Art

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Italian Renaissance Art in Florence

How did Italian Renaissance art and architecture develop in Florence?

By the end of the Middle Ages, the most important Italian cultural centers were north of Rome at Florence, Milan, Venice, and the smaller duchies of Mantua, Ferrara, and Urbino ( map 12–2 ). Much of the power was in the hands of wealthy families: the Medici in Florence, the Visconti and Sforza in Milan, the Gonzaga in Mantua, the Este in Ferrara, and the Montefeltro in Urbino. Cities grew in wealth and independence as people moved to them from the countryside in unprecedented numbers. As in Northern Europe, commerce became increasingly important. Money conferred status, and a shrewd business or political leader could become very powerful. Patronage of the arts was an important public activity with political overtones. One Florentine merchant, Giovanni Rucellai, succinctly noted that he supported the arts “because they serve the glory of God, the honour of the city, and the commemoration of myself” (Baxandall, p. 2).

Beginning around 1400, Italian painters and sculptors, like their Flemish counterparts, increasingly focused their attention on rendering the illusion of physical reality, building on the achievements of their great Florentine forebear Giotto. However, rather than seeking to replicate the detailed visual appearance of nature, as the Flemings did, Italian artists aimed at achieving lifelike but idealized figures—perfected, generic types—portrayed as weighty, three-dimensional forms set within a rationally configured space organized through the use of linear perspective. At the same time, Italian architects began to use mathematically derived design principles and the Classical architectural orders to create buildings conforming to ideals of symmetry and restraint.

The towering pioneers of early Renaissance art—the architect Brunelleschi, the sculptor Donatello, and the painter Masaccio—all came from Florence, the birthplace of the ideas that blossomed into the Italian Renaissance.

Architecture

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446), a young sculptor-turned-architect (see “ The Competition Reliefs ,” p.  308 ), was one of the principal pioneers of Florentine Renaissance architecture. His design for the vast DOME OF FLORENCE CATHEDRAL ( fig. 12–12 ) was a revolutionary feat of engineering. The dome is essentially a Gothic construction based on the pointed arch, using internal ribs to support the vault. It has an octagonal outer shell and a lower inner shell connected through a system of arches and horizontal sandstone rings. Brunelleschi invented an ingenious structural system—more efficient, less costly, and safer than earlier systems—by which each portion of the dome reinforced the next one as it was built up layer by layer. When completed, this self-buttressed unit required no external support. To this day, the dome remains the source of immense local pride.

map 12–2 Fifteenth-Century Italy

Powerful families divided the Italian peninsula into city-states: the Medici in Florence, the Sforza in Milan, the Montefeltro in Urbino, and the Gonzaga in Mantua. After 1420, the popes ruled Rome, while in the south Naples and Sicily were French and then Spanish territories. Venice maintained its independence as a republic.

12–12 Filippo Brunelleschi DOME OF FLORENCE CATHEDRAL

1420–1436; lantern completed 1471.

The cathedral of Florence has a long and complex history. Arnolfo di Cambio’s original plan was approved in 1294, but political unrest in the 1330s brought construction to a halt until 1357. Most of the building we see today was constructed between 1357 and 1378, but Brunelleschi’s great dome—now the dominant architectural feature—was only begun in 1420. This dome was a source of immense local pride from the moment of its completion. Renaissance architect and theorist Leon Battista Alberti described it as rising “above the skies, large enough to cover all the peoples of Tuscany with its shadow” (Goldwater and Treves, p. 33).

Art and Its Contexts

The Competition Reliefs

In 1401, the building supervisors of the baptistery of Florence Cathedral decided to commission a new pair of bronze doors, funded by the powerful wool merchants’ guild. Instead of choosing a well-established sculptor, they announced a competition for the commission. This prestigious project would be awarded to the artist who demonstrated the greatest talent and skill in executing a trial piece: a bronze relief representing Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:1–13) composed within the same Gothic quatrefoil framework used in Andrea Pisano’s first set of bronze doors for the baptistery, made in the 1330s. The narrative subject was full of dramatic potential: Abraham, commanded by God to slay his beloved son Isaac as a burnt offering, has traveled to the mountains for the sacrifice, but just as he is about to slaughter Isaac, an angel appears, commanding him to release his son and substitute a ram tangled in the bushes behind him.

Two competition panels have survived, those submitted by the presumed finalists: Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti, both young artists in their early twenties. Brunelleschi’s composition ( fig. 12–13 ) is rugged and explosive, marked by raw dramatic intensity. At the right, Abraham lunges forward, grabbing his son by the neck, while the angel swoops energetically to stay his hand just as the knife is about to strike. Isaac’s awkward pose embodies his fear and struggle. Ghiberti’s version ( fig. 12–14 ) is quite different—suave and graceful rather than powerful and dramatic. Poses are controlled and choreographed; the harmonious pairing of son and father contrasts sharply with the wrenching struggle in Brunelleschi’s rendering. And Ghiberti’s Isaac is not a stretched, scrawny youth, but a fully idealized Classical figure, exuding calm composure.