Early modern domes built in the 17th century used traditional geometric and proportional techniques for masonry domes and lanterns and relied on graphical or empirical solutions to the geometric problems created by oval domes. In the 17th century, analytical approaches were developed and the ideal shape for a dome was debated, but these approaches were often considered too theoretical to be used in construction. From the late 17th century, there was a shift away from proportional rules to a culture of testing.

TraditionalOrthodox church domes were used in hundreds of Orthodox andUniate wooden churches in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and Tatar wooden mosques in Poland were domed central plan structures with adjacent minarets. Bulbous domes became popular in central and southern Germany and in Austria in the 17th century, and influenced those in Poland and Eastern Europe in the Baroque period. Onion spires are predominant in Bavarian country churches and onion domes over Bavarian pilgrimage churches may indicate influence from Prague.

In Spain, false vaults made of wood or reed and covered with plaster were in chapel domes to give the appearance of stone construction. An anti-seismic technique for building calledquincha was adapted from local Peruvian practice for domes and became universally adopted along the Peruvian coast. A similar lightweight technique was used in eastern Sicily after earthquakes struck in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In Naples, it was customary in the 17th and 18th centuries to cover domes with polychrome majolica tilework influenced by Arabic art.

Oval plan churches spread outside of Rome following Vignola's innovation with the church ofSant'Anna dei Palafrenieri.Guarino Guarini established the oval dome as a reconciliation of the longitudinal plan church favored by the liturgy of theCounter-Reformation and the centralized plan favored by idealists. He also originated the idea of a large oculus in a solid dome revealing a second dome.

The construction of domes in the seventeenth century relied primarily on empirical techniques and oral traditions rather than the architectural treatises of the times, which avoided practical details. This was adequate for domes up to medium size, with diameters in the range of 12 to 20 meters. Materials were considered homogeneous and rigid, with compression taken into account and elasticity ignored. The weight of materials and the size of the dome were the key references. Lateral tensions in a dome were counteracted with horizontal rings of iron, stone, or wood incorporated into the structure.^[1]

A treatise byVincenzo Scamozzi from 1615 gives examples of a typology of vaults and domes, but not a general and thorough theory.^[2] A two volume treatise byFray Lorenzo, published in 1639 and 1665, recommended against the use of heavy and expensive stone for domes in favor of a hybrid system of brick shells covered by timber shells, as structurally independent elements.^[3] He complimented the use of wooden domes over chapels in Spain, made to look like stone on the outside, as safe and strong.^[4]

In the seventeenth century, many Renaissance and Baroque elliptical and oval plan domes were built over rectangular naves, using brick in Italy and stone in Spain. Later German oval domes in the Rococo style used different combinations of geometry.^[5] Oval domes often incorporated both elliptical and oval or semicircular curves and this ambiguity is reflected in the architectural literature. Builders relied on graphical or empirical solutions to such geometric problems. In 1640, mathematicianPaul Guldin established that the "elongated semicircle" of traditional practice is an ellipse.^[6]

Over the course of the seventeenth century, developments in mathematics and the study ofstatics led to a more precise formalization of the ideas of the traditional constructive practices of arches and vaults.^[7]Robert Hooke published a Latinanagram in 1675, deciphered only after his death, indicating that the perfect shape for an arch to resist a givenload was the inversion of the shape a flexible cord assumes under such a load, but he was unable to define this catenary curve mathematically. He had proposed to theRoyal Society in 1671 that the perfect dome shape was the cubico-parabolical conoid.^[8]

Although some recommendations for the profile of a dome can be found in treatises from earlier centuries, the traditional geometric and proportional techniques for masonry domes andlanterns were first detailed in 1694 byCarlo Fontana in his famous treatiseIl Tempio Vaticano e sua Origine.^[9] Fontana explains the proportions of a dome based on the dome's internal diameter, including the thickness and height of the drum, the internal diameter of the oculus, and the height of the piers. The thickness of the dome at its base is recommended to be three-fourths of the drum's thickness, with the dome's intrados and extrados following different circular curves to become thinner toward the top.^[10]

