Brunelleschi's dome history help?

Question

Hey, I Dont know if any of you have read the book brunellschi's Dome, but i have this assignment for part of an AP class and i coulnt figure out some of answer to the questions, and my schools starts monday, so if you guys could help me out by trying to answer any of the questions you can that would be awesome and a huge help.

1: How did the Florentines view Gothic Architecture?

2: What was the role that guilds played in design, patronage, and constuction of Santa Maria Del Fiore.

3: Explain the rivalry that existed between Florence and milan

4: What was the relationship between Ghiberti and Brunelleschi and how did their relation ship change as construction progessed?

5: Identify and explain the major challenges faced by brunelleschi in making the dome

6:King credits Brunelleschi with an important innovation in art. What was the innovation and how sis it relate to the dome

7:What new technologies and machinery had to be breated to complete the dome

8: Why did cities smell so horribly in the 15th century

9:WAs Alberti a typical Renaissance man? Why or why not?

10: Why was brunelleschi so secretive and what role if any, did patents play in the dome's construction?

11: How did Brunelleschi purpose to pay for the special chapels he envisioned?

12: What were Brunellschis most signifigant success and failures?

Answer 1

: How did the Florentines view Gothic Architecture?

They saw it as barbaric and wanted a purer style to grace their city. They thought that imported Gothic Architecture was not good enough and they wished to return to more classical styles.

What was the role that guilds played in design, patronage, and constuction of Santa Maria Del Fiore.

The Guild of Wool Merchants took over the initial contruction and appointed Giotto.
Some of the guilds sposored competitions for example The Guild of Merchants sponsored a contest with regard to the baptistry doors. Stangely enough, Brunellesci, lost to Ghiberti and went to Rome to study architecture, he returned to win the comission to complete the dome.The Weavers and Armourers guild were among the patrons and comissioned two statues from Donatello.

3: Explain the rivalry that existed between Florence and milan

Here are a few points for you to consider with regard to rivalry.

Italy during the Renaissance was a country of waring city states.

Tuscany, in northern Italy, was the economic capital of the world. Florence, Siena, and Milan flourished both in prosperity through control of eastern trade to its northern neighbors, and broad taxation of its citizenry.

Tuscany, Florence in particular, developed into a cultural dynamo harboring artists and philosophers.

Milan's controlling Sforza dynasty wasn't as stable as it would have like to be.

Milan was interested in advancements in warfare.

4: What was the relationship between Ghiberti and Brunelleschi and how did their relationship change as construction progessed?

You'll find the information you require in this passage.

In 1409 the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore - guiding committee for the construction of the cathedral - began to investigate how to go about constructing the cupola atop the walls of the trefoil. One of the men consulted was Filippo Brunelleschi another was Lorenzo Ghiberti. Brunelleschi had the solution already worked out - to evenly distribute the massive weight of the future cupola, an eight sided tambour [drum] needed to be constructed atop the walls. To bring light into the area beneath the cupola but not compromise the tambour’s ability to transfer the load evenly, Brunelleschi designed the tambour with one round window per face. But the fact that the Opera also consulted Ghiberti irked Brunelleschi; Ghiberti, in Brunelleschi’s opinion, though a fine artist, was no architect and therefore had no business being consulted on the project. Brunelleschi, and many others, saw the Opera’s catering to Ghiberti as misguided patronage of the artist simply because he won the competition for the Baptistery doors.

Over the next eight years as Brunelleschi’s tambour was being constructed and the time approached to begin raising the cupola, architects calculated that if every tree in Tuscany were cut down, the resulting lumber would not be sufficient to center the dome during construction. The Opera cast about for solutions to the problem. One unique and monumental suggestion was that the church itself be filled with soil and seeded with gold coins. The needed scaffolding could then be erected on top of the tamped soil and the cupola built. Once the cupola was completed, all that was required was to announce that all who hauled away the soil could keep any gold coins they found.

