Florence Cathedral

Look up. Far above the rooftops of Florence, a great dome rises into the sky. Its curve is wide, and its tiles are the deep red of clay. You can see it from almost every street in the city, floating over the houses like a hill of brick. This is the dome of Florence Cathedral. The people who live here do not use its long name. They simply call it the Duomo.

The full name of the church is Santa Maria del Fiore. That means Saint Mary of the Flower. The flower is the lily, the old symbol of Florence. Work on the building began in 1296. The first designer was an architect named Arnolfo di Cambio. He planned a church so large that it could hold the whole population of the city at one time.

The plan was bold, almost reckless. The people of Florence wanted the greatest church in the region, greater than those of their rivals. They wanted to show the wealth and pride of their city in stone. But their ambition left them with a problem. At the center, where the roof should close, they left a huge open hole. The dome was meant to cover it. And for many years, no one alive knew how.

The opening was simply too wide. A normal dome of that time would need a giant wooden frame underneath, to hold the stone in place while it was built. No forest could provide enough timber for a frame that size. So the hole sat open for decades. Rain and snow fell straight into the unfinished church. The grand plan seemed impossible to complete.

Then a goldsmith named Filippo Brunelleschi found a way. He was not even a trained builder. He had spent years in Rome, studying the ancient ruins and how they stood. His idea was new. He designed a dome made of two shells, one inside the other, with a hollow space between. He laid the bricks in a herringbone pattern, set at an angle, so that each ring of brick held the next in place as it rose.

Work on the dome ran from 1420 to 1436. Brunelleschi built it with almost no wooden frame at all, something many had said could not be done. When it was finished, it was the largest brick dome in the world. It still is, even today. More than four million bricks were laid to make it. The people of Florence watched it climb higher each year, and they called it a wonder.

In 1436, after the dome was closed, the cathedral was finally consecrated. Pope Eugene the Fourth led the ceremony. Almost one hundred and fifty years had passed since the first stone was laid. Few of those who began the work could have imagined this day. The dome now rose above them all, and it became the very symbol of Florence.

Walk up close to the outside walls. They are covered, from top to bottom, in colored marble. There is green marble from the town of Prato, white marble from the quarries of Carrara, and soft pink marble from the Maremma. The three colors are cut into bands and shapes across the whole surface. Standing near, the patterns almost seem to move.

The front of the church, the facade, looks ancient, but it is not. The first front was never finished, and centuries later it was torn down. The one you see today was built much more recently, in the nineteenth century, between 1871 and 1887. The designer was Emilio De Fabris. He worked in an old style on purpose, so that the new front would match the rest of the church.

Now step inside. After the bright marble outside, the space feels dim, long, and mostly bare. Your eyes adjust slowly. You walk toward the center, beneath the dome, and look straight up. The whole inner surface is painted. It shows the Last Judgment, with rows of saints and sinners, some rising toward heaven and some falling into shadow. Giorgio Vasari began this painting, and Federico Zuccari finished it.

Before you leave the entrance, turn around and look at the wall above the door. There is a large round clock, painted by Paolo Uccello in 1443. It has only one hand. And it runs backward, against the direction we expect a clock to move. It marks the old way of counting the hours of the day. After more than five centuries, it still keeps time.

If your legs are willing, you can climb to the very top. Four hundred and sixty-three steps wind upward, squeezed into the narrow gap between the two shells of the dome. The stairs grow steep and tight. You feel the curve of the brick leaning over you, and you see Brunelleschi's herringbone pattern with your own eyes. Then you step out at the summit. The wind is cool and steady. The whole city lies spread below you, red roofs and green hills, the river threading through it all. Six hundred years ago, a goldsmith promised this dome would stand. You are standing on his promise now.