There was no single proportional rule for the sizing of the pillar supports beneath a dome in the second half of the seventeenth century and a wide variety of proportions were used, based on previously completed work. This contributed to a shift away from proportional rules to a culture of testing from the late seventeenth and into the eighteenth century. Mathematician and astronomerPhilippe de La Hire created rules of pillar proportion with a mechanical hypothesis for the sizing ofimposts in his 1695Traité de mecanique. Dutch physicistPieter van Musschenbroek performed experiments on the resistance of metal ropes, which were praised byGiovanni Poleni.^[11]

The 1609 dome over the presbytery of the church of El Carmen inSan Cristóbal de las Casas is in theboveda esquifada style ofmudéjar art.^[12]

TheCollege of Nosa Señora da Antiga (1593–1616) was built a few years after El Escorial and influenced by it. The recorded plans for the dome differ from what was actually built by master masonSimón de Monasterio. Although the plans describe the use of iron chains and iron cramps, no evidence of their actual use has been identified. Its extradosed, hemispherical, single-shell dome spans 10 meters and is made entirely of granite. There are eight windows in the drum and eight pairs of ribs in the dome. On the exterior, the lower part of the drum is octagonal and the upper part is cylindrical. The lantern and cupola are topped by a pyramidal finial.^[13]

The inner brick shell of the dome ofSan Juan de la Penitencia in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) [es] collapsed in 1999 after the collapse of the outer wooden roof.^[14]

The tower over the bridge of Pinos-Puenta was rebuilt in the 17th century with a shallow crossed-arch dome.^[15]

In Spain, oval churches of the seventeenth century include theConvent of Las Bernardas in Alcalá de Henares [es], begun in 1617, and theOratory of San Filippo Neri in Cádiz at the end of the century.^[16] ArchitectPedro Sánchez [es] built oval domes over his churches ofSaint Hermenegildo [es] in 1616 andSan Antonio de los Alemanes in 1624.^[17]

The dome of theChurch of las Calatravas (1670–1678) in Madrid was built byLorenzo de San Nicolás.

In Spain, false vaults made of wood or reed and covered with plaster were used in the seventeenth century. The technique, dating from the medieval period, was applied to chapel domes to give the appearance of stone construction.^[4] The dome of Seville'sChurch of Santa María de las Nieves [es] (begun 1659) usedstucco to create high-relief scrolling foliage patterns like those of Islamicarabesque ornament.^[14]

InLima, the "City of Kings", capital of Spain'sViceroyalty of Peru, frequent earthquakes prompted the use ofquincha construction for the vaulting of thechurch of San Francisco (1657–74) by Constantino de Vasconcelos and Manuel de Escobar. Quincha was an adaptation of an indigenouswattle and daub technique and consisted of a wooden structural framework filled out with cane or bamboo and covered with plaster and stucco to resemble stone. The anti-seismic properties of this light and elastic system allowed the 36.9-foot-wide (11.2 m) double-shell dome of the church, a hemisphere and lantern resting directly on pendentives, to survive for more than three hundred years and it became universally adopted along the Peruvian coast. Another 17th century example is the dome of thechurch of Santo Domingo in Lima (1678–81).^[18]

The first dome built inQuito was the high dome over the crossing of theChurch of Our Lady of Guápulo [es] (1650–1684), a pilgrimage church made popular by a statue of the Virgin Mary that has miracles attributed to it. The statue, made to imitate that ofOur Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura, was destroyed in a fire in the 1830s.^[19]

Earthquakes inNaples in 1627, 1688, and 1694 spurred the addition of domes to many churches as part of repairs and restorations in the 17th century. A 1999 survey identified 121 domes in the city, 42 of which were built in theBaroque era. Most are single shell extradosed domes on a circular plan. The domes were built of tuff ashlar voussoirs with mortared joints,Vesuvian stone fitted without mortar, or ribbed concrete domes. It was customary in the 17th and 18th centuries to cover the domes with polychromemajolica tilework influenced by Arabic art, such as on the dome ofSanta Maria della Sanità, or with a copper and lead coating as on the dome of theChurch of the Girolamini.^[20]

The two-shell dome of theRoyal Chapel of the Treasure of St. Januarius (1608–1618) in Naples was built with a stone lantern that was replaced after an earthquake in 1688. Iron chains were incorporated into the structure, with the first placed during construction in 1612. Two more chains were added after earthquakes in 1626 and 1627. Further cracking spurred the removal in 1724 of the internal masonry lantern connecting the inner and outer domes, in order to lighten the structure, and the addition of a wooden and irontruss structure between the shells. The oculus in the inner dome was closed and a lighter wooden structure replaced the exterior lantern between 1724 and 1726.^[21]

