Why Did Brunelleschi Build The Dome?

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The Dome
Florence’s old cathedral, was crumbling so they built a new one over the old one. They began construction in 1296. The cathedral was meant to show Florence's position as one of the greatest cities in the world. Many years later it was finished, all except for the dome. They had intended the dome to be the glory of the cathedral.

In 1418 the Florentine fathers decide to finish the cathedral by putting a dome on but they did not want to use the Gothic style then favoured by rival cities. It was also hard to build a 150 foot wide dome when you would have to start building 180 feet off the ground. Another problem was how to build a dome in the octagonal shape dictated by the walls.They decided to hold a contest to see who could come up with the best dome design. The prize was 200 gold florins (each florin was worth about 140usd so the prize would have been about 28000usd) Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi were the main competitors. They were both master goldsmiths. There are many stories about the proposed designs, but we know that Brunelleschi proposed to build 2 domes, one inside the other without using elaborate and expensive scaffolding.
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He refused to say how because he thought other competitors might steal his ideas. To stop the outward pressure caused by it’s weight it would said to have cared about his workers. They also say he could be a hard taskmaster.

Despite the fact that Brunelleschi had come up with the design he and Lorenzo were have rings of wood, stone and iron.

In 1420 the Florentine fathers chose to make Brunelleschi the superintendent of the project. They Lorenzo Ghiberti the co-superintendent. He was also Brunelleschi’s rival. This lead to a lot of plotting. One of the problems was that they did not have a way of lifting the materials into position. Brunelleschi solved this problem by creating a hoist system driven by a single pair of harnessed oxen. He also made other machines including a device to move things side to side. Brunelleschi spent a lot of time at the building site. He was both being paid the same wage of 36 florins. He and Lorenzo would plot against each other but in the end it would be Brunelleschi who won. According to stories he did it like this. One day, in the year 1422, when they were about to fit one of the rings on Brunelleschi became sick so Lorenzo would have to oversee the fitting. When Lorenzo had only fitted a few beams Brunelleschi came back, miraculously well, he pronounced Lorenzo’s work incompetent and that it would have to be redone. He kept complaining about his colleague to his superiors. The offshoot of this was that his salary increased to 100 florins while Lorenzo's stayed the same. Lorenzo didn’t give up. His assistant Giovanni Da Prato sent a large letter to the overseers criticizing Brunelleschi's work. It was illustrated and said that he had deviated from the original design and endangered the entire design through his own ignorance. Lorenzo didn’t stop there he made a personal attack on Brunelleschi in the form of a sonnet. He basically said Brunelleschi was stupid and that his plans were doomed to failure.

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