Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Florence. Cathedral

Starting point is 00:00:00 For more than a century, one of Europe's richest cities worked on a building that it didn't know how to finish. Its designers created an enormous space that seemed impossible to cover, leaving future generations with one of the Middle Ages's greatest engineering challenges. The solution would require new machines, new construction techniques, and one of history's most brilliant architects. Learn more about the long and remarkable history of the Santa Maria del Fiorre, aka the Florence Cathedral, on this episode of Everything Everything, Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

Starting point is 00:01:08 Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention, and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster. Hey, I'm Arne Neckam from the fully improvised comedy podcast, Hello from the Magic Tavern. I'm here with my co-hosts, John the Talking Badger, Bing Bong, and Usenor the Wizard. I greet the listeners. Look, I'm trapped in the magical land of foon, so I started a podcast interviewing elves, unicorns, and other weirdos.

Starting point is 00:01:58 We have great guests like Felicia. Shaday, Jason Manzuchus, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Amy Mann, and so many more. Oh, and I think one time we interviewed a sentient shoe? I hope it was sentient. Not to mention the evil people we've had to interview. How I hate evil. Join us as we bar crawl across the magical land of foon. Looking for adventure.

Starting point is 00:02:18 Getting caught up in escapades. Hello from the Magic Tavern is available right now on your favorite podcast app. And add free and with lots of bonus content on Patreon. Subscribe to Hello from the Magic Tavern today. One of the most impressive and architecturally important cathedrals in Europe is the Cathedral of Florence, Italy. Formerly known as Santa Maria del Fiori, which roughly translates to St. Mary of the Flower, it is the third largest cathedral in Italy and the fifth largest in the entire world.

Starting point is 00:02:59 Made from three marble varieties from around Italy, its white, green, and pink facade pales in comparison to the colossal octagonal dome of red terracotta brick that rises more than 375 feet or 114 meters above street level. Italy, as we know it today, didn't exist in the late 13th century as a unified nation. Instead, it was a patchwork of rival city-states along the Italian peninsula. Each city-state had its own economy and political system, but all shared a single goal of using architecture to broadcast their wealth and cultural. superiority. Florence was a wealthy plutocracy fueled by the wool trade and international finance, most famously led by the powerhouse Medici banking family, which I've covered in a previous episode. In the 13th century, Florentines had a great deal to be proud of, but their cathedral

Starting point is 00:03:51 was an embarrassment. To Italians, a cathedral was the civic heart and sacred symbol of a city. Down the road in Pisa, a stunning white marble cathedral and its leaning bell tower showcased, its wealth. Meanwhile to the south, their arch-rival Sienna poured fortunes into a soaring Gothic cathedral with dramatic black and white striped marble and mosaic floors. By contrast, the Florence Cathedral, the Santa Ray Parada, was dark, cramped, and starting to decay. By 1296, the city's governing council had enough. They resolved to build a church that would tower over their rivals in Pisa and Sienna. They hired master architect Arnolfo DeCambio to design the cathedral, while the city awarded other major construction contracts through public competitions.

Starting point is 00:04:40 DeCambio laid the cornerstone on September 8, 1296. Rather than tearing the previous cathedral down all at once, the builders erected the new cathedral's massive outer walls directly around the old church to maintain a continuity of church services. The city's wealthiest and most powerful murder, The Wool Merchant Guild, the Wool Merchants Guild, directed the project's funding, and created an administrative board called the Opera del Duomo, or roughly the Cathedral Works Department. To raise revenue, they taxed imported wool and levied contributions on citizens' wills.

Starting point is 00:05:16 In 13th century Italy, wills required some contribution to civic and religious works. To adorn the cathedral, the Opera del Duomo commissioned the greatest artistic talents of the age, including Giotto, who built the magnificent freestandestine. bell tower that still stands beside the cathedral today. By the early 1400s, after more than a century of construction, the vast nave, the chapels, and the immense octagonal drum were essentially finished. The drum is the vertical wall or base that supports a dome and raises it above the rest of the building. There was, however, one big problem. The original plans called for the largest dome built since the Roman pantheon.

