UNIT 4: RENAISSANCE

 Idea of Rebirth and Revival

 Humanism
 Development of thought
 The renaissance patron
ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
 Urbanism Renaissance architecture: Brunelleschi and rationally order space.
 Ideal form and the centrally planned church: Alberti and Donato Bramante.
Merchant prince palaces: Palazzo Ricardi
Villas of Palladio: villa Capra Vicenza
Mannerist architecture: The Renaissance in transition.
Michelangelo: library at [Link], Florence.

ENGLAND RENAISSANCE
Capitoline hill: Indigo Jones
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INTRODUCTION
At the end of the fourteenth century, the impressiveness of gothic architecture began to decline.
Europe was coming out of the middle ages, and into the Renaissance.
The architects of the time changed their architecture to fit the era.
They revived many of the ideas from classical (Greek and Roman) architecture.
They did, however, use materials not associated with Greek and Roman architecture such as brick.
Artists and architects worked together much more, and many renaissance buildings have statues, murals, and much
more artwork to go with them.
Renaissance architecture first began in Florence, Italy in the early fifteenth century.

Italy had never really used gothic architecture, so when gothic became less popular, Italy had something different for
the people to look to.
The style spread to the area around Florence, encompassing Rome and Milan.
Then it somehow got up to the Netherlands, and spread to the rest of Europe from there.
Renaissance architecture was somewhat different in the rest of Europe than in Italy, but the basic principals were
the same.
Renaissance architecture did not get to France until nearly 125 years after it began in Florence.
A common feature of renaissance architecture was the dome.
Almost all renaissance cathedrals had domes. Many domes had paintings or decorations on the ceilings.
Some good examples of renaissance architecture with domes are the Basilica Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, and St.
Peter's cathedral in Rome.

Famous architects and artists such as

o Michelangelo, Buonarroti
o Leonardo Di Vinci
o Filippo Brunelleschi
o Andrea Palladio were shapers of renaissance architecture

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael and company created some fabulous paintings and sculptures that we continue to
marvel over many centuries later and so on and so forth.
While these were vitally important artists, and their collective work is what usually comes to mind when one hears
the word "Renaissance", as so often happens in life things aren't quite that simple.
The Renaissance (a word which literally means "born a new") is a name we've given to a period in Western history
during which the arts - so important in Classic cultures - were revived.

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The Eastern empire did not come under its influence, for the Greeks in the East, who had been the most civilized
people in Europe, were now falling before the Turks.
The new form of architecture no longer needed to point heavenward, but, like Roman architecture, would stress a
balance of vertical and horizontal elements in forms reflecting Human proportions.
This new architecture first implemented in FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI
(FOUNDLING HOSPITAL) IN FLORENCE.

In a series of different phases which occurred between the years c. 1150 and c. 1600.

The Pre- (or "Proto"-) Renaissance began in a northern enclave of present-day Italy sometime around 1150 or so.
It didn't, at least initially, represent a wild divergence from any other Medieval art.
What made the Proto-Renaissance important was that the area in which it began was stable enough to allow
explorations in art to develop.

Fifteenth-century Italian Art often referred to as the "Early Renaissance", generally means artistic goings-on in the
Republic of Florence between the years 1417 and 1494. (This doesn't mean nothing happened prior to 1417, by the
way. The Proto-Renaissance explorations had spread to include artists throughout northern Italy.)
Florence was the spot, for a number of factors, that the Renaissance period really caught hold and stuck.

Sixteenth-century Italian Art is a category which contains three separate topics. What we now call the "High
Renaissance" was a relatively brief period which lasted from roughly 1495 to 1527. (This is the little window of time
referred to when one speaks of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael.)

The "Late Renaissance" took place between 1527 and 1600 (again, this is a rough time table) and included the
artistic school known as Mannerism. Additionally, The Renaissance thrived in Venice, an area so unique (and
supremely disinterested with Mannerism) that an artistic "school" has been named in its honor.

The Renaissance in Northern Europe struggled to come into being, mostly due to the stranglehold Gothic art
maintained for centuries and the fact that this geographical region was slower to gain political stability than was
northern Italy.
Nonetheless, the Renaissance did occur here, beginning around the middle of the fourteenth century and lasting
until the Baroque movement (c. 1600).

DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT
A new intellectual movement manifests itself sooner in literature than in architecture, and thus the former
influences the public taste.
Dante (1265-1321), Petrarch (1304-1374), and Boccaccio (1313-1375) aided in the spread of the newly-discovered
classic literature, which caused a revolt against mediaeval art.
The subsequent fall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453 caused an influx of Greek scholars into Italy, whose learning was
an important influence in an age which was ripe for a great intellectual change.
Thus a revival of classic literature produced a desire for the revival of Roman architecture.
Greek and Latin authors brought to light the Vitruvius' book of Architecture, written in B.C. 50, which was translated
into Italian in A.D.1521.

