c

c
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. Vitruvius's
writings on architecture also influenced the Renaissance definition of beauty in architecture. As in the
Classical world, Renaissance architecture is characterized by harmonious form, mathematical proportion, and
a unit of measurement based on the human scale.

The humanist and secularist beliefs of religion, individuality, and antiquity were evident in the style and
illustration of Italian paintings and sculptures in the High Renaissance era. Historically, religion is the
defining factor of nearly all paintings in modern and medieval European history. The Last Supper by
Leonardo, The School of Athens by Raphael, Michelangelo's huge sculpture of the ancient Hebrew king David,
Giotto's paintings of the Virgin Mary and Saint Francis of Assisi, and Masaccio's The Holy Trinity serve as an
infinitesimally small sample of the vast selection of religiously inspired paintings, frescos, sculptures, and
architectural endeavors created by Renaissance artists.
The School of Athens by Raphael is an artistic representation of the beliefs and interpretations of the
Renaissance humanist philosophers such as Petrarch and Drusus. Great classical mathematicians such as
Pythagoras stand under the statue of the Greek goddess of reason, Athena, while intellectuals such as Socrates
teach on the right, under the statue of the Greek patron of poetry, Apollo. This fresco also illustrates the
existence of an intellectual community of painters, sculptors, and leaders such as Michelangelo and Leonardo,
who exist in the painting as Greek philosopher Heraclitus and Plato, respectively. This select group of
individuals was in fact the majority of the thinking power of the Italian Renaissance.

The "rebirth" of art in Italy was connected with the rediscovery of ancient philosophy, literature, and science
and the evolution of empirical methods of study in these fields. Increased awareness of classical knowledge
created a new resolve to learn by direct observation and study of the natural world. Consequently, secular
themes became increasingly important to artists, and with the revived interest in antiquity came a new
repertoire of subjects drawn from Greek and Roman history and mythology. The models provided by ancient
buildings and works of art also inspired the development of new artistic techniques and the desire to re-
create the forms and styles of classical art.

Central to the development of Renaissance art was the emergence of the artist as a creator, sought after and
respected for his erudition and imagination. Art, too, became valued--not merely as a vehicle for religious and
social didacticism, but even more as a mode of personal, aesthetic expression.

Although the evolution of Italian Renaissance art was a continuous process, it is traditionally divided into
three major phases: Early, High, and Late Renaissance. The last phase has been the subject in recent years of
complex interpretations that recognize many competing and contrasting trends. Some scholars date the
beginning of the Italian Renaissance from the appearance of Giotto di Bondone in the early 14th century;
others regard his prodigious achievements in naturalistic art as an isolated phenomenon. According to the
second view, the consistent development of Renaissance style began only with the generation of artists active
in Florence at the beginning of the 15th century.

2


 

The principal members of the first generation of Renaissance artists--DONATELLO in sculpture, Filippo
BRUNELLESCHI in architecture, and MASACCIO in painting--shared many important characteristics. Central
to their thinking was a faith in the theoretical foundations of art and the conviction that development and
progress were not only possible but essential to the life and significance of the arts. Ancient art was revered,
not only as an inspiring model but also as a record of trial and error that could reveal the successes of former
great artists. Intending to retrace the creative process rather than to merely imitate the final achievements of
antiquity, Early Renaissance artists sought to create art forms consistent with the appearance of the natural
world and with their experience of human personality and behavior. The challenge of accurate representation
as it concerned mass sculptural form, or the pictorial considerations of measurable space and the effects of
light and color, was addressed in the spirit of intense and methodical inquiry.

Rational inquiry was believed to be the key to success; therefore, efforts were made to discover the correct
laws of proportion for architecture and for the representation of the human body and to systematize the
rendering of pictorial space. Although these artists were keenly observant of natural phenomena, they also
tended to extrapolate general rules from specific appearances. Similarly, they made an effort to go beyond
straightforward transcription of nature, to instill the work of art with ideal, intangible qualities, endowing it
with a beauty and significance greater and more permanent than that actually found in nature. These
characteristics--the rendering of ideal forms rather than literal appearance and the concept of the physical
world as the vehicle or imperfect embodiment of monumental spiritual beauty--were to remain fundamental
to the nature and development of Italian Renaissance art.

