- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. II, p. 534

Venice

    Grand Canal with Doge's Palace in Restoration (on right)

 Florence (Firenze)

          The Bell-Tower (Campanile) of the Duomo

     "Designed by the painter Giotto di Bondone in 1334 (and completed with some minor modifications after his death), the Florence campanile stands apart from the cathedral in the Italian tradition.  In fact, it could stand anywhere else in Florence without looking out of place; it is essentially self-sufficient.  ... Neatly subdivided into cubic sections, Giotto's tower is the sum of its clearly distinguished parts.  This compartmentalization is reminiscent of the Romanesque style, but it also forecasts the ideals of Renaissance architecture.  Artists hoped to express structure in the clear logical relationships of the component parts and to produce self-sufficient works that could exist in complete independence."

 - Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. II, p. 547

     Florence Baptistery with a view of the Duomo behind

     South Doors of the Florence Baptistery - Presentation of the Head of John the Baptist to Salome by Andrea Pisano (1330 - 1336)

    "The Republic of Florence was a dominant city-state during the fourteenth century. ...  Florentines prided themselves on what they perceived as economic and cultural superiority.  They translated their pride into landmark buildings such as Florence Cathedral [the Duomo].  Recognized as the center for the most important religious observances in Florence, the cathedral was begun in 1296 by Arnolfo di Cambio.  Intended as the "most beautiful and honorable church in Tuscany," this structure reveals the competitiveness the Florentines felt with such cities as Siena and Pisa. Cathedral authorities planned for the church to hold the city's entire population, and although it only holds about thirty thousand (Florence's population at the time was slightly less than one-hundred thousand), it seemed so large that even the noted architect Leon Battista Alberti commented that it seemed to cover "all of Tuscany with its shade."  ...  The vast gulf that separates this Italian church from its northern European counterparts is strikingly evident when the former is compared with a full-blown German representative of the High Gothic style, such as [Strasbourg Cathedral]."

 - Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. II, p. 546

       Duomo Facade

      View of the Duomo from the Campanile

     "[Compared to the Gothic fancy of the Strasbourg Cathedral]... Florence Cathedral clings to the ground and has no aspirations to flight. All emphasis is on the design's horizontal elements, and the building rests firmly and massively on the ground.  Simple geometric volumes are defined clearly and show no tendency to merge either into each other or into the sky.  The dome, though it may seem to be rising because of its ogival section, has a crisp, closed silhouette that sets it off emphatically against the sky behind it.  ... [This] dome is the monument with which architectural historians usually introduce the Renaissance (it was built by Filippo Brunelleschi between 1420 and 1436)..."

 - Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. II, pp. 546 - 547

       The Duomo from the Campanile (Florence)

     "Brunelleschi's broad knowledge of Roman construction principles, combined with an analytical and inventive mind, permitted him to solve an engineering problem that no other fifteenth-century architect could have solved.  The challenge was the design and construction of a dome for the huge crossing of the unfinished Florence Cathedral.  The problem was staggering; the space to be spanned (one hundred fourty feet) was much too wide to permit construction with the aid of traditional wooden centering.  Nor was it possible, because of the crossing plan, to support the dome with buttressed walls.  Brunelleschi seems to have begun work on the problem about 1417.  In 1420, officials overseeing cathedral projects awarded Brunelleschi and Ghiberti a joint commission.  The latter, however, soon retired from the project and left the field to his associate.

     "With exceptional ingenuity, Brunelleschi not only discarded traditional building methods and devised new ones, but he also invented much of the machinery necessary for the job.  Although he might have preferred the hemispheric shape of Roman domes, Brunelleschi raised the center of his dome and devised it around an ogival (pointed arch) section, which is inherently more stable because it reduces the outward thrust of the dome's base.  To minimize the structure's weight, he designed a relatively thin double-shell (the first in history) around a skeleton of twenty-four ribs.  The eight most important are visible on the exterior.  Finally, in almost paradoxical fashion, Brunelleschi anchored the structure at the top with a heavy lantern, built after his death, but from his design."

 - Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. II, p. 606