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https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artwork-changed-life-lorenzo-ghibertis-gates-paradise

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CULTURE

Permanence, functionality and delight in Florentine architecture

permanence | The Baptistery of San Giovanni

Photography by @alefrato

Perhaps the most Florentine of all buildings is the Baptistery of Saint John. Its history dates back millennia: consecrated in 1059, documented in 897, earliest origins uncertain. In medieval Florence, the location of the baptistery was peripheral; however, it has been the city's symbolic center for much of its life. Dedicated to the city's patron saint, John the Baptist, the building represents a certain Florentine self-identity. Dante himself referred to it as "il mio bel San Giovanni" ("my beautiful Saint John"). Within its polychromed walls, the poet was baptized into his Christian faith and this function is expressed in its architecture. The octagonal shape reminds the faithful of the promise of the eighth day of eternal time. The pure geometric form, clad with green and white marble in similarly pure geometric patterns, suggest the order of a divine plan. The eastern portal, adorned from the 15th century with the glittering Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti (now copies), guided the newly baptized as they processed from the building's central baptismal font, out into the piazza ( paradiso), and then into the eventual cathedral opposite.

Beyond its Christian significance, however, the Baptistery also represents a certain fiorentinità in its architecture, rooted as it is in antiquity and extending its branches to influence the city's later building. The single volume of its interior reminds us of the Pantheon in Rome, its monumental granite columns are most likely ancient in origin. The marble mosaic pavement is a sister to the coeval one in San Miniato al Monte, while the octagonal cloister vault, here resplendent with golden mosaics, is structurally like the cupola later designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. The blue and red angels of the frieze show up in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo, the proportions of the columns appear in the Pazzi Chapel. The patterns of the green and white cladding repeat on the façade of Santa Maria Novella. And it goes on: the legacy of the Baptistery looms large in the architecture of Florence.

functionality | Hospital of the Innocents

Photography by @cultural__e

The Hospital of the Innocents, or Ospedale degli Innocenti, by Filippo Brunelleschi is the building that introduced Renaissance architecture to Florence in 1419. Brunelleschi, while thought to have been inspired by the ancient buildings of Rome, was just as likely to have been influenced by the classicizing spirit of Romanesque buildings in Florence, such as the Baptistery. Here at the Spedale, he employed Corinthian columns and round headed arches, as at the Baptistery but now carved in the cool grey stone known as pietra serena that was to become standard in future Florentine architecture. He organized these stone elements to define a nine-arched portico, or loggia, according to a simple, lucid geometrical ordering system, characteristic of the Renaissance.

The idea of a portico itself, however, was not an innovation. Just down the street is the portico of the former Ospedale di San Matteo in piazza San Marco. Brunelleschi's building in piazza Santissima Annunziata, on the other hand, simply gave a new language to a traditional Florentine form that identified a building as a hospital. The Florentines, dating back to the middle ages, had a rather sophisticated social welfare network, with hospitals located throughout the city. The word "hospital" derives from the Latin hospes, meaning both host and guest. Florence had several such institutions that "hosted guests", be they sick, retired, travelling pilgrims, or, as here, orphans. At the Spedale, the loggia housed a ruota (wheel), where one could leave a child orphaned due to parental death, illness or poverty. In turning that wheel, the hospital staff would bring the child inside the building to be cared for. The memory of this function is still seen today in Andrea della Robbia's colored terracotta reliefs of swaddled infants on the façade and the building's continued functions as a daycare center, seat of UNICEF, and museum.

Venustas | beauty or delight | Medici Chapels

The Medici Chapels at San Lorenzo, both the Chapel of the Princes and the so-called "New Sacristy" by Michelangelo represent yet another take on Florentine architecture. The octagonal shape and cloister vault of the Chapel of the Princes speak to the very foundation of Florentine architecture, the Baptistery and, by extension, Brunelleschi's cupola on Florence Cathedral. However, in its colossal scale and rich, colored marble revetments, it reveals an ostentation not usually seen in Florence. On entering this monumental space, one delights in the unexpected and the overwhelming experience takes one's breath away.

The New Sacristy is beautiful and delightful in another, more erudite way. In the unusual use of classical architectural elements, it seems to be the culmination of Renaissance architecture in Florence. Classical architecture is often referred to as a "language," and, as with any language, there is a conventional vocabulary and a standardized syntax and grammar that gives meaning to its words. If Brunelleschi's Hospital of the Innocents, or his Old Sacristy at San Lorenzo, were experiments in reviving the vocabulary of ancient architecture and exploring its simple syntax, Michelangelo's architectural designs at the New Sacristy seem to revel in the sophisticated use of that language, delighting the viewer with the unexpected juxtaposition of elements, in wordplay and puns as it were. He began his design with the simple geometric forms and grey pietra serena of Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy at this church too, but then Michelangelo stretched his proportions, added a secondary white Carrara marble architectural system that seems to be sculptural decoration and architecture at the same time, placed heavy solid elements over voids, included unusual ornament that encroaches upon ornament, delighting the eye of all who see it but also delighting the mind of those who know the classical language of architecture well.

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Permanence, functionality and delight in Florentine architecture

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CULTURE Photography by @alefrato Perhaps the most Florentine of all buildings is the Baptistery of Saint John. Its history dates back millennia: consecrated in 1059, documented in 897, earliest origins uncertain. In medieval Florence, the location of the baptistery was peripheral; however, it has been the city's symbolic center for much of its life.

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What can modern engineering learn from an erstwhile jeweler who built the largest masonry dome in existence? The construction of the Florentine duomo by Filippo Brunelleschi has been an engineering marvel for more than 500 years, showcasing ancient techniques that still hold valuable insights for modern engineering. Until now, it has remained a mystery how the master goldsmith and sculptor managed to build the masterpiece that pushes the limits of what is possible to construct even with modern building technologies, and how the masters who followed Brunelleschi carried on the tradition.

In a collaborative study in the July 2020 issue of Engineering Structures, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Bergamo revealed the engineering techniques behind self-supporting masonry domes inherent to the Italian Renaissance. Researchers analyzed how cupolas like the famous duomo, part of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, were built as self-supporting, without the use of shoring or forms typically required.

Sigrid Adriaenssens, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton, collaborated on the analysis with graduate student Vittorio Paris and Pizzigoni, a professor of engineering and applied sciences, both of the University of Bergamo. Their study is the first to quantitatively prove the physics at work in Italian Renaissance domes and to explain the forces that allow such structures to have been built without formwork typically required, even for modern construction. Previously, there were only hypotheses in the field about how forces flowed through such edifices, and it was unknown how they were built without the use of temporary structures to hold them up during construction.

The detailed computer analysis accounts for the forces at work down to the individual brick, explaining how equilibrium is leveraged. The technique called discrete element modeling (DEM) was used to analyze the structure at several layers and stages of construction. A limit state analysis determined the overall equilibrium state, or stability, of the completed structure. Not only do these tests verify the mechanics of the structures, but they also make it possible to recreate the techniques for modern construction.

Each course of horizontal bricks pushes outwards on the vertical herringbone bricks, forming rows of plate-bandes, or straight arches inside the double loxodrome. The physical thrust of the horizontal bricks toward the vertical bricks keeps the horizontal bricks in place during construction and provides stability to the entire structure once completed. This is the key to the dome's stability. One of the researchers' primary findings is that for domes with radial geometry, the herringbone brick pattern enables the bricks to be wedged as plate-bandes and not slide inwards, which would make the dome collapse.

From ancient to modern construction

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Double helix of masonry - researchers uncover the secret of Italian Renaissance domes

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In a collaborative study, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Bergamo revealed the engineering techniques behind self-supporting masonry domes inherent to the Italian Renaissance. Researchers analyzed how cupolas like the famous duomo, part of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, were built as self-supporting, without the use of shoring or forms typically required.

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The Heart of Florence from the sky... and from the ground. 

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The Heart of Florence from the sky... and from the ground. 

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The Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleshi's dome, Giotto's Bell Tower, the Baptistery of San Giovanni

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The Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleschi’s dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Baptistery of San Giovanni: the heart of #Florence from the sky...
... and from the ground: https://t.co/M8eYT6ecMd 

📷 skybarfly https://t.co/lXHTwAaih0 

@feelflorenceoff 
@destinationflo https://t.co/gwuAp3R0m2

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The Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleschi’s dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Baptistery of San Giovanni: the heart of #Florence from the sky...
... and from the ground: https://t.co/M8eYT6ecMd 

📷 skybarfly https://t.co/lXHTwAaih0 

@feelflorenceoff 
@destinationflo https://t.co/gwuAp3R0m2

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The Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleschi’s dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Baptistery of San Giovanni: the heart of #Florence from the sky...
... and from the ground: https://t.co/M8eYT6ecMd

📷 skybarfly https://t.co/lXHTwAaih0 @feelflorenceoff @destinationflo pic.twitter.com/gwuAp3R0m2
— Visit Tuscany (@VisitTuscany) February 10, 2021

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The Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleschi’s dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Baptistery of San Giovanni: the heart of #Florence from the sky...
... and from the ground: https://t.co/M8eYT6ecMd 

📷 skybarfly https://t.co/lXHTwAaih0 

@feelflorenceoff 
@destinationflo https://t.co/gwuAp3R0m2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
The Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleschi’s dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Baptistery of San Giovanni: the heart of #Florence from the sky...
... and from the ground: https://t.co/M8eYT6ecMd 

📷 skybarfly https://t.co/lXHTwAaih0 

@feelflorenceoff 
@destinationflo https://t.co/gwuAp3R0m2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
The Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleschi’s dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Baptistery of San Giovanni: the heart of #Florence from the sky...
... and from the ground: https://t.co/M8eYT6ecMd 

📷 skybarfly https://t.co/lXHTwAaih0 

@feelflorenceoff 
@destinationflo https://t.co/gwuAp3R0m2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446 CE) was an Italian Renaissance architect, goldsmith, and sculptor, who is most famous for his work on the cathedral of Florence and its impressive soaring brick dome, completed in 1436 CE. Considered one of the founding fathers of Renaissance architecture, Brunelleschi was particularly interested in the study of linear perspective and achieving a harmonious simplicity of form in buildings which also considered the immediate environment in which they were constructed.

