My
Italian Friend
by
Diana Spas
Stepping through the door, I gasped as the shock of sun, wind
and vertigo flattened me against the cold stone wall. It seemed
possible that a gust would fling me over the puny rail and I would
luge down the arc of roof, fingers scrabbling at its glazed terra
cotta sheath until I smashed on the cobblestones below and became
an annoying bureaucratic problem for two countries. In the distance,
Tuscany's golden hills replaced my fear with an insane hope that
the wind would lift me to magically soar over the city like a stork.
Instead, in sensible shoes and travel raincoat, I inched forward,
clutched the rail with white knuckles and turned to my husband
to announce, "I am SO happy!" Thirty minutes later I was mourning
for a man I'd never met.
In 2002 we were celebrating our thirtieth anniversary with
a first-ever trip abroad. Like couch potatoes aiming to run a
marathon, we took an entire year to plan, prepare and train for
three weeks in Italy. We savored the research — watched
the I, Claudius series again and Il Postino and Italian
for Beginners. We read books about the powerful/dysfunctional
(the Caesars, the Medici), the holy/dysfunctional (Francis and
his devoted Claire, Rufino, Catherine of Siena) and the heroic/dysfunctional
(Garibaldi). On yet another trip to the bookstore I found Ross
King's Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented
Architecture.
I'd never heard of Filippo Brunelleschi or the cathedral of
Santa Maria del Fiore (probably covered in art history on one
of many days I failed to attend). Still, Florence was on our
itinerary and the guidebooks said the cathedral is a must-see.
After the Medici, a book about building a dome promised to be
pretty tame but this story was riveting. King transported me
to the 15th century and introduced me to Brunelleschi, an irascible
and stubborn man, embittered by disappointment but capable of
imagining and building the world's largest unsupported dome — without
an engineering degree, without external scaffolding, and with
only the muscle power of men and animals. I walked the streets
of medieval Florence and watched how he did it, stone by stone,
brick by brick, tier by tier rising over the city. I interrupted
my husband's reading so frequently to describe Brunelleschi's
latest invention, practical joke, or altercation that he read
the book too. It's to Ross King's credit that he held my husband's
interest — a man passionate about military history and with
no interest in architecture.
Tourists can climb 463 steps between the dome's two layers
to emerge at the lantern at its top. This became a primary goal
for our trip. The climb was uneventful until we reached the gallery
where the walls meet the dome. Here was the first great surprise:
a display of the machines and tools we'd read about — the
ladders and buckets, Brunelleschi's ox-driven hoist and the ingenious
crane which made it possible to lift dressed stone blocks vertically,
then move them horizontally to their resting places in the dome.
Its design is echoed in the cranes that bracket modern urban
high-rise construction sites.
Climbing between the dome's layers, the spiraling staircase
became claustrophobic, alleviated only by tiny windows that allowed
reassuring glimpses of daylight. Then, "It's a beam – one
of the chestnut beams!" Other tourists passed, perhaps wondering
why people would gaze reverently at a piece of wood. Thanks to
Ross King, we knew that this massive beam was part of the octagonal
frame upon which the cupola rests.
And then, "Wow, it's the herringbone brick!" Again, tourists
flowed around us, intent on seeing the view from above. King
had described Brunelleschi's brickwork, which allows each brick
to absorb and radiate the stress to its neighbors and keeps the
dome from collapsing under its own weight. After this, the view
from the lantern was merely the exhilarating icing on the cake.
Before leaving the cathedral, we descended to its lower level
gift shop. Thoughts of souvenirs were forgotten when we discovered
that Brunelleschi is buried beneath the cathedral — of course,
where else? I read the inscription, "Filippo Brunelleschi: Here
lies a man of great genius" and tears welled up as if I'd discovered
the grave of a long-lost friend.
Brunelleschi's dome spans a great cathedral, but books let
us span time, distance and the babel of language. This fall we're
going back to visit our friend — that man of great genius.
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