Background
Filippo Brunelleschi was born in 1377, in Florence, Italy, Filippo Brunelleschi's early life is mostly a mystery. It is known that he was the second of three sons.
Filippo Brunelleschi was born in 1377, in Florence, Italy, Filippo Brunelleschi's early life is mostly a mystery. It is known that he was the second of three sons.
Brunelleschi initially trained as a goldsmith and sculptor and enrolled in the Arte della Seta, the silk merchants' guild, which also included goldsmiths, metalworkers and bronze workers.
Around the turn of the century, he was employed by a goldsmith in Pistoia, where he made several silver figures for the altar of St. James in the Cathedral. Brunelleschi entered the competition of 1401 for a new set of portals for the Baptistery in Florence; his trial piece, the Sacrifice of Isaac, compared very favorably with that of Lorenzo Ghiberti, who was awarded the commission. Brunelleschi's relief is derived stylistically from the work of his predecessor Andrea Pisano, but it already reveals an interest in classical antiquity, as the servant in the relief was inspired by the Hellenistic statue Spinario, or "thorn-puller." In 1404 Brunelleschi was admitted as master to the goldsmiths' guild in Florence, and later that year he was consulted regarding a buttress of the Cathedral.
During the next decade the details of Brunelleschi's life are very vague. He undoubtedly made several trips to Rome to survey its ancient monuments. A wooden crucifix in S. Maria Novella, Florence, perhaps from this period, is sometimes attributed to him. In 1415 he repaired the Ponte a Mare in Pisa, and 2 years later he and other masters presented opinions on the design and construction of the great dome projected for the Gothic Cathedral of Florence. It was perhaps at this time that Brunelleschi devised the method of constructing linear perspective, which he illustrated in two perspective panels (now lost): one depicted the Florentine Baptistery as viewed from the Cathedral portal, and the other illustrated the Palazzo Vecchio.
Beginning in 1418 Brunelleschi concentrated on architecture. In two small domed chapels in S. Jacopo Soprarno and S. Felicità (now destroyed or altered), Florence, he experimented with domical construction. That same year he began the church of S. Lorenzo (1418-c.1470), commencing with the Old Sacristy (1418 -1428), a cubical chapel with an umbrella dome. The church is a Latin-cross basilica with three arcaded aisles, side chapels, and a dome over the crossing. All the ornamentation is classical, with Corinthian columns, pilasters, and classical moldings of a soft blue-gray stone (pietra serena) against light stucco walls. The loggia of the Ospedale degli Innocenti (designed 1419, constructed 1421-1451), Florence, usually considered the first Renaissance building, is a graceful arcade with Composite columns and windows with triangular pediments regularly spaced above each of the arches. It may have been at this time that Brunelleschi worked on the Palazzo di Parte Guelfa, Florence; he designed giant pilasters at each end of the exterior (altered in completion).
In 1420 Brunelleschi began to erect the great dome of the Florentine Cathedral in collaboration with Ghiberti, who eventually withdrew from the project. The dome has a skeleton of eight large stone ribs closed by two shells, of which the lower portions are of stone and the upper parts of brick laid in a herringbone design probably derived from ancient Roman construction. In its rib construction and pointed arch form, the dome still belongs within the Gothic tradition. With the closing of the oculus in 1436, Brunelleschi designed the lantern (completed in 1467). Meanwhile he was consulted on projects elsewhere; he was in Pisa during 1426 to work on the Citadel and in Volterra in 1427 to advise on the dome of the Baptistery.
The Pazzi Chapel (1429-1467), in the medieval cloister of Santa Croce, Florence, has a charming porch with six Corinthian columns supporting an entablature broken in the center by a semicircular arch, reflecting the dome behind it. The upper part of the facade is incomplete. The interior is rectangular with a large umbrella dome at the center covered by a conical roof with a lantern. As in all his architecture, Brunelleschi used the darker pietra serena for the classical details. The glazed terra-cotta reliefs of the four Evangelists in the pendentives of the dome were designed by Brunelleschi; the remaining decoration was by Luca della Robbia. In 1432 Brunelleschi went to Mantua and Ferrara on unknown commissions, and in 1433 he was again in Rome to study the antiquities.
During the Renaissance the ideal church plan was centralized as a circle or Greek cross with four equal arms. On his return to Florence in 1434 Brunelleschi began a central-plan church, S. Maria degli Angeli, which was never completed. It would have been the first central plan of the Renaissance. Octagonal on the interior with eight chapels, it was 16-sided on the exterior; a domical vault was probably intended to cover the center. In 1435 Brunelleschi was again in Pisa working on the bastion of the Porta al Parlascio.
In 1436 Brunelleschi designed another basilican church in Florence, Santo Spirito (constructed 1444-1482), which shows a much greater concern for a unified composition than S. Lorenzo does. The arcaded side aisles are continued around the transept arms and choir and were intended to go across the interior of the facade (never executed), which gives a very unified and centralized impression around the crossing dome. The shallow chapels are curvilinear in plan and were to be so expressed on the exterior, but after Brunelleschi's death a straight external wall masked the chapels. The interior is carefully organized in simple proportional relationships which result in a very harmonious space that is the ideal of Renaissance architecture. In 1440 Brunelleschi returned to Pisa for further work on the Citadel.
On April 15, 1446, Filippo Brunelleschi died at Florence and received the unusual honor of being buried in the Cathedral.
Quotations:
"The gifts given to us by God must not be relinquished to those who speak ill of them and who are moved by envy or ignorance."
"Do not share your inventions with many; share them only with the few who understand and love the sciences."
Even though Filippo Brunelleschi never married, he had one adopted son, Il Buggiano (Andrea Cavalcanti).