renaissance architecture, history of Architecture

Outline
 Time and Place
 Map of Italy during the Renaissance
 Socio-Historical Background
-The lessons of Greece and Rome
- New technologies and inventions
- A new way of thinking
 RenaissanceArchitects and theirWorks
 The Renaissance in France and England

Time and Place
The Renaissance (Italian: Rinascimento, from ri- "again" and nascere "be
born") was a cultural movement that spanned roughly from the 14th
to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late MiddleAges
and later spreading to the rest of Europe.
 App 1400 – 1700AD
 Italy - In the middle ages, was composed of different city-states and
fiefdoms eg Florence,Venice, Milan, Mantua.
Florence – is considered as the birthplace of the Renaissance
In Florence, the wealthy wool merchants and bankers sought prestige
and status through their patronage of arts and letters, and architects
and artists displayed their support through their development of new
forms in painting, sculpture and architecture.

What was the Renaissance?
The intellectual transformation that happened during the
Renaissance has resulted with this period being viewed as a bridge
between the Middle Ages and the Modern era.

The Renaissance in Italy
As a cultural movement, it
encompassed a resurgence of learning
based on:
•classical sources
•the development of linear
perspective in painting
•gradual but widespread educational
reform.
Although the Renaissance saw
revolutions in many intellectual
pursuits, as well as social and political
upheaval, it is perhaps best known for
its artistic developments and the
contributions of such polymaths as
Leonardo daVinci and Michelangelo,
who inspired the term "Renaissance
man―.

Access to the Classical Texts
and the Teaching of
Humanities
 The key to a new vision of human life and
therefore of architecture came from the
scholars’ access to the classical texts.
 International trading exchanges had helped
to disseminate ideas, and a group of
teachers of the humanities (grammar,
rhetoric, history and philosophy) who
acquired the name of Humanists, played a
crucial part in their propagation.
 These texts, including eventually about
architecture were spread through
developments in printing. (Gutenberg
invented the movable type in 1450)
The Duke of Urbino.The Duke collected one of the
finest libraries in Italy,employing it is said,thirty
or forty scribes for fourteen years to copy the great
classical and modern texts.

Humanism and the Renaissance
 Humanism was a new world view. It celebrated rationality and mankind’s
ability to make and act upon empirical observations of the physical world.
 Humanist scholars and artists recovered classical Greek and Roman texts
and aspired to create a modern world rivalling that of the ancients. One of
the most important wasVitruvius’text on architecture which had been re discovered
in Switzerland.
 Rather than train professionals in jargon and strict practice, humanists
sought to create a citizenry (including, sometimes, women) able to speak
and write with eloquence and clarity.Thus, they would be capable of
better engaging the civic life of their communities and persuading others
to virtuous and prudent actions.
 This was to be accomplished through the study of the studia humanitatis,
today known as the humanities: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and
moral philosophy.

Vitruvius’ Ten Books of Architecture
In 1487 the ancient text ofVitruvius was one
of the first books printed.The impact of
printing was tremendous.
The architectural theorists of the revived
antique style –Alberti, Serlio, Francesco de
Giorgio, Palladio,Vignola, Guilio Romano –
all wrote treatises that owed something to
Vitruvius.These men were no longer master
masons, however brilliant, they were
scholars.
Architecture was no longer the continuation
of a practical tradition, handed on through
mason’s lodges; it was a literary idea. The
architect was not just putting up a building;
he was following a theory.

De Architectura ("On Architecture")
MarcusVitruvius Pollio (born c. 80–70 BC, died
after c. 15 BC) 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 ("On Architecture").
Vitruvius is famous for asserting in his book De
architectura that a structure must exhibit the three
qualities of firmitas,utilitas,venustas – that is, it must
be solid, useful, beautiful.These are sometimes
termed the Vitruvian virtues or the Vitruvian
Triad.

