The Gates of Paradise and the Dome of Heaven

Down the length of Italy like the back of a sea monster is a ridge of mountains called the Apennines. To get from one side of Italy to the other side you have to go over, under, or through these Apennine Mountains, and trains do all three; over, under, through, winding in and out of one tunnel after another. There are forty-five tunnels in going just from Venice to a city across the Apennines called Florence.

Florence is a girl’s name meaning “flowering,” but Florence is also the name of this city. As the train comes into Florence it curves around the city and you see above the housetops, near the center of the city, a large dome that looks like the hub of a wheel about which the train is turning. Next to the dome is a big, square tower. Both the tower and the dome were built before Columbus was born. The dome looks like the dome of St. Paul’s in London, but, as a matter of fact, this dome is not like St. Paul’s. The dome of St. Paul’s is like it , and so is the dome of the Capitol in Washington like it, and so are all the other domes of that kind in the World like it, for this dome in Florence was the first one of that kind ever built and all others are copies.

Little domes and flat domes had been built before, but when the people of Florence were building a cathedral they wanted a different kind of dome on it, a dome that would be bigger and better than any other dome i. t. w. W. They wanted a dome so big that no one knew how to build it. Now a dome is built out of pieces of stone, and the stones have to cover a space beneath without falling, just like a bridge or an arch. No cement is strong enough to stick stones together so that they will not fall when placed across an open space, but if the stones can be held up by some wooden framework until every stone is in place, the wooden framework underneath can then be taken away and the stones will not fall, for all the stones push downward at the same time, and as all push downward together they get wedged in so tight that none can fall through.