Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/350

334 known how Arnolfo intended to finish his work. Judging from the structure as far as he carried it, and with the knowledge we now possess of the Italian architecture of that age, we can easily conjecture what his design for its completion may have been. Internally, it probably consisted of a dome something like the present, but flatter, springing from the cornice 40 ft. lower than the present one, and pierced with large openings on each of its eight faces.



Externally two courses were open to him. The first and most obvious was to hide the dome entirely under a wooden roof, as is done in St. George's, Thessalonica (Woodcut No. 878), or in the baptistery in front of the cathedral, and is done in half the baptisteries in Italy—as at Parma, for instance (Woodcut No. 780). Had he done this the span of the dome might have been very much larger, without involving any constructive difficulties, and the three towers over the choir and transepts might have sufficed to relieve its external appearance sufficiently for architectural effect. On the whole, however, I am rather inclined to believe that something more ambitious than this was originally proposed, and that the design was more like that of Chiaravalle near Milan, built in 1221, and one of the most complete and perfect of this class of dome now existing in Italy. Its external appearance may be judged of from Woodcut 765, and its constructive details from the section. Woodcut No. 766.

If the basement is sufficiently solid—and that at Florence is more