Returning to Florence in 1417 and again in 1419, Brunelleschi joined the Opera and took great delight in pointing out the impossibility of every plan suggested. He claimed that only he knew how the dome could be constructed - and he could do it without centering. When asked how he could accomplish the task, Brunelleschi challenged the members of the Opera to balance an egg on its end. When they could not, Brunelleschi took the egg and struck it on the table so it broke, leaving a cupola shape sitting perfectly balanced on the table. The Opera scoffed at this simple solution, and demanded that Brunelleschi produce details on how the actual cupola would be constructed. Brunelleschi refused, still feeling the sting of being asked to share the stage in the Baptistery door commission - He suspected that if he revealed his knowledge, the Opera would include their favoured Ghiberti in the project. Brunelleschi was summarily thrown out of the meeting and ridiculed by the Opera as a mad man.

But in 1420, after exhausting all other avenues and responding to public opinion and lobbying by Cosimo de’ Medici, the Opera called once more on Brunelleschi. After submitting a written proposal and showing the Opera a scale model, Brunelleschi was reluctantly given the position of provinsore - supervisor of the build. But to save face and continue to promote their favoured artist, the Opera also installed Ghiberti in an equal position. Then as an afterthought, they also installed Battista d’ Antonio also as a provinsore. All were paid three Florin per month, with Battista being paid an extra twenty Soldi per day as recompense for his duties as a daily supervisor whereas Brunelleschi and Ghiberti could come and go as they pleased.

Despite having to share credit with an obvious political appointee as Ghiberti, Brunelleschi went to work on the cupola. Sharing his knowledge and genius with Battista, Brunelleschi oversaw the slow raising of the dome. Brunelleschi himself approved each shipment of bricks, oversaw their placement, trained the master craftsmen on new techniques. To reduce labour, he designed an ingenious lifting device that could raise massive weights with the power of one ox, and was geared to lift or lower with the ox only required to move in one direction. Brunelleschi also had the craftsmen’s midday meal delivered to the rooftop to lessen time wasted and prevent fatigue from having them make the long descent and climb during the middle of the day. Brunelleschi also supplied the workers with watered wine to prevent drunkenness and injury.

Ghiberti meanwhile did nothing but boast of his equality to Brunelleschi on the project.

There came a time when the sides of the cupola had reached a height that they required two things to progress; The first was a series of cantilevered platforms would have to be designed and built so the masons could safely continue their work; The second was a series of chains had to be constructed and placed to support the inward curving sides of the cupola sections so they would not fall into the open tambour. Brunelleschi chose this moment to expose Ghiberti as the architectural fraud he believed him to be - He did this by staying home.

Sending word that he was ill, Brunelleschi relayed his regrets that he could not supervise and suggested Ghiberti to take over from him - he was a fellow provinsore after all. Ghiberti was panicked - He had taken no interest in learning the very real sciences of architecture and hadn’t even made the climb to the roof top. Though he was a top notch artist when it came to casting and chasing bronze sculptures, when it came to the duomo, he was merely a figurehead. Ghiberti sent word to Brunelleschi, pleading with him to come back but Brunelleschi held out. Progress on the cupola ground to a halt.

Most Florentines were delighted by this drama being played out, and the supporters of both men became embroiled in heated debate. A master of not only architecture and perspective but also of human nature, Brunelleschi let the controversy build to a crescendo. On a day when the entire city was aware of the drama and interest was at its peak, he made his way to the cathedral, feigning weakness from his recent ‘illness’. There he addressed the workers and craftsmen, the Opera members, the gathered public, his fellow provinsores - Ghiberti and Battista. He voiced his fear that his ‘illness’ could return at any time - it could even strike down Ghiberti or Battista. From the Vita - “He proposed that for the good of the building, and inasmuch as the salary was divided, the day-to-day problems should also be divided so the work could go forward without interruption and damage. The principal and immediate requirements were the scaffolding and the program of building, and a chain to encircle the [inner] cupola.... Lorenzo could take charge and oversee whichever one of these he wished and he would take charge of the other. Therefore Lorenzo was forced to agree to this division. He chose to make the chain, hoping to do it correctly on the basis of the one in San Giovanni, since he had no knowledge of scaffolding: he did not know what had to be done or the extraordinary way in which it had to be constructed. When he said he wanted to take charge of the chain [Brunelleschi] exclaimed: Very well! And I will take charge of the scaffolding and the masonry work.” Brunelleschi’s trap was set - all of Florence would be watching the outcome.

