Filippo Brunelleschi considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture, was an Italian architect, designer, and sculptor, and is now recognized to be the first modern engineer, planner, and sole construction supervisor. In 1421, Brunelleschi became the first person to receive a patent in the Western world. Greatest Accomplishment: Duomo of Florence Born: 1377, Florence, Republic of Florence Died:April 15, 1446, Florence, Republic of Florence Nationality: proto Italian, 100% Westman |
The FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI story (video)
Filippo Brunelleschi is considered one of the founding fathers of Renaissance architecture, he was an Italian architect, designer and engineer, recognized as the first modern engineer and construction manager. And perhaps the greatest engineer since Archimedes. He is most famous for the design and construction of the dome on the Florence Cathedral, an astounding feat of engineering, logistics, and construction management. Not just for its time but us today as well. Brunelleschi is also notably remembered for the development of the technique of linear perspective in art which allowed the accurate depiction 3 dimensional proportions on a 2 dimensional surface. It is thought that linear perspective was known to the Greeks and Romans and that Brunelleschi rediscovered and further developed this technique while in Rome. His enduring legacy to Western kind is the dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
Filippo Brunelleschi - Westman
Born: 1377 Republic of Florence
Died: 15 April 1446, Republic of Florence
It has been called the greatest accomplishment in Renaissance architecture. And its creation is a story that parallels many of the challenges that modern builders face today: competitive bids, dealing with contentious owners, client nonpayment, project management and labor disputes.
The year: 1293 The Florence city leaders conclude they need a significant architectural monument worthy its commercial successes. In 1302 Arnolfo di Cambio is commissioned to design and build a new cathedral upon an older cathedral that Florentines had dedicated to St. Reparata. The new cathedral would be dedicated to Santa Maria del Fiore, Our Lady of the Flowers. It would be a grand design, worthy of the city of Florence. Di Cambio began construction but died shorty thereafter in 1302. Work continued in fits and starts interrupted by plague and other events. As the power and success of Florence continued to grow the Florentines continually modified the design of the cathedral expanding it along with the city’s successes. This tapestry shows the grand vision the city fathers had for the cathedral and its dome.
By 1418, over 100 years since its commissioning the cathedral was still not finished, it lacked a Dome. 100 years and still not complete. This was proving embarrassing to the Florentines and they wished to have the Dome completed as soon as possible. There was just one problem. As they continually enlarged the cathedral the size of its accompanying dome grew in proportion. And The technology to build a dome on such a scale did not exist. 22 years earlier In 1392 three young boys were apprenticed to goldsmith Benincasa Lotti, the boys were Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donato di Niccolo, better known as Donatello and Brunelleschi. Wow, talk about the confluence of Great Westmen. Ghiberti, Donatello and Brunelleschi, all renaissance giants. Ghiberti was to become a bitter rival of Bruneschelli, Donatello a life long friend. In 1401, the young Brunelleschi and Ghiberti entered a competition to design new bronze doors for the city's baptistry. For the competition, each sculptor was required to produce a single bronze panel, depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac within a Gothic four-leaf frame.
The panels each contained Abraham, Isaac, an angel and other figures imagined by the artists, and had to harmonize in style with the existing doors, made in 1330 by Andrea Pisano. The head of the jury was Giovanni de' Medici, who later would became a patron of Brunelleschi. The jury publicly praised Ghiberti's panel before they had seen the finished work of Brunelleschi, but when they saw it, they were impressed and unable to choose between the two they suggested that they both collaborate on the project. Brunelleschi refused. The project was awarded to Ghiberti. Brunelleschi was enraged, he left Florence.
Brunelleschi spent the next 10-years living rough in Rome with his good friend and sculptor Donatello. He methodicallystudied the ruins of the great city. He was especially interested in Roman engineering and the use of fixed proportion and Roman vaults. The construction of the Pantheon - especially the dome - fascinated him. Brunelleschi dedicated himself to understanding how it was designed and constructed. Other than this we have little to no details of his comings and goings while in Rome. With the Santa Maria del Fiore Domeless and open to the weather the city Fathers decided to hold a design competition.
