+THE EARLY RENAISSANCE IN FLORENCE: THE DUOMO.+ In the year 1417 a public competition was held for completing the cathedral of Florence by a dome over the immense octagon, 143 feet in diameter. _Filippo Brunelleschi_, sculptor and architect (1377-1446), who with Donatello had journeyed to Rome to study there the masterworks of ancient art, after demonstrating the inadequacy of all the solutions proposed by the competitors, was finally permitted to undertake the gigantic task according to his own plans. These provided for an octagonal dome in two shells, connected by eight major and sixteen minor ribs, and crowned by a lantern at the top (Fig. 159). This wholly original conception, by which for the first time (outside of Moslem art) the dome was made an external feature fitly terminating in the light forms and upward movement of a lantern, was carried out between the years 1420 and 1464. Though in no wise an imitation of Roman forms, it was classic in its spirit, in its vastness and its simplicity of line, and was made possible solely by Brunelleschi’s studies of Roman design and construction (Fig. 160). [Illustration: FIG. 159.--SECTION OF DOME OF DUOMO, FLORENCE.] +OTHER CHURCHES.+ From Brunelleschi’s designs were also erected the +Pazzi Chapel+ in Sta. Croce, a charming design of a Greek cross covered with a dome at the intersection, and preceded by a vestibule with a richly decorated vault; and the two great churches of +S. Lorenzo+ (1425) and +S. Spirito+ (1433-1476, Fig. 161). Both reproduced in a measure the plan of the Pisa Cathedral, having a three-aisled nave and transepts, with a low dome over the crossing. The side aisles were covered with domical vaults and the central aisles with flat wooden or plaster ceilings. All the details of columns, arches and mouldings were imitated from Roman models, and yet the result was something entirely new. Consciously or unconsciously, Brunelleschi was reviving Byzantine rather than Roman conceptions in the planning and structural design of these domical churches, but the garb in which he clothed them was Roman, at least in detail. The +Old Sacristy+ of S. Lorenzo was another domical design of great beauty.