Brunelleschi’s Dome and Such

I spent last Friday in Florence. I had been there before, about 12 years ago, and it hadn't changed much since my last visit. Victoria decided to give me a break from Juliette, and she wanted to have a reastful day herself, so I took the train journey there alone.

I was worried that Florence would be packed; being one of the major tourist centers in Italy, but the crowds weren’t too bad. You knew that there were other people there, but it wasn't a mob scene, except around the Palazzo della Signoria and the Pointe Veccio, the two favorite package tour destinations... I spent most of my day in the Uffizi, looking at the Giottos, Leonardos, and especially Botticellis, the Uffizi having the majority of his authenticated works. Inside the Uffizi, the tour groups washed in and out through the rooms like waves, speaking in Russian, English, Spanish, Italian, and other languages. Fortunately was able to admire their many masterpieces in the relative quiet between the tides.

Afterwards, I walked over to the Duomo (cathedral), Santa Maria del Fiore. There had been a heavy rain while I was in the museum, which somewhat thinned out the crowds. The Doumo had, among other things, Brunelleschi’s famous dome. Filippo Brunelleschi, the renaissance architect, had designed the largest dome built since the Roman Empire for Florence's cathedral. In fact, the plans are still preserved at the Uffizi. Legend has it that once it was completed, the builders refused to take down the scaffolding, certain that the massive dome would collapse. So old Brunelleschi had to pull down the scoffolding himself, confident that it would stand (this is just one of the many conversational gems that I picked up from years of art history classes). At any rate, I can vouch for the fact that it is still standing today, high above the city of Florence.

Earlier in the trip, my mother had told me that I shold look for the statue of Brunelleschi in front of a building next to the Duomo. I hunted around and found it across the piazza from the Duomo. It was in front of a hotel, I believe. There he was in larger-than-life glory, squinting up at his dome as he checked a measurment in a document lying on his lap, eternally re-checking his work on the legendary dome.