This resulted in a newly fashionable architectural style that unearthed and modernized the tradition of ancient Rome
called RENAISSANCE.

HUMANISM
Humanism was an intellectual movement that led to ‘Renaissance’.
It was an activity of cultural and educational reform, engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are known
as humanists

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It developed during the fourteenth and turn-of-the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of
Medieval Scholasticism. (It emphasized practical, pre-professional and scientific studies. focused on preparing men
to be doctors, lawyers or professional theologians, and was taught from approved textbooks in logic, natural
philosophy, medicine, law and theology.)
Rather than train professionals in jargon and strict practice, humanists sought to create a citizenry able to speak and
write with eloquence and clarity.
Thus, they would be capable of better engaging the civic life of their communities and persuading others to virtuous
and prudent actions.

THE RENAISSANCE PATRON

Another change that characterized the Renaissance concerned the patronage of Art and Architecture.
Increasingly, cardinals, popes and other individuals, especially merchants and bankers, commissioned buildings,
sculpture and paintings for themselves, for the churches and for their cities they patronized.
In Italy the first major patrons of the new architecture were the merchants who governed Florence, especially the
powerful MEDICIS.
Until the merchant of ascent GIOVANNI DI BICCI DE MEDICI prospered in the Florentine textile industry.
Cosimo and his descended without getting any benefit and be rebuild of San Lorenz o and additional churches he
built in Florence, and some to villas
This type of services is also carried out by the famous kings.

ROMAN BUILDING SCALE RE-ACHIEVED: BRUNELLESCHI’S DOME

BRUNELLESHCHI
Renaissance architect
1377 – 1446
Initially he was trained as an artist, a master goldsmith in the silk guild.
More unusual, he was also a scholar who read some Latin.
After losing the competition for new bronze doors for the Florentine baptistery, Brunelleschi turned to the study of
architecture because he felt architecture was
More useful to mankind than either sculpture or painting.
While he was perfecting his construction scheme for the cathedral domes, Brunelleschi was at the same time
designing the Foundling Hospital and tackling the problem of developing a rational mathematical scheme of the
accurately depicting on a painted fat surface the arrangement of objects on real 3 dimensional space.

BRUNELLESCHI DOME
Building achievements of the ancients was boldly exemplified in the DOME
FILLIPO BRUNELLESCHI.
In 1417, he had devised a method, exactly how it was to be built.
DOME was the shape of Egg stand on its end on a slab of Marble.
Construction – Great dome- began in 1420.
Terms of forms and profile. It was in the classical design in structural terms.
ROOF: designed in SANTA MARIA DELLA FIORE, Domes was the shape of Egg
stand .cloister vault.
Sloped Steep construction
DESIGN OF DOME: steep and pointed profile. Comprises of Two layers, inner
skeleton designed in thick stone.
Thin = outer dome.
CONSTRUCTION METHODS: Owes much of gothic architecture.

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VITRUVIUS AND IDEAL FORM: “TEN BOOKS OF ARCHITECTURE”
ARCHITECTURAL BIBLE for the New Generation of Humanist patrons and
architects.

First edition begins – 1486, with the illustrated edition by FRA GIOCONDO in 1511.
Vitruvius – proportionally forms are described by derived from the ideal Geometric
Form discussed by Plato.
By this idea, Vitruvius created Third book – devoted to temple design. In this book
Concentrated on Symmetric and proportion.
Ideal system of proportional – found in perfect proportions of the human body.
He explains the proportion of the human body and how platonic forms compared
to the humanity.

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE
Started form
o City planning to
o Church planning
o palaces/Villas

CITY PLANNING
Renaissance architect sought to clearly express the numerical relationship in tread,
design – recalling the MYSTICISM OF PYTHOGROUES.
Circles – attractive form of Renaissance designers. They also used Square form for Antonio averlino
church planning.

1. ANTONIO AVERLINO - worked in Milan in 1460 on a manuscript discussion

on new Rational and classical inspired architecture.
He designed a new model town called SPORZINDA.
PLANNING: octagonal star space city.
Core – central market
Spatial arrange by were harries
Because of political diffulties in Italy, no longer town are developed.

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2. But in 1593 –Designed ideally in Republic of Venice.
City name: Palamanuova
ARCHITECT: VINCENZO SCAMOZZI
PLANNING: Nice pointed star shaped, with bastions for artillery around
its perimeter for defense.
Radial streets and circumferential connectors conforms to the ideal
patter,
CIRCLE AND SQUARE: it is used as the basic design shape.
BOUNDARIES: installed by Classical columns, arches, entablature –
derives Roman beauty.
BEAUTY: Carefully Arrange Of Proportionally Related Parts.

