Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/50

 The dome of Florence is indeed a remarkable piece of construction, and it is no less remarkable as a work of art. In beauty of outline it has not, I think, been approached by any of the later elevated domes of which it is the parent. Yet with all of its mechanical and artistic merit, the scheme is fundamentally false in principle, since it involves a departure from sound methods of dome construction. A bulging thin shell of masonry on a large scale cannot be made secure without abutment, much less can such a shell sustain the weight of a heavy stone structure like the lantern of this monument, without resort to the extraneous means of binding chains. A builder having proper regard for true principles of construction in stone masonry would not undertake such a work. For although it may be possible to give the dome a shape that will be measurably self-sustaining as to thrusts, as Brunelleschi clearly strove to do, it is not possible to make it entirely so, and therefore if deprived of abutment it must be bound with chains. But a structure of masonry which depends for stability on binding chains is one of inherent weakness, and thus of false character.

From these considerations it appears to me that Brunelleschi led the way in a wrong direction, notwithstanding the nobility of his achievement from many points of view. And in following his example modern designers of elevated domes