Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by King, Ross - 2001

New York: Penguin Books, 2001. 194 pages, illustrations; 22 cm. Tight, clean copy. Browning. "By all accounts, Filippo Brunelleschi, goldsmith and clockmaker, was an unkempt, cantankerous, and suspicious man - even by the generous standards according to which artists were judged in fifteenth-century Florence. He also designed and erected a dome over the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore - a feat of architectural daring that we continue to marvel at today - thus securing himself a place among the most formidable geniuses of the Renaissance. At first denounced as a madman, Brunelleschi literally reinvented the field of architecture amid plagues, wars, and political feuds to raise seventy million pounds of metal, wood, and marble hundreds of feet in the air. Ross King's captivating narrative brings to life the personalities and intrigue surrounding the twenty-eight-year-long construction of the dome, opening a window onto Florentine life during one of history's most fascinating eras. / Born and raised in Canada, Ross King has lived in England since 1992. His writing career began in 1995 with the publication of a historical novel, Domino, about the world of masquerades and opera in 18th-century London. Its successor, Ex-Libris, was a novel about bookselling, codes and spies in 17th-century Europe. King is best known to American readers as the author of the nonfiction Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture. The seed of the book was planted when King read a brief account of the building of Brunelleschi's dome in Giorgio Vasari's 16th-century Lives of the Artists. That, and a trip to Florence, piqued his interest in learning more about the dome. When he couldn't find a book that told him what he wanted to know, he decided to write it. The book was an instant hit in the U.S.: a 2001 Book Sense Nonfiction Book of the Year and a New York Times bestseller. His most recent book is Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling, a nonfiction book that Ross describes as a companion piece to Brunelleschi's Dome: "In the same way that Brunelleschi's Dome is about Brunelleschi, but also about Florence at that time," King says, 'Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling is about Rome in the years 1508 to 1512 - sort of an artisan's-eye view of the Renaissance.' Once again it was Vasari who provided the starting-point: 'While I discovered that much of what Vasari wrote about Brunelleschi was true, the same can't exactly be said for his account of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. What I wanted to do, therefore, was look through the legend to get a more accurate idea of the process of painting the fresco, and in doing so to bring a number of other characters, such as his assistants, into the picture. Michelangelo's achievement is no less stunning, and the story is, I think, actually more interesting.' Anyone familiar with Ross King's writing knows that he has an impressive knowledge of European cultural history. He originally planned a career in academia, earning his Ph.D. in English Literature and moving to England to assume a research position at the University of London. King lives near Oxford, England, in the historic town of Woodstock, the site of Blenheim Palace." - Publisher.. Paperback. Very Good. 8vo.