BRUNELLESCHI AND RATIONAL ORDERED SPACE

1. Brunelleschi first demonstrates his mathematical proportion in FOUNDLING HOSPITAL IN FLORENCE.
o Designed in 1419 for his patron GIOVANNI DE MEDICI.
PLANNING
EXTERIOR
Front of the building and facing the piazza, Monolithic Corinthian columns - with semicircular arch and long linear
entablature.
COLUMNS: So proportioned – created spaces equal at interiors.
Column arrange apart from the rear wall.
The distance apart from the rear wall. The distance between the Exterior wall and the arcade space has modulas
cubes.
Column, arches and bays designed
proportionally to the whole number
ratio.

Foundling Hospital

2. SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE

In 1418, he was engaged in work Giovanni de Medici to rebuilt San Lorenzo, Florence and other intentions of Domes.
San Lorenzo, Florence

His objective to San Lorenzo planning:

To create a volume organized in toe - 12 cubes of space.

Large cubes form choir and transept arms.
4 x choir cube form nave.
Side aisles by small modular unit.

COLUMNS and PILASTER: CORINTHIAN CLOUMNED AND

PILASTERS MATERIAL – DARK STONE.
By Rebuilt of SAN LORENZO - he had to adopt the
mathematical scheme.

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But in all its details and subdivision he could not able implement his scheme.
In 1418, he was engaged in work Giovanni de Medici to rebuilt San Lorenzo, Florence and other intentions of Domes.

3. In 1436, SANTO SPIRITA – He adopt all his mathematical proportions.

PLANNING:
Plan generated from the Cubical bay of the crossing.
Dome supported on square base with Pendentives
Duplicate cubicles provides on transept and choir.
To smaller cubes flanked in the side aisles.
Smaller cube Length is ¼ the length of the large cubes.
Alongside aisles, he introduced numerous small, semicircular apses.
Nave : half width of the duplicate cube and in the half the height of the
building.
It is a rationally ordered scheme.

IDEALIZED FORMS AND THE CENTRALLY PLANNED CHURCH

To theorists such as Alberti, the circle and the centralized plan generated from it were highly evocative religious
symbols of the perfection of divinity, forms found also in the proportions of the human body patterned, and so
scripture declared, in God’s image.
A dome, placed over the center, became the outward manifestation of this
centrally focused plan.

1. An early example of the square plan surmounted by a dome was Brunelleschi’s

PAZZI CHAPEL, in the cloister court of the church of Santa Croce, Florence.

PAZZI CHAPEL is designed in 1423-1424; the chapel was paid by the Pazzi family. Pazzi Chapel
Here again, Brunelleschi had to adjust an otherwise ideal plan to fit the chapel
among existing buildings.

2. In 1460, ALBERTI devised a square plan with short arms for the church of SAN
SEBASTIANO IN MANTUA, but construction was changed after his death and
little remains today of Alberti’s original design.
3. The clearest expression of the use of the CIRCLE and the SQUARE as
generative modules in the small church of SANTA MARIA DELLA CARCERI by San Sebastiano
GIULIANO DA SANGALLO.
o BUILT IN 1485-1491 in the town of PRATO.
o Church is based on a Square plan projected vertically in to a cube.
o Above the cube, pendentives form a circular plan from
o which rise a short drum and a ribbed dome, lit by twelve bull’s eye windows at the base and a lantern at its
top.
o From the cube base, half cubes project laterally, forming the arms of a compact Greek cross plan.
o Internally, the edges of the volume are marked by dark stone Corinthian pilasters, entablature, and
architraves, sharply contrasting with the unadorned white stucco walls.
o Externally, each component of the interior is revealed by the stone trim attached to the brick structural wall.

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 o The outer entablature corresponds to that inside, the upper attic level corresponds to the barrel vaults over
the arms, and the pediments correspond to the short drum inside carrying the dome.
o The church is a rational exercise in the extrapolation of parts from the central cube module, extended by
half-cubes and semicircles in every direction; every part of the exterior announces what is to be found
inside.
o There are no intellectual discordance but, rather, perfect uniform conformity to proportional harmony.

Santa Maria Della Carceri

4. Even more thoroughly and perfectly developed in its schematic unfolding in space of circles and squares, half-
domes and cubes is the freestanding church of SANTA MARIA DELLA CONSOLAZIONE IN TODI, Tuscany, Built in
1508 – 1607 from designs of COLA DA CAPRAROLA perhaps assisted by Baldassarre Peruzzi, apparently greatly
influenced by DONATO BRAMANTE.

ALBERTI’S LATIN CROSS CHURCHES:

In many instances, Renaissance architects did not have open sites on which to build their churches but, rather, had
to adapt their preference of centralized Classical forms to existing Late Gothic basilican plans.

1. LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI has confronted this problem in 1450 – 1461 in putting a new exterior shell around the
church of SAN FRANCESCO in Rimini.
o Alberti created a deeply arcaded new wall that enveloped the old church walls in a way that recalled the
massiveness of the Colosseum in Rome; in the arched voids was room for ceremonial sarcophagi for
members of the Malatesta (patron) family.
o At the end of the church, Alberti devised an entry derived from Roman Triumphal arches, with arches to the
left and right repeating the rhythm of the arches on the side walls.
o The side walls were to have been deep niches as well,
containing the sarcophagi of the duke and his mistress; but out
of structural necessity, the openings had to be filled in.
o Between them, a larger central arch encloses a door framed by
a Classical architrave and capped by a Pediment.
o The details throughout reveal Alberti’s detailed study of
Roman ruins.

San Francesco
o Above the entry, Albert was confronted with the problem of
making a graceful transition from the tall center nave to the lower side aisles with their shed roofs.

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 o Unfortunately, this upper section was never finished according to Alberti’s design.
Although Alberti was extremely well educated and an accomplished, multitalented individual, he did not have the
practical training of an artist or architect. Hence, we should carefully note the way he relied on builders to carry out
his conceptual designs.

2. Later, in 1458 – 1471, ALBERTI improved on this connection between side

aisles and nave in the façade he designed for the Church of SANTA MARIA
NOVELLA in FLORENCE.
o In this, he used long, curved VOLUTES to make a graceful transition from
the square of the upper part of the nave block to the two squares of the
lower part of the façade.
Santa Maria Novella
o Church was full constructed and monitored by his assistants.

3. After his study process, ALBERTI’S CHURCH OF SANT’ ANDREA IN MANTUA designed in 1470 but built closely
following his intentions by Luca fancelli and finished in 1493, the year after Alberti’s death.
o In this church, Alberti want to design new façade against the existing bell tower that could not be removed;
hence, the façade is a slightly reduced version of the main part of the church itself.
o But the major problem that Alberti confronted, and one that contradicted his strong predisposition for
symbolic centralized plans, was that such plans simply do not accommodate the processional liturgical
service of the Catholic Church; for such a liturgy, the longitudinal basilican plan had long before proved itself
superior.
o This struggle between the ideal and the practical would be documented in the designs for THE NEW SAINT
PETER’S ROME during 16th century.
o Thus, in Sant’ Andrea, Alberti inspired by Brunelleschi church in Florence designed as centralized around the
crossing and provided the focus toward the altar of a basilican plan.
PLANNING:
o Sant’Andrea’s crossing cube extends in three short barrel vaulted wings, forming transepts and choir on the
fourth side, the barrel vault is extended in three bays to form the nave.
o Nave are designed by coffered barrel vault which is 60 feet across, is supported by massive lateral piers
connected by smaller cross barrel vaults.
o These buttressing side vaults cover deep chapels between the piers.
o In this reduced entrance façade portico, Alberti clearly demonstrated this internal organisation by showing a
center barrel vault supported by vaulted side chapels.
o The façade, with its recessed entry, is also another variation on the Roman triumphal arch, with a lower
Corinthian order supporting the central arch and a colossal Corinthian pilaster order carrying the broad
Classical pediment.
o As a further demonstration of proportional design, the entire façade, from edge to edge, and from
pavementto the pediment crown, neatly fits inside a square.

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Sant’ Andrea In Mantua

BRAMANTE AND THE NEW SAINT PETER’S, ROME:

Like Alberti, Donato Bramante (1444-1514) preferred centralized plan for religious buildings.
Bramante was trained as a painter in Urbino and designed buildings in Milan and Rome, though French occupied
Milan.
1. First Project in Rome, Bramante commission for a small Matyrium in Saint Peter. His patrons were king and queen
of Spain.

2. In 1500-1502, BRAMANTE DESIGN TEMPIETTO in

the cloister of SAN PIETRO IN MONTORIO, ROME. He inspired from the literally of Alberti
TEMPLUM in the writing about the ideal centralized church.
He got inspiration from temple in TIVOLI, through frequent visit and documentation of
Italy buildings.

