Filippo Brunelleschi

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Filippo Brunelleschi
Masaccio, cappella brancacci, san pietro in cattedra. ritratto di filippo brunelleschi.jpg
Presumed depiction in Resurrection of the Son of Theophilus, Masaccio
Born Filippo di ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi[1]
Florence, Italy
Died April 15, 1446 (aged 68–69)
Nationality Italian
Known for Architecture, Sculpture, Mechanical engineering
Notable work(s) Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore
Movement Early Renaissance
Brunelleschi's dome for the Duomo of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore
Section of the dome
Nave of the Santo Spirito, 1441–1481
Chapel of the Pazzi family, one of his last works
Sculpture of Brunelleschi looking at his cathedral dome

Filippo Brunelleschi (Italian: [fiˈlippo brunelˈleski]; 1377 – April 15, 1446) was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance.[2] He is perhaps most famous for his development of linear perspective and for engineering the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also include other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics, engineering and even ship design. His principal surviving works are to be found in Florence, Italy.

Little is known about the early life of Brunelleschi, the only sources being Antonio Manetti and Giorgio Vasari.[3] According to these sources, Filippo's father was Brunellesco di Lippo, a lawyer, and his mother was Giuliana Spini. Filippo was the middle of their three children. The young Filippo was given a literary and mathematical education intended to enable him to follow in the footsteps of his father, a civil servant. Being artistically inclined, however, Filippo enrolled in the Arte della Seta, the silk merchants' Guild, which also included goldsmiths, metalworkers, and bronze workers. He became a master goldsmith in 1398. It was thus not a coincidence that his first important building commission, the Ospedale degli Innocenti, came from the guild to which he belonged.[4]

In 1401, Brunelleschi entered a competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery. Seven competitors each produced a gilded bronze panel, depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac. Brunelleschi's entry, which, with that of Lorenzo Ghiberti, is one of only two to have survived, made reference to the Greco-Roman Boy with Thorn, whilst Ghiberti used a naked torso in the Classical style for his figure of Isaac. In 1403, Ghiberti was announced the victor, largely because of his superior technical skill: his panel showed a more sophisticated knowledge of bronze-casting being cast as a single piece. Brunelleschi's panel, by contrast, consisted of several pieces bolted to the back plate. Ghiberti went on to complete a second set of bronze doors for the baptistery, whose beauty Michelangelo extolled a hundred years later, saying "surely these must be the "Gates of Paradise".[5]

As an architect[edit]





Florence Cathedral[edit]

Santa Maria del Fiore was the new cathedral of the city, and by 1418 the dome had yet to be defined. When the building was designed in the previous century, no one had any idea about how such a dome was to be built, given that it was to be even larger than the Pantheon's dome in Rome and that no dome of that size had been built since antiquity. Because buttresses were forbidden by the city fathers, and because it was impossible to obtain rafters for scaffolding long and strong enough (and in sufficient quantity) for the task, it was unclear how a dome of that size could be constructed without it collapsing under its own weight in the process. Also, the stresses of compression were not clearly understood at the time, and the mortars used in the period would only set after several days, keeping the strain on the scaffolding for a very long time.[7] In 1418, the Arte della Lana, the wool merchants' guild, held a competition to solve the problem. The two main competitors were Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, with Brunelleschi winning and receiving the commission.


The dome, the lantern (built 1446–ca.1461) and the exedra (built 1439-1445) would occupy most of Brunelleschi’s life.[9] Brunelleschi's success can be attributed to no small degree to his technical and mathematical genius.[10] Brunelleschi used more than 4 million bricks in the construction of the dome. He invented a new hoisting machine for raising the masonry needed for the dome, a task no doubt inspired by republication of Vitruvius' De Architectura, which describes Roman machines used in the first century AD to build large structures such as the Pantheon and the Baths of Diocletian, structures still standing which he would have seen for himself. He also issued one of the first patents for the hoist in an attempt to prevent theft of his ideas. Brunelleschi was granted the first modern patent for his invention of a river transport vessel.[11]

Brunelleschi kept his workers up in the building during their breaks and brought food and wine up to them. He felt the trip up and down the hundreds of stairs would exhaust them and reduce their productivity. In a further attempt to motivate the workers, he gave them diluted wine, similar to that given to pregnant women at the time.[12]

Other work[edit]


Brunelleschi also designed fortifications used by Florence in its military struggles against Pisa and Siena. In 1424, he did work in Lastra a Signa, a village protecting the route to Pisa, and in 1431 he did work to the south, on the walls of the village of Staggia. The latter walls are still preserved, but whether these are specifically by Brunelleschi is uncertain.

He also had a brief appearance in the world of shipmaking, when, in 1427, he built a monstrous ship called Il Badalone to transport marble to Florence from Pisa up the Arno River. The ship sank on its first voyage, along with a sizable chunk of Brunelleschi's personal fortune. [13] Besides accomplishments in architecture, Brunelleschi is also credited with inventing one-point linear perspective which revolutionized painting and allowed for naturalistic styles to develop as the Renaissance digressed from the stylized figures of medieval art. In addition, he was somewhat involved in urban planning: he strategically positioned several of his buildings in relation to the nearby squares and streets for "maximum visibility". For example, demolitions in front of San Lorenzo were approved in 1433 in order to create a piazza facing the church. At Santo Spirito, he suggested that the façade be turned either towards the Arno so travelers would see it, or to the north, to face a large, prospective piazza.

Invention of linear perspective[edit]

diagram of Brunelleschi's experiment

Brunelleschi is famous for two panel paintings illustrating geometric optical linear perspective made in the early 1400s. His biographer, Antonio Manetti, described this famous experiment in which Brunelleschi painted two panels: the first of the Florentine Baptistery as viewed frontally from the western portal of the unfinished cathedral, and second the Palazzo Vecchio as seen obliquely from its northwest corner. These were not, however, the first paintings with accurate linear perspective, which may be attributed to Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Annunciation, 1344).



Theatrical machinery[edit]

Brunelleschi's tomb



Brunelleschi's body lies in the crypt of the Cathedral of Florence. As explained by Antonio Manetti, who knew Brunelleschi and who wrote his biography, Brunelleschi "was granted such honors as to be buried in the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, and with a marble bust, which they say was carved from life, and placed there in perpetual memory with such a splendid epitaph."[15] Inside the cathedral entrance is this epitaph: "Both the magnificent dome of this famous church and many other devices invented by Filippo the architect, bear witness to his superb skill. Therefore, in tribute to his exceptional talents, a grateful country that will always remember buries him here in the soil below."

Principal works[edit]


See also[edit]


  2. ^ "English Writers" Page 1, 1891
  10. ^ Prager, Frank (1970). Brunelleschi: Studies of his Technology and Inventions. Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press. ISBN 0-262-16031-5. 
  11. ^ The origins of the industrial property right. See: Step 3.
  13. ^ Brunelleschi's Monster Patent: Il Badalone

Further reading[edit]

  • Heydenreich, Ludwig H. (1996). Architecture in Italy, 1400-1500. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06467-4. 
  • Prager, F. D. (1950). "Brunelleschi's Inventions and the 'Renewal of Roman Masonry Work'". Osiris 9: 457–554. doi:10.1086/368537. 

External links[edit]