Early Career

Filippo Brunelleschi was born in Florence in 1377 CE, the son of a successful notary. Like many other Renaissance artists, Brunelleschi studied surviving examples of classical sculpture and architecture in his home town, the region of Tuscany, and Rome. He trained first as a goldsmith and was an accomplished sculptor, but his concentration on architecture may be explained by his narrow defeat to Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455 CE) in the competition for the (first set of) bronze doors of Florence's Baptistery in 1401 CE. Brunelleschi's trial panel for the competition survives and shows the story from the Old Testament of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. The panel, measuring around 53 x 44 cm, is now in the Bargello Museum of Florence. After the defeat, Brunelleschi returned to working gold as he joined the Florence Guild of Goldsmiths in 1404 CE. Art and architecture would, though, soon tempt him back out of his gloomy workshop and into the Renaissance limelight.

Brunelleschi's buildings reworked Classical architectural elements, mixed in Tuscan Romanesque features, & played with precise mathematical proportions.

Brunelleschi's Architectural Vision

Brunelleschi took a great interest in the science of linear perspective, that is, creating the illusion of depth on a flat surface by having imaginary sightlines all converge towards a central point, a subject in which he was a pioneer. In the mid-1420s CE, he famously conducted experiments in perspective in public, notably on the entrance steps of Florence's cathedral using mirrors, a pinhole, and canvas. In two now lost paintings of Florence's Baptistery and urban landscape, the artist thus publicly demonstrated his ideas on linear perspective and his belief in the importance of identifying a single point of view within them. These ideas greatly influenced other Renaissance artists in both paintings and sculpture thanks to treatises then being written on the subject, which were spread around Italy and beyond. It was in architecture, though, that Brunelleschi was to prove his genius, and here, too, his ideas on perspective would cause contemporary and future architects to redefine how they viewed both architectural and urban spaces. Not only was it important what a building looked like, it now became important what it looked like in relation to its immediate environment.

Brunelleschi put all of these ideas into practice when he designed the influential Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence from 1419 to 1424 CE with its elegant loggia or gallery. The hospital was intended as a refuge for orphans and was funded by Brunelleschi's silk and goldsmith guild. The loggia is an archetypal example of a Renaissance reworking of classical architectural elements, mixing in Tuscan Romanesque features and playing with precise mathematical proportions. Another successful project in Florence was the domed perfect cube of the Old Sacristy of the San Lorenzo Basilica (1418-28 CE). Indeed, the Sacristy was said to have been such a wonder, even when still not finished, that the crowds of admirers it attracted seriously annoyed the workmen there. The architect would go on to redesign the whole basilica from 1436 CE. Brunelleschi was sparing no expense for what was, in effect, the private church of the ruling family of the city: the Medici. Both of these buildings would hint at the masterpiece yet to come: Florence's cathedral dome.

Brunelleschi's particular approach to technical aspects of architecture, as evidenced by these early buildings, is here summarised within the architect's entry in The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of the Italian Renaissance:

It is based on pure geometrical proportions, the use of sail vaults and saucer domes on pendentives, and a simple all'antica vocabulary of grey sandstone columns and pilasters articulating white plaster walls. His proportional systems are refinements of those used in medieval Florence, his orders and ornamentation are almost entirely based on Romanesque models...and specific Trecento models...Nonetheless, his synthesis is an entirely personal one, which far exceeds its component sources in intellectual rigour and control of design; the bichromatic combination of sandstone and plaster was certainly his own invention. (60)

Duomo of Florence

Work to finally finish off the Duomo of Florence, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, began around 1420 CE after a competition had been held from 1418 CE to see who would have that particular honour. The cathedral had been founded in 1296 CE but its dome or cupola had never been completed, along with various other parts of the building. Such were the dimensions involved for any possible dome, most contemporary architects thought that building one here was a physical impossibility. Brunelleschi, who won the competition, believed otherwise. There was a catch, though. The Florentines wanted Brunelleschi to work with Lorenzo Ghiberti. Not best of friends since the Baptistery doors competition, it was said that Brunelleschi took several days off sick in the early stages of the project, simply to show up Ghiberti for the incompetent architect Brunelleschi thought he was. Ghiberti himself would claim half-credit for the finished dome but he had left the project before construction really got underway.

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The dome was completed in 1436 CE, making the cathedral of Florence the largest & tallest building in Europe at the time.

Besides being influenced by the structural methods used in ancient Roman architecture, Brunelleschi had studied examples of Byzantine churches with their multiple domes and particularly buildings in or influenced by Byzantine Ravenna and Venice. Romanesque features of Tuscan architecture and medieval proportions would be another influence. It is not known what the architect got up to between 1404 and 1415 CE, and it is quite possible he travelled more widely than traditionally assumed in his quest for existing answers to architectural problems. It is known that Brunelleschi was a student of mathematics and a keen engineer, and so he was uniquely armed with skills in both the arts and sciences, a true Renaissance man. To build his dome, Brunelleschi would need all these skills and more to turn an impressive plan into a soaring reality. Just to design and create a workable system of winches and pulleys needed for the construction work was a feat in itself. In addition, a detailed wooden model was needed for the workmen to follow, one of which survives today in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo of Florence. The team of builders was led by the master mason Battista d'Antonio.

The dome was a brilliant design and realised without a fixed centring (temporary wooden scaffolding) during the construction. Rather, each circular course of the dome was completed before another course was added on top. The dome is self-supporting thanks to the 8 outer and 16 inner ribs that rise from the base to the peak and which create self-supporting arches. As a consequence of this system, the dome has a pointed profile and is composed of eight distinct sides. Another consideration for the architect was that a pointed dome gives much less side thrust on the drum below it than a hemispherical one, thus eliminating the need for extra support for the drum such as might be given by unsightly flying buttresses. Made from bricks laid in a reinforcing herringbone pattern, the dome is given further strength and lightness by having a double shell.

The dome was completed in 1436 CE, making the cathedral the largest and tallest building in Europe at the time. The dome measures at the base 45.5 metres (149 ft.) in diameter - similar to Rome's Pantheon - and reaches a height of 91 metres (298 ft.). The lantern (which takes the form of a temple designed by Brunelleschi) and gilded sphere were added to the very top of the dome between 1445 and 1461 CE. The excessive weight of the lantern was necessary to keep the eight panels of the dome from springing outwards. Inside the dome, Brunelleschi originally had the ceiling painted white but it was covered with frescoes in the 16th century CE.

Everyone, from the Pope down to Brunelleschi himself, was both relieved and delighted with the finally finished cathedral. As the artist Leon Battista Alberti noted at the time, the "large structure, rising above the skies, ample to cover with its shadow all the Tuscan people" (Paoletti, 218) was a veritable marvel of human endeavour. It was felt, at last, that the Renaissance had now surpassed the engineering feats of antiquity.

Final Works

Brunelleschi's engineering skills were sometimes called on for far less noble projects than cathedrals, churches, and hospitals. One example was in 1430 CE when the Florentines attempted to flood the Tuscan town of Lucca into military and political submission. A huge low basin with surrounding dyke was created to gather water from the River Serchio but only ended in the unplanned disaster of flooding the Florentines' own camp.

On a smaller scale but still requiring ingenious feats of engineering, Brunelleschi was more successful with his mechanisms inside the San Lorenzo church of Florence. These machines were temporarily installed in the church when the Medici family wished to show off their largesse by entertaining the public with religious shows to commemorate important events in the Christian calendar. The effects created included a night of stars in the ceiling and the angel Gabriel descending in a shower of sparks.

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One of Brunelleschi's last projects, begun in 1436 CE but actually completed long after his death, was the Church of Santo Spirito in Florence. With its elegant columns and arches, it is an excellent example of the master's preoccupation with simple yet harmonious design. Another unfinished project was the octagonal Santa Maria degli Angeli church. Brunelleschi had begun work on it in 1434 CE, and it shows his typical fondness for repeated identical features, which give the wall space a marvellous sense of rhythm.

Other posthumous works popped up elsewhere. Brunelleschi had adopted as a child a famous future artist, Andrea di Lazzaro Cavalcanti (1412-1462 CE), who would work on Florence's Santa Maria Novella cathedral after his adopted father's death. In 1434 CE Cavalcanti had run off with Brunelleschi's collection of jewels, but the pair were later reconciled. It was Cavalcanti who made the gilded marble pulpit for the cathedral (1443-48 CE), which was based on a wooden model made by Brunelleschi.

Reputation & Legacy

Brunelleschi is widely considered one of the pioneers and creators of what became known as a Renaissance architectural language. Classical proportions, simple geometry, and harmony were prime considerations in this new language, which replaced, or at least challenged, the hitherto dominance of medieval architecture. For example, Brunelleschi's use of tall slim columns to support arches which create a loggia with shallow domes (as best seen in his Ospedale degli Innocenti) was imitated for the facades of many other types of public buildings throughout the 15th century CE.

Linear perspective, as already noted, became a central theme and identifying feature of architecture, paintings, and sculpture thereafter. So then, just as the High Renaissance painters and sculptors like Michelangelo (1475-1564 CE), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 CE), and Raphael (1483-1520 CE) created a new interpretation of classical themes in art, so, too, Brunelleschi revitalised architecture, especially in Florence, which was considered, in effect, the capital of the Renaissance movement.

Thanks to his works and a biography by fellow Florentine Antonio di Tuccio Manetti, Brunelleschi's fame spread to other Italian cities such as Milan and Urbino where a new generation of architects was about to appear, amongst whom was the great Donato Bramante (c. 1444-1514 CE), who would take on Brunelleschi's mantle as the greatest living Renaissance architect.

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Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446 CE) was an Italian Renaissance architect, goldsmith, and sculptor, who is most famous for his work on the cathedral of Florence and its impressive soaring brick dome, completed in 1436 CE.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446 CE) was an Italian Renaissance architect, goldsmith, and sculptor, who is most famous for his work on the cathedral of Florence and its impressive soaring brick dome, completed in 1436 CE. Considered one of the founding fathers of Renaissance architecture, Brunelleschi was particularly interested in the study of linear perspective and achieving a harmonious simplicity of form in buildings which also considered the immediate environment in which they were constructed.

Early Career

Filippo Brunelleschi was born in Florence in 1377 CE, the son of a successful notary. Like many other Renaissance artists, Brunelleschi studied surviving examples of classical sculpture and architecture in his home town, the region of Tuscany, and Rome. He trained first as a goldsmith and was an accomplished sculptor, but his concentration on architecture may be explained by his narrow defeat to Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455 CE) in the competition for the (first set of) bronze doors of Florence's Baptistery in 1401 CE. Brunelleschi's trial panel for the competition survives and shows the story from the Old Testament of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. The panel, measuring around 53 x 44 cm, is now in the Bargello Museum of Florence. After the defeat, Brunelleschi returned to working gold as he joined the Florence Guild of Goldsmiths in 1404 CE. Art and architecture would, though, soon tempt him back out of his gloomy workshop and into the Renaissance limelight.

