The Great Catherdral Mystery
2/17/14
Nova: The Great Cathedral Mystery
The program Nova The Great Cathedral Mystery on PBS was very interesting to watch. I never thought about how the cathedral or the Duomo built by Filippo Brunelleschi was a mystery until I watched this documentary. I now understand how he defined gravity and made a remarkable building in his time period. Brunelleschi was a goldsmith who made jewelry and he was not prepared to build this cathedral and he made one of the biggest Duomo in the world and a huge landmark of Florence, Italy. The people being interviewed and who have studied him and the building are amazed at how this happened. Brunelleschi didn’t have the modern materials or machines to build something so great and he also left no blue prints, pictures or said how he built it. In class we learned that there was a competition to make the bronze doors at the Baptistery of the cathedral in Florence. Ghiberti got the job and Brunelleschi was runner up. I knew about this story from class that they shared in the program. The Duomo is 4 million bricks, 8 sides that all come to a point, 150 ft. wide and 10 stories high. The researches don’t understand how Brunelleschi achieved this great building. Massimo Ricci of University of Florence has been obsessing over learning how Brunelleschi built the Duomo. He has created his own in the public with the help of his architecture students from the university. American builders have also flown into Florence to help the scholar learn the methods of how Brunelleschi built it. They have come to a standstill because the bricks are caving inwards and might collapse which is a danger to the students. They are using rope to figure out dimensions and where each brick should go. That is how Massimo is predicting Brunelleschi created his Duomo. Massimo and other researchers know that he studied the ancient Romans buildings but there has to be a special way he built the dome. The researchers have figured out Brunelleschi created a hoist
Nova: The Great Cathedral Mystery
The program Nova The Great Cathedral Mystery on PBS was very interesting to watch. I never thought about how the cathedral or the Duomo built by Filippo Brunelleschi was a mystery until I watched this documentary. I now understand how he defined gravity and made a remarkable building in his time period. Brunelleschi was a goldsmith who made jewelry and he was not prepared to build this cathedral and he made one of the biggest Duomo in the world and a huge landmark of Florence, Italy. The people being interviewed and who have studied him and the building are amazed at how this happened. Brunelleschi didn’t have the modern materials or machines to build something so great and he also left no blue prints, pictures or said how he built it. In class we learned that there was a competition to make the bronze doors at the Baptistery of the cathedral in Florence. Ghiberti got the job and Brunelleschi was runner up. I knew about this story from class that they shared in the program. The Duomo is 4 million bricks, 8 sides that all come to a point, 150 ft. wide and 10 stories high. The researches don’t understand how Brunelleschi achieved this great building. Massimo Ricci of University of Florence has been obsessing over learning how Brunelleschi built the Duomo. He has created his own in the public with the help of his architecture students from the university. American builders have also flown into Florence to help the scholar learn the methods of how Brunelleschi built it. They have come to a standstill because the bricks are caving inwards and might collapse which is a danger to the students. They are using rope to figure out dimensions and where each brick should go. That is how Massimo is predicting Brunelleschi created his Duomo. Massimo and other researchers know that he studied the ancient Romans buildings but there has to be a special way he built the dome. The researchers have figured out Brunelleschi created a hoist