Renaissance architecture
Encyclopedia
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek
and Roman
thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture
and was succeeded by Baroque architecture
. Developed first in Florence
, with Filippo Brunelleschi
as one of its innovators, the Renaissance style quickly spread to other Italian cities. The style was carried to France, Germany, England, Russia and other parts of Europe at different dates and with varying degrees of impact.
Renaissance style places emphasis on symmetry
, proportion
, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of classical antiquity
and in particular ancient Roman architecture
, of which many examples remained. Orderly arrangements of column
s, pilaster
s and lintels
, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical dome
s, niches
and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval
buildings.
's Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (The Lives of the Artists, 1550–68).
Although the term Renaissance
was used first by the French historian Jules Michelet
, it was given its more lasting definition from the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt
, whose book, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien 1860, was influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. The folio of measured drawings Édifices de Rome moderne; ou, Recueil des palais, maisons, églises, couvents et autres monuments (The Buildings of Modern Rome), first published in 1840 by Paul Letarouilly, also played an important part in the revival of interest in this period. The Renaissance style was recognized by contemporaries in the term "all'antica", or "in the ancient manner" (of the Romans)..
Historians often use the following designations:
Quattrocento
In the Quattrocento, concepts of architectural order were explored and rules were formulated. (See- Characteristics of Renaissance Architecture, below.) The study of classical antiquity led in particular to the adoption of Classical detail and ornamentation.
Space, as an element of architecture, was utilised differently from the way it had been in the Middle Ages
. Space was organised by proportional logic, its form and rhythm subject to geometry, rather than being created by intuition as in Medieval buildings. The prime example of this is the Basilica di San Lorenzo
in Florence
by Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377–1446).
High Renaissance
During the High Renaissance
, concepts derived from classical antiquity were developed and used with greater surety. The most representative architect is Bramante
(1444–1514) who expanded the applicability of classical architecture to contemporary buildings. His San Pietro in Montorio
(1503) was directly inspired by circular Roman temple
s. He was, however, hardly a slave to the classical forms and it was his style that was to dominate Italian architecture in the 16th century.
Mannerism
During the Mannerist period, architects experimented with using architectural forms to emphasize solid and spatial relationships. The Renaissance ideal of harmony gave way to freer and more imaginative rhythms. The best known architect associated with the Mannerist style was Michelangelo
(1475–1564), who is credited with inventing the giant order
, a large pilaster that stretches from the bottom to the top of a façade. He used this in his design for the Campidoglio in Rome.
Prior to the 20th century, the term Mannerism had negative connotations, but it is now used to describe the historical period in more general non-judgemental terms.
From Renaissance to Baroque
As the new style of architecture spread out from Italy, most other European countries developed a sort of proto-Renaissance style, before the construction of fully formulated Renaissance buildings. Each country in turn then grafted its own architectural traditions to the new style, so that Renaissance buildings across Europe are diversified by region.
Within Italy the evolution of Renaissance architecture into Mannerism, with widely diverging tendencies in the work of Michelangelo and Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio, led to the Baroque style in which the same architectural vocabulary was used for very different rhetoric.
Outside Italy, Baroque architecture
was more widespread and fully developed than the Renaissance style, with significant buildings as far afield as Mexico
and the Philippines
.
The obvious distinguishing features of Classical Roman architecture were adopted by Renaissance architects. However, the forms and purposes of buildings had changed over time, as had the structure of cities. Among the earliest buildings of the reborn Classicism were churches of a type that the Romans had never constructed. Neither were there models for the type of large city dwellings required by wealthy merchants of the 15th century. Conversely, there was no call for enormous sporting fixtures and public bath houses such as the Romans had built. The ancient orders were analysed and reconstructed to serve new purposes.
Plan
The plans of Renaissance buildings have a square, symmetrical appearance in which proportions are usually based on a module. Within a church the module is often the width of an aisle. The need to integrate the design of the plan with the façade was introduced as an issue in the work of Filippo Brunelleschi
, but he was never able to carry this aspect of his work into fruition. The first building to demonstrate this was St. Andrea
in Mantua by Alberti
. The development of the plan in secular architecture was to take place in the 16th century and culminated with the work of Palladio.
Façade
Façade
s are symmetrical around their vertical axis. Church façades are generally surmounted by a pediment and organized by a system of pilasters, arches and entablatures. The columns and windows show a progression towards the center. One of the first true Renaissance façades was the Cathedral of Pienza
(1459–62), which has been attributed to the Florentine architect Bernardo Gambarelli (known as Rossellino) with Alberti
perhaps having some responsibility in its design as well.
Domestic buildings are often surmounted by a cornice
. There is a regular repetition of openings on each floor, and the centrally placed door is marked by a feature such as a balcony, or rusticated surround. An early and much copied prototype was the façade for the Palazzo Rucellai
(1446 and 1451) in Florence with its three registers of pilasters
Columns and Pilasters
The Roman orders of columns are used:- Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. The orders can either be structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or purely decorative, set against a wall in the form of pilasters. During the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns, pilasters, and entablatures as an integrated system. One of the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was in the Old Sacristy
(1421–1440) by Brunelleschi.
Arches
Arches are semi-circular or (in the Mannerist style) segmental. Arches are often used in arcades, supported on piers or columns with capitals. There may be a section of entablature between the capital and the springing of the arch. Alberti was one of the first to use the arch on a monumental scale at the St. Andrea
in Mantua.
Vaults
Vaults do not have ribs. They are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the Gothic vault which is frequently rectangular. The barrel vault
is returned to architectural vocabulary as at the St. Andrea
in Mantua.
Domes
The dome is used frequently, both as a very large structural feature that is visible from the exterior, and also as a means of roofing smaller spaces where they are only visible internally. Domes had been used only rarely in the Middle Ages, but after the success of the dome in Brunelleschi’s design for the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore and its use in Bramante’s plan for St. Peter's Basilica
(1506) in Rome, the dome became an indispensable element in church architecture and later even for secular architecture, such as Palladio's Villa Rotonda.
Ceilings
Roofs are fitted with flat or coffered ceilings. They are not left open as in Medieval architecture. They are frequently painted or decorated.
Doors
Doors usually have square lintels. They may be set within an arch or surmounted by a triangular or segmental pediment.
Openings that do not have doors are usually arched and frequently have a large or decorative keystone.
Windows
Windows may be paired and set within a semi-circular arch. They may have square lintels and triangular or segmental pediments, which are often used alternately. Emblematic in this respect is the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, begun in 1517.
In the Mannerist period the “Palladian” arch was employed, using a motif of a high semi-circular topped opening flanked with two lower square-topped openings. Windows are used to bring light into the building and in domestic architecture, to give views. Stained glass, although sometimes present, is not a feature.
Walls
External walls are generally of highly finished ashlar
masonry, laid in straight courses. The corners of buildings are often emphasised by rusticated quoins
. Basements and ground floors were often rusticated, as modeled on the Palazzo Medici Riccardi
(1444–1460) in Florence. Internal walls are smoothly plastered and surfaced with white-chalk paint. For more formal spaces, internal surfaces are decorated with frescoes.
Details
Courses, mouldings and all decorative details are carved with great precision. Studying and mastering the details of the ancient Romans was one of the important aspects of Renaissance theory. The different orders each required different sets of details. Some architects were stricter in their use of classical details than others, but there was also a good deal of innovation in solving problems, especially at corners. Moldings stand out around doors and windows rather than being recessed, as in Gothic Architecture. Sculptured figures may be set in niches or placed on plinths. They are not integral to the building as in Medieval architecture.
grew out of Romanesque
, but consciously brought to being by particular architects who sought to revive the order of a past "Golden Age
". The scholarly approach to the architecture of the ancient coincided with the general revival of learning. A number of factors were influential in bringing this about.
Architectural
Italian architects had always preferred forms that were clearly defined and structural members that expressed their purpose. Many Tuscan Romanesque buildings demonstrate these characteristics, as seen in the Florence Bapistery and Pisa Cathedral.
Italy had never fully adopted the Gothic style of architecture. Apart from the Cathedral of Milan, largely the work of German builders, few Italian churches show the emphasis on vertically, the clustered shafts, ornate tracery and complex ribbed vaulting that characterise Gothic
in other parts of Europe.
The presence, particularly in Rome, of ancient architectural remains showing the ordered Classical style provided an inspiration to artists at a time when philosophy was also turning towards the Classical.
Political
In the 15th century, Florence
, Venice
and Naples
extended their power through much of the area that surrounded them, making the movement of artists possible. This enabled Florence to have significant artistic influence in Milan
, and through Milan, France
.
In 1377, the return of the Pope from Avignon
and re-establishment of the Papal court
in Rome, brought wealth and importance to that city, as well as a renewal in the importance of the Pope in Italy, which was further strengthened by the Council of Constance
in 1417. Successive Popes, especially Julius II, 1503–13, sought to extend the Pope’s temporal power
throughout Italy.
Commercial
In the early Renaissance, Venice
controlled sea trade over goods from the East. The large towns of Northern Italy
were prosperous through trade with the rest of Europe, Genoa
providing a seaport for the goods of France and Spain; Milan
and Turin
being centers of overland trade, and maintaining substantial metalworking industries.
Trade brought wool from England to Florence, ideally located on the river for the production of fine cloth, the industry on which its wealth was founded. By dominating Pisa
, Florence gained a seaport, and also maintained dominance of Genoa.
In this commercial climate, one family in particular turned their attention from trade to the lucrative business of money-lending. The Medici
became the chief bankers to the princes of Europe, becoming virtually princes themselves as they did so, by reason of both wealth and influence.
Along the trade routes, and thus offered some protection by commercial interest, moved not only goods but also artists, scientists and philosophers.
Religious
The return of the Pope from Avignon in 1377 and the resultant new emphasis on Rome as the center of Christian spirituality, brought about a boom in the building of churches in Rome such as had not taken place for nearly a thousand years. This commenced in the mid 15th century and gained momentum in the 16th century, reaching its peak in the Baroque period. The construction of the Sistine Chapel
with its uniquely important decorations and the entire rebuilding of St Peter's, one of Christendom's most significant churches, were part of this process.
In wealthy republican Florence, the impetus for church-building was more civic than spiritual. The unfinished state of the enormous cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary did no honour to the city under her patronage. However, as the technology and finance were found to complete it, the rising dome did credit not only to the Blessed Virgin, its architect and the Church but also the Signoria, the Guilds and the sectors of the city from which the manpower to construct it was drawn. The dome inspired further religious works in Florence.
Philosophic
The development of printed books, the rediscovery of ancient writings, the expanding of political and trade contacts and the exploration of the world all increased knowledge and the desire for education.
The reading of philosophies that were not based on Christian theology led to the development of Humanism
through which it was clear that while God had established and maintained order in the Universe, it was the role of Man to establish and maintain order in Society.
Civil
Through Humanism
, civic pride and the promotion of civil peace and order were seen as the marks of citizenship. This led to the building of structures such as Brunelleschi's Hospital of the Innocents
with its elegant colonnade forming a link between the charitable building and the public square, and the Laurentian Library
where the collection of books established by the Medici family could be consulted by scholars.
Some major ecclesiastical building works were also commissioned, not by the church, but by guilds representing the wealth and power of the city. Brunelleschi’s dome at Florence Cathedral, more than any other building, belonged to the populace because the construction of each of the eight segments was achieved by a different sector of the city.
Patronage
As in the Platonic academy
of Athens
, it was seen by those of Humanist understanding that those people who had the benefit of wealth and education ought to promote the pursuit of learning and the creation of that which was beautiful. To this end, wealthy families—the Medici
of Florence, the Gonzaga
of Mantua, the Farnese in Rome, the Sforzas
in Milan—gathered around them people of learning and ability, promoting the skills and creating employment for the most talented artists and architects of their day.
Architectural Theory
During the Renaissance, architecture became not only a question of practice, but also a matter for theoretical discussion. Printing
played a large role in the dissemination of ideas.
, Michelozzo
and Alberti
.
, (1377–1446). The underlying feature of the work of Brunelleschi was "order".
In the early 15th century, Brunelleschi began to look at the world to see what the rules were that governed one's way of seeing. He observed that the way one sees regular structures such as the Baptistery of Florence
and the tiled pavement surrounding it follows a mathematical order—linear perspective.
The buildings remaining among the ruins of ancient Rome appeared to respect a simple mathematical order in the way that Gothic buildings did not. One incontrovertible rule governed all Ancient Roman architecture—a semi-circular arch is exactly twice as wide as it is high. A fixed proportion with implications of such magnitude occurred nowhere in Gothic architecture
. A Gothic pointed arch could be extended upwards or flattened to any proportion that suited the location. Arches of differing angles frequently occurred within the same structure. No set rules of proportion applied.
