The octagonal dome that was to crown Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral begun in Florence in 1294, presented the most daunting architectural puzzle of the age to architect Filippo Brunelleschi: how to raise the highest and widest vault ever attempted. The cupola was to have a span greater than the Roman Pantheon—then the world’s largest dome—and vaulting higher than any Gothic cathedral.
The logistical problems were staggering. How could this enormous octagonal structure be made self-supporting? How could the tons of masonry be lifted more than 200 feet and laid into place with micrometric accuracy? Ross King, author of Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, examines the strategies developed by Brunelleschi as he worked from 1420 to 1436 to successfully execute what remains the world’s largest masonry dome.
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