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 enlarge | Author: Ross King
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $3.81
You Save: $10.19 (73%)
New (9) Used (14) from $3.81
Rating:  103 reviews
Sales Rank: 266311
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Pages: 194
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.8
ASIN: B0006HQLR8
Publication Date: November 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A must read before going to Florence November 22, 2007
Theodor E. Winkel
No need to get long winded here. It's simply a must read before exploring the dome. Read it in one evening and couldn't put it down. Added immeasurably to the experience.
 A Great Read, Especially If You Are Visiting Florence In the Near Future! November 9, 2007
B. Pfeil (New York, NY)
I picked this book up solely because I'm going to Florence in just under two months and I am trying to read as many fiction and non-fiction books that take place in Italy before I go! br / br /Brunelleschi's Dome describes in detail the building of the Duomo. Not just the building of it, but from idea to conception, everything about it. The author provides you with great back story on the main campomaestro, Filippo, his life before the Duomo and during the Duomo as well as on Florence itself and what was happening in the city and the country during the time the Duomo was built. br / br /My only complaint is that as a lay person, a lot of the engineering and architectural talk was a little bit over my head. I'm a very visual person so reading descriptions of how machines were built to carry heavy marble and how each machine worked, etc at times was difficult to follow and really picture. br / br /I did come away with a complete appreciation of the magnitude of a project like this - how much materials were needed, how many people it took and the new techniques that were created just to build this magnificent building. I look forward to learning more when I arrive in Florence! br / br /Definitely worth the read if you're visiting Florence soon, or if you are incredibly interested in building, architecture and engineering.
 Just what I needed on the Dome in Florence August 27, 2007
William C. Mcewen (Vancouver, Canada)
This slim volume contains a lot of detailed information - both on the construction of the dome, and on the politics and rivalries behind the scenes. It is well presented and makes for an absorbing read. br /The drawings of the unique hoisting equipment developed by Brunelleschi showed that he was as much an engineer as an architect. br /I'll be visiting the dome this fall and now have a wealth of information to make my tour more meaningfull.
A Thinker's Book July 23, 2007
Charles J. Marr (Cambridge Springs, Pa USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Some books are for cruising,easy reading with the mind in overdrive, even serious books like King's Judgement of Paris, the reading of which brought me to this book. Yes I know it should have been the other way around. I had picked this text up a few times in my bookstore strolls, but always was tempted elsewhere. Then I read that fine work on the birth of Impressionism and its Hercules like incunabula strangulation of the python of Beaux Arts . It was a wowser!! and I wanted a bit more of this author's breezy erudition. Kind of like a great graduate class with that perfect professor; so I went back and bought the "Dome." Well, it was no smoothie. Yes this earlier book has the artists achieving grand feats, there is the rivalry of big egos, there is even the conflict(inevitable) of creative minds mostly in agreement. But it does not have all the same zip as Paris. Maybe because with the passage of time the bits and pieces of these rivalries have been obscured , darkened like Michaelangelo's chapel by all the years smudges and wisps of smoke until when we clean them up, they no longer are what we have come to treasure. The physical difficulty, the inventiveness, the sheer bravado of construction at great height are a big part of this book. To me the tools are so many large ratchets and socket wrenches. Then too, there is the amor loci of architecture. How many copies of the Parthenon have we seen, and yet they are just not the Acropolis. So the Duomo. It is difficult to envision the redtiled Florentine skyline elsewhere. But the objects of Manet, Degas, Cezanne are transportable and have become loved items. Certainly the physical achievement of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Flowers far surpasses that of The Alba Madonna, but Raphael is after all with us and as has been said the near dear drives off the distant beloved. So I guess the subject cannot carry all the discussion of the mechanical wow. I am glad I took the course, learned a lot, but would be cautious in whom I would tell to just go ahead, you'll love it.
Can culture be thrilling? June 27, 2007
R. Middelhoff (Amstelveen, Holland)
I find books about engineering, art and architecture more interesting when they are written as cliff-hangers. 'Brunelleschi's Dome' by Ross King is one of them. As are his 'Michelangelo and the Pope's ceiling' and King's latest 'The Judgement of Paris'. br /Superbly documented and written with great speed, they kept me reading instead of looking at the real thing. Coming back to the real things I find myself looking through different eyes! br /If you like this type of reading, be sure to look for 'The Lighthouse Stevensons' by Bella Bathurst (HarperCollins, 1999) and 'St Peter's' by Keith Miller (Profile Books, 2007)!
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