Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) was an Italian architect, goldsmith, and sculptor. The first Renaissance architect, he also formulated the principles of linear perspective which governed pictorial depiction of space until the late 19th century.

In Florence during the second and third decades of the 15th century, the visual arts were transformed into the Renaissance style. The concept of the Renaissance, whose aim was the re-creation of ancient classical culture, occasioned in painting and sculpture a revival of naturalism based primarily on antique statuary and in architecture a revival of classical forms and ornament. All the arts revealed an increased concern for the delineation and unification of space, which the development of linear perspective satisfied. Three Florentine artists - the architect Filippo Brunelleschi the sculptor Donatello, and the painter Masaccio - were the leaders in this new movement and soon made Florence the artistic capital of Europe.

Brunelleschi was born in Florence, the son of an eminent notary. Filippo entered the silk guild as a goldsmith in 1398. The following year he was employed by a goldsmith in Pistoia, where he made several silver figures for the altar of St. James in the Cathedral. Brunelleschi entered the competition of 1401 for a new set of portals for the Baptistery in Florence; his trial piece, the Sacrifice of Isaac, compared very favorably with that of Lorenzo Ghiberti, who was awarded the commission. Brunelleschi's relief is derived stylistically from the work of his predecessor Andrea Pisano, but it already reveals an interest in classical antiquity, as the servant in the relief was inspired by the Hellenistic statue Spinario, or "thorn-puller." In 1404 Brunelleschi was admitted as master to the goldsmiths' guild in Florence, and later that year he was consulted regarding a buttress of the Cathedral.

Method of Constructing Linear Perspective

During the next decade the details of Brunelleschi's life are very vague. He undoubtedly made several trips to Rome to survey its ancient monuments. A wooden crucifix in S. Maria Novella, Florence, perhaps from this period, is sometimes attributed to him. In 1415 he repaired the Ponte a Mare in Pisa, and 2 years later he and other masters presented opinions on the design and construction of the great dome projected for the Gothic Cathedral of Florence. It was perhaps at this time that Brunelleschi devised the method of constructing linear perspective, which he illustrated in two perspective panels (now lost): one depicted the Florentine Baptistery as viewed from the Cathedral portal, and the other illustrated the Palazzo Vecchio.

Early Architecture

Beginning in 1418 Brunelleschi concentrated on architecture. In two small domed chapels in S. Jacopo Soprarno and S. Felicità (now destroyed or altered), Florence, he experimented with domical construction. That same year he began the church of S. Lorenzo (1418-ca. 1470), commencing with the Old Sacristy (1418-1428), a cubical chapel with an umbrella dome. The church is a Latin-cross basilica with three arcaded aisles, side chapels, and a dome over the crossing. All the ornamentation is classical, with Corinthian columns, pilasters, and classical moldings of a soft blue-gray stone (pietra serena) against light stucco walls. The loggia of the Ospedale degli Innocenti (designed 1419, constructed 1421-1451), Florence, usually considered the first Renaissance building, is a graceful arcade with Composite columns and windows with triangular pediments regularly spaced above each of the arches. It may have been at this time that Brunelleschi worked on the Palazzo di Parte Guelfa, Florence; he designed giant pilasters at each end of the exterior (altered in completion).

In 1420 Brunelleschi began to erect the great dome of the Florentine Cathedral in collaboration with Ghiberti, who eventually withdrew from the project. The dome has a skeleton of eight large stone ribs closed by two shells, of which the lower portions are of stone and the upper parts of brick laid in a herringbone design probably derived from ancient Roman construction. In its rib construction and pointed arch form, the dome still belongs within the Gothic tradition. With the closing of the oculus in 1436, Brunelleschi designed the lantern (completed in 1467). Meanwhile he was consulted on projects elsewhere; he was in Pisa during 1426 to work on the Citadel and in Volterra in 1427 to advise on the dome of the Baptistery.

The Pazzi Chapel (1429-1467), in the medieval cloister of Santa Croce, Florence, has a charming porch with six Corinthian columns supporting an entablature broken in the center by a semicircular arch, reflecting the dome behind it. The upper part of the facade is incomplete. The interior is rectangular with a large umbrella dome at the center covered by a conical roof with a lantern. As in all his architecture, Brunelleschi used the darker pietra serena for the classical details. The glazed terra-cotta reliefs of the four Evangelists in the pendentives of the dome were designed by Brunelleschi; the remaining decoration was by Luca della Robbia. In 1432 Brunelleschi went to Mantua and Ferrara on unknown commissions, and in 1433 he was again in Rome to study the antiquities.

