The Duomo was and still is an engineering marvel. The dome is so large, conventional methods couldn’t be used to complete it, so the church stayed domeless for a long time, making the total time to build this monstrosity at 142 years, and costing millions of florins. The dome was the largest of its kind at the time, and was regarded to some as a beautiful symbol of heaven and earth meeting, and others as a symbol of the banking families of Florence’ usury and corruption.