Italian Renaissance architects based their theories and practices on classical roman examples. The Renaissance revival of Classical Rome was as important in architecture as it was in literature. A pilgrimage to Rome to study the ancient buildings and ruins, especially the Colosseum and Pantheon, was considered essential to an architect's training. Classical orders and architectural elements such as columns, pilasters, pediments, entablatures, arches, and domes form the vocabulary of Renaissance buildings. Vitruvius's writings on architecture also influenced the Renaissance definition of beauty in architecture. As in the Classical world, Renaissance architecture is characterized by harmonious form, mathematical proportion, and a unit of measurement based on the human scale.

The humanist and secularist beliefs of religion, individuality, and antiquity were evident in the style and illustration of Italian paintings and sculptures in the High Renaissance era. Historically, religion is the defining factor of nearly all paintings in modern and medieval European history. The Last Supper by Leonardo, The School of Athens by Raphael, Michelangelo's huge sculpture of the ancient Hebrew king David, Giotto's paintings of the Virgin Mary and Saint Francis of Assisi, and Masaccio's The Holy Trinity serve as an infinitesimally small sample of the vast selection of religiously inspired paintings, frescos, sculptures, and architectural endeavors created by Renaissance artists. The School of Athens by Raphael is an artistic representation of the beliefs and interpretations of the Renaissance humanist philosophers such as Petrarch and Drusus. Great classical mathematicians such as Pythagoras stand under the statue of the Greek goddess of reason, Athena, while intellectuals such as Socrates teach on the right, under the statue of the Greek patron of poetry, Apollo. This fresco also illustrates the existence of an intellectual community of painters, sculptors, and leaders such as Michelangelo and Leonardo, who exist in the painting as Greek philosopher Heraclitus and Plato, respectively. This select group of individuals was in fact the majority of the thinking power of the Italian Renaissance.

The "rebirth" of art in Italy was connected with the rediscovery of ancient philosophy, literature, and science and the evolution of empirical methods of study in these fields. Increased awareness of classical knowledge created a new resolve to learn by direct observation and study of the natural world. Consequently, secular themes became increasingly important to artists, and with the revived interest in antiquity came a new repertoire of subjects drawn from Greek and Roman history and mythology. The models provided by ancient buildings and works of art also inspired the development of new artistic techniques and the desire to re-create the forms and styles of classical art.

Central to the development of Renaissance art was the emergence of the artist as a creator, sought after and respected for his erudition and imagination. Art, too, became valued--not merely as a vehicle for religious and social didacticism, but even more as a mode of personal, aesthetic expression.

Although the evolution of Italian Renaissance art was a continuous process, it is traditionally divided into three major phases: Early, High, and Late Renaissance. The last phase has been the subject in recent years of complex interpretations that recognize many competing and contrasting trends. Some scholars date the beginning of the Italian Renaissance from the appearance of Giotto di Bondone in the early 14th century; others regard his prodigious achievements in naturalistic art as an isolated phenomenon. According to the second view, the consistent development of Renaissance style began only with the generation of artists active in Florence at the beginning of the 15th century.

The Early Renaissance

The principal members of the first generation of Renaissance artists--DONATELLO in sculpture, Filippo BRUNELLESCHI in architecture, and MASACCIO in painting--shared many important characteristics. Central to their thinking was a faith in the theoretical foundations of art and the conviction that development and progress were not only possible but essential to the life and significance of the arts. Ancient art was revered,

not only as an inspiring model but also as a record of trial and error that could reveal the successes of former great artists. Intending to retrace the creative process rather than to merely imitate the final achievements of antiquity, Early Renaissance artists sought to create art forms consistent with the appearance of the natural world and with their experience of human personality and behavior. The challenge of accurate representation as it concerned mass sculptural form, or the pictorial considerations of measurable space and the effects of light and color, was addressed in the spirit of intense and methodical inquiry.

