Hist12797 Architectural History The Story of Architecture

1. Hist12797 Architectural History The Story of Architecture Chapters 13 & 14 Renaissance in Italy and Europe

2. Background • Changes in the 14th and 15th centuries: • Hereditary nobles replaced by merchant princes whose commercial empires spread throughout Europe • Trade, and banking, played a central role in society • Gunpowder: changed the relations between nations • Invention of compass + new shipbuilding methods allowed for the expansion of the known world • Movable type in printing helped spread ideas

3. Why Renaissance Architecture? • Human history was realized, not as a divinely ordained continuum, but as successive overlapping periods • Architectural styles were reaching a stage where they could no longer yield anything new.

4. Renaissance Architecture • Architects and Patrons desired a new architecture, not based on the traditions of the church but expressing perceived mathematical clarity and the rationality of the divine order of the universe • Harmonic ratios could be the same as physical ratios = a rule on which to base proportions; buildings could _ reflect the fundamental laws of nature

5. Renaissance Architects . . . endeavored to create new rational forms based on what they understood of the Classical architecture of ancient Rome through the discovery of “De Architectura” , the one surviving treatise by the Roman architect Vitruvius. New confidence in their intellectual capacity

6. Humanist Architecture • An architecture rooted in the human intellect to provide human needs • The artist (architect) as a humanist scholar and philosopher in paint and stone, not simply an artisan or a craftsman • A “rebirth” of Classical solidity of form and human expression. The Italian rinascinta translates into French as renaissance

7. Brunelleschi’s Dome, Florence Donated by the Medici Family An organized pile of 4 million bricks

8. Florence Cathedral 8-panelled dome built in 2 layers

9. Florence Cathedral Masonry ribs tied together at strategic points. Cupola on top acting as a weight.

10. Florence Cathedral No centering to hold up the dome, just scaffolding for the workmen

11. BrunellesciFoundling Hospital, Florence

12. Foundling Hospital, Florence .... simple, serene with graceful arcades of round-headed arches above slim Corinthian columns, plain rectangular windows with simple triangular pediments ... Another inaugural building of the Renaissance

13. Federigo da Montefeltro Duke of Urbino • He was a distinguished soldier, but really a man of principle, gentleness and humanity. A patron of the arts. • His palace/castle contained state-rooms and courtyards – one based on the Foundling Hospital, and a vast library

14. Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel • Revolutionary shape: a square covered by a dome. The dimensions were all the same. • A precise treatment of wall surfaces with decorative bands in a darker tone indicating proportions. • The building seemed complete from every direction.

15. Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel Interior looking down Front entrance

16. Church of San Lorenzo, Florence by Brunelleschi Basilican plan, same exact dimensions and treatment

17. Church of Santo Spirito, Florence by Brunelleschi Basilican plan

18. Leon Battista Alberti • Book: “On Architecture” 1485 • Basic shapes – square, cube, circle, sphere • Work out ideal proportions of these figures by doubling and halving • Beauty is the rational integration of the proportions of all the parts where nothing could be added or taken away without destroying the harmony of the whole.

19. di Giorgio Renaissance 1Leonardo da Vinci, Ideal Vitruvian ManProtogoras ‘ man is the measure of all things’

20. AlbertiSanta Maria Novella, Florence

21. Santa Maria Novella, Facade Detail • Linking the nave with the lower aisles by adding huge scrolls; strictly proportioned. • Became part of the vocabulary of later architects.

22. AlbertiSant’ Andrea, Mantua • A Roman triumphal arch in ABA motif.

23. Sant’ Andrea, Mantua

24. Sant’ Andrea, Mantua

25. AlbertiPalazzo Rucellai, Florence, 1452 • Different orders on different floors as on the Colosseum. • Huge, jutting cornice hides the roof and gives a concentrated boxy outline.

26. Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, 1452 Forbidding, prison-like exterior of palace. Inside courtyard a scenario for gracious, hospitable and elegant living for very rich people Palazzo Farnese, Rome (interior)

27. Architectural Elements of a typical Renaissance Palace Palazzo Venezia, Rome (Alberti)

28. Palazzo Medici 1444-60

29. Palazzo Farnese, Florence 1515-59

30. Italian Statesduring theRenaissance

31. Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome • Bramante followed Alberti’s prescription for classicism modeled on the ancient Roman temple of Vesta • A drum encircled by a Doric colonnade with a cut-out balustrade on the upper storey.

32. Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, • Possibly architecture’s finest gem: all the charm, elegance and delicacy of an ideal building. • Proportions in such harmony that nothing could be added or subtracted, yet the original concept was immensely flexible. • It has been successfully copied throughout the world. p183

33. Bramante design for St. Peter’s • The building which symbolizes all the spiritual pomp and worldly power of Renaissance Rome

34. St. Peter’s Rome, Plans Bramante Sangallo

35. St. Peter’s Rome Maerten van Heemskerck sketches

36. St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome

37. St. Peter’s Basilica, Nave

38. St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome

39. Michelangelo, Laurentian Library, San Lorenzo, Florence 1558-71 • Emphasized perspective by lines in moulding and decoration to create a room like a tunnel. It has a light-filled, calm atmosphere essential to a reading room (model for many university libraries since) Design Task: to design a library in a long wing with access from a vestibule on the lower level

40. Michelangelo, Medici Chapel Stair to Library of San Lorenzo San Lorenzo by Alberti Library The Anteroom has a triple staircase with pillars halfway up the wall supporting nothing

41. Michelangelo, Laurentian Library, San Lorenzo, Florence 1558-71

42. Michelangelo, Medici Chapel to San Lorenzo, Florence 1520-26

43. Michelangelo, Capitoline Hill Piazza del Campidoglio 1536 • Creation of giant orders: columns running up through two or more storeys or the entire height of a façade

44. Piazza del Campidoglio

45. Giulo RomanoPalazzo del Te, Mantua • Mannerist in-joke in a classical detail: dropping a few wedge-shaped stones below the architrave

46. Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome by Baldessare Peruzzi1532 • Mannerist: curved façade, broken in the middle by an irregular portico. The upper rows of windows are horizontally rectangular holes cut out of the façade and framed as if in stone picture frames with the lower row having scrolled curves like sheets of parchment.

47. Giacomo da Vignola Façade of the Gesu built by della Porta 1573-77 • It became the model for many later churches as part of the Catholic Church’s Counter-Reformation

48. Andrea Palladioa precise and exact classicist • His architectural treatise had an enormous influence. • “... as if he distilled the essence of classicism from Vitruvian rules” • His buildings are secular rather than religious; and exhibit two of the most prized qualities of Renaissance architecture: exactitude and centralized plans

49. Andrea Palladio, Villa Capra (Rotonda), Vicenza 1550 • Central circular room covered by a dome set within a raised square, with even steps on all four sides; ... not particularly comfortable to live in

50. Andrea Palladio, Villa Capra (Villa Rotonda), Italy 1550 Beauty and dignity of its exterior; commanding view of the countryside ... not particularly comfortable to live in ...