The Renaissance
This architectural style developed in early 15th century Italy during the rebirth of classical art and learning. It succeeded the Gothic as the style dominant in all of Europe after the mid 16th century into classicism.
K
nowledge
of the classical style in architecture was derived during the
Renaissance from two sources: the ancient classical buildings,
particularly in Italy but also in France and Spain and the treatise
“De architectura” by the Roman architect Vitruvius. Initially it
was characterized by the use of the classical orders, round arches,
and symmetrical composition.
T
he
Renaissance architects found a harmony between the proportions of the
human body and those of their architecture. There was even a
relationship between architectural proportions and the Renaissance
pictorial device of perspective.
The concern1 of these architects for proportion caused that clear, measured2 expression and definition of architectural space and mass that differentiates the Renaissance style from the Gothic and encourages3 in the spectator an immediate and full comprehension of the building.
Churches, palaces, gardens, and well-organized open, urban spaces are the architectural works most often associated with this time. Great skill was expressed in ordering the interior of buildings, frequently using the same motifs as had been traditionally associated with the exterior.
Filippo
Brunelleschi4
(1377-1446) is said to have created the Renaissance. In the early
15th
century
he formulated linear perspective, which was to become a basic element
of Renaissance art. His basic vocabulary – fluted pilasters
carrying entablatures5,
columns supporting arches, unribbed vaults which are portions of the
surface of a sphere – appears in his brilliant work, Ospedale degli
Innocenti6
(1419-51) in Florence. It was the first building in the Renaissance
manner.
T
he
austere Tuscan Doric7
façade of Donato Bramante’s (1444-1514) Tempietto San Pietro8
in Montorio (1502) symbolized the beginning of the early 16th
century
High Renaissance in Rome.
T
he
Italian Renaissance is assumed to have achieved the highest degree of
perfection at that time. In 1505 Pope9
Julius II decided to demolish Old St. Peter’s and to build St.
Peter’s Cathedral, the work of many architects, beginning with
Bramante, whose ground plan10
was later changed from a Greek cross to a Latin cross. St. Peter’s
Cathedral is the largest church in the high Christian world. It has
29 altars in addition to the high altar, interior length 187 m.,
width at front, 26,5 m., length of transept, 137 m. The dome
(diameter, 42 m., height, 123 m. to the top of the lantern) was built
by Michelangelo.
1. Correct the false sentences.
1) The Renaissance is assumed to have reinitiated classical details.
2) The Renaissance succeeded the Baroque.
3) The Renaissance was characterized by the use of asymmetrical composition.
4) It is stated that Bramante was the initiator of the Renaissance.
5) It was Filippo Brunelleschi who formulated linear perspective.
6) St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome is assumed to represent the High Renaissance.