Renaissance Architecture in Italy

Italian Renaissance architects based their theories and practices on Classical

Roman examples. The Renaissance revival of Classical Rome was as
important in architecture as it was in literature. A pilgrimage to Rome to
study the ancient buildings and ruins, especially the Colosseum and
Pantheon, was considered essential to an architect's training. Classical
orders and architectural elements such as columns, pilasters, pediments,
entablatures, arches, and domes form the vocabulary of Renaissance
buildings. As in the Classical world, Renaissance architecture is characterized
by harmonious form, mathematical proportion, and a unit of measurement
based on the human scale.

During the Renaissance, architects trained as humanists helped raise the status of
their profession from skilled laborer to artist. They hoped to create structures that
would appeal to both emotion and reason. Three key figures in Renaissance
architecture were Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, and Andrea Palladio.

Brunelleschi

• Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) is widely considered the first Renaissance

architect.

• Among his greatest accomplishments is the engineering of the dome of

Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo).

• He was also the first since antiquity to use the classical orders Doric, Ionic,
and Corinthian in a consistent and appropriate manner.

• Although Brunelleschi's structures may appear simple, they rest on an

underlying system of proportion.

• Brunelleschi often began with a unit of measurement whose repetition

throughout the building created a sense of harmony, as in the Ospedale degli
Innocenti (Florence, 1419). This building is based on a modular cube, which
determines the height of and distance between the columns, and the depth
of each bay.
Alberti

• Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) worked as an architect from the 1450s

onward, principally in Florence, Rimini, and Mantua.

• As a trained humanist and true Renaissance man, Alberti was as

accomplished as an architect as he was a humanist, musician, and art
theorist. Alberti's many treatises on art include Della Pittura (On Painting), De
Sculptura (On Sculpture), and De re Aedificatoria (On Architecture).

• Alberti aspired to recreate the glory of ancient times through architecture.

His facades of the Tempio Malatestiano (Rimini, 1450) and the Church of
Santa Maria Novella (Florence, 1470) are based on Roman temple fronts. His
deep understanding of the principles of classical architecture are also seen in
the Church of Sant'Andrea (Mantua, 1470). The columns here are not used
decoratively, but retain their classical function as load-bearing supports.

• For Alberti, architecture was not merely a means of constructing buildings; it

was a way to create meaning.

Palladio

• Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) was the chief architect of the Venetian Republic,
writing an influential treatise, I quattro libri dell'architettura (Four Books on
Architecture,1570; 41.100.126.19). Due to the new demand for villas in the
sixteenth century, Palladio specialized in domestic architecture, although he
also designed two beautiful and impressive churches in Venice, San Giorgio
Maggiore (1565) and Il Redentore (1576). Palladio's villas are often centrally
planned, drawing on Roman models of country villas. The Villa Emo (Treviso,
1559) was a working estate, while the Villa Rotonda (Vicenza, 1566–70) was
an aristocratic refuge. Both plans rely on classical ideals of symmetry,
axiality, and clarity. The simplicity of Palladian designs allowed them to be
easily reproduced in rural England and, later, on southern plantations in the
American colonies.