"As to how beautiful the edifice is, it is its own witness.
From ground level to the lantern the height is 308 feet,
the body of the lantern is 72 feet, the copper ball is eight feet,
the cross sixteen feet, and the whole is 404 feet;
and it can confidently be asserted that the ancients
never built to such a height nor risked challenging the sky itself."

~ Giorgio Vasari on Filippo Brunelleschi