From the observation of the architecture of Rome came a desire for symmetry and careful proportion in which the form and composition of the building as a whole and all its subsidiary details have fixed relationships, each section in proportion to the next, and the architectural features serving to define exactly what those rules of proportion are. Brunelleschi gained the support of a number of wealthy Florentine patrons, including the Silk Guild and Cosimo de' Medici
.
Florence Cathedral
Brunelleschi's first major architectural commission was for the enormous brick dome which covers the central space 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 that were apparently planned by Arnolfio. 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.
San Lorenzo
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.
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 library 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 orders 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.
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.
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.
Sant'Andrea is an extremely dynamic building both without and within. Its triumphal façade is marked by extreme contrasts. The projection of the order of pilasters that define the architectural elements, but are essentially non-functional, is very shallow. This contrasts with the gaping deeply recessed arch which makes a huge portico before the main door. The size of this arch is in direct contrast to the two low square-topped openings that frame it. The light and shade play dramatically over the surface of the building because of the shallowness of its mouldings and the depth of its porch. In the interior Alberti has dispensed with the traditional nave and aisles. Instead there is a slow and majestic progression of alternating tall arches and low square doorways, repeating the "triumphal arch
" motif of the façade.
Two of Alberti’s 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. 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.
In the 15th century the courts of certain other Italian states became centres for spreading of Renaissance philosophy, art and architecture.
In Mantua
at the court of the Gonzaga
, Alberti designed two churches, the Basilica of Sant'Andrea and San Sebastiano
.
Urbino
was an important centre with a new ducal palace
being built there. Ferrara
, under the Este
, was expanded in the late fifteenth century, with several new palaces being built such as the Palazzo dei Diamanti
and Palazzo Schifanoia
for Borso d'Este
. In Milan, under the Visconti
, the Certosa di Pavia
was completed, and then later under the Sforza, the Castello Sforzesco was built.
In Venice, San Zaccaria received its Renaissance façade at the hands of Antonio Gambello and Mauro Codussi
, begun in the 1480s. Giovanni Maria Falconetto
, the Veronese architect-sculptor, introduced Renaissance architecture to Padua with the Loggia Cornaro in the garden of Alvise Cornaro
.
In southern Italy, Renaissance masters were called to Naples by Alfonso V of Aragon
after his conquest of the Kingdom of Naples
. The most notable examples of Renaissance architecture in that city are the Cappella Caracciolo, attributed to Bramante, and the Palazzo Orsini di Gravina, built by Gabriele d'Angelo between 1513 and 1549.
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 cupola
s becoming very evident.
The architectural period is known as the "High Renaissance" and coincides with the age of Leonardo
, Michelangelo
and Raphael
.
Donato Bramante
, (1444–1514), was born in Urbino
and turned from painting to architecture, finding 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.
Bramante’s finest architectural achievement in Milan is his addition of crossing and choir to the abbey church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan)
. This is a brick structure, the form of which owes much to the Northern Italian tradition of square domed baptisteries
. The new building is almost centrally planned, except that, because of the site, the chancel extends further than the transept arms. The hemispherical dome, of approximately 20 metres across, rises up hidden inside an octagonal drum pierced at the upper level with arched classical openings. The whole exterior has delineated details decorated with the local terracotta ornamentation.
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.
Bramante went on to work at the Vatican
where he designed the impressive Cortili of St. Damaso and of the Belvedere
. In 1506 Bramante’s design for Pope Julius II’s
rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica was selected, and the foundation stone laid. After Bramante’s death and many changes of plan, Michelangelo
, as chief architect, reverted to something closer to Bramante’s original proposal. See below- Michelangelo.
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 Peter’s and was briefly a co-director of the project, with Raphael
.
Antonio da Sangallo also submitted a plan for St Peter’s and became the chief architect after the death of Raphael, to be succeeded himself by Michelangelo.
His fame does not rest upon his association with St Peter’s but in his building of the Farnese Palace, “the grandest palace of this period”, started in 1530. The impression of grandness lies in part in its sheer size, (56 m long by 29.5 meters high) and in its lofty location overlooking a broad piazza. It is also a building of beautiful proportion, unusual for such a large and luxurious house of the date in having been built principally of stuccoed brick, rather than of stone. Against the smooth pink-washed walls the stone quoins of the corners, the massive rusticated portal and the stately repetition of finely detailed windows give a powerful effect, setting a new standard of elegance in palace-building. The upper of the three equally sized floors was added by Michelangelo. It is probably just as well that this impressive building is of brick; the travertine for its architectural details came not from a quarry, but from the Colosseum
.
, (1483–1520), Urbino
, trained under Perugino in Perugia
before moving to Florence, was for a time the chief architect for St. Peter’s
, 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.
, 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.
, (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.
Peruzzi’s 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 city’s poor.
(1499–1546), was a pupil of Raphael, assisting him on various works for the Vatican. Romano was also a highly inventive designer, working for Federico II Gonzaga
at Mantua on the Palazzo Te, (1524–1534), a project which combined his skills as architect, sculptor and painter. In this work, incorporating garden grotto
es and extensive frescoes, he uses illusionistic effects
, surprising combinations of architectural form and texture, and the frequent use of features that seem somewhat disproportionate or out of alignment. The total effect is eerie and disturbing. Ilan Rachum cites Romano as “one of the first promoters of Mannerism”.
and its lobby at the monastery of San Lorenzo in Florence, and St Peter's Basilica in Rome.
St Peter's was "the greatest creation of the Renaissance", and a great number of architects contributed their skills to it. But at its completion, there was more of Michelangelo’s design than of any other architect, before or after him.
St Peter's
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 Bramante’s 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."
Michelangelo’s 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 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.
Laurentian Library
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 Lorenzo’s 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.
Michelangelo takes all Brunelleschi’s components and bends them to his will. The Library is upstairs. It is a long low building with an ornate wooden ceiling, a matching floor and crowded with corrals finished by his successors to Michelangelo’s design. But it is a light room, the natural lighting streaming through a long row of windows that appear positively crammed between the order of pilasters that march along the wall. The vestibule, on the other hand, is tall, taller than it is wide and is crowded by a large staircase that pours out of the library in what Pevsner
refers to as a “flow of lava”, and bursts in three directions when it meets the balustrade of the landing. It is an intimidating staircase, made all the more so because the rise of the stairs at the center is steeper than at the two sides, fitting only eight steps into the space of nine.
The space is crowded and it is to be expected that the wall spaces would be divided by pilasters of low projection. But Michelangelo has chosen to use paired columns, which, instead of standing out boldly from the wall, he has sunk deep into recesses within the wall itself. In San Lorenzo's church nearby, Brunelleschi used little scrolling console brackets to break the strongly horizontal line of the course above the arcade. Michelangelo has borrowed Brunelleschi’s motifs and stood each pair of sunken columns on a pair of twin console brackets
. Pevsner
says the “Laurenziana… reveals Mannerism in its most sublime architectural form”.
, (c.1533–1602), was famous as the architect who made the dome of St Peter’s Basilica a reality. The change in outline between the dome as it appears in the model and the dome as it was built, has brought about speculation as to whether the changes originated with della Porta or with Michelangelo himself.
Della Porta spent nearly all his working life in Rome, designing villas, palazzi and churches in the Mannerist style. One of his most famous works is the façade of the Church of the Gesù
, a project that he inherited from his teacher Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola. Most characteristics of the original design are maintained, subtly transformed to give more weight to the central section, where della Porta uses, among other motifs, a low triangular pediment overlaid on a segmental one above the main door. The upper storey and its pediment give the impression of compressing the lower one. The center section, like that of Sant'Andrea at Mantua, is based on the Triumphal Arch, but has two clear horizontal divisions like Santa Maria Novella. See Alberti above. The problem of linking the aisles to the nave is solved using Alberti’s scrolls, in contrast to Vignola’s solution which provided much smaller brackets and four statues to stand above the paired pilasters, visually weighing down the corners of the building. The influence of the design may be seen in Baroque churches throughout Europe.
Andrea Palladio
, (1508–80), "the most influential architect of the whole Renaissance"', was, as a stonemason, introduced to Humanism by the poet Giangiorgio Trissino. His first major architectural commission was the rebuilding of the Basilica Palladiana
at Vicenza
, in the Veneto
where he was to work most of his life.
Palladio was to transform the architectural style of both palaces and churches by taking a different perspective on the notion of Classicism. While the architects of Florence and Rome looked to structures like the Colosseum
and the Arch of Constantine
to provide formulae, Palladio looked to classical temples with their simple peristyle form. When he used the “triumphal arch
” motif of a large arched opening with lower square-topped opening on either side, he invariably applied it on a small scale, such as windows, rather than on a large scale as Alberti used it at Sant’Andrea’s. This Ancient Roman motif is often referred to as the Palladian Arch.
The best known of Palladio’s domestic buildings is Villa Capra, otherwise known as "la Rotonda", a centrally planned house with a domed central hall and four identical façades, each with a temple-like portico like that of the Pantheon
in Rome. At the Villa Cornaro
, the projecting portico of the north façade and recessed loggia of the garden façade are of two order
ed stories, the upper forming a balcony
.
Like Alberti, della Porta and others, in the designing of a church façade, Palladio was confronted by the problem of visually linking the aisles to the nave while maintaining and defining the structure of the building. Palladio’s solution was entirely different from that employed by della Porta. At the church of San Giorgio Maggiore
in Venice he overlays a tall temple, its columns raised on high plinths, over another low wide temple façade, its columns rising from the basements and its narrow lintel and pilasters appearing behind the giant order of the central nave.
While continuity may be the case in Italy, it was not necessarily the case elsewhere. The adoption of the Renaissance style of architecture was slower in some areas than in others, as may be seen in England, for example. Indeed, as Pope Julius II
was having the ancient Basilica of St. Peter’s demolished to make way for the new, Henry VII of England
was adding a glorious new chapel in the Perpendicular Gothic
style to Westminster Abbey
.
Likewise, the style that was to become known as Baroque evolved in Italy in the early 17th century, at about the time that the first fully Renaissance buildings were constructed at Greenwich and Whitehall in England, after a prolonged period of experimentation with Classical motifs applied to local architectural forms, or conversely, the adoption of Renaissance structural forms in the broadest sense with an absence of the formulae that governed their use. While the English were just discovering what the rules of Classicism were, the Italians were experimenting with methods of breaking them. In England, following the Restoration
of the Monarchy in 1660, the architectural climate changed, and taste moved in the direction of the Baroque. Rather than evolving, as it did in Italy, it arrived fully fledged.
In a similar way, in many parts of Europe that had few purely classical and ordered buildings like Brunelleschi’s Santo Spirito and Michelozzo’s Medici Riccardi Palace, Baroque architecture appeared almost unheralded, on the heels of a sort of Proto-Renaissance local style. The spread of the Baroque and its replacement of traditional and more conservative Renaissance architecture was particularly apparent in the building of churches as part of the Counter Reformation.
The 16th century saw the economic and political ascendancy of France and Spain, and then later of Holland, England, Germany and Russia. The result was that these places began to import the Renaissance style as indicators of their new cultural position. This also meant that it was not until about 1500 and later that signs of Renaissance architectural style began to appear outside Italy.
Though Italian architects were highly sought after, such as Sebastiano Serlio
in France, Aristotile Fioravanti
in Russia
, and Francesco Fiorentino in Poland
, soon, non-Italians were studying Italian architecture and translating it into their own idiom. These included Philibert de l'Orme
(1510–1570) in France, Juan Bautista de Toledo
(died: 1567) in Spain and Inigo Jones
(1573–1652) in England.
Books or ornament prints with engraved
illustrations demonstrating plans and ornament were very important in spreading Renaissance styles in Northern Europe, with among the most important authors being Androuet du Cerceau
in France, and Hans Vredeman de Vries
in the Netherlands, with the German Wendel Dietterlin
, in his Architectura of 1593-94, being perhaps the most extreme.
, but also stylistic ideas. In the Loire Valley
a wave of building was carried and many Renaissance chateaux appeared at this time, the earliest example being the Château d'Amboise
(c. 1495) in which Leonardo da Vinci
spent his last years. The style became dominant under Francis I
(See Châteaux of the Loire Valley
).
, who designed the city hall of Antwerp
, finished in 1564. The style sometimes known as "Antwerp Mannerism", keeping a similar overall structure to late-Gothic buildings, but with larger windows and much florid decoration and detailing in Renaissance styles, was widely influential across Northern Europe, for example in Elizabethan architecture
, and is part of the wider movement of Northern Mannerism
.
In the early 17th century Dutch Republic
, Hendrick de Keyser
played an important role in developing the Amsterdam Renaissance style, which has local characteristics including the prevalence of tall narrow town-houses, the "trapgevel" or Dutch gable
and the employment of decorative triangular pediments over doors and windows in which the apex rises much more steeply than in most other Renaissance architecture, but in keeping with the profile of the gable. Carved stone details are often of low profile, in strapwork
resembling leatherwork, a stylistic feature originating in the School of Fontainebleau
. This feature was exported to England.
