I have an architectural history class this semister that has really grabbed me. This stuff is new to me but one building that really caught my attention was the Basicilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Florence Cathedral. There are many reasons I enjoy it. First of all it marks the begining of the renaissance era, which only lasted about 50 years before you get into high renaissance, late renaissance, which then gives way to the baroque which was pretty much the exact oppisite of renaissance.
The dome at Florence Cathedral was designed by a guy named Filippo Brunelleschi around 1420. He had won a contest that the merchants of the city had been holding. In these days the merchant class ran the show the government was bought and sold by these people untill eventually they realized they had the power and pretty much made the government obsolete. Any way, Brunelleschi was a gold smith in the beginning and had previously entered a contest and lost. So being the emo kid he was he took off for Rome to spend quite a few years refining his studies and really taking a deep look at ancient Roman architecture, like the Pantheon and Colosseum. When he returned he had entered the contest for the dome and narrowly won it.
His idea was to put a dome within a dome, which untill this point had never been done, it was also to be the largest masonry dome to date. His idea was to use marble rib vaulting at every 90 degree angle and then make the outer dome out of brick and the inner dome out of concrete with five giant chains to reinforce it. The first time concrete had ever been reinforced. So for the outter dome he used a method of brick laying called harring bone, which up till that point had always been for looks but was never considered to be a method for structural support. Four million bricks went into the 140' dome.
Brunelleschi also pioneered many other things while working on the dome. He designed a lift that you could hook an oxen up to and it could just travel in one direction but there was a mechanical way to choose between lowering or raising instead of having to take the ox off and turning it around to make it go the other way. He also invented a lift that boomed out and not just up. Then he put a cantena up in the rafters for the workers so they would not have to waste an hour a day climbing up and down just for lunch. Maybe that's where the roach coach idea comes from. Other than that he was also mostly responsible for rediscovering the single point prespective and utilizing it when it came to architecture which then laid the ground work for the blue print.
All and all it was an exciting time of change and the thing that made it really interesting is that for the first time in history a vast majority of people KNEW they were living in an exciting time of change. That is my opinion at least.
[img width= height=]http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/imagemid/florencedome.JPG[/img]
