Florence knows Brunelleschi. It knows him for having lost to Ghiberti in a competition to design the bronze doors of Florence’s baptistery, and the designer of its dome. Myth has it that in order for Brunelleschi to be hired for the dome, he was asked to balance an egg upright. He took the egg, hit it against the table just enough for the top to crush, and allowed the broken egg to balance.
On this day August 7th, in 1420, Brunelleschi began his construction on the dome of the Florence Cathedral. This took six years to complete with meticulous work. Brunelleschi took inspiration from Rome’s pantheons, but even so ,the knowledge for how to do so had been lost.
Brunelleschi invented machines, levers, and chains all in order to build this massive dome. He realized that he could not build this conventionally, and instead used a lighter material, bricks. Over 4 million bricks that make up the dome. In the process of building that dome, Brunelleschi met Leonardo Da Vinci, and may have inspired Da Vinci’s many mechanical inventions.