Santa Maria del Fiore

Lantern
 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
 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.
 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)
 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
St. Peter’s Basilica
“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.”
 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…
 Important Dates
 1506- Pope Julius II hires Bramante to create plans for St.
Peter’s 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 Porta’s plan for a new dome is approved
 1588-1590- Dome constructed jointly by della Porta and
Fontana
 1590-1593- Lantern constructed
 Michelangelo’s Floor Plan
(Greek Cross, all arms equal lengths)
Tension Rings
 Internal piers
(each ~60 square feet)
Internal Spiral Stairwells (inside piers)
Buttresses for Dome Support
Windows in Drum
 Lantern

“It happened that while the cupola (of San Lorenzo in Florence) was
being raised Michelangelo was asked by some of his friends:
‘Shouldn’t 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.

 Minor Domes

One of the two minor domes,

designed by Vignola. Vignola
served as second in command
after Michelangelo’s death and
chief architect from 1565 to
1573.

(Smaller domes are in style of

Bramante’s original cupola;
thin walled and single layered)
 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.
Engraved coin
 Additional References
 Ackerman, J.S. Michelangelo. Zemmer, London,
1961.
 Sketches in Casa Buonarroti.