Later Architecture

During the Renaissance the ideal church plan was centralized as a circle or Greek cross with four equal arms. On his return to Florence in 1434 Brunelleschi began a central-plan church, S. Maria degli Angeli, which was never completed. It would have been the first central plan of the Renaissance. Octagonal on the interior with eight chapels, it was 16-sided on the exterior; a domical vault was probably intended to cover the center. In 1435 Brunelleschi was again in Pisa working on the bastion of the Porta al Parlascio.

In 1436 Brunelleschi designed another basilican church in Florence, Santo Spirito (constructed 1444-1482), which shows a much greater concern for a unified composition than S. Lorenzo does. The arcaded side aisles are continued around the transept arms and choir and were intended to go across the interior of the facade (never executed), which gives a very unified and centralized impression around the crossing dome. The shallow chapels are curvilinear in plan and were to be so expressed on the exterior, but after Brunelleschi's death a straight external wall masked the chapels. The interior is carefully organized in simple proportional relationships which result in a very harmonious space that is the ideal of Renaissance architecture. In 1440 Brunelleschi returned to Pisa for further work on the Citadel. On April 15, 1446, he died at Florence and received the unusual honor of being buried in the Cathedral.

Style and Influence

Brunelleschi was particularly adept in solving engineering problems, as the construction of the Cathedral dome reveals. His architectural style is of a very refined classicism and was inspired as much by the Tuscan Romanesque or proto-Renaissance style of the 12th century as by ancient Roman architecture. He used the Corinthian order, the most decorative of the classical orders, almost exclusively, and he made sure that all the decorative elements of his architecture were cut in a very crisp style.

Because of Brunelleschi's innovation of linear perspective and his adaptation of the classical style to architecture, he is one of the major figures of the early Renaissance period. His architecture remained influential in Florence through the 16th century.

Further Reading

The only monograph on Brunelleschi in English is Leader Scott, Filippo di Ser Brunellesco (1901); although out of date, it is still informative. More recent scholarly studies are in Italian: Piero Sanpaolesi, Brunelleschi (1962), and Eugenio Luporini, Brunelleschi (1964). Antonio Manetti's 15th-century biography of Brunelleschi was published in English, with an introduction by Howard Saalman, The Life of Brunelleschi (1969). See also Frank D. Prager and Gustina Scaglia, Brunelleschi: Studies of His Technology and Inventions (1970). General works which include references to Brunelleschi are Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (1948); Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (1949; 3d rev. ed. 1962); and Peter Murray, The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance (1963).

Additional Sources

Battisti, Eugenio, Filippo Brunelleschi: the complete works, New York: Rizzoli, 1981.

Brunelleschi, Filippo, Brunelleschi: the complete works, London: Thames and Hudson, 1981.

For more information on Filippo Brunelleschi, visit Britannica.com.

(1377–1446)

Florentine architect, the first and perhaps the most distinguished of the Renaissance, who trained as a sculptor and goldsmith, learned geometry, and developed the laws and principles of perspective. Gradually he became more interested in architecture, and from 1417 advised on the proposed cupola for the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence. His inspiration for his architecture was certainly from earlier buildings, but it came from the Tuscan Romanesque and proto-Renaissance buildings rather than from the remains of Imperial Roman architecture, for structures such as San Miniato al Monte and the baptistery, Florence (both C11 and C12), were thought at the time to be much older than they were. Indeed, he was less of an antiquarian than those who followed him, notably Alberti and Michelozzo, and seems to have been more interested in the problems of construction, definition of architectural elements by linear means, and the control and management of volume. In 1420 he began to build the Cathedral cupola (in collaboration with Ghiberti), a vast octagonal structure crowned by an enormous lantern designed by Brunelleschi alone (1436–67). The octagon, double shell, and pointed profile were settled before Brunelleschi's involvement, but the use of spiralling courses of herringbone brickwork, iron chains and sloping masonry rings to bind the dome together, and ribs joining the shells are his inventions, although owe much to his studies of Roman structures. Brunelleschi's genius lay in his abilities to combine ancient and modern aesthetic, architectural, and engineering principles.

