The Cathedral That Took Five Centuries

In 1296, workers in Florence laid the first stone of what would become the Duomo — the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. The original architect, Arnolfo di Cambio, never saw it finished. Neither did Giotto, who designed the bell tower. Generation after generation of masons, artists, and engineers poured their lives into that structure. German stonecutters worked beside Tuscan painters. Filippo Brunelleschi, born over a century after the first stone was placed, finally solved the impossible dome in 1436.

When the cathedral was consecrated, no single nation, family, or generation could claim it. It belonged to all of them — the unnamed laborers who hauled marble from Carrara, the mathematicians who calculated the angles, the women who fed the workers. Five centuries of hands, speaking different dialects, carrying different burdens, all contributing to one breathtaking act of worship pointed toward heaven.

This is the vision John sees in Revelation 7 — a great multitude no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing together in white robes before the throne of the Almighty. They had come through different trials, spoken different languages, lived in different centuries. Yet there they stood, unified in one song of praise to the Lamb.

No single generation builds the cathedral of God's kingdom. But every faithful life adds a stone. And one day, the dome will be complete.