Brunelleschi as Palace Architect

Discuss Brunelleschi as a Designer of Palaces


This subject is fraught with problematic issues, as it is rather uncertain to what extent Brunelleschi contributed to any of the buildings he has been associated with. From regarding the evidence we can ascertain fairly well which projects he was involved in and also what he may have contributed, either directly or indirectly towards. Certain sources appear to be misleading and it is necessary to take each claim and assess how reasonable these attributions are. In addition, it is invaluable to consider the patrons involved, how this may have affected Brunelleschi’s designs and how his style of architecture may or may not have been conducive to the requirements presented by the involvement of patrons of secular architecture.

The buildings in which Brunelleschi has been cited as contributing towards are: The Palazzo di Parte Guelfa; the Palazzo de Medici; the Palazzo della Signoria; the Barbadori Palace; the Palace of the Giuntini on the Piazza d’Ognissanti; two commissions by Luca Pitti, and one for Apollonio Lapi. Due to the limited evidence available and the subsequent amount of tenuous conjecture needed in most of these cases, the discussion here will be focused upon the Palazzo di Parte Guelfa and the supposed proposal of a design for the Palazzo de Medici.

His connection with a design that Vasari claims was presented to Cosimo de’Medici for his Palazzo may serve as an example where Brunelleschi can be perceived as an unsuccessful palace architect. Cosimo approached Brunelleschi for a design and the architect produced a model but when presented with it Cosimo rejected the proposal owing to its being too “grand and sumptuous”. The validity of Vasari’s account wavers in the ensuing passage describing the architect’s rage and subsequent destruction of said model, which resides rather too well with his more quixotic anecdotes. Hatfield questions this account when arguing that Michelozzo’s design presents a “sumptuous” and large building anyway and there is no indication that Cosimo, “took steps to acquire” a piece of land opposite San Lorenzo that would accommodate a free-standing palace. Surely it is unlikely that Brunelleschi would have produced a design and model for something he would never have been involved in and it would seem unreasonable that he would expend a lot of energy on a project for which the site had not even been secured. Hatfield does point out that Vasari may be illustrating Cosimo’s “prudence” whilst indicating the adversity that Brunelleschi faced as an architect; after all, the notion of ‘misunderstood genius’ is introduced within the very first paragraph of The Life of Filippo Brunelleschi and is a theme that almost consumes Vasari’s account of the architect. Of course, this episode could also be Vasari’s attempt to understand and clarify why Brunelleschi, as the most eminent architect of his day, hadn’t been chosen to carry out the task.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that Cosimo consulted Brunelleschi, notwithstanding Vasari’s possibly rather fabulous contribution. With this in mind we shall consider why Cosimo may have rejected Brunelleschi’s design and what implications this might have in regarding him as a palace architect. The idea that Cosimo would have wanted to keep a relatively low profile in terms of private architecture is an understandable one. It would have been all too easy to express his political ambitions through an unrestrained and lavish building that would have proclaimed his intentions to all who saw it and transacted business therein. The imprudence of such a choice has been noted by Hatfield, who suggests that Michelozzo was probably chosen over Brunelleschi for two reasons: he was Cosimo’s “regular architect” and it seems he was more malleable to Cosimo’s requirements. He suggests that Michelozzo was more versatile and his architecture could be a base for any ostentation or flourish Cosimo should want to add whereas it was unlikely that Brunelleschi:

Might have produced what Cosimo wanted
without seriously compromising the principles of his style.
Brunelleschi’s architecture is founded on regularity and
abstract intellectual rigor. Ornament is used chiefly to clarify
structure. No component may gratuitously call attention to
itself and thus detract from the lucidity of the design as a
whole…His buildings make statements that cannot be
elaborated upon…The pure rationality of Brunelleschi’s
designs demands to be sensed as a reflection of the architect’s
mind or of a metaphysical order, rather than the personality of
the patron.

This is where we reach what would seem to be the most reasonable suggestion for Cosimo’s rejection: Brunelleschi’s style may be far too idiomatic to transfer over to private, secular architecture. It may be argued that this seeming refusal or inability to conform to a particular patron’s wishes constitutes a negative image of Brunelleschi as palace architect, since the building will not reflect the patron’s interests. With this in mind, we shall look at the parts of the Palazzo di Parte Guelfa Brunelleschi is supposed to have worked upon and this may give us a better indication of the type of design he may have produced for Cosimo.

From this building we gain our best insight into Brunelleschi’s involvement in palaces and the most thorough study of this has been carried out by Zervas. She illustrates the still extant difficulties associated with authorship but does give fair evidence to elucidate the subject. As with all of his work with palazzi, the extent to which Brunelleschi can be said to have been involved in the building remains difficult, as the contribution by other architects, alterations and later renovations somewhat complicate the issue. There is little room in this discussion to argue authorship and so we shall consider the parts of the building that are almost certainly Brunelleschi’s design, according to the literature cited here. Zervas states that, in all probability, before Brunelleschi’s intervention, “about 2 ½ braccia (150.28 cm) of the sala walls had been built”. It would seem reasonable to suppose that the majority of the exterior of the sala grande accords with Brunelleschi’s intentions for the building (with the clear exception of the, now blind, oculi).

Zervas connects the rejuvenation of the ageing Party with a desire for a new and innovative design and thus regards this to be the main reason for the Party to seek involvement from Brunelleschi, who was the then current exponent of the new all’antica style.She asserts that an inventory, made by Albizzi, shows the Party had plenty of space to accommodate their needs already and so with the new sala grande, “the emphasis [was] to be placed on monumental magnificence rather than utility” . It is tempting to think that the type of design ideas later presented to and rejected by Cosimo de Medici could be given relatively free reign from an enthusiastic patron who were actively seeking the style they deemed as peculiar to Brunelleschi.

