Week 4 - Making Renaissance Art - Chapter 4 - Architecture: theory and practice

Introduction

Kim Woods writes that Tim Benton in this chapter is going to challenge the concept that Renaissance architecture was based on the classical theories from Vitruvius and that it was in fact a classical version of traditional medieval practices.

1. Vitruvius and the Renaissance

An introduction to the ten books on architecture written in the first century BCE by Vitruvius and the way in which artists and scholars in the 15thC sought to illustrate how architectural proportions related to the human form (Vitruvius man)in order to create aesthetically pleasing buildings. Mention is also made of the examination and investigation of antique buildings.

2. Medieval theory and practice.

This section gives a mathematically and geometrically detailed review of the gothic theories of architecture ad triangulum and quadrature (rotating squares). The example of Milan cathedral is used to illustrate the tension between gothic architects from the North of Europe working with these practices and the local Lombard masons who preferred the more squat design of Italian churches.

3. The Tuscan Romanesque and the Renaissance

Filippo Brunelleschi

A lengthy section examining work by Brunelleschi which concludes that although he is often seen as the leading Renaissance architect his innovation was based on his own mathematical and geometrical calculations and the work of Romanesqe and Tuscan architects (e.g.such as in the Baptistry in Florence) rather than based on the observation of antique architecture and the writings of Vitruvius.

This section concludes with a brief review of the Pope's summer residence in Pienza and the Palazzo Rucellai. Two similar buildings which use pilasters on the facade reflecting the antique use of columns. The whole chapter concludes that although there was scholarly research into the principles of antique architecture during the 15thC that many habits of thought continued from the medieval period.

The work of masons and architects demonstrates Gothic and Renaissance principles being selectively used and adapted to the needs of a particular client or audience.