PLANNING:
Bramante carefully proportioned the Tempietto so that its
overall height to the base of the dome is equal to its width,
and the ration of width to height in the encircling Doric
colonnade is repeated in the width to height of the drum of
the dome.
The Doric columns were reused Roman artifacts, but the
frieze was designed by Bramante after that of the Temple
of Vespasian.
Hence, in form, proportion and ornamental detail, the
diminutive building recalls Roman architecture at its
purest, re-created and reshaped in the service of the
church. Tempietto Roman Temple In Tivoli

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 Temple Vaspasian
3. POPE JULIUS II in 1503, aims to create Rome, the Queen city of the church. To achieve that a gathering arranged
with humanist.
o The humanist who participated in the gathered in Rome at this time were Humanist and the sculptor
MICHELANGELO, the young painter RAPHAEL SANTI and BRAMANTE.
o Julius II resolved to put them to work rebuilding the papal possessions according to the new vision of human
power, a testament to the glory of God as well as to the power of the Papacy.
o He sent MICHELANGELO up the scaffold in the Vatican chapel and paint the ceiling frescoes.
o RAPHAEL was assigned to paint frescoes in the Papal apartments.

o BRAMANTE in 1504, appointed to design and build A NEW SAINT PETER’S, bigger than Constantine’s church,
embodying the ideals of the new architecture and proclaiming the power of an invigorated Christianity while
surpassing the achievement of pagan antiquity.
PLANNING:

Bramante’s Plan And

Elevation

o The church scheme was inspired by a drawing in one of LEONARDO DA VINCI’S sketchbook. The drawing
combined the clear logical form of the Greek cross with Roman barrel vaults and hemispherical domes.
o For the New saint peter’s basilica, Bramante devised a vast martyrium, providing for a gigantic dome over
the crypt of Saint Peter’s burial.

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o The Dome alone was to be 136 feet ( 41.5m) in dia, nearly equal in size to that of the ancient Pantheon but
raised far higher.
o Instead of resting on a massive ring wall as in the Pantheon, this dome was to be lifted aloft on four molded
corner piers supporting pendentives, its outward thrust transmitted to the barrel vaults radiating from the
pendentives between the piers.
o Around the four central piers would run an ambulatory connecting with four vast chapels on the axes of the
arches.
o In the corners of the vast square plan were to be auxiliary chapels.
o Circle and Squares, cubes and hemispheres were nested and interlocked around each other in a huge
pyramidal pile. Although, the church would have been 528 feet ( 161m) square, and Bramante may have
intended to create an even larger, paved, square piazza around the church.
o Construction began on the piers for the great dome in 1506, when Bramante died in 1514, only the four
massive piers, the Barrel vaults connecting the piers, and the lower portions of the radiating walls have been
completed.
o Project proved enormously expensive, and to finance it, Julius had authorized the sale of papal indulgences.

Michelangelo
Plan And
Elevation

o Under succeeding popes and their selected architects, Bramante’s centralized plan was changed repeatedly
on paper and in models, first into a more traditional, longitudinal basilica and then back so some variant of a
centralized plan, and this ambivalence continued for decades.
o After the election of Alessandro Farnese a Pope Paul III was work seriously resumed in 1546, when new
plans were prepared by the aged MICHELANGELO.
o Perhaps Michelangelo’s training as a sculptor, as someone intimately familiar with the great weight of stone,
enabled him to see the flaws in Bramante’s original design; it had far too much enclosed volume with too
little mass to support the huge, elevated dome.
o Michelangelo pulled in the walls, thickening them even more and created a tighter and more solid perimeter
to the plan.
o He also made another important change, for although he retained the sense of a centralized plan with four
arms of equal length, he proposed making one of them the entry by ending it in a huge colonnaded temple
front, thereby creating a sense of ambiguity.
o The western walls were built with immense Corinthian pilasters whose scale defies easy comprehension.
o Michelangelo’s dome was finished in 1585-1590, after his death. The church was undertaken by Giacomo
della ports and the engineer Domenico Fontana, but the church neither was still nor finished.
o The east end stood incomplete and the approach toward the building had not yet been made clear; these
tasks would be under taken by later architects in the Baroque Period.

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RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE: MERCHANT PRINCE PALACES

o In mercantile Florence – a new standard of urban residential design emerged.

o Sponsored by the rising merchant princes – by replacing the cramped housed of the 14th century
o Large residences of Classical grace.
o In most of the palazzi and villas, the architects confidently devised and original blend of ancient Roman
architectural themes with local tradition.
o Famous places : The palazzo de’ medici – Michelozzo di bartolomeo and Brunelleschi
 The Palazzo rucellai – alberti
 The palazzo Farnese – Antonio da Sangallo and Michelangelo.

