Self-supporting herringbone brick dome built without centring
Cúpula autoportante de ladrillo en espina de pez sin cimbra
- Date
- 1420-1436 · confidence high
- Place
- Florence, Tuscany, Italy
- Credited to
- Filippo Brunelleschi
- People
- 👤 Filippo Brunelleschi1377–1446
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
An octagonal double-shell dome closing a 45 m span with herringbone brickwork, timber and stone chains and horizontal rings, built without full centring. Brunelleschi also designed ox-driven hoists with reversing gear.
Debate continues over whether the herringbone alone allowed centring-free building and how much of the detail was Brunelleschi's; the dates are those of the dome shell, not the lantern (1471).
What it led to
- revival of monumental domes in the Renaissance
- building machines such as the ox hoist and the castello
- the architect's rise as a profession over the master mason