Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/19

 » FS, “Jan. 5, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 3 CRITICAL NOTICES ON CERTAIN OF THE GREAT ITALIAN ARCHITECTS OF THE FIFTEENTH AND SIX- TEENTH CENTURIES. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI : BORN 1377, prep 1446. N the present age of transition, when man- kind is painfully engaged in casting off the skin of an old form of life and an old world of thought, it is well to call to mind the point at which he has arrived, and the nature of the phases through which he has passed, and, stationed above the dust raised by antagonistic schools, to observe and pro- claim the merits of those men who, in the onward course of the world, have made us, in a great measure, what we now are, and to whom a debt of gratitude is surely due. After the fall of the old Roman empire, Europe passed through what has justly been called the Dark Ages; to these succeeded the Middle, or semi-opaque ages; with the invention of printing, the rise of the Reforma- tion, and the discovery of a new world, came a new age, a resurrection, a rendissance, a new birth. That is the age of the dawn, and we are now, though still affected by the dark- ness of old, arrived into the age of light, where now we wander astonished and con- fused with its excess of splendour, and at times almost doubtful of its glorious exist- ence. Amongst the causes which have made us what we are, we are too apt to overlook and forget that great revival of the literature and art of the antique, pre-Christian world, which gave so marked an impulse to all esthetic pro- gress in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We owe a debt of gratitude to the great actors in this movement, which too many are apt to repudiate, and which few acknowledge or appreciate as they ought. It is not our province to descant on the literature of the Renaissance period, nor on the arts of painting and sculpture, which from this cause experienced so great and re- markable a change that, as Vasari says: Brunelleschi may be regarded as “ having been given to us by Heaven for the purpose of imparting a new spirit to architecture.” The same remark applies also to the guiding spirits in painting as in literature of the time, who completely revolutionised their character. We, however, must limit our remarks to architecture, and to that most remarkable group of men, men. of genius, if any ever deserved the title, who raised architecture as a science and an art in Italy, and of whom Italy may justly be proud, as having formed a new style which has been accepted and admired throughout the whole world, and which must justly be called ‘The Italian,” however modified in the various countries where it was introduced. Foremost amongst these artists, whether as regards the period in which he lived or the influence he exercised, stands Filippo Bru- nelleschi. It is not one of the least glories of Italy to have produced so great a genius, whose name will be revered so long as art it- self shall last. Brunelleschi, born at Florence, of a good family of Ferrarese extraction, in the year 1377, was placed in the Guild of Goldsmiths at an early age, where he learnt the practice of numerous branches of art, at that time part of a goldsmith’s education ; amongst them he particularly distinguished himself in sculpture, and became the attached friend and loving rival of Donatello. Early in the beginning of the fifteenth century they both determined on a sojourn at Rome for the purpose of studying the antique. Dona- tello shortly returned, but Brunelleschi re- mained there alone, making detailed studies of all the ancient remains. In the year 1407, being then thirty years of age, he returned to Florence, and offered himself as a candi- date for the erection of the dome of S. M. de Fiori among ‘the assemblage of architects and engineers” brought together by the Municipality to confer on the completion of Arnolfo’s work. Brunelleschi himself pre- pared a model of his design, aided by Dona- tello and Nanni d’ Antonio Banco. ‘This was the commencement of a series of vexa- tious events, which more or less troubled the great architect till the year 1417, when he again left Florence for Rome in disgust. In 1420, at the entreaty of the Municipality, he again returned to propound and defend his plan in competition with the most famous artists of all countries, invited to Florence at Brunelleschi’s own request, and after an in- conceivable amount of distrust and opposition, received the order to proceed with his design, but burdened with the addition of Ghiberti as a coadjutor, of whom, however, he in no long time managed to free himself. From this time the building of this noble structure went on pretty regularly, but certainly slowly, since it was not finished at Brunel- leschi’s death in 1446. Every student of archi- tecture should be conversant with the life of Brunelleschi ; and the history of the raising of this dome alone, as given by Vasari, and which is, no doubt, substantially correct, is the history of the triumph of resolution, acuteness, daring, and perseverance over the most trying difficulties. The carrying out of Brunelleschi’s design exhibits, besides this intellectual energy and worldly acuteness, an example of the highest genius, scientific and artistic, and is a monument of the noblest constructive art. It is to this great work, at that time and to this day unrivalled in con- struction and effect, as well as to the syste- matic adaptation of ancient Roman architec- ture to the requirements of his time, that Brunelleschi owes his well-merited fame. If we may trust Vasari, he had already com- menced this latter system before his visit to Rome in 1407, for he states that Brunelleschi, among other buildings designed by him be- fore his competition for the bronze doors of the Baptistry in 1401, had, at the Palace of the Signoria, “ constructed the windows and doors after the manner of the