The Vitruvian Man
 Rather than using the complex,
geometric transformations of
medieval master masons, Renaissance
architects favoured simple forms
such as the square and the circle.
 They made drawings of the human
figure inscribed within the basic
outline of the circle and the square,
thereby demonstrating that the
human proportions reflected divine
ratios.
Left:TheVitruvian Man by Leonardo daVinci
an illustration of the human body
inscribed in the circle and the square
derived from a passage about geometry
and human proportions inVitruvius'
writings

Brunelleschi’s Discovery of Perspective
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)
A Florentine goldsmith, Brunelleschi moved to
Rome and visited the ancient ruins. Brunelleschi
codified the principles of geometrically accurate
linear perspective, making possible the exact
representation of a 3-dimensional object on a 2-
dimensional surface.
In making careful drawings of such repetitive
elements as the arches of aqueducts, he realized
that parallel horizontal lines converge at a point on
the horizon and that elements of like size diminish
proportionally in the distance.
This discovery had a profound effect of art,
architecture and civic design during and after the
Renaissance.

Among the cultures of
the ancient world, only
the Greeks and the
Romans had spacial
depth in art figured out.
That is to say, they
understood how to
create an image with
convincing depth and a
painted or sculpted
illusion of 3 dimensional
space.
Right: “The Trinity,” Masaccio (1427-28)
Brunelleschi observed that with a fixed single point of
view, parallel lines appear to converge at a single point
in the distance. Brunelleschi applied a single vanishing
point to a canvas, and discovered a method for
calculating depth.

Other Developments
 Gunpowder changed the nature of warfare and therefore relations
among nations.
 The invention of the compass and the development of new techniques
in shipbuilding made it possible to expand the limits of the known
world into China, the East Indies, India andAmerica.
 Banking, no longer frowned upon by the Church, began to play a
central role in society.
 The hereditary nobles of feudal times were ousted by a new class of
merchant princes – the Medici, the Strozzi, the Rucellai, the Pitti –
whose commercial empires spread throughout Europe.
 Merchant princes and the artists to whom they extended financial
patronage became the new universal men of the Renaissance.

The Periods of the Renaissance
 Early Renaissance
ca. 1400-1500
Brunelleschi,Alberti
 High Renaissance
ca. 1500-1525
Bramante
 Late Renaissance
ca. 1525-1600
Palladio

Renaissance Architecture
 Renaissance architecture tends to feature planar classicism (i.e.―flat classicism‖).
In other words, the walls of a Renaissance building (both exterior and interior) are
embellished with classical motifs (e.g. columns, pediments, blind arches) of minor
physical depth, such that they intrude minimally on the two-dimensional appearance
of the walls. Put another way, the walls of a Renaissance building serve as flat
canvases for a classical veneer.This contrasts sharply with Baroque architecture, in
which walls are deeply curved and sculpted (―sculpted classicism‖).
 Planar classicism also tends to divide a wall into neat sections, with such elements as
columns, pilasters, and stringcourses. (A stringcourse is a thin, horizontal strip of
material that runs along the exterior of a building, often to mark the division
between stories.) A Baroque wall, on the other hand, is treated as a continuous,
undulating whole.
 The foremost Renaissance building types were the church, palazzo (urban
mansion), and villa (country mansion).While various great names are associated
with Renaissance church and palazzo design, the most famous villa architect by far
is Palladio. In England, large residences were called Elizabethan country
houses. In France they were called chateaus.

Characteristics of Renaissance
Architecture
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.

Characteristics
 Inspired by Roman buildings, orderly arrangements
of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches
hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex
proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings.
 Plans - square, symmetrical appearance in which proportions are usually
based on a module
 Facades - symmetrical around their vertical axis, domestic buildings are
often surmounted by a cornice
 Columns and pilasters - the Roman orders of columns are used:Tuscan, Doric,
Ionic, Corinthian and Composite
 Arches – semi circular
 Vaults – do not have ribs
 Domes - the dome is used frequently, both as a very large structural feature that
is visible from the exterior

Inspired by Roman buildings, orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and
lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches
hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex
proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings.
Interior courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese, Rome,
byAntonio da Sangallo theYounger and
Michelangelo, 1517–89.
Palazzo MassimoAlle Colonne
Rome, 1532-36

Plans - square, symmetrical
appearance in which proportions
are usually based on a module
The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore or the
Florence Cathedral
Plan of Chateau de Chamborg, France
1519-1527

Facades - symmetrical around their vertical axis, domestic buildings are often
surmounted by a cornice.
Below: Palladian Villas

Characteristics of Elements
 Ceilings - roofs are fitted with flat or coffered ceilings, frequently
painted or decorated
 Doors - usually have square lintels, set within an arch or surmounted
by a triangular or segmental pediment, in the Mannerist period the
―Palladian‖ arch was employed
 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
 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,
mouldings stand out around doors and windows rather than being
recessed, as in GothicArchitecture, sculptured figures may be set in
niches or placed on plinths.

