Tracey E. Fern writes for various magazines and is the author of children's historical books including, BUFFALO MUSIC (Clarion), DARE THE WIND (FSG), and W IS FOR WEBSTER (Melanie Kroupa Books). She lives in West Newton, Massachusetts.
♦ With a great deal of charm and buttressed by understated humor,
Fern tells a fictionalized story of Renaissance architect and
engineer Filippo Brunellischi and his most magnificent work, the
dome of the Cathedral of Florence. When word comes out of a contest
to determine who will design the dome, Pippo, a goldsmith known for
his beautiful but useless oddities, is determined to win and shed
his unwanted nickname. The judges decide upon his visionary design
but also decree that he must work in concert with his chief rival
and primary heckler, Lorenzo. Pippo is dismayed at the prospect of
doing all the work and only receiving half the glory, but his
determination to see his plan through to fruition wins out.
Throughout, Estrada's timeless art highlights Florence's
orange-roofed architecture and colorfully attired citizens. Readers
won't realize just how massive a project constructing the dome
really was until they arrive at the scale-shifting detail of tiny
workers, scaffolds, and cranes, a scene like something from David
Macaulay's The Way Things Work (1988). Although the
primary drama between Pippo and Lorenzo is played out with
grade-school churlishness, it offers a handy morality lesson: take
joy in one's accomplishments rather than the accolades to which
they might lead. An afterword fleshes out some of the historical
and engineering details of the dome for those inquisitive about the
Renaissance.
—Booklist, starred review
♦ A slice of history is served a la Florentine for the
delectation of curious minds in this revealing portrait of genius
Filippo Brunelleschi. Determined and stubborn, he vies with a more
physically and cosmetically advantaged rival in a competition to
select the designer and builder of a dome to grace Renaissance
Florence's grand cathedral. Estrada's excellent watercolor and
gouache illustrations detail 1400s Florence perfectly, from
costumes to workshops to construction sites to the soaring towers
projecting above the red rooftops crammed inside the city walls.
Fern's humorous text brings Pippo's crabby persona to cranky life
as he ponders, sketches, schemes, calculates, and competes his way
to a glorious completed dome and lasting fame. Extended author's
and illustrator's notes answer questions that may be raised by the
simple text, and a short list of resources (adult materials) is
appended. This neat blend of fact and fiction is asa seamlessly
constructed as the intricate brickwork of the dome on the
Duomo.
—School Library Journal, starred review
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