Overview
Construction began in 1296 to Arnolfo di Cambio’s design, with Giotto’s freestanding campanile rising beside it from 1334. The building advanced for over a century with the crossing left open, awaiting a dome no one yet knew how to build.
Description
Brunelleschi won the dome commission in 1420 and completed the shell by 1436: a double-walled octagonal dome of some four million bricks laid in self-supporting herringbone courses, raised without traditional full timber centering. The neo-Gothic facade came only in 1887.
History and legacy
The cathedral was consecrated in 1436, and in 1478 it was the scene of the Pazzi conspiracy’s attack on the Medici during Mass. Brunelleschi’s dome is remembered as the founding feat of Renaissance engineering and still dominates the Florence skyline.