Brunelleschi’s Greatest Invention

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Brunelleschi’s Dome of the Duomo of Florence

It is amazing to us how much we have forgotten that we knew. Subjects studied in-depth in college become fragmentary or lost entirely over the years until we rediscover the information again. Recently we were reading through a new magazine called mental floss and rediscovered the great Italian Renaissance architect, engineer and artist, Fillipo Brunelleschi. The focus of the article was Brunelleschi’s innovative design for the great dome of the Duomo in Florence. Self-taught in architecture, Brunelleschi proved himself a genius at engineering, pioneering the double-dome design and inventing at least four other major innovations in engineering as part of his design and the construction of the great dome. Brunelleschi was so brilliant that his work was studied intently by both DaVinci and Michelangelo. The very definition of a Renaissance mind, he became a master of every skill needed to build the dome. He was so obs…