defying people who said the dome would surely fall and his problems that sometimes seemed like they would be too much for him to handle. This drama took place during plagues, wars, political feuds, and the intellectual ferment of Renaissance Florence. Ross King uses these events to significantly affect the story, from Brunelleschi’s long-lasting rivalry with the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti to the Duke of Milan coming close to taking Florence. King also gives many interesting details about life in the fifteenth century. For example, he talks about the famous traditions of the brickmaker’s art, the daily lives of the artisans who worked hundreds of feet above the ground as the dome got higher, the problems with transportation, and the power of the guilds. Even though we live in an age of tall buildings, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore’s cathedral still has a rare ability to amaze. Ross King brings to life the structure of the greatest engineering puzzle of the Renaissance and one of the world’s architectural wonders by telling how it was made. The story was set in the 15th century but had much to do with the 21st century.
Table of contents :
A More Beautiful and Honourable Temple
The Goldsmith of San Giovanni
The Treasure Hunters
An Ass and a Babbler
The Rivals
Men without Name or Family
Some Unheard-of Machine
The Chain of Stone
The Tale of the Fat Carpenter
The Pointed Fifth
Bricks and Mortar
Circle by Circle
The Monster of the Arno
Debacle at Lucca
From Bad to Worse
Consecration
The Lantern
Magni Ingenii Viri Philippi Brunelleschi
The Nest of Delights.
Download Brunelleschi’s dome: how a Renaissance genius reinvented architecture Epub
Author(s): Brunelleschi, Filippo;King, Ross
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, Year: 2000;2013
ISBN: 9781620401941
