CHAPTER II
THE DOME OF FLORENCE
The great dome of the cathedral of Florence marks the beginning of the Renaissance movement in architecture, though in its general form and structural character it has no likeness to ancient domes, and has few details drawn from the Roman classic source. It exhibits a wide departure from any previous forms of dome construction, and is an expression of the creative genius of a remarkably gifted man of great independence, working under inspiration drawn in part from ancient sources, in part from mediæval building traditions, and in still larger part from the new motives that were beginning to animate the artistic ambitions of the fifteenth century.
The dome of the Pantheon and the dome of St. Sophia, the two greatest domes of former times, had been built on principles that did not admit of much external effect, and the numerous smaller ones of the Middle Ages, in western Europe, had been equally inconspicuous externally, if not entirely hidden from view, in consequence of rising from within a drum which reached far above the springing level. In most cases the whole construction was covered with a timber roof, so that from the outside the existence of a dome would not be suspected. This was a secure mode of construction, and one that for stability could not be improved ; but it did not give the imposing external effect that Brunelleschi sought.
Attempts to make the dome a conspicuous external feature had indeed been made before Brunelleschi's time. The later Byzantine builders had raised small domes on drums resting on pendentives, and rising above the main roof of the building, but they had still carried these drums up somewhat above the springing of the dome, and had further fortified them with buttresses built over the supporting piers, as in Hagia Theotokos of Constantinople (Fig. 1). Thus in such designs the dome
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