An Anniversary for Brunelleschi’s Dome 

“On August 30th, the dome was closed and furnished, and all the bells of Florence rang, and the Te Deum laudamus was sung, thanking the Lord for having brought us to the completion of such a magnificent work.”

So reads the account preserved in the archives of Florence’s celebrated cathedral, the Duomo. On the morning of August 30, 1436, Pope Eugene IV consecrated the newly completed dome. Bells, fifes, and trumpets filled the air as Florentines crowded rooftops to witness the moment. After the blessing, the master builders descended for their reward : bread, meat, fruit, cheese, and wine.

The extraordinary octagonal dome had taken sixteen years to complete — after more than a century of uncertainty, as earlier proposed designs proved unworkable. Then, in 1418, Florentine Filippo Brunelleschi won a public competition with his revolutionary concept: a self-supporting, double-shelled dome.

Brunelleschi — self-taught, unorthodox, brilliant — created what remains the largest brick dome in the world. He built it without scaffolding, without precedent. With no formal architectural training — his early studies were in goldsmithing and sculpture — he devised techniques no one had dared imagine.

For me, the Duomo is to Florence what the Pantheon is to Rome: a North Star. But while the Pantheon, at 33 meters high, surprises only once you’re nearly upon it, the Duomo, soaring to 59 meters, dominates the Florentine skyline. It reveals itself again and again as you walk the city — framed by alleyways, glimpsed over rooftops, suddenly present at the end of a familiar street.

My children once had a Florentine teacher who brought Brunelleschi — “Pippo,” she called him — to vivid life. She told them of a native son so bold and imaginative that, when no machines existed to do what he required, he invented them. She helped them understand what it meant to lift 29,000 tons of material in a design that involved millions of bricks, set in a herringbone pattern that locked everything into place as the dome rose.

When I take the train to Florence, I always find myself pressing to the left as we approach Santa Maria Novella station — impatient for that first glimpse of the dome. When I see it, I know I’m back in a city that — after Rome and Lucca — most feels like home. In my wanderings, I instinctively choose routes that offer new perspectives on the dome. Each time, my heart sings.

You may find your own relationship with the Duomo deepens if your hotel offers a view of it. We have two favorite Florentine accommodations — both historic, both deeply atmospheric — which many of our returning clients request again and again.

We’re hard pressed to say which offers the more captivating perspective: the dome framed perfectly from your terrace, or filling your bathroom window. Both offer wonderful acoustics for the deep, resonant bells of Giotto’s nearby campanile.

With our beloved Florentine guide — an expert on Brunelleschi — we’ve designed a private tour that explores not only the Duomo, but Brunelleschi’s other masterpieces: the Pazzi Chapel, San Lorenzo and its Old Sacristy, the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the Gondi Chapel crucifix, Santo Spirito and his Baptistery competition panel in bronze. The tour concludes, fittingly, on a roof in one of my favorite cafés and where a final view of the dome — a view unlike any other — crowns the experience.

And so I add my voice to that of Filippo Baldinucci, who wrote that on this day in 1436, “Florentines gave themselves up to the greatest celebration, to see the most beautiful cathedral in all of Tuscany.” When you are here in the coming months, you too may rejoice — as am I, and Florence rejoices today — in this most magnificent of domes.