LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI (1443-52)

 LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI (1404—72) was a student of classical literature, and his book on
architecture, De Re Aedificatoria—the first architectural book published with movable
type (1485)—helped the revival of the old Roman style.

 His writings are interesting as an early attempt to define the Renaissance aesthetic. Beauty was
thought to be based on the harmony of numbers. Like Pythagoras, who drew the analogy between
music intervals and mathematics,

 Alberti attempted to extend the principle to embrace the visual arts.

 use of basic shapes such as the square, cube, circle and sphere, while simple integral proportions
were derived from these figures by doubling and halving.
These ideals, especially with regard to church building, are epitomized in the
perspective panels at Urbino

expressed in simple numerical

ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 2:3, and so on).

1 Presented By -Ar. Pallavi Saxena

Assistant Professor
 The first major Renaissance theorist to rival Vitruvius in importance was
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) with his book “On the Art of Building”.

• Alberti sought to improve on the Roman author’s effort to provide the

Renaissance with a more coherent and logical basis for theory.

Alberti’s grounding of Renaissance architecture in the imitation of nature,

his emphasis on its social or cultural importance, his definition of it as a
professional discipline, and the preeminence he placed on beauty and
harmonic proportions established the theoretical focus of the next four
centuries.

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Assistant Professor
 San Maria Novella was the first completed design for a church facade in the
Renaissance. Alberti linked the lower aisle roof to the pedimented higher nave
with flanking scrolls.

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Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)Assistant Professor
 ➢S. Maria Novella, Florence, a Gothic church, has a Renaissance facade
(1456—70) designed by Alberti,

➢ Façade - polycrome marble

➢ Alberti attempted to bring the

ideals of humanist architecture,
proportion and classically-
inspired detailing, to bear on the
design while also creating
harmony with the already existing
medieval part of the facade.

➢Alberti added
- Broad frieze decorated with
squares.
- Including the four white-green
pilasters
- A round window, crowned by
a pediment with the Dominican
solar emblem, and flanked on both
sides by enormous S-curved
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Assistant Professor
 ➢ The four columns with Corinthian capitals on the lower part of the facade
were also added.

➢ and was one of the first churches in which flanking scrolls were used to
connect aisles and nave into one composition

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Assistant Professor
•The vast interior is based on a basilica plan –
- Designed as a Latin cross
- Divided into a nave
- Two aisles with stained-glass windows
- A short transept

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Assistant Professor
•The large nave is 100 metres
long and gives an impression
of austerity.

•There is a trompe l'oeil-effect

by which this nave towards
the apse seems longer than its
actual length.

•The ceiling consists pointed

arches with the four diagonal
buttresses in black and white.

•The interior also contains

corinthian columns that were
inspired by the Classical era of
Greek and Roman times.

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Assistant Professor
 The Palazzo Rucellai (1446-1451)

The Palazzo Rucellai (1446-1451) was the first building to use the classical orders on a Renaissance domestic
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building.
Assistant Professor
 The Palazzo Rucellai (1446-1451)
➢9 Alberti took care of only a partial
intervention, with its interior made ​up of
several buildings and irregular, which
required a concentration rather than
volume, the facade was completed
towards 1465 .
➢ Alberti designed a rational "skin" for this
palace--a type of "screen" architecture in
which the classical elements provide no
support structure.
➢ All three stories are of equal height with
flat pilasters supporting a classical
entablature.
➢ It has been home to the Rucellai family for
over 500 years and the family continues to
occupy portions of the building.
The Palazzo Rucellai (1446-1451)
was the first building to use the
classical orders on a Renaissance
Presented By -Ar. Pallavi Saxena domestic building.
Assistant Professor
 ➢Designed the façade of the Palazzo Rucelllai, the
first domestic building articulated with classical
orders- Doric for the ground floor and two varieties
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of Corinthian for the upper storey's.

➢ delicate and refined network of pilaster orders over

drafted masonry ,with the patrons’s emblems
inserted in the friezes, does not correspond with the
actual blocks of masonry .

