Brunelleschi Begins the Florence Cathedral Dome

1420

Nobody in Europe had built a masonry dome that wide in a thousand years. Brunelleschi, a goldsmith with no architectural training, designed a double shell raised without scaffolding, laid brick in herringbone patterns, and invented new hoists powered by oxen. Florence held its breath for sixteen years. The completed dome remains the largest masonry dome ever built and one of the supreme achievements of Renaissance engineering.