The Duomo
Morning broke over Florence in a haze of amber light, spilling between the ochre rooftops of the old city and warming the cobbled stretch of Via degli Strozzi. The bells of the Duomo had not yet rung. But Judd was already awake.
From the balcony of their rented apartment—modest, high-ceilinged, and centuries old—he stared across the tiled rooftops toward a curve of dome barely visible in the morning light. Florence stirred below, a rhythm of clinking cups and rumbling delivery carts.
Inside, Ava had her laptop open, sipping Matcha Latte through a straw, and Cindy was tying her boots, slinging her camera strap across her shoulder.
Before they left, Judd placed Franklin’s weathered journal—carefully wrapped in waxed canvas—on the center of the table.
“I need you both to understand why we’re here,” he said quietly. “This isn’t a hunch. It’s a trail.”
He opened the journal to a bookmarked page and began reading aloud.
“Tonight I met a man from Florence who claimed the dome of Santa Maria hides more than stone. He spoke of a brotherhood that predated our own ideals—a society that worked in whispers, not unlike my own aspirations. He gifted me a page from a codex said to be penned by the hand of Leonardo himself. I do not know what to make of it, but I have hidden it within the lining of my dispatch chest, should I not return from France. The sketch… it haunts me.”
Judd looked up.
“He signed it the night after a private meeting with someone he only refers to as Il Cavaliere della Cupola—The Knight of the Dome. According to Mary, the contact came from Florence. A descendant of Brunelleschi’s original workshop.”
Cindy raised an eyebrow. “Brunelleschi—as in, the mastermind behind the dome?”
“Exactly,” Judd nodded. “This so-called Knight brought Franklin a sketch—an inner cross-section of the dome annotated in a cipher. Franklin tried to decode it. But even in his notes, you can see he was afraid of what it implied.”
Ava leaned forward, her curiosity hooked. “So you think there’s something hidden in the dome itself?”
“I don’t think. I believe. Franklin buried this entry so deeply that Mary only found it a few months ago—tucked in a double-backed leather packet, behind fake dispatches.”
He closed the journal. “Whatever the Order claims its origin is—this may be older. If we’re going to understand our real beginning, we have to start at the top.”
Florence had fully awakened by the time they stepped into the sunlight. The walk to the Duomo was slow, reverent. Cindy snapped photos every few feet, light spilling perfectly off cornices and marble. Ava, predictably, stopped for gelato.
They turned onto Via dei Pecori—and there it was.
The cathedral emerged from behind a narrow row of buildings like a vision torn from marble: Santa Maria del Fiore, with its pastel geometric façade and its titanic dome, floating above the skyline like a god’s thought carved in clay.
Judd stopped cold. He’d seen it in pictures. But in person—it was myth made manifest.
Cindy smiled behind her lens. “You look like you’re meeting a ghost.”
“I might be,” Judd murmured.
Their Order contact, a stooped conservator with antique keys and a cautious glance, led them in through a side entrance. “Two hours,” he warned. “Don’t touch what you can’t explain.”
The cathedral’s silence was immediate. Holy. Every step echoed beneath frescoed vaults and through shafts of light that pierced the dim interior like divine fingers.
Ava was already scanning the floor plan, adjusting for centuries of renovations. Cindy captured angles of the nave. Judd stood beneath the dome, eyes tracking the ribs of its inner shell.
They worked the entire day.
From the crypt of Santa Reparata, to the upper walkways of Brunelleschi’s dome, to forgotten side chapels and stairwells—twelve hours passed. They examined hidden alcoves, maintenance passages, even minor fractures in the stonework. And still—nothing.
By dusk, the light filtering through the rose windows had grown dim.
Cindy rubbed her temples. “Maybe this was just Franklin’s imagination.”
Ava sat on a stone bench, clearly drained. “Or maybe the Knight told him the truth. Just… not all of it.”
Judd stood near the choir rail, frustration creeping in. “We missed something. I know it’s here.”
That’s when Ava dropped her stylus.
It rolled toward the base of a disused stairwell—tucked behind scaffolding from an ongoing restoration. She bent to retrieve it, and her hand brushed a patch of worn marble near the wall’s base.
And there it was.
A symbol, barely visible under layers of time and dust: an inkwell and quill, surrounded by a six-petal floral motif.
Ava’s breath caught. “Guys—”
Cindy and Judd rushed over as she traced the mark.
Not an artist’s flourish. Not a mason’s stamp.
An insignia.
And beneath it, scrawled in nearly invisible Latin:
Il primo segreto è nella cupola.
The first secret is in the dome.
Judd stared at it. “He wasn’t imagining it.”
Cindy stepped back, slowly raising her camera. “He was documenting it.”
Ava stood, her voice quiet with awe. “Franklin didn’t invent the Order.”
Judd nodded. “He inherited it.”
They exited into the night and walked, quietly, to La Strega Nocciola Gelateria Artigianale—just around the corner.
Sitting on a bench, cones in hand, the three of them stared back toward the glowing silhouette of the dome.
“I think we just opened a door,” Judd said.
Cindy licked her cone. “Question is… do we want to go through it?”
Ava smiled faintly. “Too late for that.”
And above them, Brunelleschi’s dome gleamed in the moonlight—silent, massive, and still keeping its oldest secrets.
