Santa Maria del Fiore

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Santa Maria del Fiore
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Lantern
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Construction Timeline

• 1331- Wool Guild assumes responsibility for works
  in Cathedrals
• 1357- Guild passes Resolution to build nave and
  aisle
• 1367- Board of experts prepares plan for church
  and octagonal dome
• 1368- Resolution sanctioned for this model
• 1417- Opera begins to finance studies, plans, and
  models for the dome
• 1418- Dome design competition announced no
  winner declared
• 1420- Second competition for single model,
  according to wishes of Officials of Cupola
• 1420-1436- Construction of Dome

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Construction Statistics

• Total weight raised 29,000 tons avg. of over
  2,000 tons/year and 8 tons/day.
• 2 million working hours (270 working days/year)
  required to complete dome.
• Cupola grew an average of 2.5 meters/year.
• Several million bricks were laid, on average
  400,00 a year. Only a few bricks could be laid
  per man-hour.

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Materials
Timber tall white fir from the forests of
Casentino Sandstone from quarry of
Trassina-ia. Bricks from kiln in Via
Ghibellina White marble from quarries of
Carrara and Campiglia Metal mostly iron (for
chains, bars, nails, brackets, templates for
specific marble parts, etc.) Rope from
Pisa Mortar prepared from quicklime mixed with
sand (or possibly, lime mixed with brickdust)
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Dome Construction Techniques

• Double-masonry dome, with a thick inner octagonal
  shell connected to a thinner outer shell with
  meridional arched ribs
• 6 horizontal sandstone rings, reinforced by iron
  chains, resist tensile outward force
• Inner dome is so thick that a fairly thick
  circular ring can be drawn entirely inside it
• Pointed dome (pointed fifth) has half the
  tendency to burst as a shallower, spherical dome
• Herringbone brick pattern used to stablize each
  ring at every level of construction
• Supporting drum (14 ft. thick) is octagonal in
  shape and surrounded on three sides by octagonal
  half domes

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St. Peters Basilica
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• By 1506, St. Peter's Basilica, the main church
  at the Vatican, was too small and decrepit to
  impress anyone. Following the examples set by
  emperors and sultans, Pope Julius II decided to
  crown the old church with a dome. He hired
  Italian architect Donato Bramante to do the job.
  Bramante's vision for the Basilica was simple a
  Greek cross with equal-sized arms around a
  central dome, a church with the Pantheon perched
  on top. But Bramante and the Pope died before
  much could be built. In 1546, a young artist from
  Florence named Michelangelo gained total control
  of the construction of St. Peter's, the largest
  church in Christendom.

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Statistics

• Location Vatican City, Italy
• Completion Date 1626
• Dome Diameter 138 feet
• Dome Type Ribbed
• Height 452 feet above the street, 390 feet above
  the floor
• Purpose Religious
• Materials Concrete, brick (masonry)
• Architects Donato Bramante, Michelangelo

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Important Dates

• 1506- Pope Julius II hires Bramante to create
  plans for St. Peters Basilica and its dome
• 1514- Bramante dies, Antonio Sangallo becomes
  capomaestro
• 1546- Sangallo dies, Pope Paul III orders
  Michelangelo to take the commission
• 1564- Michelangelo dies
• 1586- della Portas plan for a new dome is
  approved
• 1588-1590- Dome constructed jointly by della
  Porta and Fontana
• 1590-1593- Lantern constructed

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Michelangelos Floor Plan (Greek Cross, all arms
equal lengths)
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Tension Rings
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Internal piers (each 60 square feet)
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Internal Spiral Stairwells (inside piers)
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Buttresses for Dome Support
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Windows in Drum
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Lantern
It happened that while the cupola (of San
Lorenzo in Florence) was being raised
Michelangelo was asked by some of his friends
Shouldnt you make your lantern very different
from that of Filippo Brunelleschi?
Certainly I can make it different, he replied,
but not better. -Vasari, Lives of the
Artists.
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Minor Domes
One of the two minor domes, designed by Vignola.
Vignola served as second in command after
Michelangelos death and chief architect from
1565 to 1573. (Smaller domes are in style of
Bramantes original cupola thin walled and
single layered)
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Deviations in Dome Design

• Michelangelo designed a true, Roman,
  hemispherical dome (see book)
• Final dome is 20 ft. taller than a hemisphere
  the exterior dome is not hemispherical and thus
  not concentric with the inner shell
• Lantern, which is octagonal, suggests that the
  dome was to have 8 ribs. In actuality, there are
  16 ribs.

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Engraved coin
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Additional References

• Ackerman, J.S. Michelangelo. Zemmer, London,
  1961.
• Sketches in Casa Buonarroti.