Santa Maria del Fiore Cupola construction tools: a non-invasive characterization using portable XRF

The construction of the Santa Maria del Fiore Cupola, also known as Brunelleschi’s Cupola, was one of the most challenging and revolutionary projects of the Renaissance, specifically from the technical point of view. The Cupola, whose construction was completed in 1436, more that 100 years after the beginning of the Cathedral building, is one of the greatest architecture masterworks. Its construction was possible only thanks to the revolutionary ideas and innovations of Brunelleschi’s project. New tools and machines were designed in order to overcome the technical difficulties of the project. Some of these tools, property of the ’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore’ and preserved in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, were never analysed. This paper presents the performed investigation and the preliminary obtained results related to XRF measurements. These can be of great interest in order to define the origin of these historical tools and their production technologies.