Brunelleschi's buildings reworked Classical architectural elements, mixed in Tuscan Romanesque features, & played with precise mathematical proportions.

Brunelleschi's Architectural Vision

Brunelleschi took a great interest in the science of linear perspective, that is, creating the illusion of depth on a flat surface by having imaginary sightlines all converge towards a central point, a subject in which he was a pioneer. In the mid-1420s CE, he famously conducted experiments in perspective in public, notably on the entrance steps of Florence's cathedral using mirrors, a pinhole, and canvas. In two now lost paintings of Florence's Baptistery and urban landscape, the artist thus publicly demonstrated his ideas on linear perspective and his belief in the importance of identifying a single point of view within them. These ideas greatly influenced other Renaissance artists in both paintings and sculpture thanks to treatises then being written on the subject, which were spread around Italy and beyond. It was in architecture, though, that Brunelleschi was to prove his genius, and here, too, his ideas on perspective would cause contemporary and future architects to redefine how they viewed both architectural and urban spaces. Not only was it important what a building looked like, it now became important what it looked like in relation to its immediate environment.

Brunelleschi put all of these ideas into practice when he designed the influential Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence from 1419 to 1424 CE with its elegant loggia or gallery. The hospital was intended as a refuge for orphans and was funded by Brunelleschi's silk and goldsmith guild. The loggia is an archetypal example of a Renaissance reworking of classical architectural elements, mixing in Tuscan Romanesque features and playing with precise mathematical proportions. Another successful project in Florence was the domed perfect cube of the Old Sacristy of the San Lorenzo Basilica (1418-28 CE). Indeed, the Sacristy was said to have been such a wonder, even when still not finished, that the crowds of admirers it attracted seriously annoyed the workmen there. The architect would go on to redesign the whole basilica from 1436 CE. Brunelleschi was sparing no expense for what was, in effect, the private church of the ruling family of the city: the Medici. Both of these buildings would hint at the masterpiece yet to come: Florence's cathedral dome.

Brunelleschi's particular approach to technical aspects of architecture, as evidenced by these early buildings, is here summarised within the architect's entry in The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of the Italian Renaissance:

It is based on pure geometrical proportions, the use of sail vaults and saucer domes on pendentives, and a simple all'antica vocabulary of grey sandstone columns and pilasters articulating white plaster walls. His proportional systems are refinements of those used in medieval Florence, his orders and ornamentation are almost entirely based on Romanesque models...and specific Trecento models...Nonetheless, his synthesis is an entirely personal one, which far exceeds its component sources in intellectual rigour and control of design; the bichromatic combination of sandstone and plaster was certainly his own invention. (60)

Duomo of Florence

Work to finally finish off the Duomo of Florence, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, began around 1420 CE after a competition had been held from 1418 CE to see who would have that particular honour. The cathedral had been founded in 1296 CE but its dome or cupola had never been completed, along with various other parts of the building. Such were the dimensions involved for any possible dome, most contemporary architects thought that building one here was a physical impossibility. Brunelleschi, who won the competition, believed otherwise. There was a catch, though. The Florentines wanted Brunelleschi to work with Lorenzo Ghiberti. Not best of friends since the Baptistery doors competition, it was said that Brunelleschi took several days off sick in the early stages of the project, simply to show up Ghiberti for the incompetent architect Brunelleschi thought he was. Ghiberti himself would claim half-credit for the finished dome but he had left the project before construction really got underway.

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The dome was completed in 1436 CE, making the cathedral of Florence the largest & tallest building in Europe at the time.

Besides being influenced by the structural methods used in ancient Roman architecture, Brunelleschi had studied examples of Byzantine churches with their multiple domes and particularly buildings in or influenced by Byzantine Ravenna and Venice. Romanesque features of Tuscan architecture and medieval proportions would be another influence. It is not known what the architect got up to between 1404 and 1415 CE, and it is quite possible he travelled more widely than traditionally assumed in his quest for existing answers to architectural problems. It is known that Brunelleschi was a student of mathematics and a keen engineer, and so he was uniquely armed with skills in both the arts and sciences, a true Renaissance man. To build his dome, Brunelleschi would need all these skills and more to turn an impressive plan into a soaring reality. Just to design and create a workable system of winches and pulleys needed for the construction work was a feat in itself. In addition, a detailed wooden model was needed for the workmen to follow, one of which survives today in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo of Florence. The team of builders was led by the master mason Battista d'Antonio.

The dome was a brilliant design and realised without a fixed centring (temporary wooden scaffolding) during the construction. Rather, each circular course of the dome was completed before another course was added on top. The dome is self-supporting thanks to the 8 outer and 16 inner ribs that rise from the base to the peak and which create self-supporting arches. As a consequence of this system, the dome has a pointed profile and is composed of eight distinct sides. Another consideration for the architect was that a pointed dome gives much less side thrust on the drum below it than a hemispherical one, thus eliminating the need for extra support for the drum such as might be given by unsightly flying buttresses. Made from bricks laid in a reinforcing herringbone pattern, the dome is given further strength and lightness by having a double shell.

The dome was completed in 1436 CE, making the cathedral the largest and tallest building in Europe at the time. The dome measures at the base 45.5 metres (149 ft.) in diameter - similar to Rome's Pantheon - and reaches a height of 91 metres (298 ft.). The lantern (which takes the form of a temple designed by Brunelleschi) and gilded sphere were added to the very top of the dome between 1445 and 1461 CE. The excessive weight of the lantern was necessary to keep the eight panels of the dome from springing outwards. Inside the dome, Brunelleschi originally had the ceiling painted white but it was covered with frescoes in the 16th century CE.

Everyone, from the Pope down to Brunelleschi himself, was both relieved and delighted with the finally finished cathedral. As the artist Leon Battista Alberti noted at the time, the "large structure, rising above the skies, ample to cover with its shadow all the Tuscan people" (Paoletti, 218) was a veritable marvel of human endeavour. It was felt, at last, that the Renaissance had now surpassed the engineering feats of antiquity.

Final Works

Brunelleschi's engineering skills were sometimes called on for far less noble projects than cathedrals, churches, and hospitals. One example was in 1430 CE when the Florentines attempted to flood the Tuscan town of Lucca into military and political submission. A huge low basin with surrounding dyke was created to gather water from the River Serchio but only ended in the unplanned disaster of flooding the Florentines' own camp.

On a smaller scale but still requiring ingenious feats of engineering, Brunelleschi was more successful with his mechanisms inside the San Lorenzo church of Florence. These machines were temporarily installed in the church when the Medici family wished to show off their largesse by entertaining the public with religious shows to commemorate important events in the Christian calendar. The effects created included a night of stars in the ceiling and the angel Gabriel descending in a shower of sparks.

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One of Brunelleschi's last projects, begun in 1436 CE but actually completed long after his death, was the Church of Santo Spirito in Florence. With its elegant columns and arches, it is an excellent example of the master's preoccupation with simple yet harmonious design. Another unfinished project was the octagonal Santa Maria degli Angeli church. Brunelleschi had begun work on it in 1434 CE, and it shows his typical fondness for repeated identical features, which give the wall space a marvellous sense of rhythm.

Other posthumous works popped up elsewhere. Brunelleschi had adopted as a child a famous future artist, Andrea di Lazzaro Cavalcanti (1412-1462 CE), who would work on Florence's Santa Maria Novella cathedral after his adopted father's death. In 1434 CE Cavalcanti had run off with Brunelleschi's collection of jewels, but the pair were later reconciled. It was Cavalcanti who made the gilded marble pulpit for the cathedral (1443-48 CE), which was based on a wooden model made by Brunelleschi.

Reputation & Legacy

Brunelleschi is widely considered one of the pioneers and creators of what became known as a Renaissance architectural language. Classical proportions, simple geometry, and harmony were prime considerations in this new language, which replaced, or at least challenged, the hitherto dominance of medieval architecture. For example, Brunelleschi's use of tall slim columns to support arches which create a loggia with shallow domes (as best seen in his Ospedale degli Innocenti) was imitated for the facades of many other types of public buildings throughout the 15th century CE.

Linear perspective, as already noted, became a central theme and identifying feature of architecture, paintings, and sculpture thereafter. So then, just as the High Renaissance painters and sculptors like Michelangelo (1475-1564 CE), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 CE), and Raphael (1483-1520 CE) created a new interpretation of classical themes in art, so, too, Brunelleschi revitalised architecture, especially in Florence, which was considered, in effect, the capital of the Renaissance movement.

Thanks to his works and a biography by fellow Florentine Antonio di Tuccio Manetti, Brunelleschi's fame spread to other Italian cities such as Milan and Urbino where a new generation of architects was about to appear, amongst whom was the great Donato Bramante (c. 1444-1514 CE), who would take on Brunelleschi's mantle as the greatest living Renaissance architect.

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Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446 CE) was an Italian Renaissance architect, goldsmith, and sculptor, who is most famous for his work on the cathedral of Florence and its impressive soaring brick dome, completed in 1436 CE.

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To add onto something that Carl Welty talked about — how Filippo Brunelleschi developed (or re-developed) linear perspective in 1413, here's even greater detail, including James Burke's 1991 Masters of Illusion from The National Gallery of Art: https://t.co/SpW5MmmiGl https://t.co/pz5sHhbHEL

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
To add onto something that Carl Welty talked about — how Filippo Brunelleschi developed (or re-developed) linear perspective in 1413, here's even greater detail, including James Burke's 1991 Masters of Illusion from The National Gallery of Art: https://t.co/SpW5MmmiGl https://t.co/pz5sHhbHEL

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
To add onto something that Carl Welty talked about — how Filippo Brunelleschi developed (or re-developed) linear perspective in 1413, here's even greater detail, including James Burke's 1991 Masters of Illusion from The National Gallery of Art: https://t.co/SpW5MmmiGl pic.twitter.com/pz5sHhbHEL
— How This Works show (@howthisworkssho) February 12, 2021

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
To add onto something that Carl Welty talked about — how Filippo Brunelleschi developed (or re-developed) linear perspective in 1413, here's even greater detail, including James Burke's 1991 Masters of Illusion from The National Gallery of Art: https://t.co/SpW5MmmiGl https://t.co/pz5sHhbHEL

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
To add onto something that Carl Welty talked about — how Filippo Brunelleschi developed (or re-developed) linear perspective in 1413, here's even greater detail, including James Burke's 1991 Masters of Illusion from The National Gallery of Art: https://t.co/SpW5MmmiGl https://t.co/pz5sHhbHEL

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
To add onto something that Carl Welty talked about — how Filippo Brunelleschi developed (or re-developed) linear perspective in 1413, here's even greater detail, including James Burke's 1991 Masters of Illusion from The National Gallery of Art: https://t.co/SpW5MmmiGl https://t.co/pz5sHhbHEL

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The MET: Florence and Central Italy, 1400–1600 A.D. Timeline

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The MET: Florence and Central Italy, 1400–1600 A.D. Timeline

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The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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Overview

During this period, Italy-and in the fifteenth century, Florence above all-is the seat of an artistic, humanistic, technological, and scientific flowering known as the Renaissance. Founded primarily on the rediscovery of classical texts and artifacts, Renaissance culture looks to heroic ideals from antiquity and promotes the study of the liberal arts, centering largely upon the individual's intellectual potential. As a result, tremendous innovations are made in the fields of mathematics, medicine, engineering, architecture, and the visual arts, while a surge of vernacular literature attempts not only to emulate, but also to surpass antique models. Some of the most celebrated figures of Renaissance Italy, supremely exemplified by the artist, scientist, and inventor Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), excel in several fields.

