Payne's Grey · 2026

“Cupola del Brunelleschi a Firenze”

Brunelleschi's dome seen close, its ribs curving up to the lantern — drawn in ink and a single grey, so that only the form remains.

Details

TitleCupola del Brunelleschi a Firenze

PlaceFlorence, Italy

Year2026

CategoryPayne's Grey

Dimensions14.8 × 21 cm (A5)

TechniqueInk and Payne's grey watercolour on Clairefontaine paper

Palette of the work

Request information

This piece is part of my collection. Originals will soon be available to buy online — write to me in the meantime.

The subject

Brunelleschi’s Dome

The dome that crowns Florence — the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore — is still the largest masonry dome ever raised, and the one that announced the Renaissance to the world.

Filippo Brunelleschi won the commission in 1418 and closed the vault in 1436, building it without the timber centring everyone said was indispensable — a double shell of brick laid in a self-supporting herringbone pattern. No one has ever fully explained how he managed it.

Seen over the rooftops it is simply the city’s great fact: octagonal, ribbed, the lantern on top, impossible to ignore from any street.

I drew it in grey so that the shape and the ribs carry the whole thing.

Church: Santa Maria del Fiore
Architect: Filippo Brunelleschi
Closed: 1436
Still: the largest masonry dome
Trick: herringbone brick

The dome of Florence Cathedral floodlit at dusk — Brunelleschi’s dome over Florence — with Giotto’s bell-tower beside it.Photo: Petar Milošević — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The herringbone brickwork inside Brunelleschi’s dome — The self-supporting herringbone brick that raised the dome without centring.Photo: Armin Kleiner — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The dome that shouldn’t stand up, and has for six hundred years — I drew its ribs like the bones they are.

Ink for the ribs and the lantern, a grave grey wash for the curve of the shell and the rooftops it rises from.

There is a colour version of the same dome in my sketchbook; here I wanted only its weight and its geometry.

See also · Payne’s Grey Palazzo Vecchio a Firenze · Notre-Dame nella Luce · Brunelleschi’s Dome sketch