Home	Filippo Brunelleschi: The Life of Filippo Brunelleschi, Sculptor and Architect [1377-1446]
	BRUNELLESCHI, FILIPPO, also Brunellesco ( 13771446), the Florentine architect of the Italian Early Renaissance, built the 298-ft-high dome of Florence Cathedral as well as the famous domed sacristy of S. Lorenzo and the Capella Pazzi. His two pillared basilicas -- S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito -- are distinguished by the harmony of their proportions. Brunelleschi's greatest achievement in civic architecture is the Foundling Hospital with its famous entrance hall ( 1421), and the familiar medallions of foundlings. His discovery of central perspective was of great importance for Renaissance painting. Gothic architecture in Italy did not undergo the same development as in Northern France, Germany or England. The vision of the virtually untrammelled use of space that found its expression in the heavenward-rising forms of the cathedrals, was not shared in the South. Here, the aim was always -- balance. Most of Italy's Gothic buildings contain a horizontal element to curb the dynamic upward movement. The tradition of Antiquity is still clearly visible. The memory of a classic past -- fully awakened during the Renaissance -- eventually led to violent rejection of the Gothic. 'Cursed the man who invented this miserable Gothic architecture', wrote the sculptor and architect Filarete. Yet Gothic methods continued to be used for the time being. Brunelleschi had to use Gothic techniques of construction for the rib vaulting of the cupola of the cathedral in Florence. But the new style of the Quattrocento was inspired by the numerous buildings of Antiquity and of early Christianity, and it was considered the highest praise to say of a building that it was in no way inferior to those of Classical Antiquity. The works of Greece and Rome were not studied for the purpose of copying, as they had been to some extent during the Classic Revival, but because there was a desire to create new buildings in the spirit of the past and to do even better than the Greeks and Romans. Bramante, one of the greatest architects of the Renaissance, wanted to 'place the cupola of the Pantheon on top of the Basilica of Constantine to surpass two buildings, already perfect in themselves, through a synthesis of both.' This interest in the architecture of the past is also reflected in an extensive literature. The writings of the Roman architect Vitruvius were found in the abbey of Monte Cassino in 1415. They inspired a flood of books based on the principles of the Ancients in which the rules of architecture were expounded. The first of these works was Leone Battista Alberti Ten Books of Architecture (1485). All these treatises exerted great influence throughout Europe. Vasari said of Filippo Brunelleschi, the father of the new architecture, that he had only been motivated by two thoughts; the first was to recall the good architecture of the Ancients to new life; the second, to vault the dome of the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral). Harmonious proportions are a characteristic feature of the new architecture (see Brunelleschi's basilica of San Lorenzo -- begun in 1421 -- and his Capella Pazzi, built on the principle of the 'Golden Section'). The plan is now based on the square and the rectangle. The façades and inner walls are divided by the architectural elements of Antiquity and Early Christian art, such as piers, arches, pilasters, semicircular mouldings and cornices. The emphasis is again on horizontal lines in contrast to the Gothic. The beauty of such buildings is based on the carefully balanced relationship of all components, as the Italian Renaissance architects demanded. Brunelleschi's great follower Alberti coined for this the term concinnitas. This means a harmonious balance that can be calculated mathematically. 'Beauty is manifest law.' The ideal of the Renaissance is the vaulted central building of the type known in the Mediterranean since Antiquity. Brunelleschi already used it in his Capella Pazzi and other architects, like Giuliano da Sangallo in his church of Santa Maria della Carceri -- built on the plan of a Greek cross, -- developed it further. This motif appears at its purest and most beautiful in Bramante's Tempietto in the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome (built between 1500 and 1502). This architectural jewel owes its harmony to the most perfect geometric form, the circle. Carried by sixteen granite pillars resting on a circular platform, the light and elegant parapet of the gallery winds round the drum, which is closed by the hemisphere of the dome. The concept of a central building is contrary to the needs of the church, since nave and altar should be separated. We therefore find the basilica continued throughout history. Central structures are comparatively rare. But there was always a desire to unite both principles. Alberti tried to do it in his church of San Andrea in Mantua, when he added a nave to a central composition. San Andrea is the prototype of the late Renaissance church. Vignola's Il Gesù -- the church of the Jesuits in Rome -- was built between 1568 and 1575. Its architect created it as one vast hall the whole of which one could take in when seen from the entrance. The windows are so placed as to emphasise the region round the altar. While the nave remains dark, the light floods into the large dome and draws the eye and thoughts of the visitor to the altar below. Il Gesù influenced the form of Baroque churches everywhere. Its design was developed by architects north of the Alps soon afterwards. The church of St Michael in Munich -- the work of the Dutchman Sustris, who had studied in Italy -- has a very similar ground-plan to that of Il Gesù, althought the absence of a dome and the uniform barrelvaulting emphasise the longitudinal axis. St Michael's was begun in 1583.