To design the perfect cupola for Florence’s new cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, the famed engineer Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) traveled to Rome. The ancient building that most captured his attention was the Pantheon: a 142-feet-high temple with a coffered concrete vault.
Brunelleschi made copious sketches of the impressive structure, which remains the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. The drawings later proved essential to accomplish engineering feats that earned him a reputation as one of history’s best architects.
