the cathedral now known as Santa Maria del Fiore was instantly recognized as a marvel of the sort scarcely seen since the death of the classical world a millennium before. Today it is generally recognized as the founding architectural achievement of the Italian Renaissance and the ancestor of the domes that adorned many monumental buildings of the modern age, including St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Les Invalides in Paris, and the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. But for that reason, it belongs to a phase of the Middle Ages that had yet to dawn when Arnolfo di Cambio broke ground in 1296.
