Renaissance Architecture

Renaissance Context

Why do we start around 1420? Because at that time it is clear that something has changed, architects are working in a different way. During the Renaissance, there is a change in architectural culture, which starts in central Italy (Florence), and later (30 years later) in Milan, Venice, etc. (We need a date and a place because changes don’t happen at the same time everywhere.)

In this period, there is a definition of a new model, adopted and elaborated by architects, for a new ruling class; this new model is coherent with the values of the new ruling class which used architecture to define and represent its social status. Money is given to architects by patrons. Economical and political issues: architecture needs money! (So why Florence?)

Question about antiquity

Antiquity is seen as something lost which can be rediscovered. In the first half of the 1400s, antiquity means:

• Roman architecture (imperial architecture mostly), Rome as a city is the symbol of antiquity, but also other cities like Verona, Pisa, etc.
• Greek architecture; nobody has actually seen Greece, just merchants, so nobody knew for sure, but all the texts about antiquity described Greece as a model for arts, architecture, and culture; architects saw Greece through the eyes of the Romans.
• Vitruvius, “Ten books of architecture”; he lived at the time of Augustus, first century A.D.; his text became the text on which architectural culture was built.

The model of antiquity becomes evident with the work of Brunelleschi. Architecture is a collective action, a result of investments.

Italy's geographical context during the 1400s

During 1400-1420, Italy is a geographical nation, still very fragmented; in particular, the fragmentation is very clear in the North and Center of Italy. The State of the Church was the strongest; north there was Tuscany, divided between the Republic of Florence, the Republic of Siena, and the small Republic of Lucca. Republics are merchants’ states. (Other important republics: Genoa, Venice, Duke of Milan, and Duke of Savoia).

Why Florence is so important?

Florence, before the plague, was the most populated and important city of Europe, after Paris; around 1400, it was the most important trade, banking, and commerce center of Europe, but the population was small due to the plague. Florence during this period specialized in banking, because this was bringing way more money than the land; it was a banking center, full of wealthy people and rich families, perceived as a “metropolis” for that time.

Banks lead to lots of money, resulting in important patrons in architecture and big architectural projects. All the big patrons were bankers!

In 1400, Florence is a Republic, but actually controlled by a few families: the Medici (which were banned twice) and the Pazzi, both patrons of Brunelleschi. The city was not a calm place at all; there were a lot of struggles and civil wars for power control.

Architecture at that time was a tool for the construction of the public image, used to represent a family or a person to the public. Examples: Cappella Pazzi started by Brunelleschi, Palazzo Medici by Michelozzo, Complex of San Lorenzo by Brunelleschi, Palazzo Rucellai by Alberti, facade of Santa Maria Novella by Alberti paid by Rucellai, Palazzo Strozzi by Rossellino 1480, 1490 (Strozzi wanted the same palace as Medici but bigger), Ospedale degli Innocenti by Brunelleschi was paid by the guild of silver and silk, which Brunelleschi was part of.

Patronage meant control over the urban scene through architecture. The story of Florence during the 1400s is a story of patronage.

Guilds were important political players. Most architects were members of guilds, usually the Guild of Masons, of builders (architects were builders). From the Renaissance on, architects started to study, to be intellectuals too, and not just to learn on the field. The architects coming from the Guild of Masons were really conservatives.

Romanesque and Gothic in Tuscany 1200-1400

Italian Gothic Architecture (seen in reference to the style which was to develop out of it) is different, and the reason for this is found in the history and climate of Italy.

Context of the 1400s

During the Renaissance, Italy consisted of a large number of small, highly individualistic states, each with great power: Venice, Florence, Naples, Milan, and the Papal States. This is the reason for the great differences between Venetian and Florentine art.

Moreover, we have to remember that the most important factor in the development of Italian art was the heritage of classical antiquity: the tendency to use classical art as a model was a norm of civilized behavior.

Italian Gothic Architecture

In the 13th century, two other factors began to operate, and the combination of these with the classical tradition gave birth to the Italian Gothic:

• Expansion of the new Religious Orders founded at the beginning of the 13th century: the Francescani and Domenicani. Due to their popularity, soon, many new churches were needed, a new kind of church able to host many people who would have to hear the preacher.
• When these churches started to be built it was the moment of the greatest flowering of Gothic architecture in France. Modern architecture in the 13th century meant French Gothic architecture. Direct influence of this can be seen in the Milan Cathedral.

Italian Gothic = classical tradition + need for new churches + French Gothic.

BUT this came into collision with the Romanesque Italian style, especially because in the 13th and 14th centuries, buildings such as the church of San Miniato were believed to be much older than what they actually were and so they were preferred to be used as models than the French Gothic buildings.

1090, church of San Miniato, façade – it reminds of ancient architecture, it has a great coloristic effect given by the contrast between the white and dark greenish marble used to emphasize the architectural members, which is typical of Romanesque architecture.