The term Early Renaissance characterizes virtually all the art of the 15th century. Florence, the cradle of
Renaissance artistic thought, remained one of the undisputed centers of innovation. About 1450 a new
generation of artists that included such masters as Pollaiuolo (see POLLAIUOLO family) and Sandro Botticelli
came to the fore in Florence. Other Italian cities--Milan, Urbino, Ferrara, Venice, Padua, and Naples--became
powerful rivals in the spreading wave of change. Leon Battista ALBERTI's work in Rimini and Mantua
represented the most progressive architecture of the new HUMANISM; Andrea Mantegna's paintings in Padua
displayed a personal formulation of linear perspective, antiquarianism, and realistic technique; and Giovanni
Bellini's poetic classicism exemplified the growing strength of the Venetian school.

By the late 15th century the novelty of the first explosive advances of Renaissance style had given way to a
general acceptance of such basic notions as proportion, contraposto (twisted pose), and linear perspective;
consequently many artists sought means of personal expression within this relatively well-established
repertoire of style and technique. The Early Renaissance was not, as was once maintained, merely an
imperfect but necessary preparation for the perfection of High Renaissance art but a period of great intrinsic
merit. In retrospect, however, Early Renaissance painting seems to fall short of thoroughly convincing figural
representation, and its expression of human emotion is stylized rather than real. Furthermore, the strength of
individual features of a work of art is disproportionate to the whole composition.

2

 

 

The art of the High Renaissance, however, sought a general, unified effect of pictorial representation or
architectural composition, increasing the dramatic force and physical presence of a work of art and gathering
its energies and forming a controlled equilibrium. Because the essential characteristic of High Renaissance art
was its unity--a balance achieved as a matter of intuition, beyond the reach of rational knowledge or technical
skill--the High Renaissance style was destined to break up as soon as emphasis was shifted to favor any one
element in the composition.

The High Renaissance style endured for only a brief period (c.1495-1520) and was created by a few artists of
genius, among them Leonardo da Vinci, Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. Leonardo da
Vinci's unfinished Adoration of the Magi (1481; Uffizi Gallery, Florence) is regarded as a landmark of unified
pictorial composition, later realized fully in his fresco The Last Supper (1495-97; Santa Maria delle Grazie,
Milan). Leonardo is considered the paragon of Renaissance thinkers, engaged as he was in experiments of all
kinds and having brought to his art a spirit of restless inquiry that sought to discover the laws governing
diverse natural phenomena. In a different way, Michelangelo has come to typify the artist endowed with
inexplicable, solitary genius. His universal talents are exemplified by the tomb of Julius II (c.1510-15), San
Pietro in Vincoli, Rome; the Medici Chapel (1519-34), Florence; the SISTINE CHAPEL ceiling (1508-12) and
Last Judgment (1536-41), Rome; and the cupola of SAINT PETER's BASILICA (begun 1546)--works that
represent major and inimitable accomplishments in the separate fields of sculpture, painting, and
architecture. Raphael, a man of very different temperament, evoked, in paintings of Madonnas and in frescoes,
not overwhelming forces but sublime harmony and lyric, graceful beauty.

2



 

A major watershed in the development of Italian Renaissance art was the sack of Rome in 1527, which
temporarily ended the city's role as a source of patronage and compelled artists to travel to other centers in
Italy, France, and Spain. Even before the death of Raphael, in 1520, anticlassical tendencies had begun to
manifest themselves in Roman art. Some early exponents of MANNERISM, including Jacopo Carucci
PONTORMO, PARMIGIANINO, and ROSSO FIORENTINO, contributed to the development of a style that
reached its most extreme expression in the work of Giorgio VASARI and Giovanni da BOLOGNA. Mannerism
was an aesthetic movement that valued highly refined grace and elegance--the beautiful maniera, or style,
from which Mannerism takes its name. Although the fundamental characteristics of Late Renaissance style
were shared by many artists, this period, dominated by Mannerism, was marked by artistic individuality--a
quality demonstrated to its fullest extent by the late works of Michelangelo. The display of individual
virtuosity became an important criterion of artistic achievement, and rivalry often provoked competition
based on brilliance of individual performance. The self-consciousness of Mannerist artists, and their efforts to
match or surpass the great masters who had immediately preceded them, were the symptoms of a somewhat
overripe development, far removed from the fresh dawn of discovery that first gave meaning to the concept
of the Renaissance.

