ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. 1 — V.
THE RENAISSANCE (FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES).
THE passage from one architectural style to another is always accomplished through a transitional style, that is,
through a series of forms partaking of the character of both the passing style and that which is struggling for supremacy. In Italy, we find just these transitional forms in the architecture of the fifteenth century, where it is evident that the revival of the types of Classic antiquity is not as complete as some have been pleased to assume. The great delicacy and elegance of the proportions, the maintenance of certain forms, such as the gemel-window, clearly mark a style which, though looking toward the future, has not yet forgotten the Middle Ages. It would be absurd, then, to class the styles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries under a single designation. In the fifteenth century the traces of the transition are well marked in Italy. In the sixteenth, the slavish imitation of the Classic examples of Rome goes on in entire disregard of
mediæval traditions; Roman forms are especially exalted by the school of Palladio, as we shall see.
Tuscany was the mother of Italian Renaissance, and by Tuscany I mean especially Florence. The love of Classic forms spread thence in all directions, and was particularly accentuated in Venice, Milan and Rome. In the other great towns of Italy, the flowering-out of this art lacks the character of continuity and the original aspect which we find especially prominent in these four cities.
We will, therefore, turn our attention to the Renaissance architecture of Tuscany, and particularly of Florence. The Tuscan architectural movement of the fifteenth century may be summed up in the work of three artists, namely, Filippo di Ser Brunellesco Lapi (not Lippi), commonly, though incorrectly, styled Filippo Brunelleschi (1379-1446); Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), born of Florentine parents at Venice, where the family had taken refuge from the persecutions of their own city; and Michelozzo Michelozzi, a Florentine sculptor and architect (1391-1472). Of the three, Brunellesco
and Alberti were unquestionably the greatest inspirers of the Renaissance. The former, endowed with mighty genius, seeking always after grandeur in his work, aspired to the honor of reviving Classic architecture, and he succeeded in his aim. As has already been said, highly Classic forms are found at Florence, dating from 1367, in the galleries and side-aisles of the Duomo. But the flowering-out of any architectonic type whatsoever cannot occur except under special conditions of surroundings. However, Brunellesco, on his return to Florence after his first journey to Rome in 1405 (this date is uncertain, though it is the one generally accepted), displayed all the Classic tendencies for which he is noted. Notwithstanding everything, then, the introduction of the architecture in which we are just now interested must be ascribed to Brunellesco.
We often find our architect at Rome, but his name must be associated especially with Florence and his Florentine works. Among these I cite, first, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (Figure 1), the construction of which, as appears from recent researches (see Nardini-Despotti, “Filippo di Ser Brunellesco
e la Cupola de Duomo di Firenze”), is not so fully due to Brunellesco as has always been supposed; the idea of raising the cupola without scaffolding has ever been considered as peculiarly his; but modern criticism has shown that other architects shared it with him, as, for example, Nanni d’Antonio di Banco and Donatello — the great precursor of Michel Angelo.
We cannot, however, stop for details. Among the edifices reared by Brunellesco may be noted the magnificent Pazzi chapel (Figure 2) in the cloister of Santa Croce, constructed after 1420; the churches of San Lorenzo and Santo-Spirito, the latter begun, not in 1470, as has hitherto been thought, but during the architect’s life, and finished after his death; also the magnificent portico of the Spedale degli Innocenti, begun in 1421 and completed in 1445. As for San Lorenzo, it should be remarked that it was already in process of construction when Giovanni di Bicci dei Medici employed Brunellesco to furnish a design for the sacristy, which is a really superb work; Brunellesco likewise made plans and gave advice for the unfinished portions of the church; it was completed after his death, but under the direction of the architect, Antonio
1 From the French of Alfredo Melani, in Planat’s Encyclopedie de lʼArchitecture et de la Construction. Continued from No. 832, page 144.
Fig. 1. View of the Duomo of Florence.
THE RENAISSANCE (FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES).
THE passage from one architectural style to another is always accomplished through a transitional style, that is,
through a series of forms partaking of the character of both the passing style and that which is struggling for supremacy. In Italy, we find just these transitional forms in the architecture of the fifteenth century, where it is evident that the revival of the types of Classic antiquity is not as complete as some have been pleased to assume. The great delicacy and elegance of the proportions, the maintenance of certain forms, such as the gemel-window, clearly mark a style which, though looking toward the future, has not yet forgotten the Middle Ages. It would be absurd, then, to class the styles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries under a single designation. In the fifteenth century the traces of the transition are well marked in Italy. In the sixteenth, the slavish imitation of the Classic examples of Rome goes on in entire disregard of
mediæval traditions; Roman forms are especially exalted by the school of Palladio, as we shall see.
Tuscany was the mother of Italian Renaissance, and by Tuscany I mean especially Florence. The love of Classic forms spread thence in all directions, and was particularly accentuated in Venice, Milan and Rome. In the other great towns of Italy, the flowering-out of this art lacks the character of continuity and the original aspect which we find especially prominent in these four cities.
We will, therefore, turn our attention to the Renaissance architecture of Tuscany, and particularly of Florence. The Tuscan architectural movement of the fifteenth century may be summed up in the work of three artists, namely, Filippo di Ser Brunellesco Lapi (not Lippi), commonly, though incorrectly, styled Filippo Brunelleschi (1379-1446); Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), born of Florentine parents at Venice, where the family had taken refuge from the persecutions of their own city; and Michelozzo Michelozzi, a Florentine sculptor and architect (1391-1472). Of the three, Brunellesco
and Alberti were unquestionably the greatest inspirers of the Renaissance. The former, endowed with mighty genius, seeking always after grandeur in his work, aspired to the honor of reviving Classic architecture, and he succeeded in his aim. As has already been said, highly Classic forms are found at Florence, dating from 1367, in the galleries and side-aisles of the Duomo. But the flowering-out of any architectonic type whatsoever cannot occur except under special conditions of surroundings. However, Brunellesco, on his return to Florence after his first journey to Rome in 1405 (this date is uncertain, though it is the one generally accepted), displayed all the Classic tendencies for which he is noted. Notwithstanding everything, then, the introduction of the architecture in which we are just now interested must be ascribed to Brunellesco.
We often find our architect at Rome, but his name must be associated especially with Florence and his Florentine works. Among these I cite, first, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (Figure 1), the construction of which, as appears from recent researches (see Nardini-Despotti, “Filippo di Ser Brunellesco
e la Cupola de Duomo di Firenze”), is not so fully due to Brunellesco as has always been supposed; the idea of raising the cupola without scaffolding has ever been considered as peculiarly his; but modern criticism has shown that other architects shared it with him, as, for example, Nanni d’Antonio di Banco and Donatello — the great precursor of Michel Angelo.
We cannot, however, stop for details. Among the edifices reared by Brunellesco may be noted the magnificent Pazzi chapel (Figure 2) in the cloister of Santa Croce, constructed after 1420; the churches of San Lorenzo and Santo-Spirito, the latter begun, not in 1470, as has hitherto been thought, but during the architect’s life, and finished after his death; also the magnificent portico of the Spedale degli Innocenti, begun in 1421 and completed in 1445. As for San Lorenzo, it should be remarked that it was already in process of construction when Giovanni di Bicci dei Medici employed Brunellesco to furnish a design for the sacristy, which is a really superb work; Brunellesco likewise made plans and gave advice for the unfinished portions of the church; it was completed after his death, but under the direction of the architect, Antonio
1 From the French of Alfredo Melani, in Planat’s Encyclopedie de lʼArchitecture et de la Construction. Continued from No. 832, page 144.
Fig. 1. View of the Duomo of Florence.