Renaissance architecture arrived in England during the reign of Elizabeth I, having first spread through the Low countries
where among other features it acquired versions of the Dutch gable
, and Flemish
strapwork
in geometric designs adorning the walls. The new style tended to manifest itself in large square tall houses such as Longleat House.
The first great exponent of Italian Renaissance architecture in England was Inigo Jones
(1573–1652), who had studied architecture in Italy where the influence of Palladio was very strong. Jones returned to England full of enthusiasm for the new movement and immediately began to design such buildings as the Queen's House
at Greenwich
in 1616 and the Banqueting House at Whitehall
three years later. These works, with their clean lines, and symmetry were revolutionary in a country still enamoured with mullion windows, crenellations and turrets.
In Denmark, Renaissance architecture thrived during the reigns of Frederick II and especially Christian IV. Inspired by the French castles of the times, Flemish architects designed masterpieces such as Kronborg Castle in Helsingør and Frederiksborg Palace in Hillerod. Frederiksborg Palace (1602–1620) in Hillerod is the largest Renaissance palace in Scandinavia.
Elsewhere, in Sweden, with Gustav Wasa's seizure of power and the onset of the Protestant reformation, church construction and aristocratic building projects came to a near standstill. During this time period, the magnificent Wasa castles appeared. They were erected at strategic locations to control the country as well as to accommodate the traveling royal court. Gripsholm Castle, Kalmar Castle and Vadstena Castle are known for their fusion of medieval elements with Renaissance architecture.
The architecture of Norway was influenced partly by the occurrence of the plague during the Renaissance era. After the Black Death, monumental construction in Norway came to a standstill. There are few examples of Renaissance architecture in Norway, the most prominent being the Rosenkrantz Tower in Bergen, Barony Rosendal in Hardanger, and the contemporary Austrat manor near Trondheim, and parts of Akershus Fortress.
There is not much notable Renaissance influence in Finnish architecture.[54]
who visited Italy. Important architecture of this period are especially the Landshut Residence
, the castle in Heidelberg
,Johannisburg castle in Aschaffenburg
and the Town Hall in Augsburg. In July 1567 the city council of Cologne
approved a design in the Renaissance style by Wilhelm Vernukken for a two storied loggia for Cologne City Hall
.
St Michael in Munich is the largest Renaissance church north of the Alps. It was built by Duke William V
of Bavaria
between 1583 and 1597 as a spiritual center for the Counter Reformation and was inspired by the Church of il Gesù in Rome. The architect is unknown.
, because of the extremely decorated façade, that brought to the mind the decorative motifs of the intricately detailed work of silversmith
s, the Plateros. Classical orders and candelabra motifs (a candelieri) combined freely into symmetrical wholes.
From the mid-sixteenth century, under such architects as Pedro Machuca, Juan Bautista de Toledo
and Juan de Herrera
there was a closer adherence to the art of ancient Rome, sometimes anticipating Mannerism
, examples of which include the palace of Charles V
in Granada
and the Escorial.
style (c. 1490–1535) married Renaissance elements to Gothic structures with the superficial application of exuberant ornament similar to the Isabelline Gothic
of Spain. Examples of Manueline include the Belém Tower
, a defensive building of Gothic form decorated with Renaissance-style loggia
s, and the Jerónimos Monastery
, with Renaissance ornaments decorating portals, columns and cloisters.
The first "pure" Renaissance structures appear under King John III
, like the Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Conceição in Tomar (1532–40), the Porta Especiosa of Coimbra Cathedral
and the Graça Church at Évora
(c. 1530–1540), as well as the cloisters of the Cathedral of Viseu
(c. 1528–1534) and Convent of Christ in Tomar (John III Cloisters, 1557–1591). The Lisbon
buildings of São Roque Church
(1565–87) and the Mannerist Monastery of São Vicente de Fora
(1582–1629), strongly influenced religious architecture in both Portugal and its colonies in the next centuries.
The First period (1500–50), is the so called "Italian". Most of Renaissance buildings were building of this time were by Italian architects, mainly from Florence
including Francesco Fiorentino and Bartolomeo Berrecci (Wawel
Courtyard, Sigismund's Chapel
).
In the Second period (1550–1600), Renaissance architecture became more common, with the beginnings of Mannerist and under the influence of the Netherlands, particularly in Pomerania
. Buildings include the New Cloth Hall
in Kraków and city halls in Tarnów
, Sandomierz
, Chełm (demolished) and most famously in Poznań
.
In the Third period (1600–50), the rising power of Jesuits and Counter Reformation gave impetus to the development of Mannerist architecture and Baroque.
One of the earliest places to be influenced by the Renaissance style of architecture was the Kingdom of Hungary
. The style appeared following the marriage of King Matthias Corvinus and Beatrice of Naples
in 1476. Many Italian artists, craftsmen and masons
arrived at Buda
with the new queen. The most important work of Hungarian Renaissance ecclesiastical architecture is the Bakócz Chapel in the Esztergom Basilica
.
by inviting a number of architects from Italy
, who brought new construction techniques and some Renaissance style elements with them, while in general following the traditional designs of the Russian architecture
. In 1475 the Bolognese architect Aristotele Fioravanti came to rebuild the Cathedral of the Dormition
in the Moscow Kremlin
, damaged in an earthquake. Fioravanti was given the 12th-century Vladimir Cathedral
as a model, and produced a design combining traditional Russian style with a Renaissance sense of spaciousness, proportion and symmetry.
In 1485 Ivan III commissioned the building of a royal Terem Palace
within the Kremlin, with Aloisio da Milano
being the architect of the first three floors. Aloisio da Milano, as well as the other Italian architects, also greatly contributed to the construction of the Kremlin wall
s and towers
. The small banqueting hall of the Russian Tsars, called the Palace of Facets
because of its facetted upper story, is the work of two Italians, Marco Ruffo
and Pietro Solario, and shows a more Italian style. In 1505, an Italian known in Russia as Aleviz Novyi built 12 churches for Ivan III, including the Cathedral of the Archangel
, a building remarkable for the successful blending of Russian tradition, Orthodox requirements and Renaissance style.
was divided into three states – the northern and central part of Croatia and Slavonia
were in union with the Kingdom of Hungary
, while Dalmatia
, with the exception of independent Dubrovnik
, was under the rule of the Venetian Republic. The Cathedral of St.James
in Šibenik
, was begun in 1441 in the Gothic style by Giorgio da Sebenico (Juraj Dalmatinac). Its unusual construction does not use mortar, the stone blocks, pilaster
s and ribs being bonded with joints and slots
in the way that was usual in wooden constructions. In 1477 the work was unfinished, and continued under Nikola Firentinac
who respected the mode of construction and the plan of the former architect, but continued the work which includes the upper windows, the vaults and the dome, in the Renaissance style. The combination of a high barrel vault with lower half-barrel vaults over the aisles the gives the façade its distinctive trefoil
shape, the first of this type in the region. The cathedral was listed as a UNESCO
World Heritage List in 2001.
, were often of a more Mannerist or Baroque style. Architects of factories, office blocks and department stores continued to use the Renaissance palazzo form into the 20th century, in Mediterranean Revival Style architecture
with an Italian Renaissance emphasis.
Many ideas in Renaissance architecture can be traced through subsequent architectural movements—from Renaissance to High-Renaissance, to Mannerism
, to Baroque
(or Rococo), to Neo-Classicism, to Eclecticism
, to Modernism
, and to Postmodernism
. The influence of Renaissance architecture can still be seen in many of the modern styles and rules of architecture today.
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and was succeeded by Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
. Developed first in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, with Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...
as one of its innovators, the Renaissance style quickly spread to other Italian cities. The style was carried to France, Germany, England, Russia and other parts of Europe at different dates and with varying degrees of impact.
Renaissance style places emphasis on symmetry
Symmetry
Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...
, proportion
Proportion (architecture)
Proportion is the relation between elements and a whole.-Architectural proportions:In architecture the whole is not just a building but the set and setting of the site. The things that make a building and its site "well shaped" include the orientation of the site and the buildings on it to the...
, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of classical antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
and in particular ancient Roman architecture
Roman architecture
Ancient Roman architecture adopted certain aspects of Ancient Greek architecture, creating a new architectural style. The Romans were indebted to their Etruscan neighbors and forefathers who supplied them with a wealth of knowledge essential for future architectural solutions, such as hydraulics...
, of which many examples remained. Orderly arrangements of column
Column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces...
s, pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s and lintels
Lintel (architecture)
A lintel can be a load-bearing building component, a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. It is often found over portals, doors, and windows.-Structural uses:...
, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical dome
Dome
A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
s, niches
Niche (architecture)
A niche in classical architecture is an exedra or an apse that has been reduced in size, retaining the half-dome heading usual for an apse. Nero's Domus Aurea was the first semi-private dwelling that possessed rooms that were given richly varied floor plans, shaped with niches and exedras;...
and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
buildings.
Historiography
The word "Renaissance" derived from the term "la rinascita",which means rebirth, first appeared in Giorgio VasariGiorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, writer, historian, and architect, who is famous today for his biographies of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing.-Biography:...
's Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (The Lives of the Artists, 1550–68).
Although the term Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
was used first by the French historian Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.-Early life:His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press...
, it was given its more lasting definition from the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt
Jacob Burckhardt
Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt was a historian of art and culture, and an influential figure in the historiography of each field. He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history, albeit in a form very different from how cultural history is conceived and studied in academia today...
, whose book, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien 1860, was influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. The folio of measured drawings Édifices de Rome moderne; ou, Recueil des palais, maisons, églises, couvents et autres monuments (The Buildings of Modern Rome), first published in 1840 by Paul Letarouilly, also played an important part in the revival of interest in this period. The Renaissance style was recognized by contemporaries in the term "all'antica", or "in the ancient manner" (of the Romans)..
Principal phases
Historians often divide the Renaissance in Italy into three phases. Whereas art historians might talk of an "Early Renaissance" period, in which they include developments in 14th century painting and sculpture, this is usually not the case in architectural history. The bleak economic conditions of the late 14th century did not produce buildings that are considered to be part of the Renaissance. As a result, the word "Renaissance" among architectural historians usually applies to the period 1400 to ca. 1525, or later in the case of non-Italian Renaissances.Historians often use the following designations:
- Renaissance (ca. 1400–1500); also known as the QuattrocentoQuattrocentoThe cultural and artistic events of 15th century Italy are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento...
and sometimes Early Renaissance - High RenaissanceHigh RenaissanceThe expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...
(ca.1500–1525) - MannerismMannerismMannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
(ca. 1520–1600)
Quattrocento
In the Quattrocento, concepts of architectural order were explored and rules were formulated. (See- Characteristics of Renaissance Architecture, below.) The study of classical antiquity led in particular to the adoption of Classical detail and ornamentation.
Space, as an element of architecture, was utilised differently from the way it had been in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. Space was organised by proportional logic, its form and rhythm subject to geometry, rather than being created by intuition as in Medieval buildings. The prime example of this is the Basilica di San Lorenzo
Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze
The Basilica di San Lorenzo is one of the largest churches of Florence, Italy, situated at the centre of the city’s main market district, and the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family from Cosimo il Vecchio to Cosimo III...
in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
by Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...
(1377–1446).
High Renaissance
During the High Renaissance
High Renaissance
The expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...
, concepts derived from classical antiquity were developed and used with greater surety. The most representative architect is Bramante
Donato Bramante
Donato Bramante was an Italian architect, who introduced the Early Renaissance style to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his most famous design was St...
(1444–1514) who expanded the applicability of classical architecture to contemporary buildings. His San Pietro in Montorio
San Pietro in Montorio
San Pietro in Montorio is a church in Rome, Italy, which includes in its courtyard The Tempietto built by Donato Bramante.-History:...
(1503) was directly inspired by circular Roman temple
Roman temple
Ancient Roman temples are among the most visible archaeological remains of Roman culture, and are a significant source for Roman architecture. Their construction and maintenance was a major part of ancient Roman religion. The main room housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was...
s. He was, however, hardly a slave to the classical forms and it was his style that was to dominate Italian architecture in the 16th century.
Mannerism
During the Mannerist period, architects experimented with using architectural forms to emphasize solid and spatial relationships. The Renaissance ideal of harmony gave way to freer and more imaginative rhythms. The best known architect associated with the Mannerist style was Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
(1475–1564), who is credited with inventing the giant order
Giant order
In Classical architecture, a giant order is an order whose columns or pilasters span two stories...
, a large pilaster that stretches from the bottom to the top of a façade. He used this in his design for the Campidoglio in Rome.
Prior to the 20th century, the term Mannerism had negative connotations, but it is now used to describe the historical period in more general non-judgemental terms.
From Renaissance to Baroque
As the new style of architecture spread out from Italy, most other European countries developed a sort of proto-Renaissance style, before the construction of fully formulated Renaissance buildings. Each country in turn then grafted its own architectural traditions to the new style, so that Renaissance buildings across Europe are diversified by region.
