Brunelleschi, Filippo (1377-1446) 
- Name:
- Filippo Brunelleschi
- Dates:
- Florence, 1377-1446
- Attivitą:
- goldsmith, sculptor, architect, engineer
- Places:
- Florence and Tuscany
- Biographical information:
-
Filippo Brunelleschi, known as Pippo, was born in Florence in 1377 into a family that was cultured and wealthy, since his father was a notary. Realising the lad's gifts, his father Brunellesco introduced him at an early age into the workshop of a goldsmith. In the early years of the next century Filippo worked as an assistant on the silver altar of San Jacopo in Pistoia, probably executing the two figures of Saints and a panel with a pair of Prophets. In 1401 he took part in the competition set up by the Guild of the wholesale cloth importers (Calimala) for the commission for the second door of the Baptistery: the trial consisted of the creating a relief panel in gilded bronze portraying the Sacrifice of Isaac (Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello). The contest was won by Lorenzo Ghiberti, against whom Brunelleschi was to measure himself on various occasions in his life. Disappointed at his defeat, Filippo left with his friend Donatello for Rome, where he studied archaeological finds and ancient buildings.
The sources record that in the early years of his activity Filippo made various sculptures. One of those that has survived is the Crucifix of Santa Maria Novella, datable around 1410-1415, which Filippo created as a response to Donatello's Crucifix in Santa Croce (Vasari 1550; 1568). In the same period, Brunelleschi also carried out a series of optical experiments which led him to formulate a rational method of two-dimensional representation based on geometry and mathematical proportion. This was linear perspective with a unified vanishing point, which was to become the foundation of the Renaissance conception of man and of space in architecture.
Having over time moved on to address architecture, Filippo achieved his supreme masterpiece: the construction of the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Cathedral of Florence. In 1418 the artist took part in a contest for this ambitious and complex enterprise, a vast structure to be erected resting on a drum 13 metres high and over an aperture almost 42 metres wide. After an initial phase in which both he and Ghiberti were engaged in the undertaking, later Brunelleschi assumed full responsibility. He elaborated his own model and supervised the construction procedures in person, choosing the materials and directing the works. Finally, in 1436 the large cupola was concluded, and immediately appeared as the emblem of a reborn and unique civilisation. The architect then went on to design the lantern set at the summit of the cupola and the four decorative exedrae with niches at the base of the drum, which were completed after his death.
While he was engaged in this endeavour, Filippo was also working on other important architectural commissions. The first work that immediately highlighted the striking purity and geometrical rationality of Brunelleschi's language was the facade of the Spedale degli Innocenti with the colonnade (from 1419). In his designs for religious buildings the artist developed two fundamental concepts: the basilica layout and the central layout. For Giovanni di Bicci and later for Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici he designed the rebuilding of San Lorenzo, the important church situated just a stone's throw from the Medici houses on Via Larga, and the adjacent Old Sacristy (1419-1428). Cosimo also asked Filippo to prepare a design for the family palazzo, but then rejected his proposal in favour of that submitted by Michelozzo.
Deriving from the experience of San Lorenzo were the projects for the church of Santo Spirito, the Pazzi Chapel in the Santa Croce complex and the Rotonda of the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
Brunelleschi was also engaged in military engineering and civil architecture (Palazzo di Parte Guelfa, Palazzo Pitti). To construct his inventions the artist also devised and built various contraptions and mechanisms, as well as a special boat for transporting marble along the Arno.
Filippo died in 1446 and was buried in the Duomo.
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