At this time, Florence is a hub of humanist scholarship and artistic production, due largely to the funding of the powerful Medici family, who, by the end of the period, exert their political and financial influence over much of central Italy. Significant urban development also occurs in Siena, an important artistic center, and the influential Montefeltro rulers of Urbino establish an illustrious court at which the liberal and visual arts flourish.

Key Events

1403
Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (ca. 1378-1455) wins a competition that secures a commission for the bronze doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence. Ghiberti sets to work on the north portal, which depicts scenes from the life of Christ, completing it in 1424. He finishes the east portal, with scenes from the Old Testament-later called the "Gates of Paradise" by an admiring Michelangelo-in 1452. Spanning nearly fifty years of the artist's career, the doors illustrate a transition in Ghiberti's sculptural style from that of the International Gothic to one influenced by classical forms and incorporating recent innovations in the depiction of perspective. Ghiberti runs a large and successful workshop, and many of his assistants become great masters in their own time. Among them are the architect and sculptor Michelozzo (1396-1472)-a favorite of Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464) and architect of the Palazzo Medici (begun 1444)-and Donatello (ca. 1386-1466), a founding father of the Renaissance sculptural style also favored by the Medici.

1406
The republic of Pisa falls to Florentine rule.

ca. 1411-1417
Donatello executes the revolutionary Saint Mark and Saint George for the guildhall of Orsanmichele in Florence. The Saint Mark conveys a realistic sense of mass and stands in a convincing contrapposto pose, while the Saint George depicts a warrior youth clearly inspired by classical ideals. Shortly thereafter, Donatello pioneers the technique of carving in shallow relief, known as schiacciato, which uses perspective to produce an illusion of spatial depth; one of the earliest examples of this is the scene of Saint George Slaying the Dragon, depicted in a panel on the base below the statue of Saint George.

1418
Florentine citizens led by Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici (1360-1429) undertake the rebuilding of the Church of San Lorenzo, an eleventh-century structure. The Medici commission Brunelleschi to construct a new nave, transept, several chapels, and the domed sacristy (now called the Old Sacristy).

1420s
Masaccio (1401-ca. 1428) is the foremost painter of the early fifteenth century. In his brief career, spanning only a few years, he produces several landmarks of Italian painting. A fresco of the Trinity for the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence applies Brunelleschi's theories of linear perspective to painting, and a series of frescos for the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, achieves in its depiction of figures not only a classical proportion but also a profound psychological depth. Masaccio's younger brother, Giovanni di ser Giovanni (1406-1486), called Lo Scheggia, is at first closely associated with his brother's workshop, but is known primarily for his painted birth trays ( deschi da parto) and other decorative furniture.

ca. 1420-1427
Painter Gentile da Fabriano (ca. 1370-1427), champion of the International Gothic style, is active in Florence and Siena. During this period, he completes (1423) his great masterwork, the Adoration of the Magi altarpiece (called the Strozzi altarpiece) for the sacristy of Santa Trinità in Florence (now in the Uffizi, Florence). The characteristic attention to naturalistic detail, softly luminous palette, dignity of form, and courtly elegance of this monumental work make it a landmark of Florentine painting.

ca. 1432
Florentine painter and Dominican friar Fra Angelico (ca. 1400-1455) executes an altarpiece for the Church of San Domenico in Cortona (now in the Museo Diocesano). The central panel, depicting the Annunciation, exemplifies the elegance and delicacy of form characteristic of Fra Angelico's oeuvre. In 1436, the Dominican friars of Fiesole move to the convent of San Marco in Florence; here, Fra Angelico produces many frescoes for the convent interior that effect a devotional mood for the Dominican monastic community.

mid-15th century
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)-an architect and humanist scholar-writes the treatises On Painting (1435-36), On Architecture (ca. 1450), and On Sculpture (ca. 1464), each a vital contribution to its field in its discussion of theory, perspective, and, in the first book, the aims of painting. In his own building projects, such as the facade of the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence (ca. 1452-70), Alberti is among the first architects of the Renaissance to integrate classical orders with complete understanding.

1444
Federigo da Montefeltro (1422-1482) becomes duke of Urbino. Acquiring vast wealth as an astute warrior and politician, Federigo sponsors several large-scale building projects, including his greatest commission, the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino-designed by Luciano Laurana (active by 1464, died 1479) and completed by Francesco di Giorgio (1439-1501/2)-and the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio. Both palaces include small rooms or studies (studioli) exquisitely paneled with intarsia designs. A studiolo from the palazzo at Gubbio is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art ( 39.153).

1445
The Della Robbia family of sculptors is active in Florence, where they produce luminous glazed terracotta reliefs including those in the Pazzi Chapel. Funded by the influential Pazzi family, the space serves not only as a chapter house for the friars of the Church of Santa Croce (its original purpose), but also as a family chapel.

1452
Leonardo da Vinci is born in Tuscany. A precociously talented young man, Leonardo enters the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488) in Florence in the 1460s. For Verrocchio, Leonardo contributes a kneeling angel to the Baptism of Christ (ca. 1470; Uffizi). In 1472, he is an independent master, and in 1481 receives a commission for a large Adoration of the Magi for the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto in Florence. Left unfinished, the Adoration (Uffizi) nevertheless displays the subtle modeling of figures with varying degrees of light and shade (chiaroscuro) that will characterize his later works. About 1482, Leonardo leaves Florence for Milan, entering the service of Ludovico Sforza, called Il Moro (1451/52-1508).

ca. 1453-1460
Florentine sculptor Desiderio da Settignano (ca. 1430-1464) carves a marble tomb effigy for Cardinal Marsuppini (Florence, Church of Santa Croce). His only large-scale commission, this work is imbued with the same delicacy of detail and refinement of surface as may be found in the portrait busts for which he is best known. In the same church nave is the tomb of Leonardo Bruni (ca. 1446-48) by Desiderio's contemporary and fellow Florentine, Bernardo Rossellino (1407/10-ca. 1464). Bernardo's work employs a bolder sculptural approach and is markedly inspired by classical prototypes. Displaying a greater fluidity and simplicity of form are the sculpted portraits and tomb monuments of Bernardo's younger brother, Antonio Rossellino (1427-ca. 1479).

1457-1461
Florentine sculptor and architect Agostino di Duccio (1418-after 1481) produces the lavishly ornamental facade of the Oratory of San Bernardino, an outstanding monument of Renaissance architecture in Perugia.

1459
Pope Pius II (1458-64), of the powerful Piccolomini family, visits his birthplace in the small Tuscan hamlet of Corsignano, where he conceives an ambitious project to urbanize the area. Around 1462, it is renamed Pienza, and by the mid-1460s many new structures are erected, including a cathedral and the papal palace, Palazzo Piccolomini. Pius chooses as his architect for this and other projects in Pienza the illustrious Florentine Bernardo Rossellino (1407/10-ca. 1464), known for his rigorous adherence to classical ideals.

1469
Foremost among the Medici as a poet, scholar, and humanist, Lorenzo (1449-1492), called "the Magnificent," comes to power. He gathers at his court many of the greatest luminaries of the day: artists such as Sandro Botticelli (1444/45-1510), Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), and Michelangelo (1475-1564), the poet Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494), and philosophers Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494).

1478
Conspirators including members of the Pazzi family and Pope Sixtus IV devise a plot to oust the Medici, namely Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano, from power in Florence. The Pazzi Conspiracy, if effective, would place the pope's nephew Girolamo Riario in power, adding the Florentine state to papal territorial holdings. On April 26, Giuliano de' Medici is assassinated during mass at the cathedral, while Lorenzo escapes. Although the Medici successfully quell the conspiracy, revolts against their rule continue until the 1490s, when they are expelled from Florence (1494). During their exile, religious reformer Fra Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) comes to power, condemning the worldliness and corruption of the city, but he is tried and executed as a false prophet in 1498. The Medici return to power after 1512.

late 15th century
Sandro Botticelli (1444/45-1510), a favorite of the Medici, produces the works of his maturity. Outstanding among these are the mythological allegories Primavera and The Birth of Venus, which not only display Botticelli's lyrical handling of color and line, but also reflect a contemporary celebration of classical poetry and mythological subjects. Probably as an ardent follower of Savonarola, Botticelli turns in his later years to deeply devotional works of greater simplicity.

1483
Raphael (died 1520) is born in Urbino. By the early sixteenth century, he produces works influenced in their color and delicacy of figural style by the Umbrian painter Perugino (ca. 1445-1523) and the Florentine Fra Bartolommeo (1472-1517), whose works Raphael studies during his years of activity in Florence (1504-8).

1490s
In 1464, the first book is printed in Italy. The first printed book to include woodcut illustrations appears in Rome in 1467. In Florence, where illuminated manuscripts continue to be prized, the printed book is slow to catch on; by the 1490s, however, a flood of small publications begin to issue from Florentine presses. Directed to a broad public, these range from devotional pamphlets to textbooks to love stories, many of which are enlivened by distinctive and delightful woodcut illustrations. With rare exceptions, Florence's golden age of book illustration does not last into the next century. Instead, works published in the sixteenth century continue to be illustrated with the blocks produced in the 1490s.

ca. 1496
Perugino (ca. 1445-1523), a master of the Umbrian school, undertakes a series of large-scale allegorical and religious frescoes for the audience hall of the Collegio del Cambio (banker's guild) in Perugia. The success of these frescoes earns him widespread renown in the region of Umbria and the Marches, his primary area of activity until 1500. It is probable that during this period Perugino's workshop includes the young Raphael, whose early works display the elder master's influence.