The dome ofAnnunziata Church in Capua may have benefited from skills learned in the building of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.^[22]

Giuseppe Nuvolo built the church ofSan Carlo all'Arena around 1626 in Naples, the first of several oval plan churches that would be built there until the middle of the eighteenth century.^[23]

In Sardinia, theChurch of San Michele in Alghero [it] was built from the second decade to the second half of the 17th century and includes a dome on an octagonal drum.^[24] The choir ofOristano Cathedral was covered by a ribbed dome on ribbedtrumpet arches (1622).^[25]

TheBasilica de la Virgen de los Desamparados (1652–1667) inValencia featured a simple oval pointed dome over its trapezoidal space when first built, spanning a space 19 meters by 15 meters. A thin inner dome was added around 1700 as a surface for a fresco, a practice not uncommon in 16th and 17th century Spain. Using a technique dating back to at least the 12th century, the inner dome was made with tile laid flat in two layers totaling just 80 millimeters. The upper half of this inner dome was supported during construction with 126 wrought iron t-shaped bars connecting the inner and outer domes, but upon completion of the inner dome, the iron bars were made structurally redundant.^[26]

A lightweight dome made with a wooden frame, woven reeds, and plastered with agypsum mortar was built overMessina Cathedral inSicily in 1682. Known to react better than masonry vaulting to earthquakes, this technique was also more expensive due to the need for specialized artisans and the use ofwhite poplar wood in the structure, which unlike traditional wooden formwork could not be re-used and was rare on the island. It was used in eastern Sicily after earthquakes struck in 1693 and 1727.^[27]

The church ofSantissimo Salvatore in Palermo was built from 1682 with an elliptical dome over a dodecagon plan. It had a long span of 24 meters and was built with 29 rows offreestone. It was damaged in World War II and rebuilt with rings of reinforced concrete over rows of dressed stone.^[28]

In Milan, proposals for the dome ofSan Lorenzo (built in 1619) included versions both with and without timburios, although, along with thequincunx planChurch of Sant'Alessandro, the building had the more difficult supporting structure of four main arches between four free-standing pillars. A dome for Sant'Alessandro was built in 1626 and demolished in 1627, perhaps due to the use of an inadequate number of iron ties. Although the dome had a timburio, it may also have had a lower and less stable hemispherical form.^[29] Autographed drawings from the period indicate it was a ribbed hemispherical dome with a lantern and timburio. Deep cracks in the arches supporting the dome caused the completed dome to be demolished, along with the supporting arches in February 1627. In 1629, the supporting piers were enlarged and the four round arches were strengthened with iron reinforcement and by adding pointed arches above them. An outbreak of disease stopped work in 1630 and the dome was not completed until 1693, with an extrados shape.^[30]

Saint Peter's Abbey inGhent was rebuilt in 1629, having been destroyed in theProtestant uprising that began in the Netherlands in 1568, a part of theEighty Years' War. The church was rebuilt in an Italian Baroque style with one of the first church domes in theSouthern Netherlands, just after the completion of the domedBasilica of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel, and seems to have been intended to convey a counter-reformation message.^[31]

TheNew Cathedral of Coimbra (begun in 1598) used the same half-tiburium buttressing for its dome as had earlier Spanish churches in Seville and Sassari.^[32]

German and Austrian influence resulted in many bulbous cupolas in Poland and Eastern Europe in the Baroque period, and rural church towers in the Austrian and BavarianAlps still feature them.^[33] Onion-shaped spires can be found in rural and pilgrimage churches in southern Germany, northeastern Italy, the formerCzechoslovakia, Austria, and some of Poland, Hungary, and the formerYugoslavia.^[34]

The church ofSanta Maria Nuova inCortona,Tuscany, was built with a low parallelepiped, drum, and dome at its crossing, in keeping with Bramante's recommendations in hisOpinio.^[35]

The church ofSanta Maria del Quartiere inParma, Italy, was built with ahexagonal dome. The dome has been strengthened with a system of encirclingtie rods.^[36]

