Thursday Morning Climbing the Cupola
My main interest on this day was to climb to the top of the cupola (dome) of the Duomo, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, Saint Mary of the Flower. The flower being referred to is the lily, which is the symbol of Florence.
I had thought that the entrance to climb the dome opened at 08:30am, and we walked over from the hotel, arriving at about 08:45. There was a short line there of about 8-10 people but the door was closed. I was confused until the door opened at 09:00 and I was able to move up enough to see the sign that indicated that it opens at 09:00am.
As we walked from the hotel to the duomo, I took this photo of the dome.
The basilica was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio and building began in 1296.
In 1418, they were finally at the point where they needed to begin building the dome, so they had a competition to determine who would build it.
This competition was won by Filippo Brunelleschi.
The area indicated above as the drum
was not a part of the original design.
It was added prior to 1418 to add additional height and also to provide an area to add the round windows in an attempt to get more light into the basilica.
The darker area above the drum, below the tiled part of the dome, is actually part of the dome.
It is the way it is because they were going to put a gallery around that part of the dome for people to use to get views from the dome.
In the photo above, you can see the first portion of this gallery on the right near where the word Drum
is.
However, when Michelangelo saw this he ridiculed it, calling it a cricket cage.
Construction on the gallery stopped at that point, and never continued.
The cathedral, and the campanille, are faced with colored Tuscan marble in the Italian national colors—green from Prato, white from Carrara, and red from the Maremma. It is dedicated to Holy Mary of the Flower, the Madonna of Florence.
In this photo I took from the Piazzale Michelangelo during our trip to Italy in 2001, you can clearly see the cricket cage.
This is the sculpture on the baptistery (Battistero di San Giovanni) above the doors on the east side, facing the duomo. This is a copy of the Baptism of Christ, by Andrea Sansovino, 1502-1505. The originals are in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.
These are the doors of the baptistery, on the east side, facing the duomo.
They are by Lorenzo Ghiberti,and are known as the Gates of Paradise.
This is the entrance to the stairs to climb to the top of the cupola.
Another area where renovation was going on.
It opens at 09:00am, and cost €8.00.
We went through the doors, turned left, and the payment desk was right there.
Then it was up 463 steps!
This is one of many windows of various sizes during the climb.
Part of the way up, before you get to the base of the dome, is an area where they are storing some sculptures. These are sculptures that were located in various places in and on the basilica. Some of the originals are stored here and are replaced by copies where they had been located. The photo above, on the right, and the following four photos were taken here.
When we got to the level of the base of the drum, we came out to a walkway that goes around the drum. Then we walked part of the way around to get to the next set of stairs leading to the top.
The painting inside the dome is the fresco The Last Judgement
by Giorgio Vasari.
He wasn't one of the great artists, but is better known for his book The Lives of the Artists
with biographies of such artists as Donatello, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Giotto, Ghiberti, Masaccio and others.
In the next five photos, you can see portions of the fresco as well as the holes that were put in the inside of the dome during construction to hold the scaffolding that was needed to paint the fresco.
In this photo you can see the oculus, or openning in the top of the dome. This is covered by the lantern, which was designed to let in light while keeping out the rain.
Here you can see the inside of a portion of the drum.
Now we begin the climb, below, beginning inside the drum and progressing into the space between the two shells of the dome. The next few photos were taken in these areas.
In this photo you can see the herringbone pattern of the brick.
The main engineering problem with the dome had to do with the sheer size of the dome.
No one at the time knew how to build a dome that large.
The span is 143.5 feet across, and it is still the largest span for a masonry dome in the world, exceeding the dome of the pantheon by 1.5 feet.
The issue was how to build such a dome without building it on a wooden frame (called centering.
)
Filippo Brunelleschi won the competition and built a beautiful dome without centering. How he did it has been under debate ever since. In many of the books I have read about this, many of the authors attribute the herringbone pattern of the bricks as the main reason he was able to do it. However, there are other factors that may have had more to do with it.
If you look at the photo below, you can see some of the structure of the dome. This photo was taken looking directly upward. You can see the two shells, which are octagonal, and you can see some circular rings which are the main structural parts of the dome. A circular ring within the octagonal structure is part of the secret.
The other part is the angle at which the dome progressed upward. During the later part of the building of the dome, some people complained that it was not being built with the proper curve, as specified by the model. This was probably due to the angles that Brunelleschi used to build the dome, which is the second secret.
Looking upward at the structure of the dome.
One of the windows with a view of the Palazzo della Signoria.
The next two photos are views of the last set of steps that leads to a small vestibule just before the exit to the viewing area at the top of the dome.
Another window.
These are the stairs that lead out to the viewing area, and the mechanism that opens and closes the door.
The first view from the top of the dome, looking down at the shadow of the dome and lantern on the roof of the basilica.
Another view of the basilica and the campanile.
The next four photos are views of the lantern, which was also designed by Brunelleschi, but was not finished until after his death.