His Ospedale degli Innocenti (Hospice for the Innocents, or Foundlings' Hospital), Florence (1419–44), with its elegant arcades on Corinthian columns, glazed terracotta medallions in the spandrels, architrave dividing first and second floors, and small rectangular windows over which are pediments, is reckoned to be the very first truly Renaissance building, but its sources are local. Brunelleschi designed two basilican churches (San Lorenzo (from 1418) and Santo Spirito (from 1436)): both have nave-arcades with Classical columns carrying fragmentary entablatures from which the arches spring, and both have domed crossings with transepts, although at Santo Spirito the aisles and semicircular side-chapels carried all round the church give a rhythmic unity not present at San Lorenzo. At the latter Brunelleschi designed the Old Sacristy, also the Mortuary Chapel of the Medicis, as a cube roofed by a dome with ribs radiating from the central lantern giving an impression of sail-like forms over ribs. The entire interior was painted white with bands of grey on the dominant architectural motifs, the first time such a decorative scheme was employed. Brunelleschi may have designed the Pazzi Chapel in the cloister of Santa Croce, Florence (1429–61), where the Old Sacristy themes are developed with a central domed space flanked on two sides by barrel-vaulted side bays and on the third by a small domed recess set behind an arch. The chapel is approached through an entrance-loggia consisting of two groups of three Corinthian columns carrying an entablature between which is an arch. Behind the arch is a saucerdome. The fine interior is articulated by means of pilasters, entablatures, archivolts, and other architectural elements, all in local grey stone (pietra serena), set against the white walls, while glazed terracotta roundels complete the scheme.

Plan and section of Pazzi Chapel, Florence


The uncompleted oratory of the Camaldulensian convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli (1434–7) is the first truly centrally planned Renaissance building, with a domed octagon set on eight piers which also provide the divisions between the radiating chapels: it is quite clearly based on Antique precedent, notably the so-called Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome. The astylar rusticated Palazzo Pitti, Florence, may have been partially designed by Brunelleschi, for its severe Antique quality and carefully ordered proportions suggest at the very least his influence. Brunelleschi used simple proportional relationships throughout his buildings, and this gives his architecture a pleasing harmonious quality that was sought by Renaissance designers.


Plan of Santa Maria degeli Angeli, Florence

Bibliography

• Argan (1978)
• Battisti (1981)
• Braunfels (1981)
• Cable (1981)
• Doumato (1980)
• R. King (1999)
• Klotz (1970)
• Luporini (1964)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• Prager & Scaglia (1970)
• Ragghianti (1977)
• Saalman (1980, 1993)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Brunelleschi, Filippo (fēlēp'pō brūnĕl-lĕs'kē) , 1377–1446, first great architect of the Italian Renaissance, a Florentine by birth. Trained as sculptor and goldsmith, he designed a trial panel, The Sacrifice of Isaac (1401; Bargello, Florence) for the bronze doors of the Florence baptistery. The commission, however, was won by Lorenzo Ghiberti. Thereafter, Brunelleschi became more interested in architectural planning. He made several trips to Rome, where he devoted himself to the study of classical buildings. About 1420 he drew two panels in perspective (now lost) that had important consequences for both architectural and art theory. The Church of San Lorenzo, Florence, reveals his systematic use of perspective in the careful proportioning of the interior structure and in the articulation of spatial volumes. In the Ospedale degli Innocenti (foundling hospital; 1419–45), Brunelleschi introduced a motif that was widely imitated during the Renaissance—a series of arches supported on columns. In 1420 he began to build the dome for the cathedral in Florence. This octagonal ribbed dome is one of the most celebrated and original domical constructions in architectural history. Brunelleschi's other works include the churches of Santa Maria degli Angeli and Santo Spirito and the Pazzi Chapel, all in Florence. His designs exhibit beauty of detail and elegance, as well as mastery of construction.

Bibliography

See studies by A. Mantonio (1970), F. D. Prager (1970), I. Hyman, ed. (1973), and R. King (2001); biography by A. Mannetti (tr. 1970).

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