TheAugsburg Town Hall (1615–1620), designed byLutheran architectElias Holl, included two towers topped by onion domes and these became part of the city's civic identity by the later seventeenth century. Like the town hall, the Lutheran churches ofHoly Cross [de] andSt. Ulrich [de] have onion domes.^[37] Domes like these gained in popularity in central and southern Germany and in Austria in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly in theBaroque style.^[38]

Onion spires are predominant in Bavarian country churches, such as those on the three towers of the 1688"Kappel" pilgimage church [de] nearWaldsassen by Abraham Leuthner and Georg Dientzenhofer, who had both worked in Prague. Onion domes over the Bavarian pilgrimage churches ofMaria Birnbaum [de] (1661–1682) andWesterndorf [de] (1670) may also indicate influence from Prague through models in architectural design books, such as one by Abraham Leuthner. In other examples, such as the onion dome on the tower ofSt. Ulrich's and St. Afra's Abbey (1602), the influences are less clear.^[39]

Johann Jakob Herkomer [de]'s training in Venice appears to have influenced his thin timber dome overthe Chapel of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows [de] (1684–1692), his family chapel atSameister [de].^[40]

In theChurch of San Lorenzo (1670–87) in Turin,Guarino Guarini, aTheatine monk and mathematician, used interlacing bands or ribs reminiscent of Islamic domes atIznik orCordoba, or theChristian example at Torres Del Río [eu]. The four years he spent in Paris may have influenced the emphasis on forced perspective and optical effects in his domes, in contrast to the more formalistic architectural design of Rome at that time. He used form, color, and light to give the illusion of greater height in his centralized domed churches. His dome over theChapel of the Holy Shroud (1667–90) in Turin is supported by six stacked hexagonal layers of six arches each, arranged such that each layer of arches spring from the peaks of the arches in the layer below them. Although the layers form a cone leading to the base of the dome, each is made progressively smaller to exaggerate the appearance of height. The dome itself is a lighter color than the lower levels of the church, also making it appear even farther away.^[41] The ribs in San Lorenzo and Il Sidone were shaped as catenary curves.^[42]

The idea of a large oculus in a solid dome revealing a second dome originated with Guarini.^[43] He established the oval dome as a reconciliation of the longitudinal plan church favored by the liturgy of the Counter-Reformation and the centralized plan favored by idealists.^[44] Guarini's drawings, including isometric intersections of spheres, barrel vaults, and oval domes as well as drawings explaining construction and ceiling patterns, were published posthumously in theArchitettura Civile and influenced the designs ofHildebrandt, theDientzenhofers, andBalthasar Neumann in Central Europe. With the newly developed mathematics ofcalculus, these experimental designs could be proven and would become the foundation ofRococo spatial arrangements.^[45]

The practice of including columns in the supports of a crossing dome did not begin in the city of Rome until the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, influenced byNorthern Italian churches. Examples in Rome includeSan Salvatore in Lauro andSantissima Trinità dei Pellegrini. The domed extension of theCathedral in Monte Compatri [it] uses the crossing support model of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini but extends the mirrors the column supports in a cruciform pattern.^[46]

The dome of the basilica atMontecassino, by architectOrazio Torriani, was structurally complete by the end of 1613. Surviving letters from Torriani document the materials needed for the construction, including four iron chains for the dome. The basilica was destroyed by bombardment in February 1944 but rebuilt after the war.^[47]

The dome by Carlo Maderno ofSan Giovanni dei Fiorentini was evidently an early inspiration in the planning of the dome ofSant'Andrea della Valle by Moderno and Borromini, but Sant'Andrea della Valle as built is said to be the first modeled on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.^[48]

Oval plan churches spread outside of Rome following Vignola's innovation with the church of Santa Anna dei Palafrenieri.Giovan Battista Aleotti built bothSanta Maria della Celletta [it] in Argenta andSan Carlo Borromeo in Ferrara between 1609 and 1621.^[23] The oval plans synthesize longitudinal and central plan church layouts, allowing clear views of the altar from all points.^[7][49]