Rational inquiry was believed to be the key to success; therefore, efforts were made to discover the correct laws of proportion for architecture and for the representation of the human body and to systematize the rendering of pictorial space. Although these artists were keenly observant of natural phenomena, they also tended to extrapolate general rules from specific appearances. Similarly, they made an effort to go beyond straightforward transcription of nature, to instill the work of art with ideal, intangible qualities, endowing it with a beauty and significance greater and more permanent than that actually found in nature. These characteristics--the rendering of ideal forms rather than literal appearance and the concept of the physical world as the vehicle or imperfect embodiment of monumental spiritual beauty--were to remain fundamental to the nature and development of Italian Renaissance art.

The term Early Renaissance characterizes virtually all the art of the 15th century. Florence, the cradle of Renaissance artistic thought, remained one of the undisputed centers of innovation. About 1450 a new generation of artists that included such masters as Pollaiuolo (see POLLAIUOLO family) and Sandro Botticelli came to the fore in Florence. Other Italian cities--Milan, Urbino, Ferrara, Venice, Padua, and Naples--became powerful rivals in the spreading wave of change. Leon Battista ALBERTI's work in Rimini and Mantua represented the most progressive architecture of the new HUMANISM; Andrea Mantegna's paintings in Padua displayed a personal formulation of linear perspective, antiquarianism, and realistic technique; and Giovanni Bellini's poetic classicism exemplified the growing strength of the Venetian school.

By the late 15th century the novelty of the first explosive advances of Renaissance style had given way to a general acceptance of such basic notions as proportion, contraposto (twisted pose), and linear perspective; consequently many artists sought means of personal expression within this relatively well-established repertoire of style and technique. The Early Renaissance was not, as was once maintained, merely an imperfect but necessary preparation for the perfection of High Renaissance art but a period of great intrinsic merit. In retrospect, however, Early Renaissance painting seems to fall short of thoroughly convincing figural representation, and its expression of human emotion is stylized rather than real. Furthermore, the strength of individual features of a work of art is disproportionate to the whole composition.

The High Renaissance

The art of the High Renaissance, however, sought a general, unified effect of pictorial representation or architectural composition, increasing the dramatic force and physical presence of a work of art and gathering its energies and forming a controlled equilibrium. Because the essential characteristic of High Renaissance art was its unity--a balance achieved as a matter of intuition, beyond the reach of rational knowledge or technical skill--the High Renaissance style was destined to break up as soon as emphasis was shifted to favor any one element in the composition.

The High Renaissance style endured for only a brief period (c.1495-1520) and was created by a few artists of genius, among them Leonardo da Vinci, Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished Adoration of the Magi (1481; Uffizi Gallery, Florence) is regarded as a landmark of unified pictorial composition, later realized fully in his fresco The Last Supper (1495-97; Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan). Leonardo is considered the paragon of Renaissance thinkers, engaged as he was in experiments of all kinds and having brought to his art a spirit of restless inquiry that sought to discover the laws governing diverse natural phenomena. In a different way, Michelangelo has come to typify the artist endowed with inexplicable, solitary genius. His universal talents are exemplified by the tomb of Julius II (c.1510-15), San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome; the Medici Chapel (1519-34), Florence; the SISTINE CHAPEL ceiling (1508-12) and

Last Judgment (1536-41), Rome; and the cupola of SAINT PETER's BASILICA (begun 1546)--works that represent major and inimitable accomplishments in the separate fields of sculpture, painting, and architecture. Raphael, a man of very different temperament, evoked, in paintings of Madonnas and in frescoes, not overwhelming forces but sublime harmony and lyric, graceful beauty.

