Filippo di ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi (1377 – 15 April 1446), commonly known as Filippo Brunelleschi ( BROO-nə-LESK-ee, Italian: [fiˈlippo brunelˈleski]) and also nicknamed Pippo by Leon Battista Alberti, was an Italian architect, designer, goldsmith, and sculptor. He is considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture. He is recognized as the first modern engineer, planner, and sole construction supervisor. In 1421, Brunelleschi became the first person to receive a patent in the Western world. He is most famous for designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, and for the mathematical technique of linear perspective in art which governed pictorial depictions of space until the late 19th century and influenced the rise of modern science. His accomplishments also include other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics, engineering, and ship design. Most surviving works can be found in Florence.
Brunelleschi was born in Florence, Italy, in 1377. His father was Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi (born c. 1331), a notary and civil servant. His mother was Giuliana Spini; he had two brothers. The family was well-off; the palace of the Spini family still exists across from the Church of Santa Trinità in Florence. The young Filippo was given a literary and mathematical education to enable him to follow the father's career. Being artistically inclined, however, Filippo, at the age of fifteen, was apprenticed as a goldsmith and a sculptor working with cast bronze. In December 1398 he became a master and joined the Arte della Seta, the wool merchants' guild, the wealthiest and most prestigious guild in the city, which also included jewellers and metal craftsmen.
Sculpture – Competition for the Florence Baptistry doors
Brunelleschi's earliest surviving sculptures are two (or three) small silver sculptures of saints (1399–1400) made for the altar of Saint James in the Crucifix Chapel of Pistoia Cathedral San Zeno. He paused this work for four months in 1400, when he was chosen to simultaneously serve two representative councils of the Florentine government.
Around the end of 1400, the city of Florence decided to create a second pair of new sculpted and gilded bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery. A competition was held in 1401 for the design, which drew seven competitors, including Brunelleschi and another young sculptor, Lorenzo Ghiberti. Each sculptor had to produce a single bronze panel, depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac within a Gothic four-leaf frame. The panels each had to contain Abraham, Isaac, the angel, two other figures as well as a donkey and a sheep imagined by the artists, and had to harmonize in style with the existing doors, created in 1330 by Andrea Pisano. The head of the jury was Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, the founder of the heavily influential Medici dynasty, who became an important patron of Brunelleschi. The jury initially praised Ghiberti's panel. When they saw Brunelleschi's work, they were unable to choose between the two and suggested that the two artists collaborate on the project. Brunelleschi refused to forfeit total control of the project, preferring it to be awarded to Ghiberti. This divided public opinion.
Brunelleschi would eventually abandon sculpture and devote his attention entirely to architecture and optics, but continued to receive sculpture commissions until at least 1416.
Rediscovery of antiquity (1402–1404)
During the Early Renaissance, there was a growing interest in Ancient Greece and Rome as cultural roots that were to be revived to overcome medieval times, whose art was largely dominated by Byzantine models and foreign Gothic art from the North. Initially this cultural interest was borne by a few scholars, writers, and philosophers. It later became more influential across the visual arts. In this period (1402–1404), Brunelleschi visited Rome, almost certainly accompanied by his younger friend, the sculptor Donatello, to study its ancient ruins. Donatello may have been trained as a goldsmith, like Brunelleschi, and is later accounted for working in the studio of Ghiberti. Although the glories of Ancient Rome were a matter of popular discourse at the time, it was a foremost literary interest, and only few people had studied the physical conditions of its architectural ruins in any detail until Brunelleschi and Donatello did so. Brunelleschi's study of classical Roman architecture influenced his building designs including even lighting, the minimization of distinct architectural elements within a building, and the balancing of those elements to homogenize the space.
It has been speculated that Brunelleschi developed his system of linear perspective after observing the Roman ruins. However, some historians dispute that he visited Rome then, given the number of projects Brunelleschi had in Florence at the time, the poverty and lack of security in Rome during that period, and the missing evidence of the visit. His first definitively documented stay in Rome was in 1432.
The Foundling Hospital (1419–1445)
Brunelleschi's first architectural commission was the Ospedale degli Innocenti (1419–c. 1445), or Foundling Hospital, designed as a home for orphans. The Guild of the Silk Merchants owned, funded and managed the hospital. As with many of Brunelleschi's architectural projects, the building was completed after a significant time lapse and with considerable modifications by other architects. He was the official architect until 1427, but he was rarely on site after 1423. The hospital was officially opened on 25 January 1445. Brunelleschi's friend, the Florentine banker, politician and architect Francesco Della Luna, who was involved from the beginning, was one of several capomaestri subsequently responsible, who expanded the building.
The major portion created by Brunelleschi was the loggia that constitutes the façade. Though, the steps leading up to the elevated arcade were not finished until 1457. Nine semicircular arches on ten slender round columns with composite capitals are flanked by angular fluted pilasters on the facade. The vaults show no rips. On both ends feigned door frames with typanums decorate the walls. Three doors equally apart from one another open to the interior. This first arcade, with its clear reference to classical antiquity in its simple form and decoration, became an established model for numerous Renaissance buildings across Europe. The building's style was dignified and sober, with no displays of fine marble or decorative inlays (The glazed terracotta reliefs in the tondos by Andrea della Robbia were put up not until 1490).
Thereafter Brunelleschi was awarded additional commissions, like the Ridolfi Chapel in the church of San Jacopo sopr'Arno (not surviving), and the Barbadori Chapel in Santa Felicita (since modified). In both projects Brunelleschi devised elements already used in the Ospedale degli Innocenti, and which would also be used in the Pazzi Chapel and the Sagrestia Vecchia. In these first projects he piloted ideas which he would later employ in his most famous work, the dome of the Cathedral of Florence.
Basilica of San Lorenzo (1421–1442)
Brunelleschi undertook the major project of the Basilica of San Lorenzo soon after he had begun the Foundling Hospital. The former cathedral of Florence became again the largest church of the city, through the sponsorship of the Medici family, as their parish church and mausoleum. Numerous architects worked at the church, including Michelangelo. Brunelleschi designed the central nave, with the two collateral naves on either side (later lined by small chapels), and the Old Sacristy.
The first stage of the project was the Sagrestia Vecchia, the "Old Sacristy", built between 1419 and 1429 southwest of the existing church on the initial rebuildable ground. It houses the tomb of Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici and his wife, Piccarda Bueri. The chapel is a cube with a lateral length of about 11 metres (36 feet), covered with a hemispheric dome, that is without any decoration beside its twelve ribs that converge in an oculus, and the oculi of the arched tambour, which serve as light source. A level of ornamental entablatures divides the vertical space into two parts, and fluted pilasters at the edges structure the walls. By using classical elements in an innovative way, the interior established itself as a standard in Renaissance architecture.