| WINDOW | THE CAMPANILE |
After Giotto's death there is a wide gap in the annals of the Duomo, for in 1348 the great plague desolated Florence, and the work came to a standstill. After it had passed, however, there followed, as a natural consequence, a sudden outbreak of pious superstition. Immense sums had been bequeathed by dying men to the Church to purchase salvation; and the Duomo, begun sixty years before, seemed hardly to correspond with the demands of the present age. It was accordingly resolved to adopt a new design for it on a grander scale than that planned by Arnolfo; and while the breadth was to remain the same, the height and length were to be increased, and the eastern end of the church to be larger. The oversight of the work was entrusted to Francesco di Talenti, and in 1357 the new foundations were begun. The main forms of the new building were, in great part, determined by such of the old structure of Giotto's time as was left standing, and by the original scheme of Arnolfo. But the taste of the age had changed, and in grafting the newly arisen classical ideas upon the original, the architects achieved a result which was neither good Gothic nor good Classic. For some years the work was now carried slowly but steadily forward, and in 1407 the eastern tribune with its five chapels was completed, and the work was ready to be crowned by a dome.
But here a great difficulty was encountered. The increase in the original dimensions and the height of the walls had made it necessary to span an enormous space, for the diameter of the octagon to be covered was now one hundred and thirty-five feet. The records of architecture could show no such dome as this must be. The overseers of the work were confounded, and knew not how to proceed; and, in their desperation made a public proclamation in 1418, that whoever wished, might make a model for the dome, or of anything pertaining to its construction. Fifteen models were presented, and over them there were months of public deliberation and discussion. It was not until March, 1420, that a final conclusion was reached, and the celebrated plan of Filippo Brunelleschi was adopted.
No more characteristic or remarkable design was produced during the whole period of the Renaissance than this, with which its great architectural achievements began. Not only were apparently insurmountable difficulties of construction overcome, but the new dome was also to be a masterpiece of beauty. The great domes of former times—the dome of the Pantheon, the dome of Aya Sophia—had been designed solely for their interior effect; they were not impressive or noble structures from without. But Brunelleschi had conceived a dome which, grand in its interior aspect, should be even more superb from without, and which, in its stately dimensions and proportions, in its magnificent lift above all the other edifices of the city of which it formed the centre, in its absolute unity and symmetry, in the beautiful shape and proportions of its broad divisions, the strong, simple energy of its upwardly converging lines, should be such that, more than a century later, when Michelangelo was told that he had an opportunity to surpass it in his cupola of St. Peter's at Rome, he replied sadly, with a shake of his head,—
"Io farò la sorella
Più grande già; ma non più bella!"
"I will make her sister dome
Larger, indeed, but not more beautiful!"
Brunelleschi's plan was to build two octagonal domes, separated by a space wide enough for a passage and stairways, and united by eight strong ribs of masonry at the angles. The inner and smaller dome was for constructive purposes, to bridge the vault and to furnish a support for the outer, which was to be merely a light shell to secure the magnificent swelling lines. The whole was to be crowned by a lantern. We have not space to quote Vasari's animated account of Brunelleschi's difficulties in persuading the authorities of the practicability of his plan, of his jealous bickerings with his troublesome and incompetent confrère, Ghiberti, of the obstacles, difficulties and persecutions that he underwent,—suffice it to say that, in 1434, under his untiring supervision, just fourteen years from its beginning, the splendid dome closed over the central space of the Duomo, and Brunelleschi's fame was forever established.