Within Italy the evolution of Renaissance architecture into Mannerism, with widely diverging tendencies in the work of Michelangelo and Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio, led to the Baroque style in which the same architectural vocabulary was used for very different rhetoric.
Outside Italy, Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
was more widespread and fully developed than the Renaissance style, with significant buildings as far afield as Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
Characteristics of Renaissance architecture
Plan
The plans of Renaissance buildings have a square, symmetrical appearance in which proportions are usually based on a module. Within a church the module is often the width of an aisle. The need to integrate the design of the plan with the façade was introduced as an issue in the work of Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...
, but he was never able to carry this aspect of his work into fruition. The first building to demonstrate this was St. Andrea
Basilica di Sant'Andrea di Mantova
The Basilica concattedrale di Sant'Andrea is a Renaissance roman catholic church and minor basilica in Mantua, Lombardy .Commissioned by Ludovico II Gonzaga, the church was begun in 1462 according to designs by Leon Battista Alberti on a site occupied by a Benedictine monastery, of which the bell...
in Mantua by Alberti
Leone Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, cryptographer and general Renaissance humanist polymath...
. The development of the plan in secular architecture was to take place in the 16th century and culminated with the work of Palladio.
Façade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
s are symmetrical around their vertical axis. Church façades are generally surmounted by a pediment and organized by a system of pilasters, arches and entablatures. The columns and windows show a progression towards the center. One of the first true Renaissance façades was the Cathedral of Pienza
Pienza
Pienza, a town and comune in the province of Siena, in the Val d'Orcia in Tuscany , between the towns of Montepulciano and Montalcino, is the "touchstone of Renaissance urbanism."...
(1459–62), which has been attributed to the Florentine architect Bernardo Gambarelli (known as Rossellino) with Alberti
Leone Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, cryptographer and general Renaissance humanist polymath...
perhaps having some responsibility in its design as well.
Domestic buildings are often surmounted by a cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
. There is a regular repetition of openings on each floor, and the centrally placed door is marked by a feature such as a balcony, or rusticated surround. An early and much copied prototype was the façade for the Palazzo Rucellai
Palazzo Rucellai
Palazzo Rucellai is a palatial 15th century townhouse on the Via della Vigna Nuova in Florence, Italy. The Rucellai Palace is believed by most scholars to have been designed by Leon Battista Alberti between 1446 and 1451 and executed, at least in part, by Bernardo Rossellino...
(1446 and 1451) in Florence with its three registers of pilasters
The Roman orders of columns are used:- Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. The orders can either be structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or purely decorative, set against a wall in the form of pilasters. During the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns, pilasters, and entablatures as an integrated system. One of the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was in the Old Sacristy
Sagrestia Vecchia
The Sagrestia Vecchia, or Old Sacristy, is a Christian building in Florence, Italy, one of the most important monuments of the early Italian Renaissance architecture. It is accessed from the inside of San Lorenzo off the left transept...
(1421–1440) by Brunelleschi.
Arches
Arches are semi-circular or (in the Mannerist style) segmental. Arches are often used in arcades, supported on piers or columns with capitals. There may be a section of entablature between the capital and the springing of the arch. Alberti was one of the first to use the arch on a monumental scale at the St. Andrea
Basilica di Sant'Andrea di Mantova
The Basilica concattedrale di Sant'Andrea is a Renaissance roman catholic church and minor basilica in Mantua, Lombardy .Commissioned by Ludovico II Gonzaga, the church was begun in 1462 according to designs by Leon Battista Alberti on a site occupied by a Benedictine monastery, of which the bell...
in Mantua.
Vaults
Vaults do not have ribs. They are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the Gothic vault which is frequently rectangular. The barrel vault
Barrel vault
A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve along a given distance. The curves are typically circular in shape, lending a semi-cylindrical appearance to the total design...
is returned to architectural vocabulary as at the St. Andrea
Basilica di Sant'Andrea di Mantova
The Basilica concattedrale di Sant'Andrea is a Renaissance roman catholic church and minor basilica in Mantua, Lombardy .Commissioned by Ludovico II Gonzaga, the church was begun in 1462 according to designs by Leon Battista Alberti on a site occupied by a Benedictine monastery, of which the bell...
in Mantua.
Domes
St. Peter's Basilica
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian as ' and commonly known as Saint Peter's Basilica, is a Late Renaissance church located within the Vatican City. Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world...
(1506) in Rome, the dome became an indispensable element in church architecture and later even for secular architecture, such as Palladio's Villa Rotonda.
Ceilings
Roofs are fitted with flat or coffered ceilings. They are not left open as in Medieval architecture. They are frequently painted or decorated.
Doors
Doors usually have square lintels. They may be set within an arch or surmounted by a triangular or segmental pediment.
Openings that do not have doors are usually arched and frequently have a large or decorative keystone.
Windows
Windows may be paired and set within a semi-circular arch. They may have square lintels and triangular or segmental pediments, which are often used alternately. Emblematic in this respect is the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, begun in 1517.
In the Mannerist period the “Palladian” arch was employed, using a motif of a high semi-circular topped opening flanked with two lower square-topped openings. Windows are used to bring light into the building and in domestic architecture, to give views. Stained glass, although sometimes present, is not a feature.
Walls
External walls are generally of highly finished ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
masonry, laid in straight courses. The corners of buildings are often emphasised by rusticated quoins
Quoin (architecture)
Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
. Basements and ground floors were often rusticated, as modeled on the Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Palazzo Medici Riccardi
The Palazzo Medici, also called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi after the later family that acquired and expanded it, is a Renaissance palace located in Florence, Italy.-History:...
(1444–1460) in Florence. Internal walls are smoothly plastered and surfaced with white-chalk paint. For more formal spaces, internal surfaces are decorated with frescoes.
Details
Courses, mouldings and all decorative details are carved with great precision. Studying and mastering the details of the ancient Romans was one of the important aspects of Renaissance theory. The different orders each required different sets of details. Some architects were stricter in their use of classical details than others, but there was also a good deal of innovation in solving problems, especially at corners. Moldings stand out around doors and windows rather than being recessed, as in Gothic Architecture. Sculptured figures may be set in niches or placed on plinths. They are not integral to the building as in Medieval architecture.
Influences on the development of Renaissance architecture in Italy
Italy of the 15th century, and the city of Florence in particular, was home to the Renaissance. It is in Florence that the new architectural style had its beginning, not slowly evolving in the way that GothicGothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
grew out of Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
, but consciously brought to being by particular architects who sought to revive the order of a past "Golden Age
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...
". The scholarly approach to the architecture of the ancient coincided with the general revival of learning. A number of factors were influential in bringing this about.
Architectural
Italian architects had always preferred forms that were clearly defined and structural members that expressed their purpose. Many Tuscan Romanesque buildings demonstrate these characteristics, as seen in the Florence Bapistery and Pisa Cathedral.
Italy had never fully adopted the Gothic style of architecture. Apart from the Cathedral of Milan, largely the work of German builders, few Italian churches show the emphasis on vertically, the clustered shafts, ornate tracery and complex ribbed vaulting that characterise Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
in other parts of Europe.
The presence, particularly in Rome, of ancient architectural remains showing the ordered Classical style provided an inspiration to artists at a time when philosophy was also turning towards the Classical.
Political
In the 15th century, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
extended their power through much of the area that surrounded them, making the movement of artists possible. This enabled Florence to have significant artistic influence in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, and through Milan, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
In 1377, the return of the Pope from Avignon
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
and re-establishment of the Papal court
Papal court
The Papal Household or Pontifical Household , called until 1968 the Papal Court , consists of dignitaries who assist the Pope in carrying out particular ceremonies of either a religious or a civil character....
in Rome, brought wealth and importance to that city, as well as a renewal in the importance of the Pope in Italy, which was further strengthened by the Council of Constance
Council of Constance
The Council of Constance is the 15th ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, held from 1414 to 1418. The council ended the Three-Popes Controversy, by deposing or accepting the resignation of the remaining Papal claimants and electing Pope Martin V.The Council also condemned and...
in 1417. Successive Popes, especially Julius II, 1503–13, sought to extend the Pope’s temporal power
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
throughout Italy.
Commercial
In the early Renaissance, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
controlled sea trade over goods from the East. The large towns of Northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
were prosperous through trade with the rest of Europe, Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
providing a seaport for the goods of France and Spain; Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
and Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
being centers of overland trade, and maintaining substantial metalworking industries.
Trade brought wool from England to Florence, ideally located on the river for the production of fine cloth, the industry on which its wealth was founded. By dominating Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
, Florence gained a seaport, and also maintained dominance of Genoa.
In this commercial climate, one family in particular turned their attention from trade to the lucrative business of money-lending. The Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
became the chief bankers to the princes of Europe, becoming virtually princes themselves as they did so, by reason of both wealth and influence.
Along the trade routes, and thus offered some protection by commercial interest, moved not only goods but also artists, scientists and philosophers.
The return of the Pope from Avignon in 1377 and the resultant new emphasis on Rome as the center of Christian spirituality, brought about a boom in the building of churches in Rome such as had not taken place for nearly a thousand years. This commenced in the mid 15th century and gained momentum in the 16th century, reaching its peak in the Baroque period. The construction of the Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and its decoration that was frescoed throughout by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio...
with its uniquely important decorations and the entire rebuilding of St Peter's, one of Christendom's most significant churches, were part of this process.
In wealthy republican Florence, the impetus for church-building was more civic than spiritual. The unfinished state of the enormous cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary did no honour to the city under her patronage. However, as the technology and finance were found to complete it, the rising dome did credit not only to the Blessed Virgin, its architect and the Church but also the Signoria, the Guilds and the sectors of the city from which the manpower to construct it was drawn. The dome inspired further religious works in Florence.
The development of printed books, the rediscovery of ancient writings, the expanding of political and trade contacts and the exploration of the world all increased knowledge and the desire for education.
The reading of philosophies that were not based on Christian theology led to the development of Humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
through which it was clear that while God had established and maintained order in the Universe, it was the role of Man to establish and maintain order in Society.
Civil
Through Humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, civic pride and the promotion of civil peace and order were seen as the marks of citizenship. This led to the building of structures such as Brunelleschi's Hospital of the Innocents
Ospedale degli Innocenti
The Ospedale degli Innocenti is a historical building in Florence, central Italy. Designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, who received the commission in 1419, it was originally a children's orphanage. It is regarded as a notable example of early Italian Renaissance architecture...
with its elegant colonnade forming a link between the charitable building and the public square, and the Laurentian Library
Laurentian Library
The Laurentian Library is a historical library in Florence, Italy, containing a repository of more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books...
where the collection of books established by the Medici family could be consulted by scholars.
Some major ecclesiastical building works were also commissioned, not by the church, but by guilds representing the wealth and power of the city. Brunelleschi’s dome at Florence Cathedral, more than any other building, belonged to the populace because the construction of each of the eight segments was achieved by a different sector of the city.
Patronage
As in the Platonic academy
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
of Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, it was seen by those of Humanist understanding that those people who had the benefit of wealth and education ought to promote the pursuit of learning and the creation of that which was beautiful. To this end, wealthy families—the Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
of Florence, the Gonzaga
House of Gonzaga
The Gonzaga family ruled Mantua in Northern Italy from 1328 to 1708.-History:In 1433, Gianfrancesco I assumed the title of Marquis of Mantua, and in 1530 Federico II received the title of Duke of Mantua. In 1531, the family acquired the Duchy of Monferrato through marriage...
of Mantua, the Farnese in Rome, the Sforzas
House of Sforza
Sforza was a ruling family of Renaissance Italy, based in Milan.-History:The dynasty was founded by Muzio Attendolo , called Sforza , a condottiero from Romagna serving the Angevin kings of Naples...
in Milan—gathered around them people of learning and ability, promoting the skills and creating employment for the most talented artists and architects of their day.
Architectural Theory
During the Renaissance, architecture became not only a question of practice, but also a matter for theoretical discussion. Printing
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
played a large role in the dissemination of ideas.
- The first treatise on architecture was De re aedificatoriaDe Re AedificatoriaDe re aedificatoria is a classic architectural treatise written by Leon Battista Alberti between 1443 and 1452. Although largely dependent on Vitruvius' De architectura, it was the first theoretical book on the subject written in the Italian Renaissance and in 1485 became the first printed book on...
(English: On the Art of Building) by Leon Battista Alberti in 1450. It was to some degree dependent on VitruviusVitruviusMarcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....
' De architecturaDe architectura' is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide for building projects...
, a manuscript of which was discovered in 1414 in a library in Switzerland. De re aedificatoria in 1485 became the first printed book on architecture. - Sebastiano SerlioSebastiano SerlioSebastiano Serlio was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau...