The competition was held in 1418, Brunelleschi having returned to Florence found himself again in competition with his old rival Ghiberti. The competition was won by Brunelleschi with the help of a brick scale model of the dome made for him by his friend Donatello.[35]
Obtaining lumber for scaffolding long and strong enough (and in sufficient quantity) for the task of building the Dome was impossible because it would require using all the lumber and trees of tuscany.
But All the competitors except Brunelleschi submitted designs which included massive wooden scaffolding which would in practice would be unobtainable.
Brunelleschi stood alone.
How a dome of this size could be constructed without its collapsing under its own weight was also unclear. Furthermore, the stresses of compression were not clearly understood, and the mortars used in the period would require several days to set.
So how was Brunelleschi going to do it? The committee wanted to know before awarding him the competition. Brunelleschi refused to say. So was it Bravado, arrogance, and extreme the self confidence of Brunelleschi that convinced the committee? Or was it the fact that they really had no choice? It was either go with Brunelleschi or become the laughing stock of the Italian City states.
In 1420 Brunelleschi was designated a capomaestro, or master builder, but, to his horror, they also elected Ghiberti a master giving his old rival co-leadership just like years earlier. Brunelleschi protested the election of Ghiberti and again refused the commission, but he was dissuaded from quitting by his supporters.
Fearing that his techniques and credit for the Dome would be stolen by Ghiberti, Burnelleschi feigned sickness and let Ghiberti make some serious but correctable design errors which he then used to demonstrate Ghiberti’s lack of engineering skill and have Ghiberti effectively relieved from his co-leadership role. Notably, because of these fears Brunelleschi left behind no building plans or diagrams detailing the dome's structure, or his design calculations.
Brunelleschi also left no drawings or written descriptions of the machines that he purposefully designed and built for use in constructing the dome, but fortunately the machines survived him. Their innovative features were admired by many engineers of the time, and they were studied and sketched by those who followed him. One such engineer was a young apprentice named Leonardo da Vinci. He was inspired by Brunelleschi’s inventions and went on to design machines of his own. His sketches of Brunelleschi’s work were of such detail that some have mistakenly attributed the great master’s work to Leonardo himself.
One such machine was the Ox driven hoist that that was used to hoist the 4 million bricks weighing 37,000 tons to the top of the cathedral . It included a revolutionary feature invented by Brunelleschi, a reverse gear. This meant the oxen would not have to be unhitched and their direction reversed when changing between hoisting and lowering. This saved countless hours, facilitated ease of use and was a marked efficiency improvement.
Brunelleschi built a working platform a top the cathedral where he served the workers food to save the time they would have used descending and ascending to their work positions. the trip up and down the hundreds of stairs would exhaust them and reduce their productivity as well. He watered down the wine served to the workers for obvious reasons. Hard to imagine now but in those days workers consumed wine with lunch resulting in untold fatal mistakes. Safety netting and rope harness were other safety improvements pioneered by Brunelleschi. In the 16 years of construction only 3 workers died.
Architecturally Brunelleschi constructed two domes, one within the other, a practice that would later be followed by all the successive major domes. The outer dome protected the inner dome from the rain, and allowed a higher and more majestic form. The frame of the dome is composed of twenty-eight horizontal and vertical marble ribs, eight of which are visible on the outside. Those visible on the outside are largely decorative, since the outer dome is supported by the structure of the inner dome. A narrow stairway runs upward between the two domes to the lantern on the top.
The strength of the dome was improved by sandstone chains invented by Brunelleschi, which acted like tensioning rings around the base of the dome and reduced the need for flying buttresses, so necessary in Gothic designs.
But Brunelleschi’s secret sauce was his use of an ingenious herringbone brick-laying pattern, which allowed him to build the dome free standing without the use of wooden scaffolding. The secretive herringbone pattern also allowed the dome to bend inward as it rose without fear of collapsing in on itself. The pattern segmented each layer of bricks into multiple stable shear planes as well as lock the bricks into place while at the same time transferring the load to the supporting walls.
