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14201420–1436 · Florence

Brunelleschi's dome and the Florentine Renaissance

Brunelleschi's red-tiled dome rising above Florence Cathedral
Photo: Livioandronico2013. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Filippo Brunelleschi won the contest to vault Florence Cathedral and built a masonry dome of record size without full wooden centring, using a double shell and herringbone brickwork. In the same years Florentine artists and patrons, the Medici among them, revived classical forms and developed linear perspective, setting the pattern for Renaissance art across Europe.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Florence Cathedral domeA climb of 463 steps between the dome's two shells to the lantern.Map ↗
  2. Site 2: Opera del Duomo MuseumBrunelleschi's tools and models and Ghiberti's original bronze doors.Map ↗
  3. Site 3: Ospedale degli InnocentiBrunelleschi's foundling hospital loggia, an early Renaissance building.Map ↗

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