(1475 – c. 1554) produced the next important text, the first volume of which appeared in Venice in 1537; it was entitled "Regole generali d'architettura [...]" (or "General Rules of Architecture"). It is known as Serlio's "Fourth Book" since it was the fourth in Serlio's original plan of a treatise in seven books. In all, five books were published. - In 1570, Andrea PalladioAndrea PalladioAndrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture...
(1508–1580) published I quattro libri dell'architetturaI Quattro Libri dell'ArchitetturaI quattro libri dell'architettura is an Italian treatise on architecture by the architect Andrea Palladio . It was first published in four volumes in 1570 in Venice, illustrated with woodcuts after the author's own drawings. It has been reprinted and translated many times...
("The Four Books of Architecture") in VeniceVeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. This book was widely printed and responsible to a great degree for spreading the ideas of the Renaissance through Europe. All these books were intended to be read and studied not only by architects, but also by patrons.
Development of Renaissance architecture in Italy - Early Renaissance
The leading architects of the Early Renaissance or Quattrocento were BrunelleschiFilippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...
, Michelozzo
Michelozzo
thumb|250px|[[Palazzo Medici]] in Florence.Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi was an Italian architect and sculptor.-Biography:...
and Alberti
Alberti
-Places:* Alberti Partido, a partido of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina* Alberti, Buenos Aires, the main town of the partido-Other:*Alberti bass, a musical accompaniment figuration, usually in the left hand on a keyboard instrument...
.
Brunelleschi
The person generally credited with bringing about the Renaissance view of architecture is Filippo BrunelleschiFilippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...
, (1377–1446). The underlying feature of the work of Brunelleschi was "order".
In the early 15th century, Brunelleschi began to look at the world to see what the rules were that governed one's way of seeing. He observed that the way one sees regular structures such as the Baptistery of Florence
Battistero di San Giovanni (Florence)
The Florence Baptistry or Battistero di San Giovanni is a religious building in Florence , Italy, which has the status of a minor basilica....
and the tiled pavement surrounding it follows a mathematical order—linear perspective.
The buildings remaining among the ruins of ancient Rome appeared to respect a simple mathematical order in the way that Gothic buildings did not. One incontrovertible rule governed all Ancient Roman architecture—a semi-circular arch is exactly twice as wide as it is high. A fixed proportion with implications of such magnitude occurred nowhere in Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
. A Gothic pointed arch could be extended upwards or flattened to any proportion that suited the location. Arches of differing angles frequently occurred within the same structure. No set rules of proportion applied.
From the observation of the architecture of Rome came a desire for symmetry and careful proportion in which the form and composition of the building as a whole and all its subsidiary details have fixed relationships, each section in proportion to the next, and the architectural features serving to define exactly what those rules of proportion are. Brunelleschi gained the support of a number of wealthy Florentine patrons, including the Silk Guild and Cosimo de' Medici
Cosimo de' Medici
Còsimo di Giovanni degli Mèdici was the first of the Medici political dynasty, de facto rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance; also known as "Cosimo 'the Elder'" and "Cosimo Pater Patriae" .-Biography:Born in Florence, Cosimo inherited both his wealth and his expertise in...
.
Florence Cathedral
Brunelleschi's first major architectural commission was for the enormous brick dome which covers the central space of Florence's cathedral, designed by Arnolfo di Cambio
Arnolfo di Cambio
Arnolfo di Cambio was an Italian architect and sculptor.-Biography:Arnolfo was born in Colle Val d'Elsa, Tuscany....
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 that were apparently planned by Arnolfio. 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
Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon ,Rarely Pantheum. This appears in Pliny's Natural History in describing this edifice: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.from ,...
, 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.
San Lorenzo
The new architectural philosophy is best demonstrated in the churches of San Lorenzo
Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze
The Basilica di San Lorenzo is one of the largest churches of Florence, Italy, situated at the centre of the city’s main market district, and the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family from Cosimo il Vecchio to Cosimo III...
, and Santo Spirito
Santo Spirito di Firenze
The Basilica of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito is a church in Florence, Italy. Usually referred to simply as Santo Spirito, it is located in the Oltrarno quarter, facing the square with the same name...
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.
Michelozzo
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
family, his most famous work being the Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Palazzo Medici Riccardi
The Palazzo Medici, also called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi after the later family that acquired and expanded it, is a Renaissance palace located in Florence, Italy.-History:...
, which he was commissioned to design for Cosimo de'Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
in 1444. A decade later he built the Villa Medici at Fiesole
Fiesole
Fiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...
. Among his other works for Cosimo are the library 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
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
.
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 orders 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.
Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti, born in Genoa (1402–1472), was an important Humanist theoretician and designer whose book on architecture De re Aedificatoria was to have lasting effect. An aspect of HumanismHumanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-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.
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
Rimini
Rimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...
, 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.
Sant'Andrea is an extremely dynamic building both without and within. Its triumphal façade is marked by extreme contrasts. The projection of the order of pilasters that define the architectural elements, but are essentially non-functional, is very shallow. This contrasts with the gaping deeply recessed arch which makes a huge portico before the main door. The size of this arch is in direct contrast to the two low square-topped openings that frame it. The light and shade play dramatically over the surface of the building because of the shallowness of its mouldings and the depth of its porch. In the interior Alberti has dispensed with the traditional nave and aisles. Instead there is a slow and majestic progression of alternating tall arches and low square doorways, repeating the "triumphal arch
Arch of Constantine
The Arch of Constantine is a triumphal arch in Rome, situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was erected to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312...
" motif of the façade.
Palazzo Rucellai
Palazzo Rucellai is a palatial 15th century townhouse on the Via della Vigna Nuova in Florence, Italy. The Rucellai Palace is believed by most scholars to have been designed by Leon Battista Alberti between 1446 and 1451 and executed, at least in part, by Bernardo Rossellino...
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. 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.
The Spread of the Renaissance in Italy
In Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
at the court of the Gonzaga
House of Gonzaga
The Gonzaga family ruled Mantua in Northern Italy from 1328 to 1708.-History:In 1433, Gianfrancesco I assumed the title of Marquis of Mantua, and in 1530 Federico II received the title of Duke of Mantua. In 1531, the family acquired the Duchy of Monferrato through marriage...
, Alberti designed two churches, the Basilica of Sant'Andrea and San Sebastiano
San Sebastiano
San Sebastiano can refer to:* Saint Sebastian in Italian* San Sebastiano fuori le mura, a church in Rome* San Sebastiano al Palatino, a church in Rome* San Sebastiano , a church in Mantua, Italy* San Sebastiano , a church in Biella...
.
Urbino
Urbino
Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...
was an important centre with a new ducal palace
Palazzo Ducale, Urbino
The Ducal Palace is a Renaissance building in the Italian city of Urbino in the Marche. One of the most important monuments in Italy, it is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site.-History:...
being built there. Ferrara
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
, under the Este
Este
The House of Este is a European princely dynasty. It is split into two branches; the elder is known as the House of Welf-Este or House of Welf historically rendered in English, Guelf or Guelph...
, was expanded in the late fifteenth century, with several new palaces being built such as the Palazzo dei Diamanti
Palazzo dei Diamanti
Palazzo dei Diamanti is a palace located on Corso Ercole I d'Este 21 in Ferrara, northern Italy. It is one of the most famous palaces in Italy, as well one of the most influential examples of European Renaissance architecture.-History:...
and Palazzo Schifanoia
Palazzo Schifanoia
Palazzo Schifanoia is a Renaissance palace in Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna built for the Este family. The name "Schifanoia" is thought to originate from "schivar la noia" meaning literally to "escape from boredom" which describes accurately the original intention of the palazzo and the other villas...
for Borso d'Este
Borso d'Este
thumb|Borso d'Este, attributed to [[Vicino da Ferrara]], [[Pinacoteca]] of the [[Castello Sforzesco|Sforza Castle]] in [[Milan]], [[Italy]].Borso d'Este was the first Duke of Ferrara, which he ruled from 1450 until his death...
. In Milan, under the Visconti
House of Visconti
Visconti is the family name of two important Italian noble dynasties of the Middle Ages. There are two distinct Visconti families: The first one in the Republic of Pisa in the mid twelfth century who achieved prominence first in Pisa, then in Sardinia where they became rulers of Gallura...
, the Certosa di Pavia
Certosa di Pavia
The Certosa di Pavia Gra-Car , Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Grace, is a monastery and complex in Lombardy, northern Italy, situated near a small town of the same name in the Province of Pavia, 8 km north of Pavia...
was completed, and then later under the Sforza, the Castello Sforzesco was built.
In Venice, San Zaccaria received its Renaissance façade at the hands of Antonio Gambello and Mauro Codussi
Mauro Codussi
Mauro Codussi was an Italian architect of the early-Renaissance, active mostly in Venice. The name can also be spelt Coducci. He was one of the first to bring the classical syle of the early renaissance to Venice to replace the prevalent Gothic style.Born near Bergamo about 1440, he is first...
, begun in the 1480s. Giovanni Maria Falconetto
Giovanni Maria Falconetto
Giovanni Maria Falconetto was an Italian architect and artist. He designed the first fully Renaissance building in Padua, the Loggia Cornaro, a garden loggia for Alvise Cornaro built as a Roman doric arcade...
, the Veronese architect-sculptor, introduced Renaissance architecture to Padua with the Loggia Cornaro in the garden of Alvise Cornaro
Alvise Cornaro
Alvise Cornaro was an Italian patron of arts, also remembered for his four books of Discorsi about the secrets to living long and well with measure and sobriety....
.
In southern Italy, Renaissance masters were called to Naples by Alfonso V of Aragon
Alfonso V of Aragon
Alfonso the Magnanimous KG was the King of Aragon , Valencia , Majorca, Sardinia and Corsica , and Sicily and Count of Barcelona from 1416 and King of Naples from 1442 until his death...
after his conquest of the Kingdom of Naples
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...
. The most notable examples of Renaissance architecture in that city are the Cappella Caracciolo, attributed to Bramante, and the Palazzo Orsini di Gravina, built by Gabriele d'Angelo between 1513 and 1549.
High Renaissance
In the late 15th century and early 16th century architects such as Bramante, Antonio da Sangallo the YoungerAntonio da Sangallo the Younger
thumb|250px|The church of Santa Maria di Loreto near the [[Trajan's Market]] in [[Rome]], considered Sangallo's masterwork.thumb|250px|View of St. Patrick's Well in [[Orvieto]]....
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 cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
s becoming very evident.
The architectural period is known as the "High Renaissance" and coincides with the age of Leonardo
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
, Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
and Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
.
Bramante
Donato Bramante
Donato Bramante was an Italian architect, who introduced the Early Renaissance style to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his most famous design was St...
, (1444–1514), was born in Urbino
Urbino
Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...
and turned from painting to architecture, finding his first important patronage under Ludovico Sforza
Ludovico Sforza
Ludovico Sforza , was Duke of Milan from 1489 until his death. A member of the Sforza family, he was the fourth son of Francesco Sforza. He was famed as a patron of Leonardo da Vinci and other artists, and presided over the final and most productive stage of the Milanese Renaissance...
, Duke of Milan, for whom he produced a number of buildings over 20 years. After the fall of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
to the French in 1499, Bramante travelled to Rome where he achieved great success under papal patronage.
Bramante’s finest architectural achievement in Milan is his addition of crossing and choir to the abbey church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan)
Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan)
Santa Maria delle Grazie is a church and Dominican convent in Milan, northern Italy, included in the UNESCO World Heritage sites list...
. This is a brick structure, the form of which owes much to the Northern Italian tradition of square domed baptisteries
Baptistery
In Christian architecture the baptistry or baptistery is the separate centrally-planned structure surrounding the baptismal font. The baptistry may be incorporated within the body of a church or cathedral and be provided with an altar as a chapel...
. The new building is almost centrally planned, except that, because of the site, the chancel extends further than the transept arms. The hemispherical dome, of approximately 20 metres across, rises up hidden inside an octagonal drum pierced at the upper level with arched classical openings. The whole exterior has delineated details decorated with the local terracotta ornamentation.
In Rome Bramante created what has been described as "a perfect architectural gem", the Tempietto in the Cloister of San Pietro in Montorio
San Pietro in Montorio
San Pietro in Montorio is a church in Rome, Italy, which includes in its courtyard The Tempietto built by Donato Bramante.-History:...
. 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
Temple of Vesta
The Temple of Vesta is an ancient edifice in Rome, Italy, located in the Roman Forum near the Regia and the House of the Vestal Virgins. The temple's most recognizable feature is its circular footprint. Since the worship of Vesta began in private homes, the architecture seems to be a reminder of...
, 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.
Bramante went on to work at the Vatican
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
where he designed the impressive Cortili of St. Damaso and of the Belvedere
Cortile del Belvedere
The Cortile del Belvedere, the Belvedere courtyard, designed by Donato Bramante from 1506 onwards, was a major architectural work of the High Renaissance at the Vatican Palace in Rome; its concept and details reverberating in courtyard design, formalized piazzas and garden plans throughout Western...
