Brunelleschi's Dome - Ross King

I recently had the good fortune to visit Florence - the seat of the Italian renaissance. One of the key attractions of Florence and the focal point of this beautiful city is the splendid Basilica Santa Maria del Fiore or simply known as the 'Duomo'. This stunning piece of architecture is admired for its exquisite neo gothic facade and the masterful use of white, red and green marble to create a stunning texture rarely seen in a basilica. The crowning glory of this edifice is however is the dome of the basilica. This dome is the worlds largest free standing masonry dome and still stands proud dominating the panorama of Florence.

While visiting Florence and seeing the dome literally from every corner of the city, it made me wonder of the ingenuity of the people who conceived and executed this gargantuan task without the support of any modern or sophisticated machinery whatsoever. The fact that the key architect Brunelleschi was a goldsmith and had no formal training in architecture whatsoever intrigued me even more. After returning from Florence, I was looking for a good book to answer these questions and I ran across this particular book while browsing through the library catalog. I had expected a dry treatise on engineering and the different techniques employed in the construction of the dome but I was pleasantly surprised. The book does not take a dry architectural textbook approach to the subject but instead leads us gradually through the entire process with Brunelleschi himself as our guide. Beginning from his beginnings as a goldsmith, his lifelong competition with Ghiberti (another artist who made the stunning bronze baptistery doors in Florence), his ingenious and revolutionary engineering techniques that were unheard of at that time we witness the different events that shape the dome (and history as well) and rejoice with him when the dome is completed. Although there are a lot of architectural and engineering terms scattered throughout the book, these are so skilfully woven into the plot and so lucidly explained that even a layman would enjoy this volume.

So do I have any complaints with this book ? Well, the fact that this book is so enjoyable is somewhat marred by the fact that the length of the book is quite short. I had a feeling that there are several more interesting anecdotes involved in the construction of the dome which were left out of the book for reasons unknown. Anyways, that does not take anything away from the book and its author who has managed to transform a story that could have been an architecture lecture to a veritable page turner.