F I L I P P O     B R U N E L L E S C H I

(1377-1446)

Fillipo Brunelleschi was a sculptor and architect from Florence.  He was one of the most famous of all architects.  Considered to be a hero of Florence because of a dome he built for the city’s cathedral between the years 1420 and 1436.  Brunelleschi was also one of the groups of artists including Alberti, Donatello and Masaccio responsible for creating the Renaissance style.

            Brunelleschi trained as a goldsmith and was one the artists who lost to another great goldsmith/sculptor by the name of Lorenzo Ghiberti in a competition (during the years 1401-1402) for the new Baptistery Doors for the Florence Cathedral.  It is believed that the disappointment of losing to Ghiberti caused Brunelleschi to give up sculpture and turn to architecture.

            In 1418 Brunelleschi was paid to design the dome of the unfinished Gothic Cathedral of Florence.  The dome was both artistically and technically a great breakthrough.  It consists of two octagonal vaults, one inside the other.  The way in which he designed the shape of the dome depended entirely on its functional needs as a piece of architecture.  Brunelleschi made a design feature of the necessary eight ribs of the vault, carrying them over to the exterior of the dome, where they provide the framework for the dome’s decorative elements, which also include architectural reliefs, circular windows, and a beautifully proportioned cupola.  This was the first time that a dome created the same strong effect on the exterior as it did on the interior.

            In other buildings, such as the Medici Church of Lorenzo (1418-28) and a hospital called the Ospedale degli Innocenti (1421-55), Brunelleschi came up with a geometric style inspired by the art of ancient Rome.  This was completely different from the emotional and elaborate Gothic style that dominated during this time.  Brunelleshci’s newly devised style stressed a strict mathematical approach with its use of straight lines, flat planes, and cubic spaces.  This newly labeled “wall architecture”, with its flat facades (façade – face or front of a building), set the tone for many of the later buildings of the Florentine Renaissance.

            Later in his career Brunelleschi moved away from his strict linear, geometric style and developed a more sculptural, rhythmic style.  In his unfinished Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (begun 1434), for example, the interior was formed not by flat walls, but by massive niches opening from central octagon.  This expressive style was the first step toward an architecture that let eventually to the baroque.

            Even though Brunelleschi was not a painter, he was a pioneer in perspective.  He was the first to carry out experiments leading to a mathematical theory of perspective.  He devised a method for representing objects in depth on a flat surface (giving the illusion of three-dimensionality) by means of using a single vanishing point (this is referred to as single or one-point perspective). His use of geometric principles in creating this method greatly influenced many important artists of the time such as Massacio and Donatello.

            His ideas continued to be developed and used by artists throughout the Renaissance.  In fact Leonardo da Vinci’s Study for Adoration of the Magi clearly uses Brunellschi’s method of single point perspective to great effect..