. In 1506 Bramante’s design for Pope Julius II’s
Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II , nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" and "The Warrior Pope" , born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1503 to 1513...
rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica was selected, and the foundation stone laid. After Bramante’s death and many changes of plan, Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, as chief architect, reverted to something closer to Bramante’s original proposal. See below- Michelangelo.
Sangallo
Antonio da Sangallo the Younger
thumb|250px|The church of Santa Maria di Loreto near the [[Trajan's Market]] in [[Rome]], considered Sangallo's masterwork.thumb|250px|View of St. Patrick's Well in [[Orvieto]]....
, (1485–1546), was one of a family of military engineers. His uncle, Giuliano da Sangallo
Giuliano da Sangallo
Giuliano da Sangallo was an Italian sculptor, architect and military engineer active during the Italian Renaissance.He was born in Florence. His father Francesco Giamberti was a woodworker and architect, much employed by Cosimo de Medici, and his brother Antonio da Sangallo the Elder and nephew...
was one of those who submitted a plan for the rebuilding of St Peter’s and was briefly a co-director of the project, with Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
.
Antonio da Sangallo also submitted a plan for St Peter’s and became the chief architect after the death of Raphael, to be succeeded himself by Michelangelo.
His fame does not rest upon his association with St Peter’s but in his building of the Farnese Palace, “the grandest palace of this period”, started in 1530. The impression of grandness lies in part in its sheer size, (56 m long by 29.5 meters high) and in its lofty location overlooking a broad piazza. It is also a building of beautiful proportion, unusual for such a large and luxurious house of the date in having been built principally of stuccoed brick, rather than of stone. Against the smooth pink-washed walls the stone quoins of the corners, the massive rusticated portal and the stately repetition of finely detailed windows give a powerful effect, setting a new standard of elegance in palace-building. The upper of the three equally sized floors was added by Michelangelo. It is probably just as well that this impressive building is of brick; the travertine for its architectural details came not from a quarry, but from the Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...
.
Raphael
RaphaelRaphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
, (1483–1520), Urbino
Urbino
Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...
, trained under Perugino in Perugia
Perugia
Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....
before moving to Florence, was for a time the chief architect for St. Peter’s
St. Peter's Basilica
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian as ' and commonly known as Saint Peter's Basilica, is a Late Renaissance church located within the Vatican City. Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world...
, 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
Aedicula
In religion in ancient Rome, an aedicula is a small shrine. The word aedicula is the diminutive of the Latin aedes, a temple building or house....
" type, each set around with ordered pilasters, cornice and alternate arched and triangular pediments.
Mannerism
Mannerism in architecture was marked by widely diverging tendencies in the work of MichelangeloMichelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano was an Italian painter and architect. A pupil of Raphael, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism...
, Baldassare Peruzzi
Baldassare Peruzzi
Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi was an Italian architect and painter, born in a small town near Siena and died in Rome. He worked for many years, beginning in 1520, under Bramante, Raphael, and later Sangallo during the erection of the new St. Peter's...
and Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture...
, that led to the Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
style in which the same architectural vocabulary was used for very different rhetoric.
Peruzzi
Baldassare PeruzziBaldassare Peruzzi
Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi was an Italian architect and painter, born in a small town near Siena and died in Rome. He worked for many years, beginning in 1520, under Bramante, Raphael, and later Sangallo during the erection of the new St. Peter's...
, (1481–1536), was an architect born in Siena
Siena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
, but working in Rome, whose work bridges the High Renaissance and the Mannerist.
His Villa Farnesina
Villa Farnesina
The Villa Farnesina is a Renaissance suburban villa in the Via della Lungara, in the district of Trastevere in Rome, central Italy.The villa was built for Agostino Chigi, a rich Sienese banker and the treasurer of Pope Julius II. Between 1506–1510, the Sienese artist and pupil of Bramante,...
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.
Peruzzi’s most famous work is the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne
Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne
The Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne is a Renaissance palace in Rome, Italy. The palace was designed by Baldassarre Peruzzi in 1532-1536 on a site of three contiguous palaces owned by the old Roman Massimo family and built after arson destroyed the earlier structures during the Sack of Rome...
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 city’s poor.
Giulio Romano
Giulio RomanoGiulio Romano
Giulio Romano was an Italian painter and architect. A pupil of Raphael, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism...
(1499–1546), was a pupil of Raphael, assisting him on various works for the Vatican. Romano was also a highly inventive designer, working for Federico II Gonzaga
Frederick II, Duke of Mantua
Federico II of Gonzaga was the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua from 1519 until his death. He was also Marquis of Montferrat from 1536.-Biography:...
at Mantua on the Palazzo Te, (1524–1534), a project which combined his skills as architect, sculptor and painter. In this work, incorporating garden grotto
Grotto
A grotto is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associated with modern, historic or prehistoric use by humans. When it is not an artificial garden feature, a grotto is often a small cave near water and often flooded or liable to flood at high tide...
es and extensive frescoes, he uses illusionistic effects
Illusion
An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people....
, surprising combinations of architectural form and texture, and the frequent use of features that seem somewhat disproportionate or out of alignment. The total effect is eerie and disturbing. Ilan Rachum cites Romano as “one of the first promoters of Mannerism”.
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 LibraryLaurentian Library
The Laurentian Library is a historical library in Florence, Italy, containing a repository of more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books...
and its lobby at the monastery of San Lorenzo in Florence, and St Peter's Basilica in Rome.
St Peter's was "the greatest creation of the Renaissance", and a great number of architects contributed their skills to it. But at its completion, there was more of Michelangelo’s design than of any other architect, before or after him.
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 Bramante’s 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
Helen Gardner (art historian)
Helen Gardner was an American art historian and educator. Her Art Through the Ages remains a standard text for American art history classes....
says: "Michelangelo, with a few strokes of the pen, converted its snowflake complexity into a massive, cohesive unity."
Michelangelo’s 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
Giacomo della Porta
Giacomo della Porta was an Italian architect and sculptor, who worked on many important buildings in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica. He was born at Porlezza, Lombardy and died in Rome.-Biography:...
. 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 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
Laurentian Library
The Laurentian Library is a historical library in Florence, Italy, containing a repository of more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books...
, also built by him to house the Medici
Cosimo de' Medici
Còsimo di Giovanni degli Mèdici was the first of the Medici political dynasty, de facto rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance; also known as "Cosimo 'the Elder'" and "Cosimo Pater Patriae" .-Biography:Born in Florence, Cosimo inherited both his wealth and his expertise in...
collection of books at the convent of San Lorenzo in Florence, the same San Lorenzo’s at which Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...
had recast church architecture into a Classical mold and established clear formula for the use of Classical orders and their various components.
Michelangelo takes all Brunelleschi’s components and bends them to his will. The Library is upstairs. It is a long low building with an ornate wooden ceiling, a matching floor and crowded with corrals finished by his successors to Michelangelo’s design. But it is a light room, the natural lighting streaming through a long row of windows that appear positively crammed between the order of pilasters that march along the wall. The vestibule, on the other hand, is tall, taller than it is wide and is crowded by a large staircase that pours out of the library in what Pevsner
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...
refers to as a “flow of lava”, and bursts in three directions when it meets the balustrade of the landing. It is an intimidating staircase, made all the more so because the rise of the stairs at the center is steeper than at the two sides, fitting only eight steps into the space of nine.
The space is crowded and it is to be expected that the wall spaces would be divided by pilasters of low projection. But Michelangelo has chosen to use paired columns, which, instead of standing out boldly from the wall, he has sunk deep into recesses within the wall itself. In San Lorenzo's church nearby, Brunelleschi used little scrolling console brackets to break the strongly horizontal line of the course above the arcade. Michelangelo has borrowed Brunelleschi’s motifs and stood each pair of sunken columns on a pair of twin console brackets
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
. Pevsner
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...
says the “Laurenziana… reveals Mannerism in its most sublime architectural form”.
Giacomo della Porta
Giacomo della PortaGiacomo della Porta
Giacomo della Porta was an Italian architect and sculptor, who worked on many important buildings in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica. He was born at Porlezza, Lombardy and died in Rome.-Biography:...
, (c.1533–1602), was famous as the architect who made the dome of St Peter’s Basilica a reality. The change in outline between the dome as it appears in the model and the dome as it was built, has brought about speculation as to whether the changes originated with della Porta or with Michelangelo himself.
Della Porta spent nearly all his working life in Rome, designing villas, palazzi and churches in the Mannerist style. One of his most famous works is the façade of the Church of the Gesù
Church of the Gesu
The Church of the Gesù is the mother church of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious order also known as the Jesuits. Officially named , its facade is "the first truly baroque façade", introducing the baroque style into architecture ,. The church served as model for innumerable Jesuit...
, a project that he inherited from his teacher Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola. Most characteristics of the original design are maintained, subtly transformed to give more weight to the central section, where della Porta uses, among other motifs, a low triangular pediment overlaid on a segmental one above the main door. The upper storey and its pediment give the impression of compressing the lower one. The center section, like that of Sant'Andrea at Mantua, is based on the Triumphal Arch, but has two clear horizontal divisions like Santa Maria Novella. See Alberti above. The problem of linking the aisles to the nave is solved using Alberti’s scrolls, in contrast to Vignola’s solution which provided much smaller brackets and four statues to stand above the paired pilasters, visually weighing down the corners of the building. The influence of the design may be seen in Baroque churches throughout Europe.
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture...
, (1508–80), "the most influential architect of the whole Renaissance"', was, as a stonemason, introduced to Humanism by the poet Giangiorgio Trissino. His first major architectural commission was the rebuilding of the Basilica Palladiana
Basilica Palladiana
The Basilica Palladiana is a Renaissance building in the central Piazza dei Signori in Vicenza, north-eastern Italy. The most notable feature of the edifice is the loggia, which shows one of the first examples of the what came to be known as the Palladian window, designed by a young Andrea...
at Vicenza
Vicenza
Vicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
, in the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
where he was to work most of his life.
Palladio was to transform the architectural style of both palaces and churches by taking a different perspective on the notion of Classicism. While the architects of Florence and Rome looked to structures like the Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...
and the Arch of Constantine
Arch of Constantine
The Arch of Constantine is a triumphal arch in Rome, situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was erected to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312...
to provide formulae, Palladio looked to classical temples with their simple peristyle form. When he used the “triumphal arch
Arch of Constantine
The Arch of Constantine is a triumphal arch in Rome, situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was erected to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312...
” motif of a large arched opening with lower square-topped opening on either side, he invariably applied it on a small scale, such as windows, rather than on a large scale as Alberti used it at Sant’Andrea’s. This Ancient Roman motif is often referred to as the Palladian Arch.
The best known of Palladio’s domestic buildings is Villa Capra, otherwise known as "la Rotonda", a centrally planned house with a domed central hall and four identical façades, each with a temple-like portico like that of the Pantheon
Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon ,Rarely Pantheum. This appears in Pliny's Natural History in describing this edifice: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.from ,...
in Rome. At the Villa Cornaro
Villa Cornaro
Villa Cornaro is a patrician villa in Piombino Dese, about 30 km northwest of Venice, Italy. It was designed by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio in 1552 and is illustrated and described by him in Book Two of his 1570 masterwork, I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura [The Four...
, the projecting portico of the north façade and recessed loggia of the garden façade are of two order
Classical order
A classical order is one of the ancient styles of classical architecture, each distinguished by its proportions and characteristic profiles and details, and most readily recognizable by the type of column employed. Three ancient orders of architecture—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—originated in...
ed stories, the upper forming a balcony
Balcony
Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...
.
Like Alberti, della Porta and others, in the designing of a church façade, Palladio was confronted by the problem of visually linking the aisles to the nave while maintaining and defining the structure of the building. Palladio’s solution was entirely different from that employed by della Porta. At the church of San Giorgio Maggiore
Church of San Giorgio Maggiore
thumb|450 px|San Giorgio Maggiore seen across the water in full sun on an evening in JuneSan Giorgio Maggiore is a 16th century Benedictine church on the island of the same name in Venice, northern Italy, designed by Andrea Palladio and built between 1566 and 1610...
in Venice he overlays a tall temple, its columns raised on high plinths, over another low wide temple façade, its columns rising from the basements and its narrow lintel and pilasters appearing behind the giant order of the central nave.
Progression from Early Renaissance through to Baroque
In Italy, there appears to be a seamless progression from Early Renaissance architecture through the High Renaissance and Mannerist to the Baroque style. Pevsner comments about the vestibule of the Laurentian Library that it "has often been said that the motifs of the walls show Michelangelo as the father of the Baroque".While continuity may be the case in Italy, it was not necessarily the case elsewhere. The adoption of the Renaissance style of architecture was slower in some areas than in others, as may be seen in England, for example. Indeed, as Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II , nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" and "The Warrior Pope" , born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1503 to 1513...
was having the ancient Basilica of St. Peter’s demolished to make way for the new, Henry VII of England
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....
was adding a glorious new chapel in the Perpendicular Gothic
English Gothic architecture
English Gothic is the name of the architectural style that flourished in England from about 1180 until about 1520.-Introduction:As with the Gothic architecture of other parts of Europe, English Gothic is defined by its pointed arches, vaulted roofs, buttresses, large windows, and spires...
style to Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
.