Ceilings - roofs are fitted with flat or
coffered ceilings, frequently painted
Above: Sant'Agostino, Rome
Giacomo di Pietrasanta, 1483
Doors - usually have square lintels, set within an arch or
surmounted by a triangular or segmental pediment, in the
Mannerist period the ―Palladian‖ arch was employed

Left: Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Michelozzo di
Bartolomeo.Top: Quoining on the corners
of Palazzo Aragona Gonzaga, Rome.
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

Rustication
A popular decorative treatment
of the Renaissance palazzo
was rustication, in which
a masonry wall is textured
rather than smooth.
This can entail leaving grooves
in the joints between
smooth blocks, using
roughly dressed blocks, or
using blocks that have been
deliberately textured.The
rustication of a Renaissance
palazzo is often
differentiated between
stories.

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,
mouldings stand out around doors
and windows rather than being
recessed, as in GothicArchitecture,
sculptured figures may be set in
niches or placed on plinths.

Giorgio Vasari and the Vite
GiorgioVasari 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an
Italian painter, writer, historian, and architect, who is
famous today for his biographies of Renaissance artists,
considered the ideological foundation of art-
historical writing.
As the first Italian art historian, he initiated the genre of an
encyclopedia of artistic biographies that continues
today.Vasari coined the term "Renaissance" (rinascita)
in print, though an awareness of the ongoing "rebirth"
in the arts had been in the air from the time of Alberti.
Vasari's LeVite de' più eccellenti pittori,scultori,ed
architettori (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,Sculptors,and
Architects) — dedicated to Grand Duke Cosimo I de'
Medici— was first published in 1550.

The Architects of the Renaissance
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 –1446)
Michelozzo di Bartolomeo (1396-1472)
Leon BattistaAlberti( 1404-1472)
Donato Bramante (1444 –1514)
Andrea Palladio (1508 –1580)
Giacomo daVignola (1507 –1573)
Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475 – 1564)

Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 1446) was one of the foremost
architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps
most famous for his discovery of perspective and for engineering
the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also
include other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics,
engineering and even ship design. His principal surviving works are
to be found in Florence, Italy.

The Florence Cathedral dome (1436)
by Filippo Brunelleschi
Brunelleschi drew upon his knowledge of
ancient Roman construction as well as
lingering Gothic traditions to produce an
innovative synthesis.
•Employed the Gothic pointed arch cross
section instead of a semi circular one
•To reduce dead load, he created a double
shell as was done in the Pantheon
•Employed 24 vertical ribs and 5 horizontal
rings of sandstone, as observed in the ruins of
Roman construction
•The cupola on top was a temple of masonry
acting as a weight on top of the dome.
•Designed special machines for construction.

The Foundling Hospital, 1421-1444
The Foundling Hospital is often considered as
the first building of the Renaissance.

The Foundling Hospital, 1421-1444
• Featured a continuous
arcade
• At the hospital the arcading
is three dimensional,
creating a loggia with
domed vaults in each bay.
• Use of Corinthian columns
across its main facade and
around an internal
courtyard.
• The design was based in
Roman architecture.

Other Brunelleschi projects
Pazzi Chapel, 1460
The facade was inspired by the Roman
triumphal arch.
San Lorenzo, Florence, (1430-33)
This church is seen as one of the milestones of
Renaissance architecture, with pietra serena or
dark stone articulation.

The Basilica of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito
("St. Mary of the Holy Spirit"), 1481
San Spirito, begun 1445.The plan played on the
configurations of the square.The current
church was constructed over the pre-existing
ruins of anAugustinian priory from the 13th
century, destroyed by a fire.

Michelozzo di Bartolomeo
(1396-1472) Italian architect and sculptor.

Michelozzo Bartolomeo (1396-1472) and the Palazzo Medici
Cosimo de Medici of Florence
The Palazzo Medici is a Renaissance palace located in Florence.
• Bartolomeo was a student of Brunelleschi.
• The Palazzo was influenced by the Foundling Hospital.
• Used the arcaded courtyard of the hospital.