The Late Renaissance

A major watershed in the development of Italian Renaissance art was the sack of Rome in 1527, which temporarily ended the city's role as a source of patronage and compelled artists to travel to other centers in Italy, France, and Spain. Even before the death of Raphael, in 1520, anticlassical tendencies had begun to manifest themselves in Roman art. Some early exponents of MANNERISM, including Jacopo Carucci PONTORMO, PARMIGIANINO, and ROSSO FIORENTINO, contributed to the development of a style that reached its most extreme expression in the work of Giorgio VASARI and Giovanni da BOLOGNA. Mannerism was an aesthetic movement that valued highly refined grace and elegance--the beautiful maniera, or style, from which Mannerism takes its name. Although the fundamental characteristics of Late Renaissance style were shared by many artists, this period, dominated by Mannerism, was marked by artistic individuality--a quality demonstrated to its fullest extent by the late works of Michelangelo. The display of individual virtuosity became an important criterion of artistic achievement, and rivalry often provoked competition based on brilliance of individual performance. The self-consciousness of Mannerist artists, and their efforts to match or surpass the great masters who had immediately preceded them, were the symptoms of a somewhat overripe development, far removed from the fresh dawn of discovery that first gave meaning to the concept of the Renaissance.

Cathedral of Florence

The church of San Lorenzo

Brunelleschi's first major architectural commission was for the enormous brick dome which covers the central space that 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. 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

Palazzo Medici Riccardi by Michelozzo

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 libraries 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.

Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti, (1402-1472), was an important Humanist theoretician and designer whose book on architecture De re Aedificatoria was to have lasting effect. An aspect of 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.

Sant'Andrea, Mantua, the façade. Photo- Frode Inge Helland

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.

Façade of Santa Maria Novella, 1456-70.

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. [13] 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.

Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice

In the fifteenth century the courts of certain other Italian states became centers for spreading of Renaissance philosophy, art and architecture.

High Renaissance

In the late 15th century and early 16th century architects such as Bramante, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger 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 cupolas becoming very evident. The architectural period is known as the "High Renaissance" and coincides with the age of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Bramante

Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.

Donato Bramante, (1444-1514), was born in Urbino and turned from painting to architecture, found 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.

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.

7. 2. Sangallo

The Palazzo Farnese, Rome (1534-1545). Designed by Sangallo and 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.

7. 3. Raphael

Raphael, (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.

8. Mannerism

Mannerism in architecture was marked by widely diverging tendencies in the work of Michelangelo, 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.

Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne.

8. 1. Peruzzi

Baldassare Peruzzi, (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. [13]

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.

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 Library and its lobby at the monastery of San Lorenzo in Florence, and the Basilica of St. Peter 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 Basilica

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 in fact 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.

Il Gesù, designed by Giacomo Della Porta.

Events of Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural, scholarly and socio-political movement which stressed the rediscovery and application of texts and thought from classical antiquity. This timeline lists some major works of culture alongside important political events. Pre 14001347: Black Death ravages Europe for the first time.1374: Death of Petrarch. 1396: Creation of Chair of Greek in Florence: teacher Chrysoloras brings a copy of Ptolemy’s Geography. 1397: Giovanni de Medici moves to Florence. 1400 - 14501400: Burni: Panegyric to the City of Florence. 1401: Ghiberti awarded commission to create doors for the baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence; Brunelleschi and Donatello travel to Rome; birth of painter Masaccio. 1417 – 36: Brunelleschi works on dome of Florence Cathedral. 1420: The newly united Papacy moves back to Rome. 1423: Forsari become Doge in Venice. 1429: Cosimo de Medici inherits the family bank and rises to great power in Florence. 1432: Van Eycks: The Adoration of the Lamb. 1435: Alberti: On Painting. 1440: Valla uses humanist skills to expose Donation of Constantine as forgery. 1444: Alberti: On the Family. 1446: Death of Brunelleschi. 1447: Pope Nicholas V appointed, he begins a major program of rebuilding. 1450: Francesco Sforza takes power in Milan. 1451-15001452: Birth of Leonardo da Vinci. 1453: Ottoman conquest of Constantinople: many Greek thinkers and works travel westward; end of Hundred Years War: stability returns to north-west Europe. 1454: The Gutenberg Bible published; print revolutionises European literacy. 1459: Gozzoli: Adoration of the Magi. 1465: Bellini and Mantegna: The Agony in the Garden 1469: Lorenzo de Medici, “The Magnificent”, takes power in Florence; his rule is considered the high point of the Florentine Renaissance. 1470: Malory: Morte d’Arthur. 1471: Sixtus IV appointed Pope. Major building continues in Rome, including the Sistine Chapel. 1474: Ficino: Platonic Theory. 1480: Botticelli: Primavera. 1483 Pico: 900 Treatises; he is declared a heretic but protected by the Medici. 1485: Alberti: On Building. Italian architects travel to Russia to aid in rebuilding of Kremlin. 1488: Portuguese sailors led by Bartolomeu Diaz round the Cape of Good Hope. 1492: Buonarroti: Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs; Rodrigo Borgia appointed Pope, his rule is considered a reign of corruption; Columbus sails west; Behaim’s globe created. 1494: Pacioli: Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion. 1494 – 95: Rule of Savonarola in Florence; he is burnt as a heretic; Italian Wars, France invade. 1498: Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper; Portuguese sailors led by Vasco de Gama reach India.