THE PALAZZO DE’ MEDICI OR PALAZZO RICARDI

o Designed by Michelozzo for the Medici family, the palace was built in 1444 [Link] to built a large
residence for Cosimo de’ Medici family.
o It is renowned for its rusticated stone masonry in the GF, drafted stone masonry in the FF & Ashlar masonry
in the 2nd floor.
o The rusticated joints of the masonry were a gesture to local tradition.
o The tripartite division of the elevation is achieved by horizontal string courses that divide the building into
storeys of decreasing height.
o The projecting cornice, with its elaborate detailing serves as a suitable crown to the building.
o This palace stands as an example of the renaissance spirit of rationality, order, proportion & the use of
human scale.

o The plan has a Cortile surrounded by an open colonnade which is cross vaulted that leads to the various
rooms. The use of spiral staircase can be observed. The grand staircase that leads to the “Piano nobile” in
the upper floor & the narrow entrance vestibule that leads the Cortile also can be seen.
o It also contains the Magi chapel used for worship. There is a service entrance to the open court at the rear.
o The interior view of the cortile shows the open arcade of semicircular arches supported on composite
columns with an entablature of brass medallions connected by festoons on top.
o The view of the open court in the rear part of the palace shows the landscape scheme. Moreover, the
complete break away from the traditions of the middle ages can also be seen in the treatment of windows &
doors.
o Rooms – arranged around a central court, which is opened up with great encircling arcade with Corinthian
columns.
o The court was ornamented with ancient statuary and contemporary sculptures.

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THE VILLAS OF PALLADIO
o Mid 16th century in the region of the VENETO continued to exploit the simple cubic volumes and
elemental forms of the early renaissance, particularly in the exteriors of his buildings.
o Architect – ANDREA PALLADIO ( 1508 – 1580)
o He Is a Trained Builder. Later, he was given a humanist education in
classics, through the support of his patron.
o He built public buildings and urban palazzi in vicenza , as well as
churches and finally TEATRO OLIMPICO in vicenza.
o The building Palladio designed the most where FARM VILLAS; he
produced more than 40 around Venice and Vicenza.
Andrea Palladio

EARLY 16TH century – venetian nobles desiring to make their finance more secure.
And the started to invest the money by buying reclaim low lying area , marshy lands
that has been not used for agriculture.
o For this ANDREA PALLADIO, commissioned to design numerous working
farms for these lands.
o He derived variety of plans, simple in layout , proportionally composed and functionally practical.
o First villa – The villa Badoer at Fratta Polesine.
o All the rooms are depends upon the proportional systems in the size of the room.
o In his design, Palladio also incorporated a front temple fort.
o Facade of villa badoer is designed as roman temple façade with Corinthian column supports the
pendentives.
o Either two sides of the villas is the concave colonnades.

Villa Badoer

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THE VILLA CAPRA OR VILLA ROTONDA
o Villa Capra, also known as La Rotunda is a renaissance villa in northern Italy, designed by Palladio.
The design was inspired by the Pantheon, in Rome.
o The villa was located just outside the city of VICENZA
o Although commissioned by a retired Vatican priest, it became one of the most inspirational
architectural prototypes for the next 500 years. Palladio himself designed 20 such villas in Italy.
o Focus – not only on the single entrance but on a cylindrical rotunda connected at the centre capped
by a dome visibly poking through the roof.
o Central rotund connected to four identical columnar porticos on each of the four sides.
o Built on a hilltop in 1566, the villa was designed to be in
perfect harmony with the landscape. It has porticoes on all sides,
from which views of the surrounding countryside can be enjoyed.
Though symmetrical in plan, there are variations in the width of
steps, retaining wall etc., that allows for the asymmetry of the
existing landscape.
o In plan, the Villa Capra is symmetrical, with the basic
arrangement of rooms being achieved by the intersection of a
square with a cross & a circle.
o Each of the 4 facades has a portico that leads through a
corridor to the circular, domed, central hall.
o All the rooms have been proportioned with mathematical
precision as set out in his book titled “ Quatro Libri dell’
Architettura”.
o The design was so successful that it has often been
copied in England, USA & Europe.
o In order for each room to have some sun, the design was
rotated 45 deg. from the cardinal points of the compass.
o All principal rooms were in the 2nd floor, or the piano
nobile.
o Though it is a hemispherical dome, it appears saucer shaped from outside due to the sloped roof
that surrounds its base & conceals it.
o The interior design of the villa was done by Baroque artists, who painted the walls with frescoes in
the principal salons. The highlight is the circular hall with walls done in trompe I’oeil & the dome
soaring above to the cupola.