The Palazzo Medici, Florence 1444
•Rustication- stone blocks with deeply recessed chamfered joints
•Had three tiers of graduated textures, beginning with rock-faced stone at the street level
and concluding with smooth ashlar at the third level below a 10-ft high cornice with
modillions, egg and dart moldings and a dentil course.
•It was the first such cornice since ancient times.
•The building reflected Renaissance ideals of symmetry, the use of classical elements and
careful use of mathematical proportions.

Leon Battista Alberti
(1404-1472)
Alberti was an Italian author,
artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, cryptographer and
general Renaissance humanist polymath.

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)
•Was a classical theorist who saw architecture as a way to
address societal order.
•Alberti defined the Renaissance architect as a
universalist, an intellectual, a man of genius and a consort
to those in positions of power and authority. He himself
was a Renaissance man.
•He worked in Rome after his studies in Florence where
he had many opportunities to see the monuments of
antiquities as well as meet the artists who were visiting
them.
•Alberti studied the writings of the classical world like
Plato,Aristotle, Plutarch and Pliny the Elder.
•He wrote Della Pittura (On Painting) where it
included Brunelleschi’s theories of perspective and De
Re Aedificatoria (On Building), the first architectural
treatise of the Renaissance.
•The book was influenced by Vitruvius’ TheTen
Books of Architecture.

The Palazzo Rucellai (1446-1451) was the first building to use the classical orders on a Renaissance domestic
building.

San Maria Novella was the first completed design for a church facade in the Renaissance.
Alberti linked the lower aisle roof to the pedimented higher nave with flanking scrolls.

Basilica of Sant'Andrea, (1472-94)
The Basilica of
Sant'Andrea is in Mantua, Lomba
rdy,
Italy. It is one of the major works of
15th century Renaissance
architecture in Northern Italy.
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 tower (1414) remains.The
building, however, was finished only
328 years later.
The facade of S.Andrea, Mantua,
(1472-94) is a synthesis of the
triumphal arch and the temple.

Interior, S. Andrea, Mantua
The assemblage of classical elements on the interior presents the first Renaissance
vision rivalling the monumentality of the interior spaces of such ancient Roman ruins as
the basilicas or baths.

Donato Bramante
(1444 –1514)
was an Italian architect, who introduced Renaissance architecture to Milan
and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his plan for St. Peter's
Basilica formed the basis of the design executed by Michelangelo.
HisTempietto (San Pietro in Montorio) marked the beginning of the High
Renaissance in Rome (1502) when AlexanderVI appointed him to build a
sanctuary that allegedly marked the spot where Peter was crucified.

San Maria presso San Satiro
(1482-92),
For the church of San Maria presso San
Satiro (1482-92), a street prevented
Bramante from adding a conventional
choir. He created a low relief that when
viewed on axis, has the convincing
appearance of a barrel vaulted choir.
Using the illusionistic potential of linear
perspective , he created what must be the
ultimate use of this device in 15th c
architecture.

The Tempietto, Rome
(begun 1502)
•Built for King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella of Spain
•The erection of a monument atop the spot
where St Peter was believed to have been
martyred.
•Bramante designed his building to embody
both the Platonic preference for ideal form
and Christian reverence for tradition, in this
case reverence for the circular martyrium
of the early church.
•The building is a 2-story cylinder capped
by a hemispherical dome and surrounded
by a one-story Doric colonnade with
entablature and balustrade.
•The metope panels of the frieze displays
symbols connecting the current authority of
the Pope to the grandeur of antiquity.

Donato Bramante (1444-1514)
Bramante’s scheme represented a building on the scale of the Baths of Diocletian capped by a
dome comparable to that of the Pantheon. Started in April 1506. By the time the church was
completed in nearly 150 years later, almost every major architect of the 16th and 17th c had been
engaged.
St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, (1505)

Andrea Palladio
(1508 –1580)
Andrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic ofVenice. Palladio,
influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily byVitruvius, is widely
considered the most influential individual in the history ofWestern architecture.All
of his buildings are located in what was theVenetian Republic, but his teachings,
summarized in the architectural treatise,
The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.