The speculation is that Brunelleschi may have deduced some of these techniques during his time in Rome studying the buildings of the ancient master builders. Regardless, even Assuming that Brunelleschi had visited buildings in Rome constructed in this manner and had some prior understanding and confidence in the design, it is truley remarkable that he attempted a dome of such scale, especially when this construction technique had not been previously used since the Romans, 1000 years earlier.
Filippo Brunelleschi is considered one of the founding fathers of Renaissance architecture, he was an Italian architect, designer and engineer, recognized as the first modern engineer and construction manager. And perhaps the greatest engineer since Archimedes. He is most famous for the design and construction of the dome on the Florence Cathedral, an astounding feat of engineering, logistics, and construction management. Not just for its time but us today as well. Brunelleschi is also notably remembered for the development of the technique of linear perspective in art which allowed the accurate depiction 3 dimensional proportions on a 2 dimensional surface. It is thought that linear perspective was known to the Greeks and Romans and that Brunelleschi rediscovered and further developed this technique while in Rome. His enduring legacy to Western kind is the dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
Filippo Brunelleschi - Westman
Born: 1377 Republic of Florence
Died: 15 April 1446, Republic of Florence
It has been called the greatest accomplishment in Renaissance architecture. And its creation is a story that parallels many of the challenges that modern builders face today: competitive bids, dealing with contentious owners, client nonpayment, project management and labor disputes.
The year: 1293 The Florence city leaders conclude they need a significant architectural monument worthy its commercial successes. In 1302 Arnolfo di Cambio is commissioned to design and build a new cathedral upon an older cathedral that Florentines had dedicated to St. Reparata. The new cathedral would be dedicated to Santa Maria del Fiore, Our Lady of the Flowers. It would be a grand design, worthy of the city of Florence. Di Cambio began construction but died shorty thereafter in 1302. Work continued in fits and starts interrupted by plague and other events. As the power and success of Florence continued to grow the Florentines continually modified the design of the cathedral expanding it along with the city’s successes. This tapestry shows the grand vision the city fathers had for the cathedral and its dome.
By 1418, over 100 years since its commissioning the cathedral was still not finished, it lacked a Dome. 100 years and still not complete. This was proving embarrassing to the Florentines and they wished to have the Dome completed as soon as possible. There was just one problem. As they continually enlarged the cathedral the size of its accompanying dome grew in proportion. And The technology to build a dome on such a scale did not exist. 22 years earlier In 1392 three young boys were apprenticed to goldsmith Benincasa Lotti, the boys were Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donato di Niccolo, better known as Donatello and Brunelleschi. Wow, talk about the confluence of Great Westmen. Ghiberti, Donatello and Brunelleschi, all renaissance giants. Ghiberti was to become a bitter rival of Bruneschelli, Donatello a life long friend. In 1401, the young Brunelleschi and Ghiberti entered a competition to design new bronze doors for the city's baptistry. For the competition, each sculptor was required to produce a single bronze panel, depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac within a Gothic four-leaf frame.
The panels each contained Abraham, Isaac, an angel and other figures imagined by the artists, and had to harmonize in style with the existing doors, made in 1330 by Andrea Pisano. The head of the jury was Giovanni de' Medici, who later would became a patron of Brunelleschi. The jury publicly praised Ghiberti's panel before they had seen the finished work of Brunelleschi, but when they saw it, they were impressed and unable to choose between the two they suggested that they both collaborate on the project. Brunelleschi refused. The project was awarded to Ghiberti. Brunelleschi was enraged, he left Florence.
Brunelleschi spent the next 10-years living rough in Rome with his good friend and sculptor Donatello. He methodicallystudied the ruins of the great city. He was especially interested in Roman engineering and the use of fixed proportion and Roman vaults. The construction of the Pantheon - especially the dome - fascinated him. Brunelleschi dedicated himself to understanding how it was designed and constructed. Other than this we have little to no details of his comings and goings while in Rome. With the Santa Maria del Fiore Domeless and open to the weather the city Fathers decided to hold a design competition.
The competition was held in 1418, Brunelleschi having returned to Florence found himself again in competition with his old rival Ghiberti. The competition was won by Brunelleschi with the help of a brick scale model of the dome made for him by his friend Donatello.[35]
Obtaining lumber for scaffolding long and strong enough (and in sufficient quantity) for the task of building the Dome was impossible because it would require using all the lumber and trees of tuscany.