ancients — a thing not then very fre- quently done.” Between the first year of the fifteenth century and the time of his death in 1446, Brumelleschi, accord- ing to Vasari, was engaged on upwards of twenty works, ecclesiastical, civil, and mili- tary, of which the most important are the churches of Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo, at Florence, neither of which, unfortunately, were completed at the time of his death. From them, however, we may fairly judge of the style which he founded on the antique. Its character expresses simplicity of mass, breadth of space, and lightness of form. Externally the walls are deyoid of columns or buttresses, the windows are long, single lights, semicircular headed, with simple con- tinuous archivolts, and the doors of the usual antique design, with superimposed ornamental tympanum. Internally the most striking feature is the employment of the round arch springing from an entablature raised upon a single column, light and graceful, but some- what stilted in effect. Mouldings, wherever used, are carefully studied and sparingly applied, nor, so far as we remember, are they ever ornamented, or if so, but slightly, and seldom. The order adopted in both cases by Brunelleschi was | the Corinthian, a modification of which he used in most of his works, in which good proportions and good taste are the main characteristics. Other honours still remain to be attributed to this remarkable genius, and he may be said to have adapted the old palatial style of Italy to his revived system of art, of which the Pitti Palace is a grandexample. It was com- menced from Brunelleschi’s designs about the year 1435, and carried up to the second story, when its progress was forcibly put_a stop to by the populace, who were infuriated against its owner, Luca Pitti, for the part he took against the Medici. It is a grand and imposing mass of building, characteristic of the semi-fortified nature of a Florentine house in times when violent revolt was common. Although the first introduction of Classic forms in private buildings has been often attributed to Baccio d’Agnolo, on account of Vasari’s remarks to that effect, yet that is the result of carelessness. The novelty Wasavi speaks of related to other novel points in de- sign; and although the date of the Riccardi palace designed by Michelozzo about the year 1430 is of prior date to the Pitti, yet as the introduction of the new style of revived architecture is incontestibly due to Brunel- leschi, and as Michelozzo was his pupil, we may fairly infer that the master was also in this case the originator of a style, though he may not have been the first to put it into practice. Vasari also states that it was Filippo who revived the use of the antique cornices, clearly alluding, we think, to domestic architecture, and Schorn distinctly calls him the founder of the Florentine manner of domestic architecture.. The style itself is simple, grand, and effective, and bears the stamp of its authorship upon it. In carrying out his various designs no- thing can be more praiseworthy than the constant and minute personal attention which Brunelleschi gave to them; he made models of everything, frequently with his own hands; he devised and superintended the construc- tion of the scaffolding ; he testedevery mate- rial by experiment ; he is stated even to have selected the bricks used for the dome at the furnace, and set them apart with his own hands. We are disposed to credit it, for they are the finest bricks we ever met with; much larger in size than our own, and of the most admirable texture and colour, To Brunelleschi also is due, according to Vasari, and there is no reason to doubt his assertion, the invention of isometric per- spective. He says that Brunelleschi studied the science of perspective, and ‘‘at length he discovered a perfectly correct method, that of taking the ground plan and sections by means of intersecting lines, a truly in- genious thing.” He appears to have greatly improved the art of ‘arsia, or wood inlay. In sculpture he was at one time only sur- passed by Donatello Ghiberti; but this art, as well as others in which he was practically well versed, he gave up to devote himself to the study and practice of architecture, in which he remains personally an example to all students for industry and perseverance, and his worksremain monuments of genius, good taste, and unrivalled constructive power. He died full of honours and at a fairold age in 1446, and was buried with ‘‘ themost solemn obse- quies within that temple which after so many trials he rendered the noblest dome of religion in the world, leaving to the world the memory of his excellence and of his extra- ordinary talents.” Brunelleschi left several pupils, first among whom as his adopted son and heir is to be named Andrea di Lazzaro Cavalcanti, of Borgo a Buggiano, who appears to have been rather a sculptor than architect, though he constantly assisted Bru- nelleschi. Gaye attributes the Oratory of SS. Pietro e Paolo at Pescia to him. The others were Domenico del Lago de Lugano ; Geremia da Cremona, of whom we know nothing ; Francesco della Luna, who appears to have been also employed at the Cathedral of Siena; a Sclavonian, who appears to be identified by the Florentine commentators on Vasari as Luciano Martini da Lauranna in Illyria, architect of the fine ducal palace erected at Urbino by Federigo di Montifeltro in the second half of the fifteenth century : Simone, who may have been a brother of Donatello; Antonio di Cristofero, and Niccolo di Gia. Baroncelli, both much em- ployed as sculptors at Ferrara. Indeed, with the exception of Della Luna and Lauranna. they all appear to have practised as sculptors rather than architects; but in their time the two arts were often combined. The following is a list of Brunelleschi’s works, either designed by him or on which he was engaged, arranged as nearly as possible in order of time, commencing about the yea