| The Construction of a New Classical Florence |
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"He was given to us by Heaven to invest architecture with
new forms". In these words Vasari celebrated the ingenious
architect whom Florence was fortunate enough to count among her
sons between the end of the fourteenth and the middle of the
fifteenth century: Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446). For what
Brunelleschi did "he was granted such honors as to be buried
in Santa Maria del Fiore, and
with a marble bust, which they say was carved from life, and
placed there in perpetual memory with such a splendid
epitaph" (A. Manetti). Besides the portrait and the epitaph
composed by Carlo Marsuppini, chancellor of the Florentine
republic, the monument was to include the reproduction of some of
the maestro's drawings for the cupola.
Between 1420 and 1446 Brunelleschi's work comes to the fore as a
decisive moment in the history of the architecture and urban form
of the city of Florence. The fundamental measures of the urban
context, the medieval world of Arnolfo, into which his works were
inserted had already been defined. The city's maximum perimetral
limits had already been determined; Arnolfo had already made
provisions for a dome; the reconstructions of S. Lorenzo and Santo Spirito can be seen as
'modern' versions of the massive churches of the middle ages,
Piazza SS. Annunziata as a cloister turned into a piazza, the
Palagio di Parte Guelfa was already in situ. But the power of
invention and freshness of vision in Brunelleschi's oeuvre was
such that after the fifteenth century Florence would always be
thought of as a Renaissance city despite the basically medieval
structure of the city; the Humanists for first would cite it as
an example of an ideal city. In this sense the multiplication in
various epochs of Brunelleschi's module for Palazzo Pitti, the enlargement of Palazzo Medici, the mirror-image
duplication of the Loggiato degli Innocenti, the interpretation
of the cubic module of the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo by
Michelangelo and others are all highly significant episodes. What
information has come down to us, describes Brunelleschi as a
'universal' man. He was "architect, arithmetician and
eccellent geometrician and sculptor and painter" (A.
Manetti), the inventor of various machines for building (in which
his experience as goldsmith, particularly on clocks with multiple
gears set in motion by counterweights, played a part), a
military, naval and hydraulic engineer, inventor of pageants and
of musical instruments, a student of the structure of Dante's
Commedia, also as a moment of decisive affermation in the story
of self-awareness. Of prime importance is the fact that
Brunelleschi, like Masaccio, Donatello, Ghiberti, was formed in
the Florentine milieu of the first generation Renaissance of
Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, with its
extraordinary cultural ferments. "The city of Florence in
that time was /.../ in a most felicitous state, overflowing with
men who were outstanding in all fields" (Vespasiano da
Bisticci). Although Brunelleschi's beginnings were in the field
of sculpture, with which he was thoroughly at home, he ended up
by excluding it from his architecture or kept it within strict
architectural bounds. On the other hand, the power and meaning of
the membering, the cornices, etc. fully reveal his capacity as
sculptor. With a first hand knowledge and understanding of
classic Roman architecture, as well as medieval Romanesque and
Gothic, as his point of departure, and with his personal solution
of perspective as knowledge "per comparatione" (by
comparison), in the relatively brief period between 1420 and 1446
Brunelleschi, and Brunelleschi alone, initiated a new epoch in
the history of architecture. The historical significance is all
the more impressive if one keeps in mind the fact that few of the
buildings he began or designed were even partially achieved or
completed before his death. Crucial to Brunelleschi's formation
was the rediscovery of ancient classic architecture not only as a
result of the traces that abounded in the medieval Florentine
tradition, but also through direct acquaintance. According to
Manetti, having gone to Rome to study ancient sculpture "he
observed the method and symmetry of the ancient's way of
building. He seemed to recognize very clearly a certain
arrangement of members and structure /..../ both in the order and
method which is in the abutments and thrusts of buildings /.../
as in the decorations". With Donatello, he drew, surveyed,
made coded notes (a secret tradition of the medieval masters).
Regarding columns "by means of close observation he could
clearly distinguish between the characteristics of each type:
Ionic, Doric, Tuscan, Corinthian and Attic. As may still be seen
in his buildings, he used most of them at the times and places he
considered best".
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