An example of the style which arose from the conflict between the Gothic and the Romanesque can be seen in the church of Assisi.

1228, church of Assisi – the Upper Church has a long nave with no aisles on the sides, this space is covered by a stone vaulted roof, which weight is carried on ribs which are supported by columns. In comparison to a French Gothic building, we can say that the church of Assisi has short columns and with a wide space between them, but on the other side, this church, being a unique wide space, has an emphasis on verticality.

Another fact for the difference between French Gothic and Italian one is the climate: in central Italy, it was way hotter than in France, so it would be impractical to have those large windows typical of French Gothic. So instead of windows in the walls between the bearing columns, there are decorations and paintings.

The fundamental difference between the Italian and French Gothic is in the shape of each bay, so in the relationship between width, height, and length of the spaces covered by a single ribbed vault and bounded on plan by the bases of four supporting columns. The bays at Assisi are much squarer in form than typical French Gothic; this square bay tends to become typical of Italian Gothic.

Early 13th century, Fossanova – it follows the pattern of the church of Citeaux, Latin cross with a square-ended choir, small square chapels on the sides, and a square crossing, but with a long nave of rectangular bays (wider than long); stone vault carried by slender columns with half-columns attached to the arcade wall. The visual effect was that of accentuated verticality, especially due to the fact that the height of the clerestory is greater than the one of the arcade.

BUT the great difference is in the way the architect carried the weight. The French Gothic system was a superb work of engineering: the weight of the roof was carried partly by a vertical thrust on slender piers and partly on an outward thrust carried by rows of flying buttresses.

In Italy, nobody would have broken the simple line of the church with pinnacles, etc., and so a sober classicism was maintained, which meant that the weight of the vault must be carried by internal columns and walls. Due to this, the inside of the church was very different from the French ones.

1218, San Galgano, near Siena – is now a ruin but seems to have been designed by the same architect who worked at Casamari.

Early 13th century, Casamari – follows the pattern established by the church of Fossanova, but its importance lies in the fact that it introduced these new ideas in Tuscany, where we have the first independent church in a truly Italian style.

1246-1470 (façade), Sta. Maria Novella, built by the Dominican Order, probably designed by Dominican friars (??), Florence – we can consider it the most important church of its age for the plan and the interior. It was needed to have a big space to host a lot of people and to have good acoustics, so there was not the need to have a large choir, but soon chapels under the patronage of private families were added. So the interior is open, spacious, and horizontal in feeling; different from Fossanova or San Galgano. The openness of this church is surely better for the practical point of view of accommodating a lot of people. The church had a stone vault due to the French fashion, but also due to its better acoustic performances. Here the heights are the same, thus the line of the roof is brought visually nearer to the ground, compared to Fossanova. Other two important differences with Fossanova are the type of capitals and half-columns used, which are much nearer to classical ones, and the coloristic effect given by the black pietra serena and the white plaster, which was typical of Romanesque style. Sta. Maria Novella represents a compromise between the structural principles of French Gothic and the equilibrium and harmony of the Italian classical heritage.

An important fact which brought the increase of building activity was the Florentine Constitution of 1250, which brought to the need for new churches.

Church of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, for the Dominican order – it is almost a direct copy of Sta. Maria Novella, it is the only pure Gothic church in Rome, before the 19th century.

Problem of the attribution of Italian Gothic churches design – we are not sure about the designers of Santa Maria Novella, it is said that it was designed by two Dominican friars, but we also know that the sculptor Nicola Pisano is mentioned as the architect of SS. Trinità in Florence. This attribution may be correct, but we also know that he trained two of the major artists of his times: his son Giovanni Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio, and since we have very few information about their styles, we have to try to define them through what we know about Nicola Pisano. It seems that Giovanni Pisano designed the façade of the Cathedral of Siena and it seems he had continued his father’s style, with a stronger accent on French influence. Arnolfo, instead, appears for the first time as an architect in the 1300s working on the Florence Cathedral and as a builder of churches; but Florence Cathedral has been much altered from the 1300s and so it’s hard to recognize what has been done by him. The other two buildings attributed to him are the church of Badia and the church of Sta. Croce.

1284, altered in the 17th century, Badia church, probably by Arnolfo – has certain points in common with the SS. Trinità by Nicola Pisano.

1294-1420, church of Sta. Croce, Florence, attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio – is the main church of the Francescani, built in opposition to the Dominican Sta. Maria Novella; in Franciscan churches, there are a lot of chapels dedicated to the families which made donations. The present façade is from the 19th century. The interior is quite different from Sta. Maria Novella; the main features of Sta. Croce are the open timber roof, which is lighter and this means that the columns supporting it could be thinner, and the different relationships between the nave and the aisle bays: neither the aisle nor the nave is square, the aisle is long and the nave bays are nearly twice as wide as they are long. It seems that the Cistercian type of bay (Fossanova) has been reversed. The horizontal emphasis is very marked. This church is attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio, who also left a wooden model of it.

