» FS, “Jan. 5, 1872.
THE BUILDING NEWS. 3
CRITICAL NOTICES ON CERTAIN OF
THE GREAT ITALIAN ARCHITECTS
OF THE FIFTEENTH AND SIX-
TEENTH CENTURIES.
FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI : BORN 1377, prep 1446.
N the present age of transition, when man-
kind is painfully engaged in casting off
the skin of an old form of life and an old
world of thought, it is well to call to mind
the point at which he has arrived, and the
nature of the phases through which he has
passed, and, stationed above the dust raised
by antagonistic schools, to observe and pro-
claim the merits of those men who, in the
onward course of the world, have made us,
in a great measure, what we now are, and to
whom a debt of gratitude is surely due.
After the fall of the old Roman empire,
Europe passed through what has justly been
called the Dark Ages; to these succeeded
the Middle, or semi-opaque ages; with the
invention of printing, the rise of the Reforma-
tion, and the discovery of a new world, came
a new age, a resurrection, a rendissance, a
new birth. That is the age of the dawn, and
we are now, though still affected by the dark-
ness of old, arrived into the age of light,
where now we wander astonished and con-
fused with its excess of splendour, and at
times almost doubtful of its glorious exist-
ence.
Amongst the causes which have made us
what we are, we are too apt to overlook and
forget that great revival of the literature and
art of the antique, pre-Christian world, which
gave so marked an impulse to all esthetic pro-
gress in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the great actors
in this movement, which too many are apt to
repudiate, and which few acknowledge or
appreciate as they ought.
It is not our province to descant on the
literature of the Renaissance period, nor on
the arts of painting and sculpture, which
from this cause experienced so great and re-
markable a change that, as Vasari says:
Brunelleschi may be regarded as “ having
been given to us by Heaven for the purpose
of imparting a new spirit to architecture.”
The same remark applies also to the guiding
spirits in painting as in literature of the time,
who completely revolutionised their character.
We, however, must limit our remarks to
architecture, and to that most remarkable
group of men, men. of genius, if any ever
deserved the title, who raised architecture as
a science and an art in Italy, and of whom
Italy may justly be proud, as having formed
a new style which has been accepted and
admired throughout the whole world, and
which must justly be called ‘The Italian,”
however modified in the various countries
where it was introduced.
Foremost amongst these artists, whether as
regards the period in which he lived or the
influence he exercised, stands Filippo Bru-
nelleschi. It is not one of the least glories
of Italy to have produced so great a genius,
whose name will be revered so long as art it-
self shall last. Brunelleschi, born at Florence,
of a good family of Ferrarese extraction, in
the year 1377, was placed in the Guild of
Goldsmiths at an early age, where he learnt
the practice of numerous branches of art, at
that time part of a goldsmith’s education ;
amongst them he particularly distinguished
himself in sculpture, and became the attached
friend and loving rival of Donatello. Early
in the beginning of the fifteenth century they
both determined on a sojourn at Rome for
the purpose of studying the antique. Dona-
tello shortly returned, but Brunelleschi re-
mained there alone, making detailed studies
of all the ancient remains. In the year 1407,
being then thirty years of age, he returned
to Florence, and offered himself as a candi-
date for the erection of the dome of S. M.
de Fiori among ‘the assemblage of architects
and engineers” brought together by the
Municipality to confer on the completion of
Arnolfo’s work. Brunelleschi himself pre-
pared a model of his design, aided by Dona-
tello and Nanni d’ Antonio Banco. ‘This
was the commencement of a series of vexa-
tious events, which more or less troubled the
great architect till the year 1417, when he
again left Florence for Rome in disgust. In
1420, at the entreaty of the Municipality, he
again returned to propound and defend his
plan in competition with the most famous
artists of all countries, invited to Florence at
Brunelleschi’s own request, and after an in-
conceivable amount of distrust and opposition,
received the order to proceed with his design,
but burdened with the addition of Ghiberti
as a coadjutor, of whom, however, he in no
long time managed to free himself. From
this time the building of this noble structure
went on pretty regularly, but certainly
slowly, since it was not finished at Brunel-
leschi’s death in 1446. Every student of archi-
tecture should be conversant with the life of
Brunelleschi ; and the history of the raising
of this dome alone, as given by Vasari, and
which is, no doubt, substantially correct, is
the history of the triumph of resolution,
acuteness, daring, and perseverance over the
most trying difficulties. The carrying out of
Brunelleschi’s design exhibits, besides this
intellectual energy and worldly acuteness, an
example of the highest genius, scientific and
artistic, and is a monument of the noblest
constructive art. It is to this great work, at
that time and to this day unrivalled in con-
struction and effect, as well as to the syste-
matic adaptation of ancient Roman architec-
ture to the requirements of his time, that
Brunelleschi owes his well-merited fame. If
we may trust Vasari, he had already com-
menced this latter system before his visit to
Rome in 1407, for he states that Brunelleschi,
among other buildings designed by him be-
fore his competition for the bronze doors of
the Baptistry in 1401, had, at the Palace of
the Signoria, “ constructed the windows
and doors after the manner of the
ancients — a thing not then very fre-
quently done.” Between the first year
of the fifteenth century and the time
of his death in 1446, Brumelleschi, accord-
ing to Vasari, was engaged on upwards of
twenty works, ecclesiastical, civil, and mili-
tary, of which the most important are the
churches of Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo,
at Florence, neither of which, unfortunately,
were completed at the time of his death.