á
  
c

c
c

cc
c
c

c
Brunelleschi's first major architectural commission was for the enormous brick dome which covers the
central space that of Florence's cathedral, designed by Arnolfo di Cambio in the 14th century but left
unroofed. While often described as the first building of the Renaissance, Brunelleschi's daring design utilizes
the pointed Gothic arch and Gothic ribs. It seems certain, however, that while stylistically Gothic, in keeping
with the building it surmounts, the dome is in fact structurally influenced by the great dome of Ancient Rome,
which Brunelleschi could hardly have ignored in seeking a solution. This is the dome of the Pantheon, a
circular temple, now a church.

Inside the Pantheon's single-shell concrete dome is coffering which greatly decreases the weight. The vertical
partitions of the coffering effectively serve as ribs, although this feature does not dominate visually. At the
apex of the Pantheon's dome is an opening, 8 meters across. Brunelleschi was aware that a dome of enormous
proportion could in fact be engineered without a keystone. The dome in Florence is supported by the eight
large ribs and sixteen more internal ones holding a brick shell, with the bricks arranged in a herringbone
manner. Although the techniques employed are different, in practice both domes comprise a thick network of
ribs supporting very much lighter and thinner infilling. And both have a large opening at the top.

ï



The new architectural philosophy is best demonstrated in the churches of San Lorenzo, and Santo Spirito in
Florence. Designed by Brunelleschi in about 1425 and 1428 respectively, both have the shape of the Latin
cross. Each has a modular plan, each portion being a multiple of the square bay of the aisle. This same formula
controlled also the vertical dimensions. In the case of Santo Spirito, which is entirely regular in plan, transepts
and chancel are identical, while the nave is an extended version of these. In 1434 Brunelleschi designed the
first Renaissance centrally planned building, Santa Maria degli Angeli of Florence. It is composed of a central
octagon surrounded by a circuit of eight smaller chapels. From this date onwards numerous churches were
built in variations of these designs. c




c  cc cc
c

Michelozzo Michelozzi, (1396-1472), was another architect under the patronage of the Medici family, his
most famous work being the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, which he was commissioned to design for Cosimo
de'Medici in 1444. A decade later he built the Villa Medici at Fiesole. Among his other works for Cosimo are
the libraries at the Convent of San Marco, Florence. He went into exile in Venice for a time with his patron. He
was one of the first architects to work in the Renaissance style outside Italy, building a palace at Dubrovnik.
The Palazzo Medici Riccardi is Classical in the details of its pedimented windows and recessed doors, but,
unlike the works of Brunelleschi and Alberti, there are no 
  of columns in evidence. Instead, Michelozzo
has respected the Florentine liking for rusticated stone. He has seemingly created three orders out of the
three defined rusticated levels, the whole being surmounted by an enormous Roman-style cornice which juts
out over the street by 2.5 meters.

— 


Leon Battista Alberti, (1402-1472), was an important Humanist theoretician and designer whose book on
architecture ¢ 

  was to have lasting effect. An aspect of Humanism was an emphasis of the
anatomy of nature, in particular the human form, a science first studied by the Ancient Greeks. Humanism
made man the measure of things. Alberti perceived the architect as a person with great social responsibilities.