Likewise, the style that was to become known as Baroque evolved in Italy in the early 17th century, at about the time that the first fully Renaissance buildings were constructed at Greenwich and Whitehall in England, after a prolonged period of experimentation with Classical motifs applied to local architectural forms, or conversely, the adoption of Renaissance structural forms in the broadest sense with an absence of the formulae that governed their use. While the English were just discovering what the rules of Classicism were, the Italians were experimenting with methods of breaking them. In England, following the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
of the Monarchy in 1660, the architectural climate changed, and taste moved in the direction of the Baroque. Rather than evolving, as it did in Italy, it arrived fully fledged.
In a similar way, in many parts of Europe that had few purely classical and ordered buildings like Brunelleschi’s Santo Spirito and Michelozzo’s Medici Riccardi Palace, Baroque architecture appeared almost unheralded, on the heels of a sort of Proto-Renaissance local style. The spread of the Baroque and its replacement of traditional and more conservative Renaissance architecture was particularly apparent in the building of churches as part of the Counter Reformation.
Spread of Renaissance architecture beyond Italy
Though Italian architects were highly sought after, such as Sebastiano Serlio
Sebastiano Serlio
Sebastiano Serlio was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau...
in France, Aristotile Fioravanti
Aristotile Fioravanti
Ridolfo "Aristotele" Fioravanti was an Italian Renaissance architect and engineer. His surname is sometimes given as Fieraventi. Russian versions of his name are Фиораванти, Фьораванти, Фиеравенти, Фиораванте....
in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and Francesco Fiorentino in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, soon, non-Italians were studying Italian architecture and translating it into their own idiom. These included Philibert de l'Orme
Philibert de l'Orme
Philibert DeLorme was a French architect, one of the great masters of the French Renaissance.He was born at Lyon, the son of Jean Delorme, a master mason. At an early age Philibert was sent to Italy to study and was employed there by Pope Paul III...
(1510–1570) in France, Juan Bautista de Toledo
Juan Bautista de Toledo
Juan Bautista de Toledo. Spanish architect educated in Italy, in the Italian High Renaissance. As many Italian renaissance architects, he had experience in both architecture and military and civil public works. Born, either in Toledo or in Madrid around 1515. Died May 19, 1567 in Madrid...
(died: 1567) in Spain and Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...
(1573–1652) in England.
Books or ornament prints with engraved
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
illustrations demonstrating plans and ornament were very important in spreading Renaissance styles in Northern Europe, with among the most important authors being Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau
Androuet du Cerceau was a family of French architects and designers active in the 16th and early 17th century.*Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau *Jean Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau...
in France, and Hans Vredeman de Vries
Hans Vredeman de Vries
Hans Vredeman de Vries was a Dutch Renaissance architect, painter, and engineer. Vredeman de Vries is known for his publication in 1583 on garden design and his books with many examples on ornaments and perspective ....
in the Netherlands, with the German Wendel Dietterlin
Wendel Dietterlin
Wendel Dietterlin , sometimes Wendel Dietterlin the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, was a German mannerist painter, printmaker and architectural theoretician...
, in his Architectura of 1593-94, being perhaps the most extreme.
France
During the early years of the 16th century the French were involved in wars in northern Italy, bringing back to France not just the Renaissance art treasures as their war bootyBooty
Category:Article Feedback Blacklist...
, but also stylistic ideas. In the Loire Valley
Loire Valley
The Loire Valley , spanning , is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France. Its area comprises approximately . It is referred to as the Cradle of the French Language, and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards, and artichoke, asparagus, and...
a wave of building was carried and many Renaissance chateaux appeared at this time, the earliest example being the Château d'Amboise
Château d'Amboise
The royal Château at Amboise is a château located in Amboise, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France.-Origins and royal residence:...
(c. 1495) in which Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
spent his last years. The style became dominant under Francis I
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
(See Châteaux of the Loire Valley
Châteaux of the Loire Valley
The châteaux of the Loire Valley are part of the architectural heritage of the historic towns of Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Nantes, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours along the Loire River in France...
).
Netherlands
As in painting, Renaissance architecture took some time to reach the Netherlands and did not entirely supplant the Gothic elements. An architect directly influenced by the Italian masters was Cornelis Floris de VriendtCornelis Floris de Vriendt
Cornelis Floris de Vriendt was a Flemish Renaissance architect and sculptor. He played an important role in the building of the Antwerp City Hall. His brother was Frans Floris, for whom he designed a house in Antwerp.-External links:...
, who designed the city hall of Antwerp
Antwerp City Hall
The City Hall of Antwerp, Belgium, stands on the western side of Antwerp's Grote Markt . Erected between 1561 and 1565 to the design of Cornelis Floris de Vriendt and several other architects and artists, this Renaissance building incorporates both Flemish and Italian influences.The low arcaded...
, finished in 1564. The style sometimes known as "Antwerp Mannerism", keeping a similar overall structure to late-Gothic buildings, but with larger windows and much florid decoration and detailing in Renaissance styles, was widely influential across Northern Europe, for example in Elizabethan architecture
Elizabethan architecture
Elizabethan architecture is the term given to early Renaissance architecture in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historically, the period corresponds to the Cinquecento in Italy, the Early Renaissance in France, and the Plateresque style in Spain...
, and is part of the wider movement of Northern Mannerism
Northern Mannerism
Northern Mannerism is the term in European art history for the versions of Mannerism practiced in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th century...
.
In the early 17th century Dutch Republic
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...
, Hendrick de Keyser
Hendrick de Keyser
Hendrick de Keyser was a Dutch sculptor and architect born in Utrecht, Netherlands, who was instrumental in establishing a late Renaissance form of Mannerism in Amsterdam...
played an important role in developing the Amsterdam Renaissance style, which has local characteristics including the prevalence of tall narrow town-houses, the "trapgevel" or Dutch gable
Crow-stepped gable
A Stepped gable, Crow-stepped gable, or Corbie step is a stair-step type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building...
and the employment of decorative triangular pediments over doors and windows in which the apex rises much more steeply than in most other Renaissance architecture, but in keeping with the profile of the gable. Carved stone details are often of low profile, in strapwork
Strapwork
In the history of art and design, the term strapwork refers to a stylised representation in ornament of strips or bands of curling leather, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings and often interwoven...
resembling leatherwork, a stylistic feature originating in the School of Fontainebleau
School of Fontainebleau
The Ecole de Fontainebleau refers to two periods of artistic production in France during the late Renaissance centered around the royal Château de Fontainebleau, that were crucial in forming the French version of Northern Mannerism....
. This feature was exported to England.
England
Renaissance architecture arrived in England during the reign of Elizabeth I, having first spread through the Low countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
where among other features it acquired versions of the Dutch gable
Crow-stepped gable
A Stepped gable, Crow-stepped gable, or Corbie step is a stair-step type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building...
, and Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
strapwork
Strapwork
In the history of art and design, the term strapwork refers to a stylised representation in ornament of strips or bands of curling leather, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings and often interwoven...
in geometric designs adorning the walls. The new style tended to manifest itself in large square tall houses such as Longleat House.
The first great exponent of Italian Renaissance architecture in England was Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...
(1573–1652), who had studied architecture in Italy where the influence of Palladio was very strong. Jones returned to England full of enthusiasm for the new movement and immediately began to design such buildings as the Queen's House
Queen's House
The Queen's House, Greenwich, is a former royal residence built between 1614-1617 in Greenwich, then a few miles downriver from London, and now a district of the city. Its architect was Inigo Jones, for whom it was a crucial early commission, for Anne of Denmark, the queen of King James I of England...
at Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
in 1616 and the Banqueting House at Whitehall
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
three years later. These works, with their clean lines, and symmetry were revolutionary in a country still enamoured with mullion windows, crenellations and turrets.
Scandinavia
The Renaissance architecture that found its way to Scandinavia was influenced by the Flemish architecture, and included high gables and a castle air as demonstrated in the architecture of Frederiksborg Palace. Consequently much of the Neo-Renaissance to be found in the Scandinavian countries is derived from this source.In Denmark, Renaissance architecture thrived during the reigns of Frederick II and especially Christian IV. Inspired by the French castles of the times, Flemish architects designed masterpieces such as Kronborg Castle in Helsingør and Frederiksborg Palace in Hillerod. Frederiksborg Palace (1602–1620) in Hillerod is the largest Renaissance palace in Scandinavia.
Elsewhere, in Sweden, with Gustav Wasa's seizure of power and the onset of the Protestant reformation, church construction and aristocratic building projects came to a near standstill. During this time period, the magnificent Wasa castles appeared. They were erected at strategic locations to control the country as well as to accommodate the traveling royal court. Gripsholm Castle, Kalmar Castle and Vadstena Castle are known for their fusion of medieval elements with Renaissance architecture.
The architecture of Norway was influenced partly by the occurrence of the plague during the Renaissance era. After the Black Death, monumental construction in Norway came to a standstill. There are few examples of Renaissance architecture in Norway, the most prominent being the Rosenkrantz Tower in Bergen, Barony Rosendal in Hardanger, and the contemporary Austrat manor near Trondheim, and parts of Akershus Fortress.
There is not much notable Renaissance influence in Finnish architecture.[54]
Germany
The Renaissance in Germany was inspired by German philosophers and artist such as Johannes Reuchlin and Albrecht DürerAlbrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
who visited Italy. Important architecture of this period are especially the Landshut Residence
Landshut Residence
The Landshut Residence is a palace in Landshut, Lower Bavaria.-History:In 1536 Louis X, Duke of Bavaria laid the foundation stone for a new residence in the inner city of Landshut. It was begun in German Renaissance style under the architect Bernhard Zwitzel from Augsburg; this palace is today...
, the castle in Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
,Johannisburg castle in Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburg is a city in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not considered part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is the administrative seat.Aschaffenburg is known as the Tor zum Spessart or "gate to the Spessart"...
and the Town Hall in Augsburg. In July 1567 the city council of Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
approved a design in the Renaissance style by Wilhelm Vernukken for a two storied loggia for Cologne City Hall
Cologne City Hall
The City Hall is a historical building in Cologne, western Germany, located off Hohe Straße in the district of Innenstadt, set between the two squares of Rathausplatz and Alter Markt. It houses part of the city government, including the city council and offices of the Lord Mayor. It is...
.
St Michael in Munich is the largest Renaissance church north of the Alps. It was built by Duke William V
William V, Duke of Bavaria
William V, Duke of Bavaria , called the Pious, was Duke of Bavaria from 1579 to 1597.- Education and early life :...
of Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
between 1583 and 1597 as a spiritual center for the Counter Reformation and was inspired by the Church of il Gesù in Rome. The architect is unknown.
Spain
In Spain, Renaissance began to be grafted to Gothic forms in the last decades of the 15th century. The new style is called PlateresquePlateresque
Plateresque, meaning "in the manner of a silversmith" , was an artistic movement, especially architectural, traditionally held to be exclusive to Spain and its territories, which appeared between the late Gothic and early Renaissance in the late 15th century, and spread over the next two centuries...
, because of the extremely decorated façade, that brought to the mind the decorative motifs of the intricately detailed work of silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
s, the Plateros. Classical orders and candelabra motifs (a candelieri) combined freely into symmetrical wholes.
From the mid-sixteenth century, under such architects as Pedro Machuca, Juan Bautista de Toledo
Juan Bautista de Toledo
Juan Bautista de Toledo. Spanish architect educated in Italy, in the Italian High Renaissance. As many Italian renaissance architects, he had experience in both architecture and military and civil public works. Born, either in Toledo or in Madrid around 1515. Died May 19, 1567 in Madrid...
and Juan de Herrera
Juan de Herrera
Juan de Herrera was a Spanish architect, mathematician and geometrician.One of the most outstanding Spanish architects in the 16th century, Herrera represents the peak of the Renaissance in Spain. His sober style was fully developed in buildings like the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial...
there was a closer adherence to the art of ancient Rome, sometimes anticipating Mannerism
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
, examples of which include the palace of Charles V
Palace of Charles V
The Palace of Charles V is a Renacentist construction in Granada, southern Spain, located on the top of the hill of the Assabica, inside the Nasrid fortification of the Alhambra. It was commanded by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who wished to establish his residence close to the Alhambra palaces...
in Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
and the Escorial.
