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Updated: June 27, 2025
To use the phrase of Michelet, who has chosen the dramatic episode of Brunelleschi's intervention in the rearing of the dome for a parable of the Renaissance, "the colossal church stood up simply, naturally, as a strong man in the morning rises from his bed without the need of staff or crutch." This indeed is the glory of Italian as compared with Northern architecture.
It was the inspiration of the dome of St. Paul's in London, built by the English architect, Sir Christopher Wren. Architecturally the most interesting of the domes was Brunelleschi's, built for the Florence Cathedral in the fifteenth century, known throughout the world by the Italian name for Cathedral, the Duomo.
The whole truth we shall never know; but it is as easy to think of Bianca as a harmless woman who both lost and gained through love as to picture her as sinister and scheming. At any rate we know that Francis was devoted to her with a fidelity and persistence for which Grand Dukes have not always been conspicuous. S. Spirito is one of Brunelleschi's solidest works.
The next room is given to models and architectural plans and drawings connected with the cathedral, the most interesting thing being Brunelleschi's own model for the lantern.
The classical revival of the fifteenth century made itself immediately felt in architecture; and Brunelleschi's visit to Rome in 1403 may be fixed as the date of the Renaissance in this art. Gothic, as we have already seen, was an alien in Italy.
It is best to enter the Piazza del Duomo from the Via de' Martelli, the Via de' Cerretani, the Via Calzaioli, or the Via Pecori, because then one comes instantly upon the campanile too. The upper windows so very lovely may have been visible at the end of the streets, with Brunelleschi's warm dome high in the sky beside them, but that was not to diminish the effect of the first sight of the whole.
To thee it is given to carve Christs: to me only peasants." No one should forget this pretty story, either here or at S. Maria Novella, where Brunelleschi's crucifix now is. The flexible Siena iron grille of this end chapel dates from 1335.
Michelangelo's chapel, called the New Sacristy, was begun for Leo X and finished for Giulio de' Medici, illegitimate son of the murdered Giuliano and afterwards Pope Clement VII. Brunelleschi's design for the Old Sacristy was followed but made more severe. This, one would feel to be the very home of dead princes even if there were no statues.
Six competitors entered for the contest; but Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's efforts were alone considered seriously. A comparison of these two reliefs proves that Ghiberti, at any rate, had a finer sense of grouping.
He afterwards became Pope Leo X. How many of the boys, now in the school for the monastery has become a Jesuit school will, one wonders, rise to similar eminence. In the beautiful cloisters we have the same colour scheme as in the church, and here again Brunelleschi's miraculous genius for proportion is to be found.
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