Book Description

Ross King has a knack for explaining complicated processes in a manner that is not only lucid but downright intriguing. . . . Fascinating."(Los Angeles Times)

By all accounts, Filippo Brunelleschi, goldsmith and clockmaker, was an unkempt, cantankerous, and suspicious man-even by the generous standards according to which artists were judged in fifteenth-century Florence. He also designed and erected a dome over the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore-a feat of architectural daring that we continue to marvel at today-thus securing himself a place among the most formidable geniuses of the Renaissance. At first denounced as a madman, Brunelleschi literally reinvented the field of architecture amid plagues, wars, and political feuds to raise seventy million pounds of metal, wood, and marble hundreds of feet in the air. Ross King's captivating narrative brings to life the personalities and intrigue surrounding the twenty-eight-year-long construction of the dome, opening a window onto Florentine life during one of history's most fascinating eras. ... Read more

Reviews (54)

Great Architect, Great Book
Anyone who has been to the ancient Italian city of Florence recognizes the big dome that dominates the city. It is atop the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, and is larger than the dome of the US Capitol, St. Paul's in London, or even St. Peter's in Rome. It was built before any of them, in 1436. The architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, solved many problems to produce the wonder. He did away with any central scaffold on which to build the dome, and his design for such machines as an ox-powered hoist were innovative and useful. 70 million pounds of brick, mortar, marble, and more were hoisted into the air. The dome gradually rose, while below it were plagues, wars, jealous arguments against Brunelleschi, and financial problems. The book is exciting as it traces the progress of the dome, and it brings out the personality of Brunelleschi well. It gives details of Renaissance life, such as guilds, food, transportation, and brickmaking. Fascinating.

Filled with the Renaissance spirit
Brunelleschi's Dome is the story of the construction of the great dome of Florence's Santa Maria della Fiore. Filippo Brunelleschi, the architect, studied ancient Roman buildings like the Pantheon in order to understand how to construct the mammoth project. Thus the story of the construction of the dome is a recapitulation of the story of the Renaissance itself, when Europeans sought to revive the ancient learning and skills of Rome and Greece.

The book is very short but filled with interesting information on the dome's construction and on building techniques in general. It also provides a fascinating glimpse into Florence during the early Renaissance period, a time of great creative tumult and political turmoil. Perhaps only Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy matches Brunelleschi's Dome for its evocation of the glorious Italian Renaissance.

Wonderful narrative writing and historical account
Having lived in Florence for six months in 1976 and visited a number of other times since then, Brunelleschi's Dome is deeply engraved into my memory and heart. This book does well in giving one a better understanding of the difficulty in the construction of the dome and the background for the planning and construction. Well worth the read. I couldn't put it down except to sleep, thus finished it within two days.

Architect of Glory (God's & His Own)
I looked for this book after reading and enjoying Ross King's book on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling. Now, I just wish I had read this before visiting the Duomo in Florence some years ago. This is an excellent description of the raising of the dome over the cathedral in Florence at the beginning of the fifteenth century led by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi.

There are three things that I particularly like about this book: first, it is an excellent description of the tremendous work invested by literally entire communities to raise a structure like a mediaeval cathedral. Yes, Brunelleschi was the genius behind the dome but it took thousands of workers decades to make his vision a reality. Thinking of the skyscrapers we raise today with the help of modern machines, raising these churches was an incredible achievement.

Second, this book shows how scientific and engineering discoveries are often lost and rediscovered. The Roman methods of building aqueducts, arches and domes (like the Pantheon in Rome) had long been lost and many of their methods are still only vaguely understood. Still, Brunelleschi was able to study these structures (much as his work is studied now), rediscover old methods and invent even better ones to produce his work. This is something seen over and over again in the sciences: a discovery is made and, because it is not understood at the time or the explanation is lost somehow, it is forgotten, only to be rediscovered later.

