FIG. 159.
—SECTION OF DOME OF DUOMO, FLORENCE.
THE EARLY RENAISSANCE IN FLORENCE: THE DUOMO. In the year 1417 a public competition was held for completing the cathedral of Florence by a dome over the immense octagon, 143 feet in diameter. Filippo Brunelleschi, sculptor and architect (1377–1446), who with Donatello had journeyed to Rome to study there the masterworks of ancient art, after demonstrating the inadequacy of all the solutions proposed by the competitors, was finally permitted to undertake the gigantic task according to his own plans. These provided for an octagonal dome in two shells, connected by eight major and sixteen minor ribs, and crowned by a lantern at the top (Fig. 159). This wholly original conception, by which for the first time (outside of Moslem art) the dome was made an external feature fitly terminating in the light forms and upward movement of a lantern, was carried out between the years 1420 and 1464. Though in no wise an imitation of Roman forms, it was classic in its spirit, in its vastness and its simplicity of line, and was made possible solely by Brunelleschi’s studies of Roman design and construction (Fig. 160).
OTHER CHURCHES. From Brunelleschi’s designs were also erected the Pazzi Chapel in Sta. Croce, a charming design of a Greek cross covered with a dome at the intersection, and preceded by a vestibule with a richly decorated vault; and the two great churches of S. Lorenzo (1425) and S. Spirito (1433–1476, Fig. 161). Both reproduced in a measure the plan of the Pisa Cathedral, having a three-aisled nave and transepts, with a low dome over the crossing. The side aisles were covered with domical vaults and the central aisles with flat wooden or plaster ceilings. All the details of columns, arches and mouldings were imitated from Roman models, and yet the result was something entirely new. Consciously or unconsciously, Brunelleschi was reviving Byzantine rather than Roman conceptions in the planning and structural design of these domical churches, but the garb in which he clothed them was Roman, at least in detail. The Old Sacristy of S. Lorenzo was another domical design of great beauty.
FIG. 160.
—EXTERIOR OF DOME OF DUOMO, FLORENCE.
From this time on the new style was in general use for church designs. L. B. Alberti (1404–73), who had in Rome mastered classic details more thoroughly than Brunelleschi, remodelled the church of S. Francesco at Rimini with Roman pilasters and arches, and with engaged orders in the façade, which, however, was never completed. His great work was the church of S. Andrea at Mantua, a Latin cross in plan, with a dome at the intersection (the present high dome dating however, only from the 18th century) and a façade to which the conception of a Roman triumphal arch was skilfully adapted. His façade of incrusted marbles for the church of S. M. Novella at Florence was a less successful work, though its flaring consoles over the side aisles established an unfortunate precedent frequently imitated in later churches.