| PLATE XLVI | INTERIOR OF THE DUOMO |
Without waiting for the completion of the cupola and lantern, the Florentines took advantage of the presence in their city of Pope Eugenius IV., to have him consecrate the Cathedral in person, with most impressive ceremony, on the Florentine New Year's day, the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1436.
| PLAN OF DUOMO AND CAMPANILE |
Not long after the consecration of the Duomo, the work on the cupola was completed (August, 1436), and to the fulfilment of Brunelleschi's plan remained only the construction of a surmounting lantern. But for some undiscovered reason there was delay for year after year, and it was fated that Brunelleschi should not see the completion of his work, for "finally," says Vasari, "Filippo Brunelleschi being now very old, that is sixty-nine years old in the year 1446, on the 16th of April, went to a better life, after having toiled greatly in the performance of works which made him deserve on earth an honored name, and obtain in heaven an abode of peace." More than twenty years passed after Brunelleschi's death before the lantern was at last completed. On the 23d of April, 1467, the last and highest stone was set.
Meantime, not until some twenty years after the death of Giotto had work on the unfinished façade been recommenced. The design for it, which was Gothic, with columns and niches containing statues of the Madonna and Child, of saints and prophets, and even of distinguished Florentine citizens, was the joint composition of several architects, among them Orcagna, Gaddi and Tommasi. But this façade had only reached one-third of the height of the edifice, when, for some unexplained reason it was abandoned, and remained in an unfinished state until the reign of the Grand Duke Francis I. (1575-1587), when it was demolished to make way for the accomplishment of a new design, one which was, however, never executed; and the whole face of the Cathedral remained a bare expanse of rubble and cement until, in 1689, it was painted and frescoed to represent columns and other architectural decorations. Shortly after Tuscany was incorporated with the kingdom of Italy, the Florentine municipality again took up the matter, and invited architects to submit designs for a new façade. The design of Commendatore de Fabris, a Florentine, was selected. In 1875 the scaffolding was erected, and white marble from Seravezza, red marble from Montiere and green marble from Prato were brought to Florence to begin the façade which now exists, and which was completed and unveiled in 1887.
Writing of the Duomo as a whole, Mr. C. E. Norton says: "Its size gives it dignity, and its effect is powerful from the simplicity and largeness of its design. A nave of four enormous bays is stopped upon a vast octagonal space, from which, at the east, the north, and the south, are built out three pentagonal tribunes or apses, which, as seen on the outside, give to the church the common cruciform shape. The proportions of the interior are on an enormous scale, by which the apparent size of the building is diminished rather than increased. There is nothing either in the general conception or in the working-out of the details which corresponds with that principle, characteristic of the best Northern Gothic, of complex organization, in which each minor part contributes to the vital unity of the whole edifice. The Duomo presents, on the contrary, an assemblage of separate vast features arbitrarily associated, rather than united by any law of mutual relation into a completely harmonious whole. It does not display that lavish wealth of fancy in ever-changing variety and abundance of detail which gives inexhaustible charm to a true Gothic edifice. But it is impressive within from its vast open spaces, and from the stately and simple, though barren, grandeur of its piers and vaults and walls.