MICHELANGELO AND THE RISE OF SAVONAROLA PROLOGUE Florence 1418 – The Cathedral of Florence The wardens of the Opera del Duomo said it couldn’t be done. They said he was crazy. And when he did the impossible, they called him a lunatic and had him thrown from the cathedral. Now he was back; summoned not by the wardens, but by an agent of Cosimo de’ Medici himself. A triumphant Filippo Brunelleschi entered the chapel adjacent the cathedral’s central nave, placed his hands on his hips, arched his back and peered up at the centering device, a labyrinth of wood beams, posts, and joists used to support the dome during construction. A wry grin formed on his lips. While most Florentines viewed the tribune dome as a forerunner of greater things to come, Filippo saw it for what it was: the extreme limit of Florentine engineering prowess. His grin broadened to a smile. Constructing the centering device for this relatively tiny dome, with one one-hundredth the volume of the great dome, consumed half the trees the wardens allocated to the entire cathedral project and exposed the practical realities of timber supports. Trees only grew so tall, a beam can support only so much weight. Physics, gravity, and economic realities openly conspired against his detractors. Although the average Florentine believed the two projects were identical in nature and rejoiced at the opera’s progress, Filippo saw the effort for the fraud it was. Equating the two domes was as inevitable as it was irrational, akin to expecting a farmer who carved small boat hulls for his children to float on the local pond to construct a sea-going galleon. The wardens knew better. They knew the technique employed on the tribune dome could not 4 P.M. COUNT
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