Third, this book shows how difficult it is to understand some of the amazing achievements of antiquity. Even today, though the dome stands as a monument to his genius, we don't fully understand how Brunelleschi was able to make it work. Engineers and architects still make pilgrimages to Florence in an attempt to understand how this dome was built and remains standing after nearly six centuries. Still, a full understanding eludes us. Part of this is due to Brunelleschi own penchant for secrecy but that doesn't stop it from boggling the mind--how modern technology cannot unravel the mystery of this structure.

Having climbed up into the dome myself, I felt very close to what King described in this book and would recommend it as a must read to anyone who has visited Florence or is thinking of doing so. Even without a visit, however, this slim volume is worth reading for anyone with an interest in science or architecture.

Fabulous construction
Ross King has done a terrific job of chronicling the construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Along the way he paints a broad-brush canvas of the entire Italian Renaissance.

Brunelleschi's construction techniques were nothing short of revolutionary, although many may have been reverse engineered from his Roman Empire predecessors. His personality was almost a caricature of the Renaissance genius--gifted, quirky, paranoid, and secretive. He and his contemporaries come alive as they compete for commissions, take time out for wars, and play practical jokes on rivals.

But, the most fascinating part of the story is the design and construction of the dome itself. As an engineer, I found myself asking, "How did he know how to do that?" ... Read more

Reviews (2)

an eye opening book
i had the experience of being flooded with light and clarity when i first opened and browsed this book. my enthusiasm is in part because of kemp's extraordinary scholarship and detailed command of paintings and art publications across the entire span of western art. but it's also because the story of artistic imaging over the past six centuries is woven around the european romance with linear perspective, which has become so discredited and disliked by artists that it qualifies as a repressed memory. (like any buried memory, perspective surfaces in the dreamlike digital animations of intergalactic science fiction and first person computer games, which take perspective effects to the ultimate level of technical accuracy and artistic triviality.) kemp unearths those repressed perspective memories and shows how vital they were to the development of art and the connections between art and the wider culture of the times.

it is jaw droppingly fun to see how intensive, sophisticated and singleminded was the artistic interest in optical and perceptual issues of seeing. everyone will find special surprises here, but mine include kemp's spatial analysis of velazquez's "las meninas," and the extraordinary drawings and engravings produced c.1800, which force us to realize that we are already looking at "photo graphs," light drawings created by hand, at a time when film photography was not yet practical. there is a large section on various optical devices utilized in visual arts, including the camera obscura and camera lucida, and an excellent section on the evolving understanding and use of color, from the renaissance to seurat.

poignant for me was the victorian fascination with light as a spiritual quality, which comes through in turner's paintings and ruskin's amazing perspectival studies of "clouds" -- images that verge on op art. the intelligence and strength of these images reveal a road left untraveled in art, which turned toward the perceptually driven styles of impressionism and fauvism instead. as a bonus to the many interesting visual exhibits, the writing is lucid, sensible and alert. an invaluable publication.

At long last a scientific approach to art history.
It's amazing what happens when a scientist studies art history. This is a historical perspective on color theory, camera obscura and perspective. It relates the work of indvidual artists to the advances in science.

The refreshing thing is that Kemp realizes that artists who used perspective were not slaves of science, and an artist such as Turner actually realized that the main item of interest in a scene perceptually appears larger than mathematics would dictate.

My favorite story is how it was considered obvious that there were 5 primary colors because Christ had 5 stigmata, but when Newton proved there were 3 primaries, that was obvious because of the Trinity.

This book is certainly not an easy, but the knowledge gained should forever change the way you look at art. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Wonderful!
Waiting for Filippo is a truly marvelous, informative book. Filippo, architect of the dome for Florence Cathedral (Italy), is brought to life. A beautifully conceived pop-up book, readers get to peek behind doors and into the dome itself. I'm an adult and this book holds a proud place on my shelf of books about the Italian Renaissance.... ... Read more