Animal Walk of Fame on Florence Cathedral Roofs

[Allegra]

Animal footprints found on Florence's medieval cathedral roof

Rather than intrepid animals scaling the building to walk on the roof, it seems the creatures walked across the terracottas when they were originally made.

www.euronews.com

I can imagine the workers of 600 hundreds years ago, with a big grin on the face, putting those terracotta tiles into furnaces then on the rooftop.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The detail that went into medieval cathedrals is absolutely incredible. And much of it wasn't visible (or barely visible) to the naked eye.

 

[Ambrose]

Were they cats?? Dog tracks would be narrower I think.

 

[BigBadBob141]

I have been on top of the Dome a few times as well as Giotto's bell tower next door, the roof of the Palazzo Vecchio and once the Leaning Tower of Pizza, all a long, long time ago, happy, happy days!
The Dome is a true self supporting structure, unlike the Dome of St Pauls in London, a marvel of engineering and no lives lost in its construction.
To get to the top you have to climb winding steps inbetween the inner and outer walls of the dome, near the top they get very, very steep and lean a lot sideways, would love to climb them again but alas I think it would be a bit beyond me.
I can recommend the book "Brunelleschi's Dome" about its building and the man who designed it, it's based on the shape of an egg shell!
P.S. When I climbed The Leaning Tower in the sixties it was all open including each of the platforms as you went up, no guard rails at all, all completely open, nowadays Health and Safety would throw a fit seeing that!

 

[BigBadBob141]

The name in English for the cathedral is Saint Mary Of The Flowers!
Everyone in Italy just calls it Il Duomo meaning The Dome, Firenze (city of flowers) or in English Florence is a truly amazing city, I would recommend anyone visiting Italy to go there even if it's just for one day.
The old city survived WW2 because the German commander was an art lover and simply didn't have the heart to blow it up as ordered to before retreating.
P.S. The cathedral is just so big, sitting outside along side it, it was like a cruise ship built in stone!

 

[Ambrose]

I haven't done the Dome, or Pisa's tower, but our time over there was marvellous 7 years ago. We were due to go back last May but everything had to get cancelled. We'll see what happens later this year. Our main souvenir was a version of a famous painting in our local art gallery which a Venetian Artist had done from a postcard. Food was great too!

 

[BigBadBob141]

Italian or more especially Tuscan food is truly amazing, the finest in the world as are their wines, love a good chianti, but you can't beat really good British beer plus Guinness, but then I would say that, beautiful countryside as well, rolling hills and pine woods scattered amount the fields, wine and olive groves.
If I ever win the lottery I think I'll a lot of my time over there, pity am hopeless at learning languages, but at least Italian is spelt phonetically, this helps a bit!

 

[sknox]

>Il Duomo meaning The Dome
I was sure duomo is Italian for cathedral. Have I got that wrong?

 

[BigBadBob141]

Yep, Cattedrale is cathedral in Italian, at least according to Alexa!
I have had it on very, very good authority that Il Duomo is as I stated means The Dome, eat your heart out Stephen King!
P.S. A fair bit of French cooking is based on Tuscan, one of the Medici girls ( The family basically owned Florence, you see their coat of arms everywhere, I think it's five balls on a shield ) married someone who became the King of France and she took her cook with her who impressed the court with his cooking, or so I've been told!