Francesco Borromini's dome ofSan Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1638–41) has a novel oval plan that approximates an ellipse using four circular arcs based on the vertices of two large equilateral triangles; a complex geometrical coffer pattern of crosses, octagons, and lozenges is repeated eight times on the dome's inner surface.^[50][7][49] The long axis of the dome is 51palms (11.37 meters), the short axis is 36 palms (8.02 meters), and the height is 23 palms (5.13 meters).^[51] Because the dome uses a pattern of coffers that get smaller as they approach the oculus and because it is lit from both above and below, the dome appears lighter and higher than it would otherwise. The church inaugurated the high baroque style in Rome.^[52] A copy based on plans provided by Borromini was built as the church ofMadonna del Prato in Gubbio.^[53]

Borromini's masterpiece is the dome ofSant'Ivo alla Sapienza (1642–50), built forPope Urban VIII at a university in Rome. The ribbed dome has a unique and complex geometry with a large window in each of it six lobes and stucco ornamentation.^[52] Early drawings indicate that the windows in the dome were to behexagons, matching the overall hexagonal groundplan of the church and in apparent reference to thehoneycomb pattern of bees, which were a symbol of the patron'sBarberini family. The spiral shape of the lantern spire has a single bejeweled band that makes three complete turns, which may have been a reference to thetriple crown of the papacy and the three-in-one nature of theTrinity but was intended to practically serve as an access walkway to the top of the spire.^[54]

The style of using ribs in a dome over a coffered background was first expressed over the small chapel of Filippo Neri in the church ofSanta Maria in Vallicella (1647–1651), modified byPietro da Cortona to have small oval windows at its base. Cortona also revised the dome ofSanta Maria della Pace (1656–1659) to have a stepped feature on the exterior, evocative of the Pantheon, and stucco ribs over octagonal coffers on the dome's interior. The domes ofSanti Luca e Martina (begun 1634) andSan Carlo al Corso (1668), both about 14 meters wide with an oval vertical profile, were entirely designed by Cortona.^[55]

The oval plan church ofSant'Andrea al Quirinale (1658–61) byBernini is unusual in that the entrance is on the minor axis and it is often depicted as unique in this respect, but the later churches ofSanti Celso e Giuliano (1735) andSantissimo Nome di Maria (1736) also have this layout.^[56][7][49] Bernini's Sant'Andrea al Quirinale is known as the oval Pantheon.^[57]

The visual framing between the facade towers of the dome over the church ofSant'Agnese in Agone and its closeness to the front of the church may have been intended as a criticism of the arrangement of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica relative to its facade.^[58] The original design byCarlo Rainaldi had a dome without a drum, but this was revised by Borromini.^[59]

Work on theCathedral of Santa Margherita in Montefiascone, halted at the level of the drum due to lack of funds, was resumed after a 1670 fire destroyed the temporary wooden roof and damaged the interior. The stone dome was built byCarlo Fontana with eight ribs connected to each other by horizontal arches to resist outward force. It was completed in 1673 and he defended its proportions in print by both citing the measured proportions of other domes as well as the existing geometrical rules of proportion based on materials and supports.^[60] The dome was made of lighttufa stone, 112.5palmi in size, with a thickness around 2.5 palmi. The thickness of the dome does not decrease as it gets higher.^[61] Iron chains to resist lateral movement would be added later.^[62]

Santa Maria in Campitelli (1662–1675) was originally designed with a large oval domed nave, in addition to a smaller circular dome over the sanctuary, but this was abandoned in favor of just a dome over the sanctuary, possibly due to cost concerns.^[63]

Galeazzo Alessi's plans for the dome of theBasilica of Saint Mary of the Angels inAssisi (1678) were executed to create a dome on a tall drum, with the drum height being almost twice the amount later recommended by Carlo Fontana in his 1694 book "Il Tempio Vaticano e sua origine" (The Vatican Temple and Its Origins). The dome was built over the transept of the church's Latin cross plan, directly above thePortiuncula, a small church building saved byFrancis of Assisi.^[64] The diameter is about 20 meters. Although circular on the inside, the dome is octagonal in plan on the exterior. It was strengthened by three metal rings after the earthquake of 1832.^[65]