Sant'Andrea, Mantua, the façade. Photo- Frodeccccccccccccccccccccccc


c
c

He designed a number of buildings, but unlike Brunelleschi, he did not see himself as a builder in a practical
sense and so left the supervision of the work to others. Miraculously, one of his greatest designs, that of the
Church of Sant'Andrea in Mantua, was brought to completion with its character essentially intact. Not so the
church of San Francesco in Rimini, a rebuilding of a Gothic structure, which, like Sant'Andrea, was to have a
façade reminiscent of a Roman triumphal arch. This was left sadly incomplete.
 Façade of Santa Maria Novella, 1456-70.c

Two of Albertiǯs best known buildings are in Florence, the Palazzo Rucellai and at Santa Maria Novella. For the
palace, Alberti applied the classical orders of columns to the façade on the three levels, 1446-51. At Santa
Maria Novella he was commissioned to finish the decoration of the façade. He completed the design in 1456
but the work was not finished until 1470.

The lower section of the building had Gothic niches and typical polychrome marble decoration. There was a
large ocular window in the end of the nave which had to be taken into account. Alberti simply respected what
was already in place, and the Florentine tradition for polychrome that was well established at the Baptistery
of San Giovanni, the most revered building in the city. The decoration, being mainly polychrome marble, is
mostly very flat in nature, but a sort of order is established by the regular compartments and the circular
motifs which repeat the shape of the round window. [13] For the first time, Alberti linked the lower roofs of the
aisles to nave using two large scrolls. These were to become a standard Renaissance device for solving the
problem of different roof heights and bridge the space between horizontal and vertical surfaces.

 c
cc
c c
c

In the fifteenth century the courts of certain other Italian states became centers for spreading of Renaissance
philosophy, art and architecture.
 




In the late 15th century and early 16th century architects such as Bramante, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger
and others showed a mastery of the revived style and ability to apply it to buildings such as churches and city
palazzo which were quite different from the structures of ancient times. The style became more decorated
and ornamental, statuary, domes and cupolas becoming very evident. The architectural period is known as
the "High Renaissance" and coincides with the age of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael.





Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.c

Donato Bramante, (1444-1514), was born in Urbino and turned from painting to architecture, found his first
important patronage under Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, for whom he produced a number of buildings
over 20 years. After the fall of Milan to the French in 1499, Bramante travelled to Rome where he achieved
great success under papal patronage.

In Rome Bramante created what has been described as "a perfect architectural gem", the Tempietto in the
Cloister of San Pietro in Montorio. This small circular temple marks the spot where St Peter was martyred
and is thus the most sacred site in Rome. The building adapts the style apparent in the remains of the Temple
of Vesta, the most sacred site of Ancient Rome. It is enclosed by and in spatial contrast with the cloister which
surrounds it. As approached from the cloister, as in the picture above, it is seen framed by an arch and
columns, the shape of which are echoed in its free-standing form.
·  ï
 

c  c  
c c  !"# " $%c
&
cc
 c
c

%c

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, (1485-1546), was one of a family of military engineers. His uncle, Giuliano
da Sangallo was one of those who submitted a plan for the rebuilding of St Peterǯs and was briefly a co-
director of the project, with Raphael.

Antonio da Sangallo also submitted a plan for St Peterǯs and became the chief architect after the death of
Raphael, to be succeeded himself by Michelangelo.

·    

Raphael, (1483-1520), Urbino, trained under Perugino in Perugia before moving to Florence, was for a time
the chief architect for St. Peterǯs, working in conjunction with Antonio Sangallo. He also designed a number of
buildings, most of which were finished by others. His single most influential work is the Palazzo Pandolfini in
Florence with its two stories of strongly articulated windows of a "tabernacle" type, each set around with
ordered pilasters, cornice and alternate arched and triangular pediments.

 

  



  in architecture was marked by widely diverging tendencies in the work of Michelangelo, Giulio
Romano, Baldassare Peruzzi and Andrea Palladio, that led to the Baroque style in which the same
architectural vocabulary was used for very different rhetoric.c
  c c c'

%c

   

Baldassare Peruzzi, (1481-1536), was an architect born in Siena, but working in Rome, whose work bridges
the High Renaissance and the Mannerist. His Villa Farnesina of 1509 is a very regular monumental cube of
two equal stories, the bays being strongly articulated by orders of pilasters. The building is unusual for its
frescoed walls. [13]

Peruzziǯs most famous work is the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome. The unusual features of this
building are that its façade curves gently around a curving street. It has in its ground floor a dark central
portico running parallel to the street, but as a semi enclosed space, rather than an open loggia. Above this rise
three undifferentiated floors, the upper two with identical small horizontal windows in thin flat frames which
contrast strangely with the deep porch, which has served, from the time of its construction, as a refuge to the
cityǯs poor.

Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was one of the creative giants whose achievements mark the High
Renaissance. He excelled in each of the fields of painting, sculpture and architecture and his achievements
brought about significant changes in each area. His architectural fame lies chiefly in two buildings: the
interiors of the Laurentian Library and its lobby at the monastery of San Lorenzo in Florence, and the Basilica
of St. Peter in Rome.

St Peter's was 4
 

 
 
  4, and a great number of architects contributed their
skills to it. But at its completion, there was more of Michelangeloǯs design than of any other architect, before
or after him.

St. Peter's Basilica

ï

 The plan that was accepted at the laying of the foundation stone in 1506 was that by Bramante.
Various changes in plan occurred in the series of architects that succeeded him, but Michelangelo, when he
took over the project in 1546, reverted to Bramanteǯs Greek-cross plan and redesigned the piers, the walls
and the dome, giving the lower weight-bearing members massive proportions and eliminating the encircling
aisles from the chancel and identical transept arms. Helen Gardner says: "Michelangelo, with a few strokes of
the pen, converted its snowflake complexity into a massive, cohesive unity."

Michelangeloǯs dome was a masterpiece of design using two masonry shells, one within the other and
crowned by a massive lantern supported, as at Florence, on ribs. For the exterior of the building he designed a
giant order which defines every external bay, the whole lot being held together by a wide cornice which runs
unbroken like a rippling ribbon around the entire building.

There is a wooden model of the dome, showing its outer shell as hemispherical. When Michelangelo died in
1564, the building had reached the height of the drum. The architect who succeeded Michelangelo was
Giacomo Della Porta. The dome, as built, has a much steeper projection than the dome of the model. It is
generally presumed that it was Della Porta who made this change to the design, to lessen the outward thrust.
But, in fact it is unknown who it was that made this change, and it equally possible, and in fact a stylistic
likelihood that the person who decided upon the more dynamic outline was Michelangelo himself, at some
time during the years that he supervised the project.

 


  

Michelangelo was at his most Mannerist in the design of the vestibule of the Laurentian Library, also built by
him to house the Medici collection of books at the convent of San Lorenzo in Florence, the same San Lorenzoǯs
at which Brunelleschi had recast church architecture into a Classical mold and established clear formula for
the use of Classical orders and their various components.
 Il Gesù, designed by Giacomo Della Porta.





 


The Renaissance was a cultural, scholarly and socio-political movement which stressed the rediscovery and application of texts and thought
from classical antiquity. This timeline lists some major works of culture alongside important political events.
j

1347: Black Death ravages Europe for the first time.
1374: Death of Petrarch.
1396: Creation of Chair of Greek in Florence: teacher Chrysoloras brings a copy of Ptolemy¶s þ
.
1397: Giovanni de Medici moves to Florence.

1400: Burni: j 

  

 
.
1401: Ghiberti awarded commission to create doors for the baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence; Brunelleschi and Donatello travel to Rome;
birth of painter Masaccio.
1417 ± 36: Brunelleschi works on dome of Florence Cathedral.
1420: The newly united Papacy moves back to Rome.
1423: Forsari become Doge in Venice.
1429: Cosimo de Medici inherits the family bank and rises to great power in Florence.
1432: Van Eycks:  


 .
1435: Alberti: j  .
1440: Valla uses humanist skills to expose 



  as forgery.
1444: Alberti:   .
1446: Death of Brunelleschi.
1447: Pope Nicholas V appointed, he begins a major program of rebuilding.
1450: Francesco Sforza takes power in Milan.

