On Wednesday several groups of students went on their second Italian Life and Culture field trip – to the Duomo, Florence’s cathedral. A professional English-speaking tour guide met us in front of the school, and we walked a few blocks to the Duomo. (You may recall from an earlier posting that duomo means “cathedral,” and the Italian word for “dome” is cupola. This can get a little confusing, so I thought I’d mention it again.)
The Duomo, the Campanile, and the Baptistery all sit within the Piazza del Duomo and the Piazza San Giovanni, making up the religious center of Florence. The dome itself is the most recognizable structure in Florence, and perhaps in all of Italy.
The official name for the Duomo is the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, and construction began on this massive cathedral in 1296; however, we learned that its marble façade, done in striking white, pink, and green marble, was not completed until 1887. Our guide pointed out parts of the dome that were never covered with marble, still revealing the stone that lies beneath the entire structure.
The cathedral itself is massive: 502 feet long, 125 feet wide at the aisles, and 295 feet at the front. In fact, it’s the fourth-largest Christian church in the world, surpassed only by St. Peter’s in Rome, St. Paul’s in London, and the cathedral in Milan. It can hold up to 30,000 people. Can you imagine? Now picture this: it was in this cathedral that Dante first read his Divine Comedy out loud to a very enthusiastic crowd. The stuff of legends!
The majority of the tour focused on the interior of the cathedral, which is in the shape of a Latin cross with a central nave. Our guide first pointed out an interesting (and still working ) clock above the central doorway that was created in 1443 and painted by Paolo Uccello. What makes this clock so interesting is that it’s a 24-hour clock, but not the type we use today. Instead, in those days a 24-hour day began when the sun went down. So this clock essentially shows how many hours it has been since the sun last went down, and it was right on target! We also, of course, admired the interior of Brunelleschi’s dome, the Universal Judgment, a stunning piece painted by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari between 1572 and 1579.
After viewing the art in the cathedral, our guide took us downstairs to the crypt, where we were able to see the remains of the church that originally stood on this spot, the Cathedral of Santa Reparata, which was built sometime during the 6th and 7th centuries and destroyed in 1275 to make room for the present cathedral. These ruins were only discovered in 1966, and in 1972 an even more exciting discovery was made: the tomb of Filippo Brunelleschi. For all of those centuries since his death, his resting place had been a mystery. You can imagine how exciting it must have been for the people of Florence to have finally discovered his tomb. Interestingly, the tomb had been engraved with an epithet in Latin that reads, “Body of the great genius, Filippo Brunelleschi, Florentine.” I would agree that anyone who could have designed the amazing engineering feat that is the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is indeed a genius.
It seemed only fitting at this point to walk out side, where we would end our tour under Brunelleschi’s great dome. As we all looked up at it, it became clear why Leon Battista Alberti, a famous Italian architect, mathematician, and humanist, once described the dome as a structure “which soars to the sky and has a shadow wide enough to cover all the people of Tuscany.”
The Duomo, the Campanile, and the Baptistery all sit within the Piazza del Duomo and the Piazza San Giovanni, making up the religious center of Florence. The dome itself is the most recognizable structure in Florence, and perhaps in all of Italy.The official name for the Duomo is the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, and construction began on this massive cathedral in 1296; however, we learned that its marble façade, done in striking white, pink, and green marble, was not completed until 1887. Our guide pointed out parts of the dome that were never covered with marble, still revealing the stone that lies beneath the entire structure.
The cathedral itself is massive: 502 feet long, 125 feet wide at the aisles, and 295 feet at the front. In fact, it’s the fourth-largest Christian church in the world, surpassed only by St. Peter’s in Rome, St. Paul’s in London, and the cathedral in Milan. It can hold up to 30,000 people. Can you imagine? Now picture this: it was in this cathedral that Dante first read his Divine Comedy out loud to a very enthusiastic crowd. The stuff of legends!
The majority of the tour focused on the interior of the cathedral, which is in the shape of a Latin cross with a central nave. Our guide first pointed out an interesting (and still working ) clock above the central doorway that was created in 1443 and painted by Paolo Uccello. What makes this clock so interesting is that it’s a 24-hour clock, but not the type we use today. Instead, in those days a 24-hour day began when the sun went down. So this clock essentially shows how many hours it has been since the sun last went down, and it was right on target! We also, of course, admired the interior of Brunelleschi’s dome, the Universal Judgment, a stunning piece painted by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari between 1572 and 1579.
After viewing the art in the cathedral, our guide took us downstairs to the crypt, where we were able to see the remains of the church that originally stood on this spot, the Cathedral of Santa Reparata, which was built sometime during the 6th and 7th centuries and destroyed in 1275 to make room for the present cathedral. These ruins were only discovered in 1966, and in 1972 an even more exciting discovery was made: the tomb of Filippo Brunelleschi. For all of those centuries since his death, his resting place had been a mystery. You can imagine how exciting it must have been for the people of Florence to have finally discovered his tomb. Interestingly, the tomb had been engraved with an epithet in Latin that reads, “Body of the great genius, Filippo Brunelleschi, Florentine.” I would agree that anyone who could have designed the amazing engineering feat that is the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is indeed a genius.It seemed only fitting at this point to walk out side, where we would end our tour under Brunelleschi’s great dome. As we all looked up at it, it became clear why Leon Battista Alberti, a famous Italian architect, mathematician, and humanist, once described the dome as a structure “which soars to the sky and has a shadow wide enough to cover all the people of Tuscany.”
No comments:
Post a Comment