1500
After nearly two decades in Milan, Leonardo returns to Florence, where he pursues the study of engineering, mathematics, and topography. In 1503, he is commissioned to paint a monumental commemorative wall painting (no longer extant) for the Great Council Hall of the Palazzo della Signoria (Palazzo Vecchio). The painting of the Battle of Anghiari celebrates a Florentine victory over Milan in 1440. The mural is left unfinished, while another fresco, depicting the Battle of Cascina-commissioned from his rival Michelangelo for a nearby wall-is never executed. Before his second departure for Milan in 1508, Leonardo begins the famed portrait Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre), now identified with a Florentine merchant's wife.

1506
Venetian painter Lorenzo Lotto (ca. 1480-1556) travels to Recanati, a town in the Marches, where he paints an altarpiece for the Church of San Domenico. Within three years, he departs for Rome to work on the Stanze of the Vatican Palace-then being decorated by Raphael and his workshop-but returns to the Marches in 1511 to execute several notable works, including an Entombment for the confraternity of the Buon Gesù in Jesi, and the fresco Saint Vincent Ferrer in Glory (ca. 1512) for San Domenico in Recanati. After nearly two decades in Bergamo and Venice, Lotto resettles in the Marches between ca. 1532 and 1540; among his works of this period are a Crucifixion altarpiece (Monte San Giusto, Church of Santa Maria in Telusiano) and the Madonna of the Rosary (Cingoli, Pinacoteca Civica). Even during his long absences, Lotto maintains contact with patrons in this region, often executing his commissions in Venice and shipping them to the Marches.

1519
Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), an eminent painter working in High Renaissance style, is active in Florence, where he is commissioned to provide a fresco cycle for a salon at the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano. Among the colleagues and assistants who accompany Andrea is his pupil Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1556). It is at this time that Andrea's work first displays Mannerist characteristics; these elements are more fully developed by Pontormo and his colleague Rosso (called Rosso Fiorentino, 1494-1540), who become the chief exponents of Mannerism in central Italy. Rosso's famed Deposition for the Chapel of the Compagnia della Croce di Giorno in the Church of San Francesco, Volterra (1521; now Pinacoteca Civica), with its serpentine forms, bright palette, and unnatural light, is a masterwork of the Mannerist style. Pontormo executes his own celebrated Deposition, for the Church of Santa Felicità in Florence, several years later (1525-28).

1519-1534
Michelangelo designs and executes the New Sacristy for the Church of San Lorenzo, intended as a burial chapel for the Medici. In 1523, he also begins, but never finishes, the vestibule for the nearby Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Laurentiana). In both projects, Michelangelo infuses architectural space and detailing with the energy and tension of a Mannerist sculptural vocabulary.

1539-1560
Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) is court artist to Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-1574; duke from 1537), and dominates Florentine painting during this time. He is known primarily for his portraiture: the Mannerist style with which he depicts his noble patrons emphasizes their sophistication and positions in society, and earns him great success.

1540
Recognized as one of the finest metalsmiths of the period, Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) is invited to Paris by the French king Francis I, for whom he executes a lavishly decorative gold and enamel saltcellar, depicting the elegant and elongated Mannerist figures of Neptune and Earth (now Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Returning to his native Florence in 1545, Cellini enters the service of Cosimo I de' Medici, producing portrait busts and large-scale sculpture. From 1558 to 1562 he writes his autobiography, a vibrant if exaggerated account of the artist's adventures and a vivid portrait of sixteenth-century cultural life.

ca. 1555
Undoubtedly influenced by the work of Italian Mannerist artists in France-notably Cellini and Francesco Primaticcio (1504-1570)-Douai-born sculptor Jean Boulogne (ca. 1529-1608) travels to Italy. After a brief stay in Rome, he settles in Florence, where he earns great success under his Italianized name, Giambologna. Among his finest works executed in Florence are the Flying Mercury (1580; Bargello) and the Rape of the Sabine Women (1583; Loggia dei Lanzi), an extraordinary composition of spiraling forms.

1567
Federico Barocci (ca. 1535-1612) produces a Deposition for the Chapel of San Bernardino in Perugia Cathedral. Among the most influential painters of the second half of the sixteenth century, Barocci at first emulates the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, and the Roman Mannerist style of his cousin Taddeo Zuccaro (1529-1566); he is later influenced by the painter Correggio, whose compositional technique, lighting effects, and mastery of dramatic intensity inspire works such as the Deposition. The finest work of his maturity is the Madonna del popolo of 1579, painted for the Misericordia of Arezzo. Barocci's lyrical handling of this and other subjects influences Baroque artists of the following generation.

ca. 1572
Santi di Tito (1536-1603), an artist active in Florence, paints the Resurrection altarpiece for the Church of Santa Croce. Turning away from the stylized elegance of Mannerist painting, Santi favors a more direct narrative approach reflective of contemporary church reform and the return to a simplified and purer religious climate.

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Florence and Central Italy, 1400-1600 A.D. | Chronology | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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"During this period, Italy-and in the fifteenth century, Florence above all-is the seat of an artistic, humanistic, technological, and scientific flowering known as the Renaissance. Founded primarily on the rediscovery of classical texts and artifacts, Renaissance culture looks to heroic ideals from antiquity and promotes the study of the liberal arts, centering largely upon the individual's intellectual potential.

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Early years

Brunelleschi was the second of three sons of Ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi, a Florentine notary of some distinction, and Giuliana Spini. After training as a goldsmith and sculptor, he applied for registration in the Arte della Seta and in 1401 was designated a master. Brunelleschi competed with Lorenzo Ghiberti and five other sculptors in 1401 to obtain the commission to make the bronze reliefs for the door of the Baptistery of Florence. Brunelleschi's trial panel depicting The Sacrifice of Isaac is the high point of his career as a sculptor. His ability to arrest narrative action at the moment of its greatest dramatic impact and the vigorous gestures and animated expressions of the figures account for the merit of his panel. It was Ghiberti, however, who was declared the winner of the commission. Brunelleschi's extreme disappointment at losing the commission probably accounted for his decision to concentrate his talents on architecture instead of sculpture.

While still in the early phase of his architectural career (probably c. 1410-15), Brunelleschi rediscovered the principles of linear perspective known to the Greeks and Romans but buried along with many other aspects of ancient civilization during the European Middle Ages. Brunelleschi demonstrated his findings with two painted panels, now lost, depicting Florentine streets and buildings. From Manetti's descriptions it is clear that Brunelleschi had understood the concept of a single vanishing point, toward which all parallel lines drawn on the same plane appear to converge, and the principle of the relationship between distance and the diminution of objects as they appear to recede in space. By using the optical and geometric principles upon which Brunelleschi's perspective devices were based, the artists of his generation were able to produce works of astonishing realism. On two-dimensional surfaces they were able to create extraordinary illusions of three-dimensional space and tangible objects, so that the work of art appeared to be either an extension of the real world or a mirror of nature. Although the laws governing perspective construction were brought to light by Brunelleschi, they were codified for the first time by the humanist architect Leon Battista Alberti. In 1435 Alberti set them down in Della pittura (On Painting), his famous treatise on painting, which included a warm dedication to Brunelleschi-undoubtedly an expression of Alberti's debt to his friend's revolutionary discovery.

Architectural career

Solving complex problems of engineering and statics was another facet of Brunelleschi's wide-ranging abilities. The machines that Brunelleschi invented for the construction of the soaring dome of the Duomo and its lantern (a structure set on top of the dome to help illuminate the interior) and his scheme for the construction itself represent his greatest feats of technological ingenuity. The cathedral was begun in 1296; during the 14th century the nave was completed and work commenced on the complex octagon of the east end. By 1418 construction had reached the stage at which the technical problems of constructing a vault above the enormous dimensions of the octagon had to be solved. These problems had involved previous generations of cathedral architects in bitter disputes. It was Brunelleschi who worked out a successful method to vault the dome, invented the machinery necessary to carry it out, and designed the structure's crowning lantern and its lateral tribunes (semicircular structures). He was named chief architect ( capomaestro) of the dome project in 1420 and remained in that office until his death in 1446.

In 1418 the cathedral officials announced a prize for models presenting technical devices for the construction of the dome, which had been designed in the late Gothic period as an eight-sided vault of pointed curvature without exterior buttresses (structures built for additional support). Brunelleschi, along with many others (including his archrival, Lorenzo Ghiberti), submitted a model. In 1420 a decision was reached in favour of Brunelleschi's model, which demonstrated that the dome could be constructed without the traditional armature, or wooden skeletal framework, by placing the brickwork in herringbone patterns between a framework of stone beams. This construction technique had been evolved by the ancient Romans and had possibly been first observed by Brunelleschi on his supposed trip to Rome (c. 1401) with his friend the sculptor Donatello, when both of these giants of early Renaissance art are believed to have studied classical sculpture and architecture. In 1420 Brunelleschi's dome was begun; in 1436 the completed structure was consecrated, and, in the same year, his design for its lantern was approved. (The lantern, however, was not completed until after his death.) The imagination and the engineering calculations that led to the successful erection of the dome established Brunelleschi's fame.

Mid-20th-century criticism modified the earlier approach to Brunelleschi's buildings as the foundations of Renaissance architecture. They are now understood in the context of the influence on him of the classical elements in 11th- and 12th-century Tuscan Romanesque and proto-Renaissance buildings such as San Miniato al Monte. Brunelleschi, therefore, is seen as an artist still profoundly dependent on local forms of architecture and construction but with a vision of art and science that was based on the humanistic concept of the ideal. This is borne out by his first major architectural commission, the Ospedale degli Innocenti (Hospital of the Innocents, or Foundling Hospital). Although the portico of the hospital is composed of many novel features, morphologically it still is related to traditions of Italian Romanesque and late Gothic architecture. The truly revolutionary aspects of the building emanated from Brunelleschi's intuitive sense of the formal principles of the classical art of antiquity. The Innocenti facade offered a new look in Florentine architecture and a marked contrast to the medieval buildings that preceded it. Its lingering late-medieval echoes were subordinated to the new style that provided the facade with its antique air: a wall delicately articulated with classical detail (such as Corinthian capitals, pilasters, tondi, and friezes), modular construction, geometric proportions, and symmetrical planning.

By the early 1420s Brunelleschi was the most prominent architect in Florence. At this time the powerful and influential Medici family commissioned him to design the sacristy of San Lorenzo (known as the Old Sacristy, to distinguish it from Michelangelo 's "new" 16th-century sacristy in the same church) and the Basilica of San Lorenzo itself. Work was begun in 1421. The sacristy was completed (without its decoration) by 1428. Construction on the basilica was halted at that time but began again in 1441 and lasted into the 1460s.

