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03 · Renaissance, Baroque & Rococo

Early Renaissance

c. 1400–1500

Round arches on slender columns, flat wall pilasters, and calm, measured symmetry.

Look for

Round arch Pilaster Symmetrical facade
Florence Cathedral, Florence, Italy: an example of Early Renaissance architecture
Florence Cathedral, Florence, Italy. Photo: Gary Campbell-Hall, CC BY 2.0
Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence, Italy
Ospedale degli Innocenti Florence, Italy · MenkinAlRire, CC BY-SA 4.0
Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence, Italy
Palazzo Medici Riccardi Florence, Italy · Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 3.0
Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence, Italy
Basilica di San Lorenzo Florence, Italy · Zairon, CC BY 4.0
Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, Italy
Palazzo Rucellai Florence, Italy · Francesco Bini, CC BY-SA 4.0

what it is

Early Renaissance architecture uses forms from Roman buildings: round arches on slender Corinthian columns, pilasters (flat columns set against a wall) and hemispherical domes. Plans and facades are symmetrical, with each bay, the space between two columns, a multiple of one unit. In Florence, gray pietra serena sandstone outlines arches and pilasters against white plaster. Town palaces have rusticated ground floors, faced with rough or deeply grooved stone, and a heavy projecting cornice.

Brunelleschi's loggia at the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence (begun 1419) is a row of round arches on Corinthian columns. His churches of San Lorenzo (1421-1442) and Santo Spirito (begun 1434) are planned on a square module. Michelozzo's Palazzo Medici in Florence (1444-1484) has stonework that changes from rough on the ground floor to smooth on the top floor. Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai (about 1446-1451) was among the first facades to use stacked pilasters of different orders. Unlike Gothic churches, these buildings have round arches and horizontal cornices instead of pointed arches and spires.

how to spot one

Round arch An arch shaped as a half circle, often built from wedge-shaped blocks called voussoirs. It is used over doors, windows and between columns in Roman, Romanesque, Renaissance and Richardsonian Romanesque buildings. Pilaster A flat column projecting slightly from a wall, with the same base, shaft and capital (decorated top) as a freestanding column. It is usually decorative and is common on Renaissance, Georgian and Neoclassical buildings. Symmetrical facade A facade, or main front, whose left and right halves mirror each other, usually with the main door at the center. It is standard on Georgian, Federal, Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts buildings.

Also look for

CorniceArcadeRusticationPediment

history

Filippo Brunelleschi started the style in Florence. In 1419 he began the Ospedale degli Innocenti, and after winning the 1418 competition for the dome of Florence Cathedral he built it from 1420 to 1436, without the wooden centering normally used to support a vault during construction. Between 1443 and 1452 Leon Battista Alberti wrote De re aedificatoria, a ten-book treatise based on Vitruvius. Printed in 1485, it was the first printed book on architecture.

Alberti designed the facade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (completed 1470) and Sant'Andrea in Mantua (begun 1472), and Michelozzo built the Palazzo Medici for Cosimo de' Medici from 1444. Other Italian courts adopted the style: Federico da Montefeltro began the Ducal Palace at Urbino in 1454, and Pope Pius II had his birthplace, Pienza, rebuilt as a planned town center in 1459-1462. Around 1500 the center of new work moved to Rome, where Bramante, who may have worked at Urbino, began the High Renaissance.

where to find it

Florence: the Duomo, Ospedale degli Innocenti, and Palazzo Medici, plus the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino.

architects

Filippo BrunelleschiLeon Battista Alberti

easy to confuse with

Villa La Rotonda, an example of High Renaissance / Palladian High Renaissance / Palladian Temple fronts applied to villas and civic buildings, strict symmetry, and triple windows with an arched center. Panthéon, an example of Neoclassical Neoclassical Buildings modeled closely on Greek and Roman temples: grand columned porches, domes, and plain, symmetrical walls.