Starting point is 00:05:59 The drum was 170 feet or 52 meters above the cathedral floor and 144 feet or 44 meters across diagonally. No one in history had ever built such a large dome. Under the standard practices of the day, building an arch required masons to build a temporary wooden framework spanning from the ground to the roof. They would then lay stone bricks across the scaffold until the day. dome's keystone was put into place, making the arch self-supporting. One major problem was building the center scaffold, as it would have required nearly

Starting point is 00:06:36 1,000 trees that were 170 feet high. The problem was that the region around Florence and Tuscany didn't have those kind of trees. Engineers also speculated that the weight of the lumber alone would be enough to crush the cathedral floor. And to make matters worse, the Florentines rejected the obvious solution. In northern Europe, Gothic cathedrals used stone arms called flying buttresses that reached out from the walls to carry the roof's weight. Florentines rejected the Gothic style as barbaric and ugly, and the city council formally banned its use. The new dome had to support its own immense weight

Starting point is 00:07:15 from within. And by 1418, with no solution in sight, the Opera del Duomo had a number. enough of the inaction. On August 19, 1418, they announced a public architectural competition with the winner receiving a prize of 200 gold florins, a fortune at that time. The contest drew dozens of leading architects, masons, and artists from across Europe to submit their plans. One proposal suggested filling the cathedral with a mountain of dirt mixed with silver coins. Workers would build the dome on top of the dirt, and when the stonework was done, the city would invite poor people to dig out the earth, allowing them to keep the coins. Not surprisingly, the judges considered the idea to be absurd and rejected it out of hand.

Starting point is 00:08:03 Among the top contenders, Lorenzo Giberty and Philippo Brunelleschi had emerged as the likeliest choices. And this must have felt like deja vu for both of them, as it was just 17 years earlier in 1401 that Giberty beat Brunelowski in the famed competition to cast the bronze north door for the cathedral baptistery across the square. And that success led to Goberty being awarded the commission for the east doors. Eager to win the dome competition, Brunelleschi faced an uphill battle. He was a goldsmith, not a stone mason or an architect. He had no building credits to his name, and he was widely disliked for being ill-tempered. Yet for this particular task, Brunelleschi was well prepared. He had spent much of the previous decade in Rome, taking copious

Starting point is 00:08:49 notes, sketching ancient ruins, and reverse engineering the colossal dome of the Pantheon, a structure with nearly the same diameter that had stood for more than a thousand years. When Brunelleschi returned for the competition in 1418, he made an audacious claim. He said he would build the dome without any wooden central scaffolding, thus preserving the floor. The unbelievable part was that Brunelowski claimed his dome would support itself in mid-air as it rose. Judges naturally demanded to see blueprints and models, but Brunelleschi refused, fearing Giberdi would steal his proprietary ideas. When the committee refused to award the commission without proof, Brunelleschi responded with

Starting point is 00:09:33 a challenge of his own. Brunelesky's challenge was compiled by a 16th century biographer, Giorgio Vasari, who noted, quote, The wardens and the consuls would have wished that Filippo show his model, just as the others had done, which he had no mind to do. but proposed to them that whoever could make an egg stand upright on a flat sheet of marble should build the cupola, for in that way their intellect would be made manifest. An egg was brought and all those masters tried to make it stand upright, but not one of them

Starting point is 00:10:04 knew the way. Philippo was told to make it stand, and taking it with great curiosity, he struck its end against the flat marble and made it stand upright. The craftsman took offense, saying that they could have done the same thing, and Philippo laughing replied that they also would have done it. know how to vault the Kupola if they had seen his model of the design. End quote. The egg demonstration proved his point.

Starting point is 00:10:27 Brunelleschi received the commission in April of 1420, but it came with a catch. His rival, Lorenzo Guberty, must serve as his co-superintendant, sharing the credit. To execute his plan, Brunelisky adopted a series of brilliant strategies developed from Roman techniques. Brunelleschi created a two-layered dome with a four-foot cavity separating the layers. He supported the dome with a series of concentric ribs, much like a barrel made of stone and iron, which supported the structure as it tapered towards the top. The ingenious plan was based on placing vertical bricks in a zig-zag pattern amongst horizontal rows

Starting point is 00:11:07 in a herringbone pattern. The vertical bricks anchored the layer above into the lower rows, creating a self-locking pattern that directed the weight downward. To lift the tons of bricks, mortar, and ribs required, Bruteleski devised a new machine for which he received a patent in the year 1421, the reversible ox hoist. And this is widely considered to be the very first patent in history. The hoist was powered by a pair of oxen walking continuously in a single direction,

