THE ELEGANCE OF SMALL AND SLENDER THINGS

The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, also known as the Florence Cathedral, one of the largest in Europe, is breathtakingly beautiful. Its ribbed vaults as well as its dome present shapes so simple and slender that at first we can imagine that building them was easy. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The erection of this building began in 1300 and lasted more than one hundred years. During this period, the problem of what type of roof would cover the central part, the famous dome by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and its impressive cupola measuring 45 meters in diameter, was left in abeyance. A real challenge for engineers—the construction of this dome alone would require forty years of additional work.