The Ass Babbler and Pandemic (Duomo Part 5)

I’m a glass half full kind of guy. Usually subway trains are crammed full in the morning, but with corona, they’re only 40% full with seats available. Enough space to woodcut on the train...

Square #2 : leaf veins

Continuing our saga... In introducing  Brunelleschi in his book lives of artists, Vasari  curiously focuses on Brunelleschi’s appearance and hygiene.  Brunelleschi  was described as short, bald, and with thin lips. Coupled with his disheveled clothing, he would’ve fit in with cimabue (ox head), or Giotto (who was so ugly Boccaccio wrote about his appearance in the Decameron, or Michelangelo who would not remove his dog skin boots for months at a time. It’s as if the artists of that time were so focused on their work, they had no regard for their external appearances.

In his  return to Florence to take part in the wool guild’s duomo roof competition  in 1418, Brunelleschi was best known for his advancements in perspective drawing. Years of surveying Roman sites, methodically plotting the relative positions of 3D objects in 2D drawings  Brunelleschi deduced the theories of perspective that had been lost in the Middle Ages. Perspective drawing techniques were first utilized by 6th century BC painter Kimon. The Romans  used perspective in their wall paintings. The technique fell out of favor until the 14th century when Giotto started using vanishing points for his buildings to render  his settings more realistically. His most famous subject for perspective painting was the baptistery of San Giovanni as viewed from the central door of Santa Maria del fiore. He devised a contraption to aid perspective drawing. He drilled a hole in the back of the canvas at the vanishing point, (the point on horizon that all parallel lines converge)  and slid a mirror in front of the hole to compare his painting to the view in front of him. 

The competition had 11 entrants. At the presentation meeting, Brunelleschi was the sole designer to propose a construction solution that didn’t use any internal scaffolding. Scaffolding was nearly impossible due to its cost and lack of trees needed for its construction. The jurors thought he was insane. Even the smallest arches use centering during construction, how could the largest dome ever to be built not require formwork? When pressed for details, Brunelleschi refused to divulge his secrets. He was called an ‘ass babbler’ and forcibly removed from the hearing. 

For some reason, the juries’ sentiment changed. Vasari recounts a story that vasari challenged the judges to choose the designer who could make an egg stand on its head should win the commission. When the other contestants failed the test, Brunelleschi cracked the egg at the bottom and stood it upright. When the other contestants complained said they would’ve done the same, Brunelleschi retorted they would construct the dome without scaffolding too if they knew his plans. Perhaps it was the large scale model that Brunelleschi had produced that swayed the judges. Over the course of 90 days, 4 masons used 5000 bricks and 49 carts of lime mortar to construct a 6 foot wide and 12 tall model. Donatello helped carve out the wood details at the base.  Over the next year, the same members of the  wool guild that ran the duomo competition awarded 4 commissions to Brunelleschi, of which 3 needed cupolas. Barbadori chapel and ridolfi chapels’ domes served as a test run for brunelleschi’s scaffoldless dome construction at a smaller scale than the duomo. Satisfied by the results, the wool guild narrowed down the completion for the dome between Brunelleschi and his longtime arch rival, Ghiberti whose model, in comparison was made in 4 days with small bricks and centering formwork. 

At the end, the wool guild decided to award the duomo construction project to Ghiberti and Brunelleschi jointly. This time, Brunelleschi accepted the offer. He had worked too hard to walk away from the project.