Starting point is 00:11:40 driving a unique gear transmission system that let the engineer reverse the oxen's pull without unyoking them and turning them around. Near the top, he devised a second custom-built machine, a small 360-degree crane that allowed the masons to position massive stone blocks with great precision. To ensure the workers worked their hardest, he built kitchens up on the scaffold so the men could eat without walking all the way back down and back up. And he also wisely insisted that their wise, be watered down for safety reasons. Over the course of 16 years of elevated construction,

Starting point is 00:12:16 only one worker suffered a fatal fall, which was actually a pretty significant achievement for the 15th century, and it was made possible by Brunelleschi's mandatory safety netting and sober workers. Brunelowski's mechanical systems were so advanced that decades later, a young Leonardo da Vinci meticulously sketched these very cranes in Hoyt, in his notebooks. But perhaps his proudest accomplishment was discrediting his hated rival and removing Goberty from the project entirely. At a key point in the building's construction, Brunelleschi feigned illness leaving Geberti in charge. During his absence, Giberty predictably bungled the installation of several features. Upon his recovery,

Starting point is 00:13:03 Brunelowski pointed out the glaring structural errors to the committee, which promptly removed Giberty and granted Brunelowski sole credit. and authority. Pope Eugene the 4th consecrated the nearly complete cathedral in a lavish ceremony in the spring of 1436. After finishing the dome and winning the competition for the design of the marble lantern that sits at the top of the dome in 1446, Brunelleschi died. Florence had felt vindicated.

Starting point is 00:13:32 Brunelowski had given them the greatest cathedral of its age. However, the cathedral's journey wasn't quite complete, as the base of the dome was still bare red brick. The Opera del Duomo commissioned Bacho de Angelo to add a marble gallery along the bottom of the dome's eight sections. But only one section was ever completed. Before completing the project, the committee sought public advice on D'Angelo's work. And among the voices they heard from was not other than Michelangelo.

Starting point is 00:14:02 He was not pleased and offered a poor review of the project, noting that it looked like a cage for crickets. D'Angelo was devastated by the public criticism and never returned to the project, and Michelangelo was tasked with improving it. Unfortunately, his design would have come at extraordinary expense, and it was ultimately decided to leave the base incomplete. Today, the original work is visible on only one of the eight sections of the Lower Dome. Pope Paul III later commissioned Michelangelo to build the Basilica of St. Peter's in 1546. Michelangelo promised to take the Duomo with him in spirit when he remarked, quote,

Starting point is 00:14:41 I'm going to Rome to make her sister. Larger, yes, but not more beautiful. The cathedral continued to evolve after Michelangelo. In the late 16th century, Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zucari covered the dome's interior with a colossal fresco of the last judgment, completely ignoring Brunelleschi's plans for inlaid gold paneling. In 1587, the city dismantled the unfinished original façade, leaving the church's front bare until the 19th century, when Emilio de Fabris installed the stunning neo-gothic marble front as part of celebrations honoring Italy's unification. 20th century archaeologists wrote what might be the final chapter in the cathedral story.

Starting point is 00:15:25 Digging beneath the floor of the church between 1965 and 1974, they uncovered the original ancient crypt of Santa Ray Parada, as well as the tomb of Philips. Bruno Leski. Brunelleschi's grave bears a fitting inscription. It says, quote, here lies the body of a man of great genius. Philippo Brunelleschi, the Florentine. The story of the Florence Cathedral spans centuries.

Starting point is 00:15:52 Begun in the Middle Ages and expanded as Florence grew in wealth and power, it became both a religious monument and a symbol of the city itself. More than six centuries after its dome was completed, Santa Maria del Fiori still dominates the Florence skyline, standing as one of the clearest examples of what sustained civic ambition and good engineering can achieve. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily

Starting point is 00:16:22 is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research in writing for this episode was provided by Joel Hermanson. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast. possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord, as this is where everything happens outside of the podcast. As always, if you leave a review

Starting point is 00:16:45 on any of the major podcast apps, you too can have it run in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Florence. Cathedral

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.