Saturday, January 27, 2018

Tara on Italian Renaissance Architecture: Brunelleschi e Bramante


Italian Renaissance Architecture: Filippo Brunelleschi and Donato Bramante (Tara Olivero)

Classical Roman architecture was the inspiration for much Italian architecture during the Renaissance. In the middle ages, Roman styles had given way to more Germanic designs, and later, a Gothic style of architecture that focused on lightness of construction, exemplified in popular design elements such as pointed arches and flying buttresses. However, people in the Renaissance - and especially in Italy - believed that during the middle ages the quality of the arts and humanities had declined. Their goal was to restore the arts to their previous level of excellence by imitating and even emulating the work of earlier architects, artists, and writers.

Architects of the time also trained as humanists because their goal was to design buildings that would appeal to both reason and emotion. They focused on incorporating specific mathematical proportions as well as measurements that harmonized with the human scale, based on the work of Vitruvius. These ideals allowed Renaissance architecture to be simpler and clearer in terms of design than the more complex Gothic style.

Filippo Brunelleschi

The Renaissance style of architecture is agreed to have begun in Florence, Italy, with the work of Filippo Brunelleschi, born in 1377. Although he was trained as a goldsmith, his interest in architecture led him to study the ancient structures of Rome. As a result, he was the first architect since ancient times to use Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders in “a consistent and appropriate manner,” according to The Met. It is worth noting that these orders are originally Greek, though Brunelleschi assumed that they were of Roman origin. Regardless, these classical orders significantly impacted Brunelleschi’s architectural style.

Brunelleschi’s structures were dependent on their system of proportion. Whatever unit of measurement he chose would be repeated throughout the entire design of the building in order to generate and underlying sense of harmony. Arguably, his greatest accomplishment was engineering the dome of the Florence Cathedral, also known as the Duomo of the Santa Maria del Fiore, which was to be the largest dome in the world at the time of its design and construction. The cathedral itself was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, who died in 1302, and was mostly constructed by 1367, though the dome had not been built except for the frame of the base.

The Duomo offered particularly heightened architectural challenges. The dome atop the cathedral would need to be 150 feet wide and 180 feet above the ground, a feat which no one had attempted to engineer before. It would be possible to achieve if they used Gothic elements such as flying buttresses, but as their rival neighboring city Milan had used Gothic style in its own architecture, they refused. The Opera del Duomo offered a public competition in 1418 for submissions for the construction of the dome, with a grand prize of 200 gold florins for the best design. Filippo Brunelleschi won the competition, with his rival Lorenzo Ghiberti appointed as a co-superintendent.

Brunelleschi’s design, based on the golden proportions (a 1:1.61 ratio), was special because it allowed for a tall, open space in the octagonal dome rather than filling it with structural scaffolding. This was done by using two shells for the dome with space between: one inner shell made of lightweight materials intended to provide the support for the structure, and an outer shell that would be made of heavier, more weather-resistant materials. The support of the dome was a system of ring and ribs constructed from oak timbers, on which the bricks sat. One major building concern was the fear that the bricks used for the domes would fall down during construction. Brunelleschi solved this problem by creating a herringbone pattern with the bricks, which directed the weight of the bricks along the curve and outwards towards the dome’s wooden supports instead of driving the weight straight down to the ground. Brunelleschi also invented a hoist system powered by a yoke of oxen in order to use pulleys and a series of counterweights to lift loads of these heavy brick materials to the necessary height.

Construction began on the dome in August 1420, the cathedral was officially consecrated by Pope Eugene IV in 1436, and the dome was mostly completed by Brunelleschi’s death in 1446. The Duomo is significant in relation to Renaissance architecture because it was a seemingly impossible feat made possible by rational, mathematical, and harmonious design.

Donato Bramante

Donato Bramante was born later than Brunelleschi, in 1444, but he, too, focused on the beauty and the gravity of the architecture from Ancient Rome. He trained as a painter and is known to have painted frescoes at the Palazzo del Podesta, in Bergamo, before he became interested in architecture in Milan under the service of Ludovico Sforza in 1479, where he worked alongside Leonardo da Vinci. Some of Bramante’s architectural designs include Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan and the cloisters of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. Later in life, one of his patrons was Pope Julius II, who commissioned him to help plan the Vatican and Basilica of San Pietro.

One of Bramante’s most famous architectural structures was the Tempietto (Italian for “small temple”) he designed for the cloister of San Pietro in Montorio, in Rome, around 1502. It was a “martyrium” commissioned by Cardinal Carvajal (on behalf of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain) in order to commemorate the spot of St. Peter’s martyrdom and serves as a commemorative tomb rather than a traditional Catholic space of gathering or prayer, as it is less than fifteen feet in diameter.

It is built as a perfect circle, considered the most ideal of the architectural forms, in order to honor St. Peter. The structure’s ratios are all 1:1 or 1:2, paralleling the Renaissance belief in perfect proportions, and the symmetry of the structure, which has no real “front,” embodies the Renaissance preoccupation with centralized configurations. The Tempietto is domed and surrounded by sixteen Tuscan columns with Doric designs. Vitruvius recommended Doric columns as appropriate for heroic and masculine deities, and therefore Bramante’s simplicity and masculinity of design was meant to evoke St. Peter’s character. The circular composition is also emblematic of antique Roman temples; Bramante uses architecture to appropriate Pagan designs for Christian purposes. Sombre and beautiful, the Tempietto is considered the first great building of the High Renaissance architectural period.


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