The Four Books of Architecture
Andrea Palladio produced a body of work in
architecture that arguably has been the most written
about in all ofWestern architecture.
He went on study trips to Rome and made accurate
information on classical proportions, which he later
used in his designs for buildings.
The Four Books ofArchitecture:
•Orders of architecture
•Domestic architecture
•Public buildings
•Town planning
•Temples
Numerals on the plans give widths and lengths of rooms
and heights. It was the most coherent system of
proportions in the Renaissance.

Villa Rotonda, Vicenza (1566-70)
was his most famous residential design. It is square in plan with a central 2 story rotonda. The
central domed space radiates out to the 4 porticoes and to the elegantly proportioned rooms in
the corner. It is a powerful yet simple scheme, one that would be copied many times.

The design is for a completely
symmetrical building having a
square plan with four facades, each
of which has a projecting portico.
The whole is contained within an
imaginary circle which touches each
corner of the building and centres of
the porticos.
The name La Rotonda refers to the
central circular hall with its dome.
To describe the villa, as a whole, as a
'rotonda' is technically incorrect, as
the building is not circular but
rather the intersection of
a square with a cross. Each portico
has steps leading up, and opens via a
small cabinet or corridor to the
circular domed central hall.This and
all other rooms were proportioned
with mathematical precision
according to Palladio's own rules of
architecture which he published in
the Quattro Libri dell'Architettura.

Villa Barbaro, also known as the Villa di
Maser, is a large villa at Maser in
the Veneto region of northern Italy. It
was designed and built by the Italian
architect Andrea Palladio.
Villa Barbaro, Maser (1557-58) was the first example of a temple front used extensively
on a domestic building.

San Giorgio Maggiore is a 16th century Benedictine church on the island of the same
name in Venice, designed by Andrea Palladio and built between 1566 and 1610. The
church is a basilica in the classical renaissance style and its brilliant white marble
gleams above the blue water of the lagoon opposite the Piazzetta and forms the focal
point of the view from every part of the Riva degli Schiavoni.
San Giorgio Maggiore, 1566-1610

Palladio offered a new solution to the Renaissance problem of placing a
classical facade in front of a basilican cross section. He combined two
temple fronts: a tall one consisting of four Corinthian columns on
pedestals that support a pediment at the end of the nave, superimposed
over a wide one, with smaller Corinthian pilasters, that matches the
sloping aisle roofs.

Giacomo da Vignola
(1507 –1573)
was one of the great Italian architects of 16th century Mannerism.
His two great masterpieces are theVilla Farnese at Caprarola and the
Jesuits' Church of the Gesù in Rome.

The Villa Farnese, also known as Villa Caprarola, Northern Lazio, Italy .
This villa should not be confused with the Palazzo Farnese and the Villa Farnesina,
both in Rome.
The villa is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture. Ornament is used
sparingly to achieve proportion and harmony.Thus while the villa dominates the
surroundings, its severe design also complements the site.This particular style, known today
as Mannerism, was a reaction to the ornate earlier High Renaissance designs of twenty years
earlier.

"Canon of the five orders of architecture“, 1562
His two published books helped
formulate the canon of classical
architectural style.The
earliest, "Canon of the five orders of
architecture" (first published in 1562,
probably in Rome), presented
Vignola's practical system for
constructing columns in the five
classical orders (Tuscan, Doric, Ionic,
Corinthian and Composite) utilizing
proportions whichVignola derived
from his own measurements of
classical Roman monuments.
The clarity and ease of use ofVignola's
treatise caused it to become in
succeeding centuries the most
published book in architectural

The Church of the Gesù, Rome, 1568
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 Church of the Most
Holy Name of Jesus, its
facade is "the first
truly baroque façade",
introducing the baroque
style into architecture.
The church served as model for
innumerable Jesuit churches
all over the world, especially
in the Americas.The Church
of the Gesù is located in the
Piazza del Gesù in Rome.

Michelangelo Buonarotti
(1475 – 1564)
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni commonly
known as Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance sculptor,
painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled
influence on the development ofWestern art. Despite making few
forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was
of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the
title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with fellow
Italian Leonardo daVinci.

The Palazzo Farnese
The Palazzo Farnese facade has a cornice and central window with coat of arms at the piano nobile
level. Unlike the Florentine interpretation of the type, this palazzo has rustication only in the form
of quoins and at the entry has classically inspired window surrounds.