The two domed churches ofSanta Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto were built in thePiazza del Popolo, an entrance to the city of Rome, beginning in 1662 under Carlo Rainaldi and finishing under Bernini from 1671. The two were designed to be symmetrical with each other, initially as two Greek cross plan churches with identical domes, but ultimately Santa Maria in Montesanto, the building on the left, was built with an oval plan dome behind a decagonal drum, and the building on the right, Santa Maria dei Miracoli, was built with a circular plan dome behind an octagonal drum. The differences may be due to the narrower wedge-shaped plot of land for Santa Maria in Montesanto coupled with the desire for the domes to be as large as possible. An oval plan allowed the full width of the left dome to be set farther back from the facade, where there was more space, while still appearing to match the dimensions of the dome of the church on the right. The oval-domed Santa Maria in Montesanto was completed by 1675 but consecrated in 1678. The circular-domed Santa Maria dei Miracoli was consecrated in 1679.^[66]

Thechurch of Sant'Ignazio (1685) in Rome has an illusionistic painting of a dome byAndrea Pozzo on the flat ceiling of the crossing where a real dome would have been, with the proper point to see the painting in the correct perspective marked in the floor by a yellow marble circle.^[67]

Polish examples of churches with domed transepts include acollegiate church in the city ofŻółkiew (1606–1618), aFranciscan church inŚwięta Anna near Przyrów (1609–1617),the burial place of Ligęza in Rzeszów [pl] (1624–1627),the burial place of Opaliński in Sieraków [pl] (1624–1629), andthe burial place of Sapieha in Kodeń [pl] (founded in 1631).^[68] In Poland, polygonal buildings and earlier medieval towers were often capped with domes in the Renaissance or Baroque styles. The Renaissance domes were generally onion domes stacked on top of one another and separated with so-called lanterns of openwork arcades. An example is the tower at theBasilica of the Holy Trinity in Chełmża. The Baroque domes were characterized by unusual shapes and curves, such as those ofGniezno Cathedral.^{[citation needed]} However, many bulbous domes in the larger cities of eastern Europe were replaced during the second half of the eighteenth century in favor of hemispherical or stilted cupolas in the French or Italian styles.^[69]

In thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Roman Catholic churches with Greek-cross plans and monumental domes designed byTylman van Gameren became popular in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Examples includeSt. Kazimierz Church (1689–95) and theChurch of St. Anthony of Padua, Czerniaków (1690–92).^[70] The traditionalOrthodox church design in three parts, with a dome over each, was used in hundreds of Orthodox andUniate wooden churches in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. An example of a Polish Roman Catholic wooden dome is on theChurch of SS. Margaret and Judith in Kraków [pl] (1680–1690).^[71]

Tatar wooden mosques in Poland were domed central plan structures with adjacent minarets.^[72] The Tatar mosques of theGrand Duchy of Lithuania used bulbous domes on their minarets, a style apparently influenced by ChristianSlavic folk architecture.^[73]

The church ofSan Pietro di Castello was completed in 1621 with a thin timber dome and lantern, built on a masonry drum.^[40]

Inspired by Palladio's churches, the two-domed church ofSanta Maria della Salute byBaldassare Longhena was built on the edge ofVenice's Grand Canal from 1631 to 1681 to celebrate the end ofa plague in the city in 1630. The larger dome is 130 feet tall over an octagonal nave for public ceremonies and the smaller dome covers the choir used by the clergy for official celebrations.^[74] The larger dome has a span of 60 feet and the smaller dome has a span of 40 feet.^[75] The architect attributed the shape of the domed church to a crown evoked by the dedication of the church to Mary,Queen of Heaven.^[76]

In Paris, the dome ofSt. Marie de la Visitation was built byFrançois Mansart from 1632 to 1633, who would later design the church ofVal-de-Grâce (1645–1710), built to commemorate the birth ofLouis XIV. The dome of Val-de-Grâce, however, was designed byJacques Lemercier after having worked in Rome for seven years. It includes an inscription around the dome relating to theBourbon kings.^[77] Inspired by St. Peter's Basilica, its dome likewise has two shells, but the outer shell is much taller in order to compensate for theforeshortening effect from viewing the exterior dome from nearby on the ground. The inner shell is made of stone and the outer shell is made of wood.^[78]

Oval domes can also be found in secular buildings such as theChâteau de Maisons (1642–6) and the Château deVaux-le-Vicomte (1657).^[57]

In the Parisianchurch of Sainte-Anne-la-Royale [it] (1662),Guarino Guarini, aTheatine monk and mathematician, used interlacing bands or ribs reminiscent of Islamic domes atIznik orCordoba, or theChristian example at Torres Del Río [eu].^[41]

