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The coating of the facade of the Cathedral Quarter

Text and photos by Robert Ferdinand

In a drawing of the sixteenth century, preserved in the Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, you can see how it was originally covered, in part, the facade of the Duomo. That finish, however, was dismantled in 1491 to replace it with a new one, but then began a long debate on the opportunities and conditions of such intervention that you can until the end of the nineteenth century, leaving it bare for many centuries, the façade of the Cathedral.
In fact, only during the period when Florence was capital of the question, among thousands of controversy was resolved. In April 1864 he was in fact an international competition for the covering of the facade of the Duomo. Were presented on 43 different projects, the Selection Board, chaired by the Florentine sculptor Giovanni Dupre, I selected the first four and then two: Petersen of Denmark and the Florentine architect Emilio De Fabris. The design of Florentine, which drew freely to the original coating present on the sides of the Cathedral, which provided for the harness front end of the three high gables, won a majority of votes of the committee. But the contest was censored for legal reasons, then the result was annulled and in 1866 it launched a new international competition, delayed for a few years to the outbreak of war against Austria-Hungary in Veneto. Also confirmed this contest winner, among 40 competing designs, one of De Fabris. The committee praised the fact that tricuspid crown appeared to be less far from the character of medieval Tuscany, but causing controversy and dislikes among the experts. This crown was in fact similar to the one today on the marble facade of the Basilica of Santa Carrara Cross, which was opened on 3 May 1863 on a design dell'anconetano Niccolò Matas (a plaque near the main entrance of the Basilica note that there is buried the architect Matas in recognition of his work).
Work on the lining of the facade of the cathedral, however, began only in 1876 and culminated in the building, opened on 12 May 1887. Looking at the front of the Cathedral we see today that the three cusps were not realized. In fact De Fabris in 1883 and died the next leader of the work, Luigi Del Moro, after strong external pressure, he changed the original plan of using drawings left by De Fabris, who predicted that the authorities would have returned over the resolution passed.

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The facade of the Duomo

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