Architecture of the Italian Renaissance

Thames & Hudson

2007

224 p.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 216-217) and index.

9780500342206

Brunelleschi, Donatello and Michelozzo -- Alberti and his contemporaries -- Francesco del Borgo and Roman architecture from Pius II to Sixtus IV -- Florentine architecture under Lorenzo de' Medici -- Luciano Laurana, Francesco di Giorgio and architecture under Federico da Montefeltro -- Bramante and Lombardy -- The Venetian Early Renaissance -- Architecture under Innocent VIII and Alexander VI -- Bramante and his school -- Architecture in Northern Italy -- Michelangelo (1475-1564) -- Late Renaissance -- Andrea Palladio (1508-80).

Avoiding the straitjacket of fashionable theory, the book is organized traditionally by period and architect. Social context, technical innovation and aesthetic judgement are all given due weight, with particular emphasis on the way in which each architect balanced individual inspiration with the accepted Vitruvian canon. Generously illustrated throughout with photographs, drawings, plans and reconstructions, it brings into relief the extraordinary flowering of architectural genius between the birth of Brunelleschi and the death of Michelangelo, a turning point in Western culture whose riches and pleasures prove themselves yet again to be literally inexhaustible.

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