BRUNELLESCHI’S DOME

Denounced at first as a madman, Brunelleschi was celebrated at the end as a genius. This drama was played out amid plagues, wars, political feuds, and the intellectual ferments of Renaissance Florence—events King weaves into the story to great effect, from Brunelleschi’s bitter, ongoing rivalry with the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti to the near capture of Florence by the Duke of Milan. King also offers a wealth of fascinating detail that opens windows onto 15th-century life: the celebrated traditions of the brickmaker’s art, the daily routine of the artisans laboring hundreds of feet above the ground as the dome grew ever higher, the problems of transportation, the power of the guilds.