Portugal
As in Spain, the adoption of the Renaissance style in Portugal was gradual. The so-called ManuelineManueline
The Manueline, or Portuguese late Gothic, is the sumptuous, composite Portuguese style of architectural ornamentation of the first decades of the 16th century, incorporating maritime elements and representations of the discoveries brought from the voyages of Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral...
style (c. 1490–1535) married Renaissance elements to Gothic structures with the superficial application of exuberant ornament similar to the Isabelline Gothic
Isabelline Gothic
Isabelline Gothic , is a style of the Crown of Castile during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, who represents the transition between late Gothic and early Renaissance, with original features and decorative influences of Mudéjar art, Flanders and in a lesser extent, Italy.The Isabelline style...
of Spain. Examples of Manueline include the Belém Tower
Belém Tower
Belém Tower or the Tower of St Vincent is a fortified tower located in the civil parish of Santa Maria de Belém in the municipality of Lisbon, Portugal...
, a defensive building of Gothic form decorated with Renaissance-style loggia
Loggia
Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
s, and the Jerónimos Monastery
Jerónimos Monastery
The Hieronymites Monastery is located near the shore of the parish of Belém, in the municipality of Lisbon, Portugal...
, with Renaissance ornaments decorating portals, columns and cloisters.
The first "pure" Renaissance structures appear under King John III
John III of Portugal
John III , nicknamed o Piedoso , was the fifteenth King of Portugal and the Algarves. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the third daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile...
, like the Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Conceição in Tomar (1532–40), the Porta Especiosa of Coimbra Cathedral
Old Cathedral of Coimbra
The Old Cathedral of Coimbra is one of the most important Romanesque Roman Catholic buildings in Portugal. Construction of the Sé Velha began some time after the Battle of Ourique , when Count Afonso Henriques declared himself King of Portugal and chose Coimbra as capital...
and the Graça Church at Évora
Évora
Évora is a municipality in Portugal. It has total area of with a population of 55,619 inhabitants. It is the seat of the Évora District and capital of the Alentejo region. The municipality is composed of 19 civil parishes, and is located in Évora District....
(c. 1530–1540), as well as the cloisters of the Cathedral of Viseu
Viseu
Viseu is both a city and a municipality in the Dão-Lafões Subregion of Centro Region, Portugal. The municipality, with an area of 507.1 km², has a population of 99,593 , and the city proper has 47,250...
(c. 1528–1534) and Convent of Christ in Tomar (John III Cloisters, 1557–1591). The Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
buildings of São Roque Church
Igreja de São Roque (Lisbon)
The Igreja de São Roque in Lisbon was the earliest Jesuit church in the Portuguese world, and one of the first Jesuit churches anywhere. It served as the Society’s home church in Portugal for over 200 years, before the Jesuits were expelled from that country...
(1565–87) and the Mannerist Monastery of São Vicente de Fora
Monastery of São Vicente de Fora
The Church or Monastery of São Vicente de Fora; meaning "Monastery of St. Vincent Outside the Walls" is a 17th century church and monastery in the city of Lisbon, in Portugal...
(1582–1629), strongly influenced religious architecture in both Portugal and its colonies in the next centuries.
Poland
Polish Renaissance architecture is divided into three periods:The First period (1500–50), is the so called "Italian". Most of Renaissance buildings were building of this time were by Italian architects, mainly from Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
including Francesco Fiorentino and Bartolomeo Berrecci (Wawel
Wawel
Wawel is an architectural complex erected over many centuries atop a limestone outcrop on the left bank of the Vistula River in Kraków, Poland, at an altitude of 228 metres above the sea level. It is a place of great significance to the Polish people. The Royal Castle with an armoury and the...
Courtyard, Sigismund's Chapel
Sigismund's Chapel
"Sigismund's Chapel" of the Wawel Cathedral is one of the most notable pieces of architecture in Kraków. Built as a funerary chapel for the last Jagiellons, it has been hailed by many art historians as "the most beautiful example of the Tuscan Renaissance north of the Alps"...
).
In the Second period (1550–1600), Renaissance architecture became more common, with the beginnings of Mannerist and under the influence of the Netherlands, particularly in Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
. Buildings include the New Cloth Hall
Sukiennice
The Renaissance Sukiennice in Kraków, Poland, is one of the city's most recognizable icons. It is the central feature of the Main Market Square in the Kraków Old Town . It was once a major centre of international trade. Traveling merchants met there to discuss business and to barter...
in Kraków and city halls in Tarnów
Tarnów
Tarnów is a city in southeastern Poland with 115,341 inhabitants as of June 2009. The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarnów Voivodeship. It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east-west connection...
, Sandomierz
Sandomierz
Sandomierz is a city in south-eastern Poland with 25,714 inhabitants . Situated in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship , previously in Tarnobrzeg Voivodeship . It is the capital of Sandomierz County . Sandomierz is known for its Old Town, a major tourist attraction...
, Chełm (demolished) and most famously in Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
.
In the Third period (1600–50), the rising power of Jesuits and Counter Reformation gave impetus to the development of Mannerist architecture and Baroque.
Kingdom of Hungary
One of the earliest places to be influenced by the Renaissance style of architecture was the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
. The style appeared following the marriage of King Matthias Corvinus and Beatrice of Naples
Beatrice of Naples
Beatrice of Naples was the daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples and Isabella of Taranto. She was queen consort to both Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary so she was Queen of Hungary and Bohemia.-Biography:Beatrice received a good education at her father's court in...
in 1476. Many Italian artists, craftsmen and masons
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
arrived at Buda
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
with the new queen. The most important work of Hungarian Renaissance ecclesiastical architecture is the Bakócz Chapel in the Esztergom Basilica
Esztergom Basilica
The Primatial Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary Assumed Into Heaven and St Adalbert is an ecclesiastic basilica in Esztergom, Hungary, the mother church of the Archdiocese of Esztergom-Budapest, and the seat of the Catholic Church in Hungary...
.
Russia
Prince Ivan III introduced Renaissance architecture to RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
by inviting a number of architects from Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, who brought new construction techniques and some Renaissance style elements with them, while in general following the traditional designs of the Russian architecture
Russian architecture
Russian architecture follows a tradition whose roots were established in the Eastern Slavic state of Kievan Rus'. After the fall of Kiev, Russian architectural history continued in the principalities of Vladimir-Suzdal, Novgorod, the succeeding states of the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire,...
. In 1475 the Bolognese architect Aristotele Fioravanti came to rebuild the Cathedral of the Dormition
Cathedral of the Dormition
The Cathedral of the Dormition is a Russian Orthodox church dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos. It is located on the north side of Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin in Russia, where a narrow alley separates the north from the Patriarch's Palace with the Twelve Apostles Church....
in the Moscow Kremlin
Moscow Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin , sometimes referred to as simply The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River , Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square and the Alexander Garden...
, damaged in an earthquake. Fioravanti was given the 12th-century Vladimir Cathedral
Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir
Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir used to be a mother church of medieval Russia in the 13th and 14th centuries...
as a model, and produced a design combining traditional Russian style with a Renaissance sense of spaciousness, proportion and symmetry.
In 1485 Ivan III commissioned the building of a royal Terem Palace
Terem Palace
Terem Palace or Teremnoy Palace is a historical building in the Moscow Kremlin, Russia, which used to be the main residence of the Russian tsars in the 17th century. Its name is derived from the Greek word τερεμνον...
within the Kremlin, with Aloisio da Milano
Aloisio da Milano
Aloisio da Milano, also known as Aloisio da Carezano, Aleviz Milanets and Aleviz Fryazin was an Italian architect who worked in Muscovy....
being the architect of the first three floors. Aloisio da Milano, as well as the other Italian architects, also greatly contributed to the construction of the Kremlin wall
Kremlin Wall
The Kremlin Wall is a defensive wall that surrounds the Moscow Kremlin, recognizable by the characteristic notches and its Kremlin towers. The original walls were likely a simple wooden fence with guard towers built in 1156.-History:...
s and towers
Kremlin towers
The following is a list of towers of Moscow Kremlin. The Kremlin Wall is a defensive wall that surrounds the Moscow Kremlin, recognizable by the characteristic notches and its towers...
. The small banqueting hall of the Russian Tsars, called the Palace of Facets
Palace of Facets
The Palace of the Facets is a building in the Moscow Kremlin, Russia, which contains what used to be the main banquet reception hall of the Muscovite Tsars. It is the oldest preserved secular building in Moscow. Located on Kremlin Cathedral Square, between the Cathedral of the Annunciation and the...
because of its facetted upper story, is the work of two Italians, Marco Ruffo
Marco Ruffo
Marco Ruffo as known as Marco Fryazin was an Italian architect active in Moscow in the 15th century....
and Pietro Solario, and shows a more Italian style. In 1505, an Italian known in Russia as Aleviz Novyi built 12 churches for Ivan III, including the Cathedral of the Archangel
Cathedral of the Archangel
The Cathedral of the Archangel is a Russian Orthodox church dedicated to the Archangel Michael. It is located in Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin in Russia between the Great Kremlin Palace and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. It was the main necropolis for members of the Tsars of Russia until...
, a building remarkable for the successful blending of Russian tradition, Orthodox requirements and Renaissance style.
Croatia
In the 15th century, CroatiaCroatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
was divided into three states – the northern and central part of Croatia and Slavonia
Slavonia
Slavonia is a geographical and historical region in eastern Croatia...
were in union with the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
, while Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
, with the exception of independent Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
, was under the rule of the Venetian Republic. The Cathedral of St.James
Cathedral of St. James, Šibenik
The Cathedral of St. James inŠibenik, Croatia is a triple-nave basilica with three apses and a dome in the city of Šibenik, Croatia. It is the church of the Catholic Church in Croatia, and the see of the Šibenik diocese. It is also the most important architectural monument of the Renaissance in...
in Šibenik
Šibenik
Šibenik is a historic town in Croatia, with population of 51,553 . It is located in central Dalmatia where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea...
, was begun in 1441 in the Gothic style by Giorgio da Sebenico (Juraj Dalmatinac). Its unusual construction does not use mortar, the stone blocks, pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s and ribs being bonded with joints and slots
Slots
Slots may refer to:* Jørgen Slots, a leading Danish periodontist currently on faculty at USC Dental School* Slot machine* Leading edge slots aerodynamic devices on an aircraft leading edgeFor further meanings see slot...
in the way that was usual in wooden constructions. In 1477 the work was unfinished, and continued under Nikola Firentinac
Nikola Firentinac
Niccolò Fiorentino ; , was a Dalmatian Renaissance sculptor and master architect. He was of Tuscan birth, but lived most of his life and conducted much of his work in Venice, Šibenik and other towns of Dalmatia.He is best known by his work on the Cathedral of St.James in Šibenik, in 1455...
who respected the mode of construction and the plan of the former architect, but continued the work which includes the upper windows, the vaults and the dome, in the Renaissance style. The combination of a high barrel vault with lower half-barrel vaults over the aisles the gives the façade its distinctive trefoil
Trefoil
Trefoil is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings used in architecture and Christian symbolism...
shape, the first of this type in the region. The cathedral was listed as a UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
World Heritage List in 2001.
Legacy of Renaissance architecture
During the 19th century there was a conscious revival of the style in Renaissance Revival architecture, that paralleled the Gothic Revival. Whereas the Gothic style was perceived by architectural theorists as being the most appropriate style for Church building, the Renaissance palazzo was a good model for urban secular buildings requiring an appearance of dignity and reliability such as banks, gentlemen's clubs and apartment blocks. Buildings that sought to impress, such as the Paris OperaPalais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
, were often of a more Mannerist or Baroque style. Architects of factories, office blocks and department stores continued to use the Renaissance palazzo form into the 20th century, in Mediterranean Revival Style architecture
Mediterranean Revival Style architecture
The Mediterranean Revival was an eclectic design style that was first introduced in the United States about the end of the nineteenth century, and became popular during the 1920s and 1930s...
with an Italian Renaissance emphasis.
Many ideas in Renaissance architecture can be traced through subsequent architectural movements—from Renaissance to High-Renaissance, to Mannerism
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
, to Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
(or Rococo), to Neo-Classicism, to Eclecticism
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...
, to Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, and to Postmodernism
Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture began as an international style the first examples of which are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but did not become a movement until the late 1970s and continues to influence present-day architecture...
. The influence of Renaissance architecture can still be seen in many of the modern styles and rules of architecture today.
See also
- Italian Renaissance paintingItalian Renaissance paintingItalian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring within the area of present-day Italy, which was at that time divided into many political areas...
- List of Renaissance structures
- Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and ArchitectsLives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and ArchitectsThe Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, or Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri, as it was originally known in Italian, is a series of artist biographies written by 16th century...
- Mannerist architecture and sculpture in PolandMannerist architecture and sculpture in PolandMannerist architecture and sculpture in Poland dominated between 1550 and 1650, when it was finally replaced with baroque. The style includes various mannerist traditions, which are closely related with ethnic and religious diversity of the country, as well as with its economic and political...
Reading
- Manfredo Tafuri, Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes, Cities, Architects, trans. with an introduction by Daniel Sherer, New Haven/London, Cambridge, MA: Yale University Press in association with the Harvard GSD, (2006).