But All the competitors except Brunelleschi submitted designs which included massive wooden scaffolding which would in practice would be unobtainable.
Brunelleschi stood alone.
How a dome of this size could be constructed without its collapsing under its own weight was also unclear. Furthermore, the stresses of compression were not clearly understood, and the mortars used in the period would require several days to set.
So how was Brunelleschi going to do it? The committee wanted to know before awarding him the competition. Brunelleschi refused to say. So was it Bravado, arrogance, and extreme the self confidence of Brunelleschi that convinced the committee? Or was it the fact that they really had no choice? It was either go with Brunelleschi or become the laughing stock of the Italian City states.
In 1420 Brunelleschi was designated a capomaestro, or master builder, but, to his horror, they also elected Ghiberti a master giving his old rival co-leadership just like years earlier. Brunelleschi protested the election of Ghiberti and again refused the commission, but he was dissuaded from quitting by his supporters.
Fearing that his techniques and credit for the Dome would be stolen by Ghiberti, Burnelleschi feigned sickness and let Ghiberti make some serious but correctable design errors which he then used to demonstrate Ghiberti’s lack of engineering skill and have Ghiberti effectively relieved from his co-leadership role. Notably, because of these fears Brunelleschi left behind no building plans or diagrams detailing the dome's structure, or his design calculations.
Brunelleschi also left no drawings or written descriptions of the machines that he purposefully designed and built for use in constructing the dome, but fortunately the machines survived him. Their innovative features were admired by many engineers of the time, and they were studied and sketched by those who followed him. One such engineer was a young apprentice named Leonardo da Vinci. He was inspired by Brunelleschi’s inventions and went on to design machines of his own. His sketches of Brunelleschi’s work were of such detail that some have mistakenly attributed the great master’s work to Leonardo himself.
One such machine was the Ox driven hoist that that was used to hoist the 4 million bricks weighing 37,000 tons to the top of the cathedral . It included a revolutionary feature invented by Brunelleschi, a reverse gear. This meant the oxen would not have to be unhitched and their direction reversed when changing between hoisting and lowering. This saved countless hours, facilitated ease of use and was a marked efficiency improvement.
Brunelleschi built a working platform a top the cathedral where he served the workers food to save the time they would have used descending and ascending to their work positions. the trip up and down the hundreds of stairs would exhaust them and reduce their productivity as well. He watered down the wine served to the workers for obvious reasons. Hard to imagine now but in those days workers consumed wine with lunch resulting in untold fatal mistakes. Safety netting and rope harness were other safety improvements pioneered by Brunelleschi. In the 16 years of construction only 3 workers died.
Architecturally Brunelleschi constructed two domes, one within the other, a practice that would later be followed by all the successive major domes. The outer dome protected the inner dome from the rain, and allowed a higher and more majestic form. The frame of the dome is composed of twenty-eight horizontal and vertical marble ribs, eight of which are visible on the outside. Those visible on the outside are largely decorative, since the outer dome is supported by the structure of the inner dome. A narrow stairway runs upward between the two domes to the lantern on the top.
The strength of the dome was improved by sandstone chains invented by Brunelleschi, which acted like tensioning rings around the base of the dome and reduced the need for flying buttresses, so necessary in Gothic designs.
But Brunelleschi’s secret sauce was his use of an ingenious herringbone brick-laying pattern, which allowed him to build the dome free standing without the use of wooden scaffolding. The secretive herringbone pattern also allowed the dome to bend inward as it rose without fear of collapsing in on itself. The pattern segmented each layer of bricks into multiple stable shear planes as well as lock the bricks into place while at the same time transferring the load to the supporting walls.
The speculation is that Brunelleschi may have deduced some of these techniques during his time in Rome studying the buildings of the ancient master builders. Regardless, even Assuming that Brunelleschi had visited buildings in Rome constructed in this manner and had some prior understanding and confidence in the design, it is truley remarkable that he attempted a dome of such scale, especially when this construction technique had not been previously used since the Romans, 1000 years earlier.