The Medici Chapels are two structures at the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence, Italy, dating from
the 16th and 17th centuries, and built as extensions to Brunelleschi's 15th century church, with
the purpose of celebrating the Medici family, patrons of the church and Grand Dukes ofTuscany.
The Sagrestia Nuova, ("New Sacristy"), was designed by Michelangelo.
Material: white stucco walls with gray pietra marble.

Tomb of Giuliano di Lorenzo de'
Medici with Night and Day
Tomb of Lorenzo di Piero
de'Medici with Dusk and
Dawn

The Laurentian library, Florence, 1524
Laurentian Library vestibule and stairs
by Michelangelo (c. 1524-34).The library
is located on top of an existing monastery
building in San Lorenzo, Florence.The
staircase is a piece of dynamic sculpture
that appears to pour forth from the upper
level like lava and compress the limited
floor space of the vestibule.
The impacted columns astride this
doorway create in architecture the same
kind of tension expressed in the reclining
figures at Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel.

The stairway connecting the high,narrow space of
the vestibule to the long,low room of the library
proper is among the most remarkable inventions
of mannerist architecture.It was built under the
direction of Bartolomeo Ammannati in 1559--
more than thirty years after work on the
vestibule had begun--in accordance with a clay
model sent from Rome by Michelangelo.
As has often been remarked,it resembles a lava flow
that the walls seem intent on containing.Here
the volutes assume a character totally at odds
with the static quality of the consoles from
which they derive,having been invested with
great power,bulging forward in the center only
to recede in the lateral swirls and assume
conventional form to either side of the
balustrade.The large volutes easing the
transition from the central to the lateral stairs
also stabilize the balustrade.The opposing forces
given physical form here are undeniably
biomorphic in character.

The Laurentian library, Florence, 1524
The Laurentian Library is one of
Michelangelo's most important
architectural achievements.
The admirable distribution of the windows,
the construction of the ceiling, and the
fine entrance of theVestibule can never
be sufficiently extolled. Boldness and
grace are equally conspicuous in the
work as a whole, and in every part; in the
cornices, corbels, the niches for statues,
the commodious staircase, and its fanciful
division-in all the building, as a word,
which is so unlike the common fashion of
treatment, that every one stands amazed
at the sight thereof.
– GiorgioVasari.

Laurentian Library wooden
reading desks.
The reading room of the
Laurentian Library.

Michelangelo's Pietà, a depiction of the body
of Jesus on the lap of his mother Maryafter
the Crucifixion, was carved in 1499, when the
sculptor was 24 years old.
The Statue of David, completed
by Michelangelo in 1504, is one
of the most renowned works of
the Renaissance.

St. Peter’s Basilica by Michelangelo, Donato Bramante,
Giacomo della Porta and Carlo Maderno.
Michelangelo’s dome for St Peter’s basilica has a hemispherical form. Della Porta, who constructed
the dome after Michelangelo’s death, employed a taller profile in order to decrease the lateral thrust
and use the lantern cupola to force the weight of the dome towards the drum.

Papal Basilica of Saint Peter
has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world

The Renaissance in France
French Renaissance architecture is the style of architecture which
was imported to France from Italy during the early 16th century and
developed in the light of local architectural traditions.
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 booty, but also stylistic ideas. In the LoireValley a
wave of building was carried and many Renaissance chateaux appeared at
this time, the earliest example being the Château d'Amboise.

The Renaissance in France – the Chateaux
The cultural center of France in the early 16th c was not Paris, but the valley of the Loire, where the king
and his nobles maintained elaborate chateaux or castles for leisure, entertaining and attending to the
pleasures of the hunt. Blois in particular illustrates the transition from the MiddleAges to the
Renaissance style. Blois in particular illustrates the transition from the MiddleAges to the Renaissance
through the successive stages of its construction.

The Chateaux de Chambord
By Domenico de Cortona.
In contrast to this town-based chateau, the Chateaux de Chambord (1519-47) was built in the
countryside in the style of a fortified castle within a bailey or outer wall, thus neatly overlaying
Renaissance symmetry and detailing on a fundamentally medieval building type.