The San Lorenzo structures are considered keystones of the early Renaissance architectural style. In form the church did not depart from the traditional basilican church with nave (central aisle), side aisles, and apse (a semicircular projection at the end of the nave). What Brunelleschi added to the conventional format was a new vocabulary using his own interpretation of antique designs for the capitals, friezes, pilasters (rectangular columns set into the wall), and columns. Further, his design of the church as a whole was one of unusual regularity, where the separate parts of the church rationally corresponded to each other and created a profound visual and intellectual harmony.

Brunelleschi designed the Old Sacristy (originally intended as a Medici family mausoleum) as a cube vaulted with a hemispherical dome. The structural and decorative units that delineate the architectural surface of the walls of the Old Sacristy and of the basilica proper are of particular elegance and restraint characteristic of Brunelleschi's work at this time.

About 1429 another wealthy and influential Florentine family, the Pazzi, commissioned Brunelleschi to design a chapel adjacent to the monastic Church of Santa Croce that was intended to be a chapter house (a place of assembly for monks to conduct business). Work probably did not begin before 1442; the building still was not complete in 1457. Brunelleschi used mathematical modules and geometric formulas for the plan and elevation of the Pazzi Chapel, as he had in San Lorenzo, but he arranged the space in a more complex and sophisticated manner in the later building. A hemispherical dome covers a central square, which is extended on either side so that the square forms the centre of a rectangle. The minor spatial compartment, opening off a third side of the main square, is a corresponding square apse covered by a dome and containing the altar. The creamy wall surface of the Pazzi Chapel is marked off in geometric patterns by dark gray stone. The clarity, coolness, and elegance for which Brunelleschi's architecture is noted are seen in this small, harmoniously proportioned chapel.

Another example of Brunelleschi's experiments with central planning is one of his most enigmatic buildings, Santa Maria degli Angeli, built for the Camaldolese monastery in Florence. It was begun in 1434 but left incomplete in 1437 (remaining in an unfinished state until the 1930s, when it was completed in a controversial manner). The building was planned as a central octagon with a 16-sided exterior. A chapel opened on each of the eight sides of the interior octagon, terminating in a deeply recessed apse at the end. Eight niches were cut into alternate facets of the exterior walls. Santa Maria degli Angeli was Brunelleschi's most revolutionary design. It represented a perfectly centralized structure, more formally consistent than the Old Sacristy.

Brunelleschi's Church of Santo Spirito in Florence was designed either in 1428 or 1434. Work on the church was begun in 1436 and proceeded through the 1480s. A basilican church with a centrally planned eastern end, Santo Spirito is ringed by semicircular chapels opening off the dome-vaulted side aisles, the transept, and the apse. These chapels accounted for a unique aspect of the design, for the exterior walls of the church were meant to conform to the shape of the chapels in a sequential series of curves. After Brunelleschi died, however, the protruding round chapels were walled over with the flat conventional exterior now visible. Rather than creating its walls as flat surfaces onto which are pressed thin rectilinear members (pilasters), a style perfected in San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel, Brunelleschi designed Santo Spirito with a feeling for its weight, gravity, and plasticity. The building, therefore, can be associated stylistically with Santa Maria degli Angeli, and also with the four semicircular tribunes above the sacristies of the Duomo. Brunelleschi's model for these tribunes was approved in 1439; the first one was completed in 1445, and the remaining three were finished in the 1460s. They are composed of deeply concave semicircular niches crowned with a shell device and separated by thick walls to which have been applied Corinthian half columns with projecting entablatures. In form and in mood, the tribunes were closer to monumental antique architecture than anything constructed in Florence up to that time, and they foreshadowed the strong profiles and massive grandeur of the buildings of Leon Battista Alberti and Donato Bramante.

Brunelleschi's role as architect of residential buildings is difficult to assess, although Manetti relates that he was summoned from far and wide to design palaces. No documentary evidence exists for the houses and palaces with which biographers and scholars have credited him, the most significant of which (all in Florence) are the Pitti Palace, a rejected plan for the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, and the Palazzo Bardi-Busini. Each of these palaces contains novel features that are tempting to attribute to Brunelleschi's inventiveness, but definitive proof of his influence or authorship has not been offered.

The manifold architectural abilities of Brunelleschi also are attested to by his military architecture, some of which is partially extant. He is associated with the building and rebuilding of fortifications in Pisa, Rencine, Vicopisano, Staggia, Castellina, Rimini, and Pesaro. In 1430 he was involved in a plan to convert the city of Lucca into an island by building a dam and deflecting the Arno River.

Brunelleschi was active through the early 1440s and probably continued to be until shortly before his death. He died in Florence and was buried in the Duomo.
Isabelle Hyman The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Filippo Brunelleschi | Biography, Artwork, Accomplishments, Dome, Linear Perspective, & Facts

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Filippo Brunelleschi, architect and engineer who was one of the pioneers of early Renaissance architecture in Italy. His major work is the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence (1420-36). Learn more about Brunelleschi's life, works, and significance in this article.

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"Double helix of masonry — researchers uncover the secret of Italian Renaissance domes"

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"Double helix of masonry — researchers uncover the secret of Italian Renaissance domes"

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What can modern engineering learn from an erstwhile jeweler who built the largest masonry dome in existence? The construction of the Florentine duomo by Filippo Brunelleschi has been an engineering marvel for more than 500 years, showcasing ancient techniques that still hold valuable insights for modern engineering. Until now, it has remained a mystery how the master goldsmith and sculptor managed to build the masterpiece that pushes the limits of what is possible to construct even with modern building technologies, and how the masters who followed Brunelleschi carried on the tradition.

In a collaborative study in the July 2020 issue of Engineering Structures, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Bergamo revealed the engineering techniques behind self-supporting masonry domes inherent to the Italian Renaissance. Researchers analyzed how cupolas like the famous duomo, part of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, were built as self-supporting, without the use of shoring or forms typically required.

Sigrid Adriaenssens, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton, collaborated on the analysis with graduate student Vittorio Paris and Pizzigoni, a professor of engineering and applied sciences, both of the University of Bergamo. Their study is the first to quantitatively prove the physics at work in Italian Renaissance domes and to explain the forces that allow such structures to have been built without formwork typically required, even for modern construction. Previously, there were only hypotheses in the field about how forces flowed through such edifices, and it was unknown how they were built without the use of temporary structures to hold them up during construction.

The detailed computer analysis accounts for the forces at work down to the individual brick, explaining how equilibrium is leveraged. The technique called discrete element modeling (DEM) was used to analyze the structure at several layers and stages of construction. A limit state analysis determined the overall equilibrium state, or stability, of the completed structure. Not only do these tests verify the mechanics of the structures, but they also make it possible to recreate the techniques for modern construction.

Each course of horizontal bricks pushes outwards on the vertical herringbone bricks, forming rows of plate-bandes, or straight arches inside the double loxodrome. The physical thrust of the horizontal bricks toward the vertical bricks keeps the horizontal bricks in place during construction and provides stability to the entire structure once completed. This is the key to the dome's stability. One of the researchers' primary findings is that for domes with radial geometry, the herringbone brick pattern enables the bricks to be wedged as plate-bandes and not slide inwards, which would make the dome collapse.

From ancient to modern construction

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Double helix of masonry - researchers uncover the secret of Italian Renaissance domes

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In a collaborative study, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Bergamo revealed the engineering techniques behind self-supporting masonry domes inherent to the Italian Renaissance. Researchers analyzed how cupolas like the famous duomo, part of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, were built as self-supporting, without the use of shoring or forms typically required.

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Santa Maria del Fiore remains, more than half a millennium after the topping of its dome, among Europe's most arresting sights. And yet it suffers a fate familiar to all monuments that come to stand as an emblem of their city - over-exposure. The use of the cathedral as a shorthand on television and in film for Florence, for Italy or for the Renaissance, always runs the risk of blinding us to the scope of its achievement. Rarely do we pause to consider the engineering required to erect such an edifice in age of self-flagellation and weeping statues; we take for granted its giant scale, its cool marble panelling and enormous, but gently-curving, dome. The audacity of its construction becomes obscured in a surfeit of images. It is, in other words, too famous for its own good.

If we fail to see the church through fresh eyes, if it has been reproduced on too many postcards and uploaded too often to Instagram, then we would do well to emulate the man who erected its dome, Filippo Brunelleschi, and look, observe, and look again. Brunelleschi, the man famous for rediscovering ancient linear perspective, was awarded the task of building the dome of the most important building in Florence in 1418. This immensely prestigious commission he had been granted following his insistence that only he knew how to construct it. His was a confidence born of his unparalleled commitment to close observation, and it was in Rome, amid the fallen giants of antiquity, that these observational skills were nurtured when Brunelleschi was a young man.

Brunelleschi grew up within sight of the cathedral, in Florence's San Giovanni district, and in his youth the church was one sprawling building site. On his birth in 1377, the cathedral's nave had already been vaulted, and its monumental campanile, designed by Giotto, stood complete. Work on the church had begun some eighty years earlier in 1296, when Arnolfo di Cambio, the builder of the city's fortification walls and the Palazzo Vecchio, laid the foundation stone. Arnolfo died not long after, but construction work continued intermittently until 1366, when the problem of the dome - namely, how to put it up - hove into view. Arnolfo's model had collapsed under its own weight and a new model, and fresh conception of the dome, was required for what was the biggest vault since antiquity.

The city's Arte della Lana - the powerful wool guild overseeing the cathedral's construction - commissioned two architects to build models of their proposed domes. Giovanni di Lapo Ghini's model was in the traditional Gothic style, with enormous flying buttresses to support the dome. The other model, by Neri di Fioravanti, dispersed with the buttresses and instead proposed the dome be constructed of layers of chains, made from stone and wood, clasping it together. Florentines considered buttresses not just ungainly but politically inexpedient, given their widespread use in Milan and in Germany, both enemies of Florence. The guild therefore opted for Neri's design, and the pillars supporting the dome were enlarged as a consequence. Neri's massive model sat in the unfinished cathedral. It represented a unique challenge: not only the world's largest dome, but also its highest; not a hemispherical dome, but a pointed one on an octagonal platform; not a single dome but a double shell, or a dome within a dome. In 1418, all that was required was to find someone capable of building it.