The Villa Capra Or Villa Rotonda

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MANNERISM
o Mannerism, a style in art and architecture, originating in Italy as a reaction against the
equilibrium of form and proportions characteristic of the High Renaissance.
o In architecture the style was manifested in the use of unbalanced proportions and arbitrary
arrangements of decorative features.
o One artist / architect whose work dramatically illustrates this change was MICHELANGELO.
o Elements of architecture for mannerism found in Library at San Lorenzo.
 campitoline hill, rome , italy
 The palazzo del te
o In Spain, Berruguette was a leading exponent of mannerism.
o Toward the end of the 16th cent., mannerism assumed an academic formalism in the works of the
Zuccaro brothers.
o By the end of the century it had given way to the Baroque

LIBRARY AT SAN LORENZO

o The Laurentian library is located in the cloister of [Link]
o The library itself is a long room with reading desks
o It is well lit by rows of windows between pilasters which corresponds to the beams of the ceiling this
reposeful and clearly articulated space is preceded by a much taller monumental vestibule of square plan
o It is entirely filled by an extraordinary staircase, spilling from the library door and multiplying into three
flights of stairs , of which the outer two are hardly unuseable
o The vestibule walls are particularly unorthodox.

o It has paired columns rising from insubstantial volutes

o They are recessed behind the white plaster wall surface from which project tabernacle niches with pilasters
perversely widening towards their capitals.

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PIAZZA DEL CAMPIDOGGLIO, CAPITOLINE HILL

Piazza Del Campidogglio

o From the founding of Rome until its fall almost 1000 years later, the Capitoline Hill symbolized the epicentre
of Rome's might and many of the city's most important buildings stood on this hill.
o The site continued to play an important part in Rome's history. The senate of Rome assembled here and
even today it still has some political significance since the city hall is located here.
PLANNING: When Emperor Charles V planned a visit to Rome in 1536, the muddy Capitoline Hill was in such a
derelict state that pope Paul III Farnese asked Michelangelo to design a new square, the Piazza del Campidoglio
(Capitoline Square).
o The project also included a redesign of the existing buildings surrounding the square.
Michelangelo came up with an original, trapezoidal design for the square with an intriguing oval shaped
ground pattern. He rebuilt the Palazzo Senatorio, seat of the Roman senate, and redesigned the facade of
the Palazzo dei Conservatori.
o Additionally a new building, the Palazzo Nuovo, was to be constructed just opposite the Palazzo dei
Conservatori. Both palazzos were positioned at a slight angle so that it changes the perspective in such a way
that the square seems larger than it actually is.
o Finally, Michelangelo's ambitious plans for the square also included the creation of an elegant staircase, the
Cordonata.
o Construction of the square started in 1546 but only the staircase at the entrance of the Palazzo Senatorio
was realized when Michelangelo died in 1564. The project was finally completed in the seventeenth century
according to Michelangelo's designs.
THE CORDONTE: The grandiose, slow rising staircase that leads from the bottom of the Capitoline Hill to the piazza is
known as the Cordonata, Italian for 'graded ramp'. Construction of the staircase started in 1548 but work dragged on
and even came to a standstill after Michelangelo's death. It was finally completed in 1582 by Giacomo della Porta.
THE PALAZZOS: Piazza del Campidoglio is bordered on three sides by elegant buildings. The central one sporting a
clock tower is Palazzo Senatorio. To the right is the Palazzo dei Conservatori and to the left its mirror image, Palazzo
Nuovo.

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LATE ITALIAN RENISSANCE GARDEN
o Mannerist designers – started to explore their ideas in designing garden – LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE.
o Many wealthy MECIDI family had farm enterprises in the countryside, with associated utilitarian buildings.
To these farmhouses were soon added gardens.
o PLANNING : Usually Orthogonal grids of planted beds
o delineated by Gravel walks
o disposed in one or two flat terraces.
o EXAMPLES : Villa Lante at Bagnaia
Villa d’Este at Tivoli

VILLA LANTE, BAGNAIA

BUILT IN – 15TH CENTURY - 1566
ARCHITECT: started by Cardinal Raphael Riario and finished by Cardinal Montalto in 1590.
PLANNING: VILLA LANTE exploits its sloping topography
Lowest Point –TERRACE 1 - large square terrace with 12 planted beds and a fountain at the centre.
TERRACE 2 – the land rises to next level terrace by stairs between two CASINOS.
Each terrace 3 to 5 higher terrace is progressively enclosed, planted with larger trees creating a denser canopy.
At the top of the hill – small pavilion covering a grotto from which the water issues in a spring. This water fed to all
cascades and fountains.
In TERRACE 5 – from the main casacade the water is led to down terrce by narrow
chapels.
Around this upper most pavilion, the trees and shrubs are wilder in form, so the
garden terraces proceed from the most cultivated at the lower level to the most
primal at the
top.
DIMENSION:
756 feet in
long

250 feet wide

THE RENAISSANCE EXPORTED

o The use of renaissance style begun to move beyond Italy by the end of 15th century.
o One of the most important agent is the printing press –INDIRECT CONTACT- aimed at both patron and
practicing architect.
o The crucial ancient publication such as VIRTUVIUS – Ten books for architecture
 ALBERTI - De re aedificatoria