It has been noted that the visually dominant entablature on the façade is similar in form to the Baptistery, “thereby conjuring up all of the appropriate historical connections between the Roman republican citizens believed to have built the Baptistery and the party’s antique predecessors”. USE FIGS 71 & 72 ZERVAS Certainly it is evident from Brunelleschi’s other work that the Baptistery forms a strong influence and the entablature we see on the Palazzo di Parte Guelfa does appear to resemble the type that Brunelleschi uses (with the variations that appear taken into account). USE EG.S FROM OLD SACRISTY. This reference not only links the Palazzo to seminal Florentine traditions in architecture but also, the employing of a strong, classically influenced feature, draws comparisons with strength, power and even imperialistic traits and so imbues the building, and by association the Party, with these notions. Certainly, it has been argued that the humanist ideals espoused in Leonardo Bruni’s statute of 1419 were influential in the Party’s decisions and Battisti claims that this “was at the origin also of this undertaking by Brunelleschi”.

These same intellectual overtones are heightened with the addition of the large, sparsely used pilasters that frame the corners of the building. Zervas notes that these members adhere to the proportions Brunelleschi uses elsewhere and that they would probably have had Corinthian capitals, had they been completed. The sparse use of these pilasters to frame the large, flat and decoratively ascetic expanses of wall, heighten the austerity. Battisti betrays a marked amount of admiration for what he refers to as a “remarkably pure and unornamented structure” and points out that “although the plan is not regular and symmetrical…the effect is of a remarkable symmetry and homogeneity” The pilasters can be seen to enhance these ideas and appear physically to consolidate the intellectual, ordered aspirations held by both the Party and the architect.

It is most unfortunate to note the unsatisfactory elements of this project. The juxtaposition of the (pre-existing) rounded colonette and the angular corner (fig. *) do not accord with ideas of formal harmony found elsewhere in Brunelleschi’s work. From a comparison of figures * & * and an examination of figure * we can see what Zervas means when she describes the sala as “abruptly joined to the extant eastern section of the wing”. This strikes a discordant note with Brunelleschi’s other work, where, even when dealing with pre-existing parts, he usually manages to integrate his work into the overall building. This new addition does not abide well with the older parts of the Palazzo, which were adequate for the Party’s requirements and were more in sympathy with their different parts. Overall, the sala grande almost screams for attention and certainly fits with Zervas’ observation that the Party’s taste in architecture was “both bold and avant-garde”.

Perhaps we can regard the grandiloquence of the sala grande to be almost vulgar in comparison to the Palazzo de Medici: It would seem Cosimo was correct in his personal preference for an architect in the sphere of private palaces. The Guelph Party’s attempts to appear vital, forward thinking and at the forefront of a new architectural style seem rather ineffectual and exposed as purely an attempt to dwarf the achievements of the Medici, in both a political sense and it terms of architectural patronage. Hatfield’s comparisons between the sophistic poetry that was suited to descriptions of the Palazzo Medici compared to the almost laughable attempts at ekphrasis in regard to San Lorenzo serve as a poignant example of how the two architect’s styles were suited to very different spheres of architecture: Hatfield transplants this observation onto a comparison between the successful application of Brunelleschi’s ideas to ecclesiastical architecture and Michelozzo’s suitability for private commissions.

It is unfortunate that Brunelleschi’s most evident work on palace architecture is subsumed by the ambitious intentions of the Party, as it results in the relatively unsuccessful conglomeration of parts built at different times and so lacks an overall synergy. Even though it may be argued that elsewhere in his work Brunelleschi is very successful when given as much of a building to design as possible, one may be loathe to desire such a freedom in this case since the sala grande alone cuts such an impressive and rather pretentious figure that perhaps an entire building in this style would be rather oppressive. Of course, a counter argument could be that Brunelleschi carried out the Party’s wishes to his best ability and within the constraints provided, thus making his design here a success.

Vasari mentions that Brunelleschi designed a “magnificent palace” for Luca Pitti at Ruciano but this attribution, as with the other commissions Vasari mentions, has not been discussed in the modern scholarly arguments cited here. Apollonio Lapi’s house is referred to by Vasari and by Kent but no other evidence could be found regarding this building. A certain plan for the Palazzo Pitti in Florence has also been attributed to Brunelleschi (fig. *) but it is uncertain how much this can be relied upon, as symmetrical and logically laid out as the rooms may appear - Vasari mentions the original model being lost and Ammanati’s subsequent reinvention of it.

So, it would seem that, although he may represent a patron’s interests well in a building if his ideas accord well with the patron’s, his designs may not always end in success. Brunelleschi was involved in at least the inception of some grandiose and ostentatious final pieces of architecture but it certainly wouldn’t be fair to claim that this is the last word in palace architecture for him, since it is so hard to gauge exactly what he might have achieved by his own volition. Perhaps an affiliation with a sympathetic patron who wished him to design and build an entire structure, which could have been seen through to completion, may have propagated the most sublime and fitting palazzo possible. Yet this is a luxury we are not permitted and we remain with the impression that it would necessarily have been a partnership of malleable patron and exacting architect, which may not serve the patron’s interests at all. It would seem that Brunelleschi’s pre-eminence as a thoroughly successful ecclesiastical architect may confine him to the realms of remaining a proverbial footnote in the history of palace architecture.