In 1418, Brunelleschi was ensconced in middle age, but had lost none of his youthful vigour, nor his reputation as an impetuous, irascible hot-head. It was these traits that had driven his original departure for Rome almost twenty years earlier. In his early twenties, in 1401, he had competed against Lorenzo Ghiberti in the competition for the design of the famous bronze doors of the Baptistry of St. John, which sits in front of the cathedral. Depending on which source you believe, Ghiberti either won the competition outright, or was awarded the commission jointly with Brunelleschi, who, hating having to collaborate on any project, left Ghiberti to it and sulked off to Rome. Ghiberti's success with the doors, dubbed the 'gates of paradise' by Michelangelo, reflected the prestige that awaited those capable of furnishing the city with beautiful works of art. And in 1418, Brunelleschi was all too aware of the fame that would attach to the name of the dome's builder. The intense, often violent, rivalry that existed between artists in a city like Florence reflected how much was at stake: eternal glory. The other side of that coin, however, was a very public failure.

But this was far in the future. In 1401, having either been defeated by Ghiberti or refusing to cooperate with him on the doors, Brunelleschi left Florence for Rome. With him went the equally short-fused Donatello. Like Brunelleschi, the teenage Donatello had lost to Ghiberti on the commission for the baptistry doors. But his reasons for going to Rome differed from Brunelleschi's. Donatello, Vasari tells us, was in Rome to study sculpture. Brunelleschi, meanwhile, was there for the architecture, 'believing that architecture was more necessary for man's needs than sculpture or painting'.[1] On arrival, 'upon seeing the grandeur of the buildings and the perfection of the remains of the temples, [Brunelleschi] stood there so engrossed in thought that he seemed beside himself with amazement'.[2]

Despite Brunelleschi's rapture, Rome was in a sorry state when he and Donatello entered through the Porta del Popolo around 1401. This was not the Rome of the Renaissance popes, the new St. Peter's basilica or the Palazzo Farnese. Popes had in fact resided in Avignon in the south of France from 1309 to 1376. Petrarch, in a letter sent from Avignon in 1334, described the Eternal City as 'deserted, and a mere shadow of its former self'. The population had plummeted, and those that remained had cocooned themselves into a botch of streets near the Tiber. The Roman Forum, once the heart of Roman civic life, was now dilapidated and largely abandoned, its once busy thoroughfares buried under the soil; the area's new name, Campo Vaccino, 'the field of cows', reflects the extent of the city's contraction, and how far it had fell. Though we like to think of the Middle Ages as backward and ignorant, it was during this time of neglect that the Forum and its monuments were inadvertently preserved; it is painful to contemplate that the most thorough destruction of the ancient structures in the Forum actually took place when interest in antiquity had revived - during the Renaissance.

To these youngsters from the energetic republic in the north, Rome was literally a foreign country, a backward, violent city with a 'hucksterish atmosphere'.[3] It would have resembled a long-abandoned theme park: giant edifices overgrown with moss and greenery, barely decipherable inscriptions and signs, toppled statues and broken masonry. Far from wishing to emulate these antique forms, the medieval world, particularly in the new capital of Christendom, had held the remnants of their Roman past in something approaching contempt. After all, the ancient monuments that littered Rome were the work of non-Christian hands; worse, they were the same pagan hands that had gathered Christians for torture, punishment and death. Some structures, like the Baths of Diocletian, had even been built on the back of Christian slave labour. In pre-Renaissance Rome, ancient buildings were either abandoned and left to crumble, converted to new use or demolished so that the materials could be used elsewhere.

Still, there was plenty left for Brunelleschi and Donatello to feast upon. The Colosseum, though quarried for its stone, retained its ancient grandeur, even if its original purpose had long been forgotten. More pertinently for Brunelleschi, the Pantheon, now functioning as a church, remained intact. The Pantheon and its massive dome was of obvious importance for Brunelleschi. Despite the competition for the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore being years away, he would of been acutely aware of the challenge that building the cathedral's dome represented, and it must have been on his mind as he surveyed Rome. In the Pantheon, he found a fine exemplar of a Roman dome which he could scrutinise for its secrets.

The knowledge required to create a vault like that of the Pantheon had by Brunelleschi's day been lost for centuries. Medieval Romans looked on its suspended ceiling as something demonic and otherworldly. How the dome managed to stay up without visible support, and how the Romans had constructed it, were questions unanswered when Brunelleschi surveyed it as a young man. No documents or plans survived from the Pantheon's instruction, so Brunelleschi relied only on close observation, which he went about with his usual diligence. According to Vasari, Brunelleschi did not stop working in Rome 'until he had pondered all the problems related to the Pantheon and how it might have been vaulted'.[4] Along with the obligatory dig at the Gothic aesthetic, Vasari also stresses the scope of Brunelleschi and Donatello's studies:
They left no spot unvisited, either within Rome or out in the countryside and, in so far as they could, they took the measurements of everything of any worth...[Brunelleschi's] only concern was the architecture, which was already in ruins, that is, the good ancient orders and not the barbarous German style which was frequently employed in his times.[5]
He and Donatello had very little money, and went around dressed unkempt and with a total disregard to their appearance. Their strange behaviour attracted the attention of the locals, who thought they were hunting for treasure, or worse, performing geomancy, a form of divination based on reading the formation of earth tossed to the ground. Despite arousing suspicions, Brunelleschi and Donatello continued their autodidactic education, with Brunelleschi documenting, sketching and measuring the forms of ancient buildings.
He did not rest until there was no sort of building he had no sketched: round, square, octagonal temples, basilicas, aqueducts, baths, arches, coliseums, amphitheaters...as well as all the means of joining stones by hinging and dovetailing.[6]
This last remark of Vasari's is significant. Herringbone brick pattern would be used extensively in the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. Indeed, its application was central to the success of erecting the dome. Without it, 'centring' would have been required - temporary wooden structured supports to stop the dome from falling whilst being built. As centring would have necessitated an unfeasible amount of timber for such an enormous dome, it wasn't an option available to the cathedral's builders, and thus a novel way of building the dome without wooden supports was needed. This was the key puzzle that needed solving in 1418, and Brunelleschi responded with herringbone brick work, which he first seen almost twenty years earlier in Rome.

It is highly probable that Brunelleschi was inspired by the use of this pattern in the structures he studied in Rome. The main difference, however, was that the herringbone pattern ( opus spicatum) used in ancient Rome was a decorative, not structural, feature, and was usually applied as a pavement. Brunelleschi's elevation of herringbone to the dome, and its specific function of holding the dome together whilst being built, was a vital solution that Brunelleschi concocted to solve the riddle of the dome's construction. Without his Roman education, Brunelleschi would have been ill-equipped to provide such a novel answer.

Brunelleschi flitted between Rome and Florence until around 1418. In August of that year, the committee overseeing the cathedral announced a competition, calling architects from all across Tuscany, Italy and Europe to demonstrate how they would build the dome of the model designed by Neri that sat in the incomplete cathedral. Initially unimpressed by what seemed to them the absurdity of Brunelleschi's plan of vaulting without supports, as well as put off by the architect's arrogance and aloofness, the committee wavered on selecting Brunelleschi as capomaestro.

Part of the reason for the committee's hesitation was Brunelleschi's coyness when it came to details. His tight-lips were a consequence of that very Florentine suspicion of having one's ideas nicked by a rival. The memory of having lost out to Ghiberti on the baptistry doors clearly still lingered and Brunelleschi was taking no chances. The committee's lack of faith drove Brunelleschi to such a frenzy that on one occasion he had to be physically removed from a committee meeting, shouting and remonstrating as he was carried off. Eventually, however, he won them over, but on one, vital condition: Brunelleschi would be given responsibility for erecting the dome, but it would be a shared responsibility with another man: Lorenzo Ghiberti.

Their collaboration on the dome would last for years, and involved much disagreement and chicanery. Yet it was Brunelleschi who was acknowledged the superior architect, and as he was the only man who knew how to build the dome, Ghiberti's responsibilities were eventually diluted by the works committee. Brunelleschi faced monumental obstacles in constructing the dome, including sourcing enough materials, getting them to Florence and then hoisting them up to the dome itself, but in 1436, the cathedral was finally consecrated. It is Brunelleschi's crowning achievement, and rightly is he considered the father of Renaissance architecture. Brunelleschi's journey to Rome in the early fifteenth century and the studies he conducted there were central to the next 150 years of building, both in his hometown of Florence and in Rome itself, ushering in a new age of confident, bold architecture which always kept one eye on the past.
Footnotes
[1] Vasari The Lives of the Artists, p. 116

[2] Vasari The Lives of the Artists, p. 117

[3] King 2008: 24

[4] Vasari, The Lives of the Artists, p. 117

[5] Vasari The Lives of the Artists, p. 117

[6] Vasari The Lives of the Artists, p. 118
Bibliography
King, R. 2008. Brunelleschi's Dome: The Story of the Great Cathedral in Florence. London.

Hibbert, C. 1985. Rome: The Biography of a City. London.

Vasari, G. (trans. Conway Bondanella, J and Bondanella, P.) 1991. The Lives of the Artists. New York.

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Santa Maria del Fiore remains, more than half a millennium after the topping of its dome, among Europe's most arresting sights. And yet it suffers a fate familiar to all monuments that come to stand as an emblem of their city - over-exposure.

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The earliest depiction of Florence. This depiction is more complete than what Brunelleschi would see growing up.

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A cutaway of the Pantheon that shows the architecture of both the inside and outside. The Pantheon was a topic of study for Brunelleschi in Rome.

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Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446 CE) was an Italian Renaissance architect, goldsmith, and sculptor, who is most famous for his work on the cathedral of Florence and its impressive soaring brick dome, completed in 1436 CE. Considered one of the founding fathers of Renaissance architecture, Brunelleschi was particularly interested in the study of linear perspective and achieving a harmonious simplicity of form in buildings which also considered the immediate environment in which they were constructed.

Early Career

Filippo Brunelleschi was born in Florence in 1377 CE, the son of a successful notary. Like many other Renaissance artists, Brunelleschi studied surviving examples of classical sculpture and architecture in his home town, the region of Tuscany, and Rome. He trained first as a goldsmith and was an accomplished sculptor, but his concentration on architecture may be explained by his narrow defeat to Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455 CE) in the competition for the (first set of) bronze doors of Florence's Baptistery in 1401 CE. Brunelleschi's trial panel for the competition survives and shows the story from the Old Testament of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. The panel, measuring around 53 x 44 cm, is now in the Bargello Museum of Florence. After the defeat, Brunelleschi returned to working gold as he joined the Florence Guild of Goldsmiths in 1404 CE. Art and architecture would, though, soon tempt him back out of his gloomy workshop and into the Renaissance limelight.

