Cathedral roof holds glimpse into past

Repairs reveal centuries-old animal prints

The uninformed observer might wonder how even a cat, let alone a dog or deer, could clamber to the top reaches of the 370-foot ( 113- metre) dome of Florence's most famous church.

Yet when workmen began restoration work on the city's Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, they discovered intriguing sets of paw and hoof prints on its ancient terracotta tiles.

Experts who have analyzed them say they were left not by modern-day four-legged visitors, but by animals who traipsed across the clay tiles as they were laid out to dry in the sun before being laid on the dome centuries ago.

The prints were discovered during winter maintenance by specialized masons, restorers and technicians who roped up to repair and replace damaged tiles on the south cupola of the structure.

While harnessed atop the famous Renaissance church, they found tiles showing paw prints of dogs and cats, and tracks identified as belonging to fox, marten and deer.

There were also many species of birds and raptors. The imprints were likely made on the tiles as they lay drying in the sun before being kilnfired in Impruneta, a small Tuscan town between Florence and Greve in Chianti. The town has been famed since the 11th century for terracotta and is still producing it today.

“I was amazed when the technicians showed me their photos,” said Ambra Nepi, spokesman for the institute that manages the cathedral.

“It is a marvellous hidden world up there, that from down below in the square you do not see.”

Not just animals left a trace. Some tiles were branded with a unique cross, while others showed dates and the names of artisans, said architect Samuele Caciagli, a director of the restoration project. Upon lifting off the cap of the south cupola, the team found a Lira coin dated to 1956. It either fell from a worker's pocket or was left purposefully.

“We have known there are these traces of man and animal there,” Caciagli told The Daily Telegraph. “But every time we do this continual maintenance and restoration, we discover another life lived, another page from our history book, like crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel allowing us to retrace the monument's past.”

Completed in 1436, the monumental cupola project by Filippo Brunelleschi remains the largest brick dome ever constructed, its curved engineering a testament to the genius of man regarded as one of the first modern engineers.

Historians describe Brunelleschi as obsessively hands-on, personally choosing stone and marble and carefully overseeing tile and brick production.

The original terracotta tiles date back to 1419, but the animal tracks have not yet been precisely dated.