1499: French conquer Milan, facilitating greater passage of Renaissance ideas into the France. 1500: Michelangelo: Pieta; Giorgine: Tempesta; Portuguese “discover” Brazil. 1501 - 15501503: Pope Julius II appointed Pope; start of “Roman Golden Age”. 1504: Michelangelo: David; Bosch: Garden of Earthly Delights. 1505: Leonardo: Mona Lisa; Dürer travels to Italy. 1506 – 1615: Work on St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. 1508 – 12: Michelangelo paints roof of the Sistine Chapel. 1509: Henry VIII succeeds to power in England. 1511: Erasmus: Praise of Folly. 1512: Erasmus: De Copia. 1513: Machiavelli: The Prince. 1515: Francis I takes power in France. 1516: Eramus: New Testament; More: Utopia; Castiglione: Book of the Courtier; Charles V takes power in Spain, followed by his accession to the Holy Roman throne. 1517: Start of the Reformation, heavily influenced by Humanist thinking. 1519: Death of Leonardo de Vinci. 1520: Süleyman “the Magnficent” takes power in the Ottoman Empire. 1524: Raphael: Donation of Constantine. 1525: Dürer: A Course in the Art of Measurement; Battle of Pavia between France and the Holy Roman Empire: end of French claims on Italy. 1527: Sack of Rome by Imperial forces. 1529: Ribeiro: World Map. 1532: Rabelais: Pantagruel. 1533: Holbein: The Ambassadors; Regiomontanus: On Triangles. 1536: Paracelsus: Great Book of Surgery; Death of Erasmus. 1541: Michelangelo: The Last Judgement. 1543: Copernicus: Revolutions of the Celestial Orbits/ De Revolutionibus; Vesalius: On the Fabric of the Human Body. 1544: Bandello: Novelle. 1550+1555: Labé: Euvres; Peace of Augsburg brings legal co-existence of Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. 1556: Tartaglia: A General Treatise on Numbers and Measurement; Agricola: De Re Metallica; Philip II takes power in Spain as Charles V abdicates. 1558: Elizabeth I succeeds to the throne in England: start of the English “Golden Age”. 1564: Death of Michelangelo. 1567: Whitney: The Copy of a Letter. 1569: Mercator: World Map. 1570: Palladio: Four Books on Architecture; Ortelius: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. 1571: Battle of Lepanto. 1572: Camõs: The Lusiads; St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of Protestants in France. 1580: Montaigne: Essays. 1590: Spenser: The Faerie Queen. 1603: Shakespeare: Hamlet. 1605: Cervantes: Don Quixote.

Renaissance Furniture

Specific paintings and sculptures:

Holy Trinity (Masaccio)

The Birth of Venus (Sandro Botticelli)

Monalisa / the Last Supper (Leonardo Devianci)

Marriage of Virgin/ With the Goldfinch (Rafael Madonna)

Madonna with the long neck

David (Donatello/Michel Angelo)

Creation of Adam (Michel Angelo)