From them, however, we may fairly judge
of the style which he founded on the antique.
Its character expresses simplicity of mass,
breadth of space, and lightness of form.
Externally the walls are deyoid of columns
or buttresses, the windows are long, single
lights, semicircular headed, with simple con-
tinuous archivolts, and the doors of the usual
antique design, with superimposed ornamental
tympanum. Internally the most striking
feature is the employment of the round arch
springing from an entablature raised upon a
single column, light and graceful, but some-
what stilted in effect.
Mouldings, wherever used, are carefully
studied and sparingly applied, nor, so far as
we remember, are they ever ornamented, or
if so, but slightly, and seldom. The order
adopted in both cases by Brunelleschi was |
the Corinthian, a modification of which he
used in most of his works, in which good
proportions and good taste are the main
characteristics.
Other honours still remain to be attributed
to this remarkable genius, and he may be said
to have adapted the old palatial style of Italy
to his revived system of art, of which the
Pitti Palace is a grandexample. It was com-
menced from Brunelleschi’s designs about
the year 1435, and carried up to the second
story, when its progress was forcibly put_a
stop to by the populace, who were infuriated
against its owner, Luca Pitti, for the part he
took against the Medici. It is a grand and
imposing mass of building, characteristic of
the semi-fortified nature of a Florentine house
in times when violent revolt was common.
Although the first introduction of Classic
forms in private buildings has been often
attributed to Baccio d’Agnolo, on account of
Vasari’s remarks to that effect, yet that is the
result of carelessness. The novelty Wasavi
speaks of related to other novel points in de-
sign; and although the date of the Riccardi
palace designed by Michelozzo about the year
1430 is of prior date to the Pitti, yet as the
introduction of the new style of revived
architecture is incontestibly due to Brunel-
leschi, and as Michelozzo was his pupil, we
may fairly infer that the master was also in
this case the originator of a style, though he
may not have been the first to put it into
practice. Vasari also states that it was
Filippo who revived the use of the antique
cornices, clearly alluding, we think, to domestic
architecture, and Schorn distinctly calls him
the founder of the Florentine manner of
domestic architecture.. The style itself is
simple, grand, and effective, and bears the
stamp of its authorship upon it.
In carrying out his various designs no-
thing can be more praiseworthy than the
constant and minute personal attention which
Brunelleschi gave to them; he made models
of everything, frequently with his own hands;
he devised and superintended the construc-
tion of the scaffolding ; he testedevery mate-
rial by experiment ; he is stated even to have
selected the bricks used for the dome at the
furnace, and set them apart with his own
hands. We are disposed to credit it, for they
are the finest bricks we ever met with; much
larger in size than our own, and of the most
admirable texture and colour,
To Brunelleschi also is due, according to
Vasari, and there is no reason to doubt his
assertion, the invention of isometric per-
spective. He says that Brunelleschi studied
the science of perspective, and ‘‘at length
he discovered a perfectly correct method,
that of taking the ground plan and sections
by means of intersecting lines, a truly in-
genious thing.” He appears to have greatly
improved the art of ‘arsia, or wood inlay.
In sculpture he was at one time only sur-
passed by Donatello Ghiberti; but this art,
as well as others in which he was practically
well versed, he gave up to devote himself to
the study and practice of architecture, in
which he remains personally an example to all
students for industry and perseverance, and his
worksremain monuments of genius, good taste,
and unrivalled constructive power. He died
full of honours and at a fairold age in 1446,
and was buried with ‘‘ themost solemn obse-
quies within that temple which after so many
trials he rendered the noblest dome of religion
in the world, leaving to the world the
memory of his excellence and of his extra-
ordinary talents.” Brunelleschi left several
pupils, first among whom as his adopted son
and heir is to be named Andrea di Lazzaro
Cavalcanti, of Borgo a Buggiano, who
appears to have been rather a sculptor than
architect, though he constantly assisted Bru-
nelleschi. Gaye attributes the Oratory of
SS. Pietro e Paolo at Pescia to him. The
others were Domenico del Lago de Lugano ;
Geremia da Cremona, of whom we know
nothing ; Francesco della Luna, who appears
to have been also employed at the Cathedral
of Siena; a Sclavonian, who appears to be
identified by the Florentine commentators on
Vasari as Luciano Martini da Lauranna in
Illyria, architect of the fine ducal palace
erected at Urbino by Federigo di Montifeltro
in the second half of the fifteenth century :
Simone, who may have been a brother of
Donatello; Antonio di Cristofero, and
Niccolo di Gia. Baroncelli, both much em-
ployed as sculptors at Ferrara. Indeed, with
the exception of Della Luna and Lauranna.
they all appear to have practised as sculptors
rather than architects; but in their time the
two arts were often combined.
The following is a list of Brunelleschi’s
works, either designed by him or on which he
was engaged, arranged as nearly as possible
in order of time, commencing about the yea