1452: Birth of Leonardo da Vinci.
1453: Ottoman conquest of Constantinople: many Greek thinkers and works travel westward; end of Hundred Years War: stability returns to
north-west Europe.
1454: The þ    published; print revolutionises European literacy.
1459: Gozzoli: 


  .
1465: Bellini and Mantegna:  
  þ 
1469: Lorenzo de Medici, ³The Magnificent´, takes power in Florence; his rule is considered the high point of the Florentine Renaissance.
1470: Malory: 
 .
1471: Sixtus IV appointed Pope. Major building continues in Rome, including the Sistine Chapel.
1474: Ficino: j


.
1480: Botticelli: j  .
1483 Pico:     ; he is declared a heretic but protected by the Medici.
1485: Alberti:   . Italian architects travel to Russia to aid in rebuilding of Kremlin.
1488: Portuguese sailors led by Bartolomeu Diaz round the Cape of Good Hope.
1492: Buonarroti:  
  ; Rodrigo Borgia appointed Pope, his rule is considered a reign of corruption; Columbus sails
west; Behaim¶s globe created.
1494: Pacioli: !  
  
"þ
 j


.
1494 ± 95: Rule of Savonarola in Florence; he is burnt as a heretic; Italian Wars, France invade.
1498: Leonardo da Vinci: # ; Portuguese sailors led by Vasco de Gama reach India.
1499: French conquer Milan, facilitating greater passage of Renaissance ideas into the France.
1500: Michelangelo: j ; Giorgine:   ; Portuguese ³discover´ Brazil.

1503: Pope Julius II appointed Pope; start of ³Roman Golden Age´.
1504: Michelangelo:  ; Bosch: þ 
!  .
1505: Leonardo: 
 ; Dürer travels to Italy.
1506 ± 1615: Work on St. Peter¶s Basilica in Rome.
1508 ± 12: Michelangelo paints roof of the Sistine Chapel.
1509: Henry VIII succeeds to power in England.
1511: Erasmus: j  

.
1512: Erasmus:  
 .
1513: Machiavelli:  j 
.
1515: Francis I takes power in France.
1516: Eramus: $ %  ; More: &
 ; Castiglione: 

'
 
 ; Charles V takes power in Spain, followed by his accession to
the Holy Roman throne.
1517: Start of the Reformation, heavily influenced by Humanist thinking.
1519: Death of Leonardo de Vinci.
1520: Süleyman ³the Magnficent´ takes power in the Ottoman Empire.
1524: Raphael: 



  .
1525: Dürer: 
   
   ; Battle of Pavia between France and the Holy Roman Empire: end of French claims on Italy.
1527: Sack of Rome by Imperial forces.
1529: Ribeiro: (
.
1532: Rabelais: j .
1533: Holbein:  
; Regiomontanus:   .
1536: Paracelsus: þ 

'
# ; Death of Erasmus.
1541: Michelangelo:  )  .
1543: Copernicus: * 


     /  * 

 ; Vesalius:  

 +
.
1544: Bandello: $
  .

1555: Labé: ! ; Peace of Augsburg brings legal co-existence of Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire.
1556: Tartaglia: þ     
$    ; Agricola:  *  
; Philip II takes power in Spain as Charles V
abdicates.
1558: Elizabeth I succeeds to the throne in England: start of the English ³Golden Age´.
1564: Death of Michelangelo.
1567: Whitney:  

  .
1569: Mercator: (
.
1570: Palladio: 


'

 
 ; Ortelius:    .
1571: Battle of Lepanto.
1572: Camõs:   ; St. Bartholomew¶s Day Massacre of Protestants in France.
1580: Montaigne: !.
1590: Spenser:    , .
1603: Shakespeare: + .
1605: Cervantes: 
, -
 .







c
c
c
c

(c( 
)
c
c()*c

c 
)c  $c

c+)
cc
c
c+))$c


 c,c)
c )c((c
c&-
$cc

  cc
,c.)
c)
c

c  c 

$c

 

c/)
c)
c
c
0c

& -c&
),
c1
$c

' )
cc1 c
c1
$c

c
cc