➢ use of the orders is purely ornamental

➢ did not contribute to the plan or interior design

Presented By -Ar. Pallavi Saxena

Assistant Professor
 Façade..
 concern with balance and proportion is evident
in his symmetrical treatment of the palace’s facade.
 The use of the three classical orders to indicate
upward progression was inspired by the Colosseum
at Rome.
 The structural elements of ancient Rome are
replicated in
 the arches,
 pilasters and
 entablatures, and
 in the larger blocks on the ground floor which
heighten the impression of strength and solidity.
 The Palazzo Rucellai, in turn, influenced such later
buildings as the Palazzo della Cancelleria (later the
Papal Chancery, in Rome).
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Assistant Professor
 The ground floor..
 higher than the upper floors,
 The pilasters on the ground floor have the Tuscan order at
the base- a reinterpretation of the ' Doric columns’
 in front is a "bench away," an element of practical use and
which also created a sort of basic plan for the palace, as if it
were a stylobate in ancient roman buildings.
 The backrest of the bench play is the Opus reticulatum : a
form of brickwork used in ancient Roman architecture, (the
skill having been lost with the end of the Roman Empire,
and rediscovered by means of archeology by Leon Battista
Alberti.)
 The polished ashlar quoins is also inspired by Roman
architecture
 The frieze on the ground floor contains the insignia of the
Rucellai family

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Assistant Professor
13 Presented By -Ar. Pallavi Saxena
Assistant Professor
 The first floor…
 On the first floor ( main floor ) the pilasters are
a Renaissance original: Alberti's own invention
(acanthus leaves with a center palmette) in place
of the Ionic order at the second level
 large double windows, with embossed frame,
column and oculus at the center.

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Assistant Professor
 The second floor

 The top floor pilasters have Corinthian style

 altering with mullioned windows of the same
type.
 Above the building is crowned by
a cornice projecting slightly, supported
by brackets , which is hidden beyond a loggia;

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Assistant Professor
 Uses…

 The ground floor was for business

(the Rucellai family were powerful
bankers) and was flanked by benches
running along the street facade.
 The First story (the piano nobile) was
the main formal reception floor and
 the second story the private family
and sleeping quarters.
 A third "hidden" floor under the
roof was for servants; because it had
almost no windows, it was quite dark
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inside. Presented By -Ar. Pallavi Saxena
Assistant Professor
 Basilica of Sant'Andrea, Mantua (1472-94)
➢ It is one of the major works of 15th
century Renaissance architecture in
Northern Italy.
➢ Commissioned by Ludovico II Gonzaga,
the church was begun in 1462 according
to designs by Leon Battista Alberti .
➢ The building, however, was finished only
328 years later.

The facade of S. Andrea, Mantua, (1472-

94) is a synthesis of the triumphal arch
and the temple.

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Assistant Professor
• The entrance barrel vault echoes the interior with its
huge barrel vault while the loggia vaulting echoes the
barrel vaulting in the chapels inside at right angles to the
nave.

18 ENTRANCE
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Assistant Professor
FACADE
•It is defined by a large central arch,
flanked by Corinthian pilasters.

•The height of the facade

equals its width.

•Based on the scheme of the ancient arch

of titus.

FACADE
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Assistant Professor
 •The facade pilasters continue
through three stories--the so-
called "giant" order.

•It is largely a brick structure with

hardened stucco.

•The whole is surmounted by a

pediment and above that a vaulted
structure.

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Assistant Professor
•Barrel vault of the nave reached well above the apex of the pediment,
which was also surmounted by a large canopy over the nave window

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Assistant Professor
 INTERIOR
•The interior of the
cathedral boasts a rounded
barrel-vaulted dome which
is covered in frescoes.

•Filippo juvarra was the

actual builder of the dome
and details.

DOME
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Assistant Professor
•The first chapel to the left is the resting place of the artist
mantegna in his funeral chapel. Mantegna was buried here when
he died in 1506. Within the chapel there is a bronze figure of him.

Presented By -Ar. Pallavi Saxena

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CHAPEL TO
Assistant LEFT
Professor
 •This church has a single nave
without side aisles while three
barrel-vaulted chapels are on
each side of the nave. The
church is thus very dimly lit.
The crossing is marked by a
dome.

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Assistant Professor
 THE COFFERED BARREL-VAULTED NAVE--
LOOKING TOWARD THE APSE.

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Assistant Professor
 Interior, S. Andrea, Mantua
The assemblage of classical elements on the interior presents the first Renaissance
vision rivalling the monumentality of the interior spaces of such ancient Roman ruins as
the basilicas or baths.

26 Presented By -Ar. Pallavi Saxena

Assistant Professor