Florence Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore Tour 🏰🌟

🌟The Florence Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, built between 1296 and 1462, was funded by Cosimo, a member of the Medici family, who were the "angel investors" of the Renaissance. When comparing the dome and the bell tower, I recommend climbing the dome because of its immense construction difficulty. The dome remained unfinished for over a hundred years until Brunelleschi built it without any drawings or calculations, astonishingly creating the dome from scratch. The Pope marveled at this mythical architecture, and Michelangelo, feeling humbled by it, later its design for the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, giving it even more significance. 🌟Florence, meaning "flower city" in Italian, saw the base of its cathedral's dome completed in 1315. However, the Black Death in 1347 forced the construction to halt. Due to the dome's construction challenges, the cathedral remained "bald" for over a century. In 1418, the Wool Guild initiated a competition for the dome's construction, which was won by Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti (the creator of the Gates of Paradise on the baptistery). 🌟Initially a sculptor, Brunelleschi achieved success in architectural arts and made significant contributions to perspective and mathematics. The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore was his earliest work. 🌟The cathedral adopts the centralized plan of Byzantine churches, octagonal in shape with a span of 42.2 meters, making it the largest dome in Europe at the time. This dome was unprecedented in Western architecture and was the first to play such a significant role in the structure. 🌟In the facade's structure, Brunelleschi employed the pilaster order. To divide the building into two stories, he used the full entablature order, thus the classical order system determined the building's proportions, divisions, and shapes. This was the earliest use of the order system in the urban mansions of the Renaissance era. #CulturalHeritageSharing #MyLife #FlorenceCathedral #Florence #Architecture #Italy