TheChurch of Our Lady of Divine Providence (1656–1661) was built in thePortuguese colonial capital of Goa, India by ItalianTheatines Carlo Ferrarini and Francesco Maria Milazzo. It has a Greek cross plan with a central dome. Visibility of the dome from ground level was reduced by the addition of a towered facade from 1673 to 1675, but it remained prominent when viewed from a distance.^[79] The appearance and framing of the dome between its facade towers was imitated by the so-called "cupoliform churches", such as the Church of Saint Stephen on theisland of Juá (1759), and possibly some 17th century domedHindu temples, includingSaptakoteshwar Temple,Shanta Durga Temple,Mangueshi Temple, andNagueshi Temple.^[80]

The city ofMaastricht, jointly ruled byLiège andBrabant since the 13th century, was conquered byFrederik Hendrik in 1632, after which theStates General assumed the responsibilities of Brabant. Hendrik's court architect,Pieter Post, built a newMaastricht City Hall in a classicist style between 1659 and 1664, accommodating the unique political requirements with separate rooms for the different governing bodies that were grouped around a central domed hall.^[81]

The prosperity of theDutch Golden Age coincided with a period of large church building in the Netherlands by theReformed Church, from the 1640s to the middle of the 1670s.^[82] A domed octagongarrison church [nl] was built atWillenstad byMaurice, Prince of Orange, from 1597 to 1607.^[83] The brick octagonal church, twenty meters wide, was built at the center of the fortified town.^[84] TheCalvinist government inLeiden built theMarekerk, a domed octagonal preaching church, in the 1640s. The octagonal plan was associated with theDome of the Rock, thought to beSolomon's Temple.^[85] TheOostkerk inMiddelburg was built from 1647 to 1667 with an octagonal dome and lantern.^[86] Begun in 1668, the LutheranRonde Lutherse Kerk was built in aclassicist style but also was a continuation of the architectural style of the Marekerk and Oostkerk buildings. It was funded by wealthy members of the congregation as well as donations from Germany and Scandinavia, with the dome and lantern covered by copper donated byCharles XI of Sweden.^[87]

In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, domes were features of the gardens of distinguished Dutch country houses.^[88]

Rebuilding after the 1666Great Fire of London included a few new churches with single-shell timber domes, covered on the outside with leadwork and on the inside with plaster. The light weight of these timber domes allowed for thin supporting columns that minimized obstructions to the liturgy for worshipers, as encouraged by theChurch of England's emphasis on open plans for itsreformed liturgical practice.^[89]

The dome at the church ofSt Mary-at-Hill was significantly redesigned byJames Savage in 1827 as a hemispherical sail vault with a small lantern, but the original design byChristopher Wren was built from 1670 to 1674 as a 17-foot-wide 16-sided lantern topped with a shallow dome. Beneath the lantern, the intersection of four shallow barrel vaults created small pendentives that supported a shallow plaster dome described at the time merely as a "coveing" under the cupola. The cupola itself was likely supported by cross braces under a normal pitched roof that covered everything up to the base of the lantern.^[90]

The church ofSt Benet Fink (1670–1675) was an elongated 10-sided building with six thin stone columns at its center supporting pendentives under a timber oval dome with a small 12-sided lantern. Although admired at the time as one of Wren's finest designs, it was demolished in the early 1840s.^[91]

The church ofSt Stephen Walbrook in London was built by Christopher Wren from 1672 to 1677 and its dome has been called "the first classical dome in England".^[92] Although the dome of St Benet Fink was likely earlier, the dome of St Stephen Walbrook was more ambitious. The timber hemispherical dome spanned more than 13 meters (43 feet) over pendentives and squinches and has been described as "the largest structure of its kind in Europe". It was capped with a cupola and decorated on the interior with plasterworkcoffers. It was reconstructed between 1948 and 1952 after being damaged inWorld War II.^[93]

All Saints' Church, Northampton, was rebuilt from 1675 to 1680 after the 1675Great Fire of Northampton with a thin timber dome similar in scale to the lantern of St Mary-at-Hill. Although not designed by Christopher Wren, it appears to have been influenced by his designs.^[40]

• History of early and simple domes
• History of modern period domes

• Domes
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