15th Century Italian Renaissance Art

Introduction to 15th Century Italian Renaissance Art

Filippo Brunelleschi's Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, Italy, exemplifies 15th-century Italian art.
The term "Renaissance" needs to be understood by breaking it down. It is a rebirth, but of what?

Understand the roles of powerful families as patrons in Italian city-states.
Identify how Italian Renaissance artists and scholars looked to ancient art for prototypes.
Understand the significance of the Foundling Hospital.

Wealthy families provided patronage for influential art.
Patronage = Money
Patron Families: Families who paid for artwork to be created or commissioned artwork.
Patronage: support and financial aid given to support a certain cause.
The Medici family:
- Influential bankers in Florence.
- Gave large sums of money to artists for buildings, paintings, and sculptures.
- Essentially a ruling family without noble ties.
- Commissioned artworks for the city and their inner circle.

Commissioned by the Medici family and designed by Filippo Brunelleschi.
Designed in 1442, completed in 1470.
The design included both an old sacristy (original footprint) and a new footprint commissioned by the Medici family.
Basilica-type style, mathematically regular plan.
Proportions are mathematically correct, with everything relative to everything else.
Mathematical regularity: Characteristic of the Renaissance, with artists seeking perfect images using mathematics and modules to obtain geometric regularity, peace, and harmony.
Impost block:
- A design element used by Brunelleschi to increase the height of columns.
- Located between the capital and the arch or lintel.
- Serves as an architectural detail.

The Renaissance is a rebirth of Rome, antiquity, and Greece.
Artists looked back to ancient Rome for inspiration and guidance.
Mathematical regularities and proportions were adopted from the Romans.
Infused those regularities to the new designs of this post Gothic medieval period.
A new sense of mathematical perspective and relationships emerged.
Architects used mathematical designs and principles in their buildings.
Figures and structures resembled those of Roman and Greek antiquity.

Designed by Filippo Brunelleschi in 1444.
An orphanage commissioned by the Guild of Silk Manufacturers and Goldsmiths.
Demonstrates patronage and philanthropy, with a wealthy guild giving back to the less privileged.
Introduced the Renaissance style.
Portico design:
- A covered porch that appears to extend into the distance.
- Brunelleschi flanked the series of bays with two larger bays at the ends to create a finite end, similar to bookends.
Mathematical proportions:
- Evident and visible in the building's design.
- Each bay is 20 by 20 feet, with a column height of 20 feet and a space of 20 feet between columns.
- Hemispherical pendentive dome above the square.
- The diameter of the arch is 20 feet, with a radius of 10 feet.
- The circle created by the arch would fit perfectly inside the space created by the columns and the floor.
Mathematical proportions are defined using dark gray stone (Pietra Serena) against stark white, making them prominent.

Understood the roles of the powerful families as patrons.
Identified how Italian Renaissance artists and scholars looked to ancient arts for prototypes.
Understood the significance of the Foundling Hospital and the emergence of a true Renaissance style.

The art of the Renaissance was a rebirth of classical ancient Rome and Greek style.
Art was generously supplied via patronage from wealthy families like the Medici.
With a focus on harmony and mathematical proportions of ancient Rome, Renaissance art transformed an old style into something new for the world.