Brunelleschi's buildings reworked Classical architectural elements, mixed in Tuscan Romanesque features, & played with precise mathematical proportions.

Brunelleschi's Architectural Vision

Brunelleschi took a great interest in the science of linear perspective, that is, creating the illusion of depth on a flat surface by having imaginary sightlines all converge towards a central point, a subject in which he was a pioneer. In the mid-1420s CE, he famously conducted experiments in perspective in public, notably on the entrance steps of Florence's cathedral using mirrors, a pinhole, and canvas. In two now lost paintings of Florence's Baptistery and urban landscape, the artist thus publicly demonstrated his ideas on linear perspective and his belief in the importance of identifying a single point of view within them. These ideas greatly influenced other Renaissance artists in both paintings and sculpture thanks to treatises then being written on the subject, which were spread around Italy and beyond. It was in architecture, though, that Brunelleschi was to prove his genius, and here, too, his ideas on perspective would cause contemporary and future architects to redefine how they viewed both architectural and urban spaces. Not only was it important what a building looked like, it now became important what it looked like in relation to its immediate environment.

Brunelleschi put all of these ideas into practice when he designed the influential Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence from 1419 to 1424 CE with its elegant loggia or gallery. The hospital was intended as a refuge for orphans and was funded by Brunelleschi's silk and goldsmith guild. The loggia is an archetypal example of a Renaissance reworking of classical architectural elements, mixing in Tuscan Romanesque features and playing with precise mathematical proportions. Another successful project in Florence was the domed perfect cube of the Old Sacristy of the San Lorenzo Basilica (1418-28 CE). Indeed, the Sacristy was said to have been such a wonder, even when still not finished, that the crowds of admirers it attracted seriously annoyed the workmen there. The architect would go on to redesign the whole basilica from 1436 CE. Brunelleschi was sparing no expense for what was, in effect, the private church of the ruling family of the city: the Medici. Both of these buildings would hint at the masterpiece yet to come: Florence's cathedral dome.

Brunelleschi's particular approach to technical aspects of architecture, as evidenced by these early buildings, is here summarised within the architect's entry in The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of the Italian Renaissance:

It is based on pure geometrical proportions, the use of sail vaults and saucer domes on pendentives, and a simple all'antica vocabulary of grey sandstone columns and pilasters articulating white plaster walls. His proportional systems are refinements of those used in medieval Florence, his orders and ornamentation are almost entirely based on Romanesque models...and specific Trecento models...Nonetheless, his synthesis is an entirely personal one, which far exceeds its component sources in intellectual rigour and control of design; the bichromatic combination of sandstone and plaster was certainly his own invention. (60)

Duomo of Florence

Work to finally finish off the Duomo of Florence, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, began around 1420 CE after a competition had been held from 1418 CE to see who would have that particular honour. The cathedral had been founded in 1296 CE but its dome or cupola had never been completed, along with various other parts of the building. Such were the dimensions involved for any possible dome, most contemporary architects thought that building one here was a physical impossibility. Brunelleschi, who won the competition, believed otherwise. There was a catch, though. The Florentines wanted Brunelleschi to work with Lorenzo Ghiberti. Not best of friends since the Baptistery doors competition, it was said that Brunelleschi took several days off sick in the early stages of the project, simply to show up Ghiberti for the incompetent architect Brunelleschi thought he was. Ghiberti himself would claim half-credit for the finished dome but he had left the project before construction really got underway.

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The dome was completed in 1436 CE, making the cathedral of Florence the largest & tallest building in Europe at the time.

Besides being influenced by the structural methods used in ancient Roman architecture, Brunelleschi had studied examples of Byzantine churches with their multiple domes and particularly buildings in or influenced by Byzantine Ravenna and Venice. Romanesque features of Tuscan architecture and medieval proportions would be another influence. It is not known what the architect got up to between 1404 and 1415 CE, and it is quite possible he travelled more widely than traditionally assumed in his quest for existing answers to architectural problems. It is known that Brunelleschi was a student of mathematics and a keen engineer, and so he was uniquely armed with skills in both the arts and sciences, a true Renaissance man. To build his dome, Brunelleschi would need all these skills and more to turn an impressive plan into a soaring reality. Just to design and create a workable system of winches and pulleys needed for the construction work was a feat in itself. In addition, a detailed wooden model was needed for the workmen to follow, one of which survives today in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo of Florence. The team of builders was led by the master mason Battista d'Antonio.

The dome was a brilliant design and realised without a fixed centring (temporary wooden scaffolding) during the construction. Rather, each circular course of the dome was completed before another course was added on top. The dome is self-supporting thanks to the 8 outer and 16 inner ribs that rise from the base to the peak and which create self-supporting arches. As a consequence of this system, the dome has a pointed profile and is composed of eight distinct sides. Another consideration for the architect was that a pointed dome gives much less side thrust on the drum below it than a hemispherical one, thus eliminating the need for extra support for the drum such as might be given by unsightly flying buttresses. Made from bricks laid in a reinforcing herringbone pattern, the dome is given further strength and lightness by having a double shell.

The dome was completed in 1436 CE, making the cathedral the largest and tallest building in Europe at the time. The dome measures at the base 45.5 metres (149 ft.) in diameter - similar to Rome's Pantheon - and reaches a height of 91 metres (298 ft.). The lantern (which takes the form of a temple designed by Brunelleschi) and gilded sphere were added to the very top of the dome between 1445 and 1461 CE. The excessive weight of the lantern was necessary to keep the eight panels of the dome from springing outwards. Inside the dome, Brunelleschi originally had the ceiling painted white but it was covered with frescoes in the 16th century CE.

Everyone, from the Pope down to Brunelleschi himself, was both relieved and delighted with the finally finished cathedral. As the artist Leon Battista Alberti noted at the time, the "large structure, rising above the skies, ample to cover with its shadow all the Tuscan people" (Paoletti, 218) was a veritable marvel of human endeavour. It was felt, at last, that the Renaissance had now surpassed the engineering feats of antiquity.

Final Works

Brunelleschi's engineering skills were sometimes called on for far less noble projects than cathedrals, churches, and hospitals. One example was in 1430 CE when the Florentines attempted to flood the Tuscan town of Lucca into military and political submission. A huge low basin with surrounding dyke was created to gather water from the River Serchio but only ended in the unplanned disaster of flooding the Florentines' own camp.

On a smaller scale but still requiring ingenious feats of engineering, Brunelleschi was more successful with his mechanisms inside the San Lorenzo church of Florence. These machines were temporarily installed in the church when the Medici family wished to show off their largesse by entertaining the public with religious shows to commemorate important events in the Christian calendar. The effects created included a night of stars in the ceiling and the angel Gabriel descending in a shower of sparks.

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One of Brunelleschi's last projects, begun in 1436 CE but actually completed long after his death, was the Church of Santo Spirito in Florence. With its elegant columns and arches, it is an excellent example of the master's preoccupation with simple yet harmonious design. Another unfinished project was the octagonal Santa Maria degli Angeli church. Brunelleschi had begun work on it in 1434 CE, and it shows his typical fondness for repeated identical features, which give the wall space a marvellous sense of rhythm.

Other posthumous works popped up elsewhere. Brunelleschi had adopted as a child a famous future artist, Andrea di Lazzaro Cavalcanti (1412-1462 CE), who would work on Florence's Santa Maria Novella cathedral after his adopted father's death. In 1434 CE Cavalcanti had run off with Brunelleschi's collection of jewels, but the pair were later reconciled. It was Cavalcanti who made the gilded marble pulpit for the cathedral (1443-48 CE), which was based on a wooden model made by Brunelleschi.

Reputation & Legacy

Brunelleschi is widely considered one of the pioneers and creators of what became known as a Renaissance architectural language. Classical proportions, simple geometry, and harmony were prime considerations in this new language, which replaced, or at least challenged, the hitherto dominance of medieval architecture. For example, Brunelleschi's use of tall slim columns to support arches which create a loggia with shallow domes (as best seen in his Ospedale degli Innocenti) was imitated for the facades of many other types of public buildings throughout the 15th century CE.

Linear perspective, as already noted, became a central theme and identifying feature of architecture, paintings, and sculpture thereafter. So then, just as the High Renaissance painters and sculptors like Michelangelo (1475-1564 CE), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 CE), and Raphael (1483-1520 CE) created a new interpretation of classical themes in art, so, too, Brunelleschi revitalised architecture, especially in Florence, which was considered, in effect, the capital of the Renaissance movement.

Thanks to his works and a biography by fellow Florentine Antonio di Tuccio Manetti, Brunelleschi's fame spread to other Italian cities such as Milan and Urbino where a new generation of architects was about to appear, amongst whom was the great Donato Bramante (c. 1444-1514 CE), who would take on Brunelleschi's mantle as the greatest living Renaissance architect.

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Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446 CE) was an Italian Renaissance architect, goldsmith, and sculptor, who is most famous for his work on the cathedral of Florence and its impressive soaring brick dome, completed in 1436 CE.

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Brunelleschi's cupola in Florence turned 600 a few months ago. It remains one of the most amazing examples of architecture in the world: 

https://t.co/5PXR9Q2WG4

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Brunelleschi's cupola in Florence turned 600 a few months ago. It remains one of the most amazing examples of architecture in the world: 

https://t.co/5PXR9Q2WG4

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Brunelleschi's cupola in Florence turned 600 a few months ago. It remains one of the most amazing examples of architecture in the world: https://t.co/5PXR9Q2WG4
— L'Italo-Americano (@Italo_Americano) February 9, 2021

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Brunelleschi's cupola in Florence turned 600 a few months ago. It remains one of the most amazing examples of architecture in the world: 

https://t.co/5PXR9Q2WG4

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Brunelleschi's cupola in Florence turned 600 a few months ago. It remains one of the most amazing examples of architecture in the world: 

https://t.co/5PXR9Q2WG4

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Brunelleschi's cupola in Florence turned 600 a few months ago. It remains one of the most amazing examples of architecture in the world: 

https://t.co/5PXR9Q2WG4

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How an Amateur Built the World's Biggest Dome

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The height of the dome  from the tambour (drum) is 116.4 feet. The overall elevation from the ground is 375.7 feet.  The width of the drum from rib to rib is 115 feet, and the lantern at the top of the dome is 72 feet high.  The dome sits on a a basilica-plan cathedral as what is called  the crossing.  The cathedral itself is 502 feet long, and 125 feet wide before the crossing.  At the crossing the transept is 300 feet. (Wikipedia)