CHAPTER 19
On the Origins of Concordian Gothic
As the dust settled on the mount, Bernoulli drew his plans for the cathedral to be built on the grave of St Eco’s. He understood the Etruscans – their love of the circle, the triangle, the balance of the horizontal with the vertical – and his optical studies gave him a philosophical appreciation of the spectrum, but he rejected all Classical precedents. His vision for what became the Molè Bernoulliana was monochromatic and severe.9
With hindsight, it is clear to us that Bernoulli’s conception of the Cathedral was more Europan than Etrurian but, when the Curia realised just how iconoclastic the style we call Concordian Gothic was, traditionalist architects reacted with shrill protests.10
His critics fell silent as the frame of one dome was capped by another and still another. It was clear to all Concordians that the right man had arrived at the right moment to solve the problem that had bested so many. Bernoulli had made his name as a bridge builder, after all, and what is a bridge but an arch, and what is a dome but three hundred and eighty arches? The triple dome of the Molè was more than an answer to Duke Scaligeri’s Cathedral; it was proof, for all Etruria, of Concordian superiority – though utterly different to that envisaged by the Curia so many years ago.