Flying Buttresses

Il Duomo, by Marcus Obal via Wikimedia Commons

We all recently watched David Macaulay's short documentary Cathedral.

It's based on his fictional book about the construction of a Gothic cathedral. The cathedral is a "typical" Gothic cathedral in a typical town, as if he averaged together all the cathedrals across southern France.


A happy coincidence: he discusses flying buttresses in a little detail. I'm learning that the massive dome of the Duomo in Florence is supported without the use of any flying buttresses (apparently the Italians thought they were unsightly and German-looking).

I look forward to relying on the boy's frightfully sharp memory of the Cathedral video when we're looking at Duomo.