1294, Cathedral of Florence, plan attributed to Arnolfo, modified by Francesco Talenti - This church was intended to be as large and impressive as possible. The main rivals of the Florentine Republic, Siena and Pisa, had both large domed cathedrals, and so also the Florence cathedral was going to be domed and with a stone vault. The Florentines built a huge impressive church, which was so big that nobody succeeded in covering it with a dome, till Brunelleschi. (Arnolfo projected a dome, which may have had a drum, but that it would have never worked with a span of 140 feet.)

Talenti enlarged Arnolfo’s plan, and the whole church was modified throughout the 14th century. The plan in its present form consists of four large bays with aisles half of the width of the nave bays (similar to Sta. Croce type). The main difference with Sta. Croce is that the Cathedral had a stone vault which had to be carried by large solid piers. The cathedral then expands into an octagon of 3 sides of which there are tribunes. The interior is characterized by a great open spaciousness, by classical pilasters and a horizontal string-course which combined give an effect different from the French Gothic. This church can be seen as the culmination of the Tuscan building tradition. Moreover, the Tuscan style can be clearly seen in the outsides, both in the use of colored marbles and in the choice of an octagon-shaped dome at the crossing, clearly recalling the Baptistery of Florence.

The façade instead in from the 1876-1886, it is Neo-Gothic and by Emilio De Fabris, but it is clear from the remaining colored marbles of Arnolfo’s façade that the design does not differ too much from the original design.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)

He was trained as a Goldsmith and entered the Goldsmith’s Guild in Florence in 1404. A Goldsmith had to design and deal with expensive materials, as architecture, moreover, they were in contact with wealthy people, who can be patrons for architecture. Brunelleschi was specialized in sculpture, also large-scale sculpture, then he specialized in architecture. The most important moment that will define him as an architect is a defeat of a competition in 1401 which asked to produce a bronze panel for the door of the Baptistery of Florence, won by Ghiberti. After this, Brunelleschi quit for a while with sculpture and went to Rome with Donatello (most important sculptor of Florence at that time) to study Roman ruins and architecture. This travel is very important because there he studied the constructional principles of the Roman ruins, which will help him to find the way to cover the Cathedral.

Rome in the 15th century was a small city (the forum was fully outside the city). Brunelleschi went back to Florence with a huge knowledge (he discovered Romans’ building techniques): this passage through Rome defines the beginning of Renaissance.

“Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori”, Giorgio Vasari, 1550: it invents and defines the idea of the architect of the Renaissance as we have it.

“Vita di Brunelleschi”, Giorgio Vasari: it gives a definition of the Roman architecture as a model.

Brunelleschi is usually said to be the father of the Renaissance style in architecture since he was the first to adapt the systems of classical architecture to modern architecture.

Brunelleschi's work on the Florence Cathedral

Cathedral of Florence, 1040, first consultation - the octagonal drum of the Florence Cathedral, ready by 1412, had a diameter of nearly 140 feet and 180 feet over the ground. It was impossible to build a wooden framework strong enough to support the dome. After the travel in Rome, Brunelleschi found a solution and by 1417 a wooden model had already been made.

1420 Brunelleschi and Ghiberti were both appointed as supervisors for the construction of the dome, which by 1436 was over. When construction began there were two main problems: (1) centering of the traditional types were not possible, (2) the drum was already existing and it didn’t have external abutments, so that the weight must exert the absolute minimum of side thrust. This should be provided with flying buttresses, but in Florence this solution was not visually accepted. This is the structural reason why a pointed dome was adopted. So the solution to cover this space was to use a pointed dome supported on ribs with the lightest possible infilling between them. The skeleton: there are 8 major ribs springing from the edges of the octagon and 16 minor ribs set in pairs between the major ones; then there are horizontal arches which tie the major and minor ribs together and absorb the side trust. Moreover, this is the first double-shell dome, which is a great device to considerably reduce the weight.

The major change of Brunelleschi was to change the brick with stone in the upper parts, because it was lighter. He produced a series of new mechanical devices and probably he also arranged a canteen at the level where men were working in order to not waste time going down.

The solution to the problem of centering (1) was to build the dome in horizontal courses, each of which was bounded to its predecessor in such a way to carry only its own weight and was strong enough to support the work of the next till the ring was closed. A certain herring-bone pattern has been observed also in the masonry courses; this is probably something that Brunelleschi took from the Roman ruins.

The lantern in order to respond to the structural problems had to be relatively heavy, reason for its size. Lantern of Florence Cathedral by Michelozzo, friend of Brunelleschi - He followed Brunelleschi’s ideas: the ribs were linked to a kind of flying buttress which supports the core of the lantern and links the ribs to the octagonal turret. The appearance is classical.

As a final decorative touch Brunelleschi built an exedrae at the base of the drum between 1439-1445 which reflect his change in style of architecture.