The Louvre, Paris (begun 1546)
By Pierre Lescot
The Louvre Palace was altered frequently
throughout the Middle Ages. In the
14th century, Charles V converted the
building into a residence and in 1546,
Francis I renovated the site in the French
Renaissance style.

The Place des Vosges, Paris, 1605

Originally known as the Place Royale,
the Place desVosges was built by
Henri IV from 1605 to 1612.A
true square (140 m x 140 m), it
embodied the first European
program of royal city planning
and is the oldest planned square
in Paris.
What was new about the Place Royale
in 1612 was that the housefronts
were all built to the same design,
probably by Baptiste du Cerceau,
of red brick with strips of stone
quoins over vaulted arcades that
stand on square pillars.The
steeply-pitched blue slate roofs
are pierced with discreet small-
paned dormers above the
pedimented dormers that stand
upon the cornices.

The Renaissance in 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.

Elizabethan Country Houses
Wollaton Hall by Robert Smythson, 1580
Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, Robert Smythson (1580-88).Wollaton was built between
1580 and 1588 for Sir FrancisWilloughby and is believed to be designed by the Elizabethan
architect, Robert Smythson, who was the architect of Hardwick Hall.

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire by Robert Smythson
1590-97
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, Robeert Smythson (1590-97) Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire, is one of the
most significant Elizabethan country houses in England. In common with its architect Robert Smythson's
other works at both Longleat House andWollaton Hall, Hardwick Hall is one of the earliest examples of
the English interpretation of the Renaissance style of architecture, which came into fashion when it was
no longer thought necessary to fortify one's home.

Inigo Jones 1573 – 1652
Inigo Jones is regarded as
the first significant
British architect of the
modern period, and
the first to bring
Italianate Renaissance
architecture to
England. He left his
mark on London by
single buildings, such
as the Banqueting
House,Whitehall and
in area design for
Covent Garden square
which became a
model for future
developments in the
West End. St. Paul’s,
Covent Garden,
London (1631-35)
Above: Queen's House, Greenwich, 1616 was built for James I’s wife,
Anne of Denmark. It was finished in 1635 and was the first strictly
classical building in England, employing ideas found in the
architecture of Palladio and ancient Rome.This is Inigo Jones's
earliest surviving work.

In Tudor and Early Stuart English architecture a
banqueting house is a separate building reached
through pleasure gardens from the main residence,
whose use is purely for entertaining.
Banqueting House,Whitehall,
London (1619-22)The
Banqueting House,Whitehall,
London, is the grandest and
best known survivor of the
architectural genre of
banqueting house, and the
only remaining component of
the Palace ofWhitehall.The
building is important in the
history of English architecture
as the first building to be
completed in the neo-classical
style which was to transform
English architecture.
Begun in 1619, and designed by
Inigo Jones in a style
influenced by Palladio, the
Banqueting House was
completed in 1622

The Vitruvius
Man
For if a man be placed flat on his
back, with his hands and feet
extended, and a pair of compasses
centered at the navel, the fingers
and toes of his two hands and feet
will touch the circumference of a
circle described therefrom. And,
just as the human body yields a
circular outline, so too a square
form may be found from it. For if
we measure the soles of the feet to
the top of the head, and then apply
that measure to the outstretched
arms, the breadth will be found to
be the same as the height, as in
the case of plane surfaces which
are perfectly square.

The Tiempetto
Donato Bramante
(1444-1514)

Villa Rotonda
Andrea Palladio (1508-1580)

Architecture, music and geometry
•Pythagoras – discovered musical consonances
•Renaissance architects derived whole number
ratios, such as 1:1. 1:2, 2:3 and 3:4.They
believed that the innate harmony of these
ratios would be impressed upon anyone
experiencing spaces determined by them.
Humanists were convinced that God’s cosmic
order could be expressed on earth through
such mathematical proportions, which were
inevitably related to the mensuration of the
human body.
In this context,the circular church represented
the most perfect form,absolute,immutable.
Echoing celestial harmony.

renaissance architecture, history of Architecture

Giovanni bataggio
Pavia cathedral (1490)
Santa maria della croce

Ceilings the sistine chapel ceiling
Frequently
painted or
decorated

renaissance architecture, history of Architecture

More Related Content

Similar to renaissance architecture, history of Architecture (20)

More from AngelaLagunday (11)

Recently uploaded (20)

renaissance architecture, history of Architecture