Brunelleschi supervised and directed the building of the new scaffolding which satisfied the safety concerns of the craftsmen and workers and so the building of the cupola resumed. On the day Ghiberti’s chain was completed and set in place, Brunelleschi and his men inspected it. All agreed that it was faulty and would not support the inward leaning dome as was intended. It would have to be removed, and a redesigned chain would have to be made to replace it. Brunelleschi took these findings to the Opera and proposed that the costs incurred for the useless chain made by Ghiberti could be offset by the salary of 36 Florin per year Ghiberti was receiving for doing nothing but slowing the progress of the cupola. The Opera challenged Brunelleschi to prove his claim that he could build the chain properly which he did immediately. The Opera them commissioned Brunelleschi to complete the cupola and all other aspects of the cathedral’s construction alone. Brunelleschi was vindicated for the bronze door commission.

5: Identify and explain the major challenges faced by brunelleschi in making the dome.

How would he scaffold the building so as to create the dome?
Brunelleschi's solutions were ingenious and unprecedented: the distinctive octagonal design of the double-walled dome, resting on a drum and not on the roof itself, allowed for the entire dome to be built without the need for scaffolding from the ground.[1]
How would he get workers and bricks up there?
This enormous construction weighs 37,000 metric tons (40,785 t) and contains over 4 million bricks. He made several models and drawings of details during the construction. Brunelleschi had to invent special hoisting machines and lewissons for hoisting large stones. These specially designed machines and brilliant masonry techniques were Brunelleschi's spectacular contribution to architecture. The ability to transcribe a circle on a cone face within the innermost double shelled wall makes the self-sustaining "horizontal" arch construction possible, since geometrically, a circular plan is needed for such an erection.

How would he support the weight of the dome as it would have to be brick built as the recipe for concrete had been lost with the fall of rome?
The dome also used horizontal reinforcements of tension chains of stone and iron - paving way to the imaginations of iron and steel structural reinforcements, such as reinforced concrete in later centuries.

This should give you a start. Hope its of some help but if I write anymore I'll have completed an essay.

Answer 2

You asked a lot of questions and I can only say a bit about technical things: The problem with a cupola is not that stones may fall down. If one of the stones wants to move it would have to press the others outside which it cannot do. But the weight is so big that the entire cupola tends to flatten. And this means outward pressure in the lower parts of the structure. For example the pantheon in Rome and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul stop this by having large parts of the building at the outer parts of the cupola. That was impossible in Florence. So the problem was to make the lower part of the structure stable. Brunelleschi had the idea to build in big stones bound together by iron cramps, and a chain built in added some effect. The outer cupola has the purpose to keep rain and sharp differences in temperature away from the inner cupola which is the one to give stability. Brunelleschi had to keep these ideas a secret because once they are known they are easy to copy. (I hope I didn´t make too many mistakes with the language. English is not my native language.)

Answer 3

This is absolutely no help to you... but I have to read Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King for European History... it's not so great... lol. But I hope you get help... I asked the same question about my book and I've only gotten one response. Good luck!!

Answer 4

Homework is given to you for a reason. If you are having this much trouble with your assignment (and admittedly it's a large one) then ask your parents if they could hire you a tutor to help you through this. This assignment is going to take a lot of reading, research, and thinking, and you seem like you need a mentor to help train you through the process of doing this kind of work. All the best. He's worth studying.

Answer 5

i took ap euro as well but didnt have this assignment....but there is a short book about ap euro at Barnes and Noble. it gives you all the info you need to know. its short and gets to the point fast.