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  SEBASTIANO SERLIO and GIACOMO BAROZZI DA VIGNOLA’S.
o These 4 architect books are translated in Italian, French and in Spanish languages.
o And simultaneously Architect PALLADIO published his book “Four books on architecture”. It was translated in
English.
o DIRECT CONTACT also spread in NEW ARCHITECTURE.
o Numerous military expeditions into Italy, the French monarch Francis 1 acquainted with contemporary
architectural developments there.
o Because of unstable of political condition, many architect and artist shifted to France to work.
o In that best known painter LEONERDO DA VINCI and architect SEBASTIANO SERLIO one among to work in
France.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER BEYOND ITALY:

o Use of Basic building mass configuration with a
decorative overlay of classical details.
o In Low countries and the Germanic states, small
scale Classic details typically in stone contrast
to the overall brick work structures, were
applied to the vertically oriented urban houses
with their distinctive stepped gables fronting in
the street.

SPAIN – renaissance architecture

o End of the 15th century – SPAIN won back from the Islamic moors.
o Architectural character:
 Classical buildings were strongly influenced by local traditional of Moorish Islamic.
 Small scale Classical details were clustered in dense around central door and windows.

ENGLAND – renaissance architecture

o Began - End of the 15th century
o The application of Classical details can be found
in country houses built during the reign of
Elizabeth I.
o Architectural character : Fortified dwelling –
medieval castle elements such as the corner
towers and the centre keep.
o The exterior is covered with Classical details
that stress the Horizontal layering of the
individual floor.
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 o Roofs – nearly flat roof with parapet and Classical balustrades at the roof line.
ENGLAND – renaissance architecture
o During the reign of Elizabeth’s Stuart successors.
o Developed by architect INIGO JONES.
o His style influence PALLADIO style around Venice and Vicenza. His First masterwork – Queen mother country
house , Greenwich

BANQUETING HOUSE – ADDITION TO THE ROYAL PLALACE AT WHITE HALL, LONDON

o The mature renaissance IS BEGAIN england designed by inigo jones.
o The design of the Banqueting House is classical in concept. It introduced a refined
Italianate Renaissance style, where Renaissance motifs were still filtered through the engravings
of Mannerist designers.
o The roof is essentially flat and the roofline is defined by a balustrade.
o On the street façade, the engaged columns, of the Corinthian and Ionic orders, the former above the latter,
stand atop a high, rusticated basement and divide the seven bays of windows.
o The building is on three floors: The ground floor, a warren of cellars and store rooms, is low; its small
windows indicating by their size the lowly status and usage of the floor, above which is the double-height
banqueting hall, which falsely appears from the outside as a first-floor piano nobile with a secondary floor
above.
o The lower windows of the hall are surmounted by alternating triangular and segmental pediments, while the
upper windows are unadorned casements. Immediately beneath the entablature, which projects to
emphasize the central three bays, the capitals of the pilasters are linked by swags in relief, above which the
entablature is supported by dental corbel table.
o Under the upper frieze, festoons and masks suggest the feasting and revelry associated with the concept of a
royal banqueting hall.
o In 1638, Jones drew the designs for a new and massive palace at Whitehall in which his banqueting house
was to be incorporated as one wing enclosing a series of seven courtyards, visible on the monumental main
façade as only a small flanking wing. These revealed the ideas behind Jones' concept of Palladianism.

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FRANCE – renaissance architecture
o Medieval castle form with Classical detail.
o ROYAL CHATEAU AT CHAMBORD, PARIS
o Began for francis I in 1519 and was built in 1520-1550.
o ARCHITECT : DOMENICO DA CORTONA
o PLANNING : Medieval castle plan with centre keep and corner tower.
o The plan is unusual & comprises of 2 rectangles, one within the other.
o The inner block known as the “Donjon” is about 220’ square & is similar to the keep of an English castle.
o It has 4 lofty halls in each floor finished by elliptical barrel vaulting. At the junction is the famous double helix
staircase.

It is claimed that
this double helical staircase was conceived by Leonardo da Vinci.
The two helixes ascend the 3 floors without ever meeting & they are illuminated from above by a sort of light house
at the highest point of the castle.
This double helix staircase by which people can ascend & descend simultaneously without seeing each other is built
up in a cage of stone & crowned with a lantern.
o The roofscape of Chambord shows 11 kind of towers &3 types of chimneys, framed at the corners by
massive towers.
o The high pitched roof with ornate dormer windows & lofty chimneys combine to produce a vertical gothic
effect, but with renaissance detailing.
o When king Francis I commissioned the construction of the chateau, he wanted it to look like the skyline of
Constantinople.
o The castle also features 128m of façade, more than 800 sculpted columns & an elaborately decorated roof
o The castle is surrounded by 13000 acres of wooded park & game reserve, enclosed by a 20 mile length wall.

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