Florence Italy # Duomo

Duomo Florence Italy
Santa Maria del Fiore is one of the largest churches in the world. The plan consists of a triple-nave basilica with the presbytery area nested within, dominated by the large octagon of the immense dome, around which are three radial apses (or “tribunes”), each consisting of five chapels. The cathedral is 153 m in length, 90 m wide at the transept, and 90 m high from floor to base of the lantern. The title “Santa Maria del Fiore” (Lady of the flower) alludes to the name of the city, "Florentia", or “city of flowers”, “destined to bloom”, and to its emblem, the Florentine lily.
The first stone of the new cathedral was laid on 8 September 1296, and the task of erecting it was entrusted to Arnolfo di Cambio. His project was similar in plan but smaller than the current building, which instead corresponds to the expansion developed by Francesco Talenti, beginning in the mid-14th century. The church was consecrated at completion of the dome, by Pope Eugenio IV, on 25 March 1436. The external walls are covered in white, red and green marble with geometric figures and stylised flowers. The sides are adorned with four elegant mullioned windows, eight circular windows and four monumental portals richly adorned with sculptures. The facade is a 19th-century neo-Gothic masterpiece, designed by De Fabris and adorned by the greatest Tuscan artists. It replaced a previous decorated wall from the late 1600s, which followed on the demolition of the still earlier and unfinished medieval façade begun by Arnolfo di Cambio.
The dome is an absolute masterpiece of art, enchanting the world since the moment of its creation: the symbol of Florence, of Renaissance culture, and of all Western humanism. The dome was built between 1420 and 1436 to a plan by Filippo Brunelleschi, and is still the largest masonry vault in the world. Such a structure had been planned since the 1300s, but the admirable innovation of Brunelleschi was to create it without reinforcements in wood, since none could have sustained a cupola of this size.
It is an octagonal structure in stone and brick masonry, with external diameter 54.8 metres and interior diameter 45.5 metres, but in fact consisting of two domes: one internal and the other external, each composed of eight "sails", or pendentives. One of these sails has a greater set-back than the others and supports the rest. The two “shells” are united by the structures of 24 meridian and 10 parallel ribs, and the cavity between the twin domes hosts the stairway to the lantern (463 steps). The bricks are laid in herringbone pattern and the external dome is covered in terracotta tiles, marked by eight ribs in white marble. These converge towards the “tightening”: the ring at the top, in turn supporting the large lantern.