The life and inspiring works of the artist who gives your room his name: 5. Filippo Brunelleschi ***

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), truly a Renaissance Man, built the soaring, gravity-defying dome of Florence Cathedral. He also devised the rules of linear perspective (freeing art from its Medieval constraints), and created sublime architectural spaces with his introduction of neo-classical architecture.

The magnificent dome of Florence cathedral. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The Latin epitaph Si monumentum requiris circumspice (‘If you seek his monument look around’), is seen on Sir Christopher Wren’s tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. It applies equally to Filippo Brunelleschi. That’s him below, gazing up at his greatest monument, the dome of Florence Cathedral (top).

Luigi Pampaloni. Statue of Filippo Brunelleschi, looking up at the cathedral dome. Image by djedj from Pixabay.

Brunelleschi was one of the pathfinders of the Italian Renaissance, that explosion of art and architecture, which began in Florence in the early 15^th century.

Indeed, its roots can be traced to the day when Filippo left Florence in a huff after being declared joint winner, with Lorenzo Ghiberti, in a competition to create new bronze doors for the baptistry of the cathedral. Entrants had to submit a bronze panel on the theme of the sacrifice of Isaac. Here’s a detail from Filippo’s version:

Brunelleschi’s competition panel (detail). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Inspiration from ancient Rome

Brunelleschi believed he should have been the sole winner of the competition and in 1402 he left for Rome with his apprentice Donatello. There they marvelled at, and measured up, the impressive remains of the ancient city, paying particular attention to the Pantheon, a temple built in the early second century AD, still intact and now functioning as a church, its dome then the largest in the world.

On his return t0 Florence, Brunelleschi was much in demand as an advisor to the Opera Del Duomo, the committee charged with putting the dome on the unfinished cathedral. The problem was that no one knew how to do it. The original architect, Arnolfo di Cambio, had left a vague model of a cupola, but no specific instructions.

Secrets of an engineering masterpiece

The dome (built 1420-1456; then the largest dome in the world: diameter 45.5 metres, height 116 metres,) is a work of both engineering and artistic genius, but, even after its completion, still no-one knew precisely how Brunelleschi achieved it – and he left behind no building plans or diagrams to enlighten us.

The dome was erected without a scaffolding framework to support it during construction and innovative techniques were employed to prevent the whole thing toppling to the ground or bursting apart. These included a self-supporting double shell, interlocking ‘herringbone’ patterns of bricks to spread the load, quick-drying mortar, stiffening struts and constraining chains.

Some of the dome’s secrets revealed: (l to r): Lodovico Cardi detto il Cigoli. Duomo di Firenze.png via Wikimedia Commons; National Geographic Visuals by Ferdinando G Baptista; Cutaway of the dome of Florence cathedral. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Perspective: releasing art from its Medieval restraints

Not content with creating the dome, the most astonishing feat of architecture of the 15^th century, Filippo Brunelleschi also set out, in the early 1400s, the rules of linear perspective, developing techniques for the accurate depiction of depth, creating the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface.

Or perhaps he rediscovered them. The ancient Greeks and Romans certainly understood how to create an image with convincing depth, in both painting and sculpture. It is possible that Brunelleschi unearthed these techniques during his visit to Rome with Donatello in 1402. He always implied, however, that he had made the discoveries on his own. Whatever the truth, the secrets had been lost in the Dark Ages. By Medieval times artists were more interested in relaying the messages of the Church than realistic representations of the landscape or the human form.

Renaissance artists embraced the new techniques with fervour. Pietro Uccello was a particular fan:

Pietro Uccello. Perspective Study of a Chalice, pen and ink on paper. Gabinetto dei Disegni, Uffizi, Florence, Italy, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

How linear perspective works

To create the illusion of depth on a flat surface, lines which are in nature parallel are drawn converging to a ‘vanishing point’ on a horizontal ‘line of sight’ in the composition. Objects become progressively smaller the nearer they are to the vanishing point. They are also subjected to ‘foreshortening’, making them shorter than in reality, so that they appear to recede into the distance.

Brunelleschi staged an experiment to demonstrate the accuracy of his new system on the steps outside the West door of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, from which he had made had a picture of the baptistery across the square. All its lines, shapes and angles were rendered according to the new rules of perspective. The sky, however, was not painted, but was a thin plate of burnished silver fitted around the outline of the building.

Brunelleschi’s (Re)discovery of Linear Perspective.jpg (2023, December 27). Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 15:27, April 15, 2025.

To carry out the experiment, you first had to hold the picture with its reverse side towards you and look at the baptistery through a small ‘sighting hole’ bored through the centre of the wooden panel. You then took a mirror, with its own sighting hole, and carefully adjusted it behind the picture, so that the painting was reflected back in the mirror. So accurate was Brunelleschi’s drawing, you could see a true convergence of the real and the artificial.

Simplicity, proportion and the creation of sublime space: Brunelleschi reinvents classical architecture

The Ospedale degli Innocenti (the Foundlings Hospital, picture below), a stone’s throw (or two) from Florence Cathedral and its monumental dome, is another architectural tour de force by Filippo Brunelleschi, this time achieving its revolutionary effects through a calm simplicity and sense of order. This was the first classical building created since Roman times and is acclaimed as a masterpiece of Early Renaissance architecture.

The arcade (or loggia) is raised above the piazza on shallow stone steps, and several factors contribute to our immediate, and abiding, sense of order and proportion. The height of the columns is the same as the distance between them and also equals the depth of the arcade, making each bay a cube. Similarly, the height of the entablature (the space above the column) is half that of the column.

The nine arches are semicircular, a revival of the classical style: gone are the pointy arches of contemporary buildings. Fluted columns support capitols of the Composite Order, from which the semicircular arches spring exuberantly. The architectural elements are emphasised in grey pietra serena in the white walls.

Brunelleschi was commissioned to design the hospital in 1419, but only the early phases of its building were under his direct supervision. Other architects took over later phases. The building was completed in 1445.

Filippo Brunelleschi. Interior Pazzi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. Gryffindor, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Pazzi Chapel: geometry and harmony

The Pazzi Chapel (built 1442 to 1478, picture above), another masterpiece of Early Renaissance architecture, was designed by Brunelleschi in 1440. He used the simple forms of square and circle to create spaces of with lucid geometric relationships, giving both strength and elegance to whole interior, again enhanced by the cool contrast of the white intonaco of the walls with the pilasters of grey pietra serena stone.

***  Who wants a number on the bedroom door when they could be staying in Botticelli, Bronzino or Brunelleschi? Or Donatello,  Gentileschi, Ghirlandaio or Ghiberti? Or in one of another half-dozen famous Italian artists, from Alberti to Fra Angelico, from Lippi to Vasari?

Some years ago we decided to switch from numbers to names in each of our rooms. They celebrate famous Italian artists, mainly from the Renaissance and mainly men, because (a) the early Renaissance is our favourite artistic period and (b) because few women were painting professionally in those days, and even fewer have become famous.

At Lois’ insistence we included Artemesia Gentileschi on our list a few years ago, and in 2026 we have introduced Sofonisba Anguissola, despite her tongue-twisting name.