Filippo Brunelleschi: Product or Shaper of the Renaissance?

Centering: the one word that caused most of the controversy surrounding the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. How could Brunelleschi not only not use flying buttresses, but also not use centering (which had been necessary in all previous Roman and Gothic structures) to construct the dome? It had never been done before, so ma

ny people were skeptical. Brunelleschi prevailed and proved that his new ideas could and would work. Now, past the fact of centering, how was he to raise the tons of materials needed to build the dome? He needed to invent ingenious hoists and cranes (many of which are the most well-known of the Renaissance) to lift the materials the hundreds of feet in the air required. In manufacturing these cranes and hoists, he showed that he was a daring innovator with a solid knowledge of mechanics. Problems occurred in building the dome, such as not being able to transport the amount of marble needed, finding the right wood for the wooden chains, and cracks that appeared in the walls. In building the dome, he combined practical engineering with his vision of mathematical perfection. The angles used on the dome were dangerous to build, but he invented scaffolding for the men to stand on, and only one man was killed in the process. His restoration of classic forms and his methods of architecture based on the mathematical, proportional, and scientific understandings make him a key figure in the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

Enough problems faced him in building the dome without the added plagues, wars, and political issues. The bubonic plague killed many people in Florence, but Brunelleschi was still able to find enough workers to construct the massive dome. Wars took away time that could have been used to build the dome. In the 1420s, when Florence was at war with Milan, Brunelleschi was sent into the battlefield to design different c

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