Humanist Hymn | Florence Cathedral

HUMANIST HYMN YUCHENG DAI

HUMANIST HYMN F L O R E N C E C AT H E D R A L

YUCHENG DAI

Introduction The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as Florence Cathedral, was reconstructed in the period of 1296 – 1436 located at Piazza del Duomo, Florence, Italy, proposed by Arnolfo di Cambio, expanded by Francesco Tanlenti and subsequently finished by the renowned dome designer Filippo Brunelleschi, at a time when the previous Cathedral had insufficient capacity to serve the increasing population of the city of Florence, and the Florentines scheduled to manifest their prestige and wealth within the Tuscany region (Castex 2008, 50).

Evidently, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, as the fourth largest church on the planet. has been considered to be one of the most magnificent milestones that inspired Florence and even the entire Italian Renaissance. It marks the origin of the Italian Renaissance and has an indelible contribution to the philosophical contexts and social circumstances of the High Renaissance (Jackson 1922, 27).

Figure 1: Map of the Italian states in mid 15th Centruy (Not to scale)

Statement

Dome

Campanile

Although the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore did not build during the High Renaissance, the ideal of Humanism and its ideological trend indisputably functioned as the catalyst for the pursuit of Florence Cathedral. From my perspective, I believed that Florence Cathedral has been intimately related to bid defiance to the dictatorial and corrupt theocracy era and embracing rationality, order and classicism on a human scale. I will demonstrate how it formulated Humanism by breaking through the religious commandments, to convey a new enlightened socioreligious ethic. I will then explore and investigate how ingenious construction methods have been applied and integrated reinvented ancient Greek & Roman techniques in the massive dome construction. Finally, I will illustrate the philosophical implications of the Florence Cathedral in different periods.

Baptistery Figure 2: Cathedral of Florence, whose Brunelleschi design dome. The small building on the left is the baptistery, where they placed the doors of Ghiberti, winner of the contest.

Scholasticism to Humanism In order to apperceive thoroughly the state of the Florence Cathedral, it is imperative to contextualise the socioreligious circumstances of the beginning of the Florence Renaissance (late Medieval Ages in Italy). Historically, The Middle Ages in Western Europe have been seen to be an “era of darkness.”

Religious confraternity, especially the ecclesiastical authority, arbitrarily acted as the spiritual cage of the feudal society at that time, established a rigorous hierarchy and regarded God as an absolute authority.

Under the control of the church, citizens have experienced a long period of depression. The vitality of medieval literature and art was dramatically diminished and there was almost no progress in the realm of scientific professions and technological achievements. However, there was a tendency called medieval ‘secularization’ emerging from the late Medieval Ages (Kempshall 1999, 127).

Figure 3: Ecclesiastical authority in the late medieval in western Europe

On the one hand, regime changes in the ruling class of Italy have resulted in the rulers of most of the primary city-states being “new men” who have insufficient ruling experience and political history.

On the other hand, the spread of the Black Death in Europe has also exacerbated panic in people’s minds, causing an increasing number of people to doubt the absolute authority of religious theology (Martines 1968). These integral factors convert into manifold inducements spurred to create of a new era for the city and people in Florence. In 1293, the guilds of Florence held several insurgencies.

The feudal aristocracy was evicted by the emerging wealthy factory owners (Trinkaus and Oberman 1974, 5). Florence municipal authorities decided to build a Cathedral in order to highlight the strength and wealth of the Florentine citizens. Consequently, civic governance and urban consciousness started to emerge and they were dominant in the thirteen century (Holmes 1986, 137).

Figure 4: A later medieval (c 1491) altar piece depicting the intercession of St. Sebastian with God during the Black Death

II Duomo’s time line

1150-1170

Baptistery finish next to old Santa Reparata church

Figure 5: The time line of the Florence Cathedral construction

1296

1359

Cathedral construction begins

1420-1436

Campanile completed

1377

Brunelleschi born in Florence

Dome construction

1402

Brunelleschi goes to Rome

1418

1471

Lantern completed

Brunelleschi enters competition to design dome

1446

Brunelleschi dies

Edifice Evolvement The initial construction evolvement as an expanded replacement was conducted on the site of the previous church of Santa Reparata in 1296. Arnolfo di Cambio as the first foreman of the construction proposed and built three spacious naves beneath the octagonal-shaped dome. In 1331, after 21 years of Arnolfo’s death, Giotto persisted di Cambio’s proposal and completed the construction of the Campanile with the help of Andrea Pisano.

Subsequently, with the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348, the project was suspended for almost a year, and then the entire Cathedral was built by a series of architects such as Francesco Talenti, merely the Cathedral’s dome was designed and constructed by Filippo Brunelleschi (Bartlett 1992, 101-129).

Figure 6: The incomplete Florence Cathedral

Astonishing Ingenuity The unprecedentedly enormous dimensions and the deficiency of the pertinent architectural techniques impeded the construction of the Florence Cathedral’s dome structure. It has been considered an impossible engineering project for more than a hundred years (King 2001, 7). Filippo Brunelleschi as a clockmaker and goldsmith (membership of the Goldsmith’s Guild in 1401) with no formal architectural training, won the contest with Ghiberti and began to manage the most involved difficulty of the Florence Cathedral — how to direct loads down rather than span outwards (Hughes and Lynton 2013, 15-16).

Figure 7: The portrait of the ingenious ‘paper architect’ — Filippo Brunelleschi

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Figure 8: Structure of the dome of Florence Cathedral

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Round windows Octagonal drum Horizontal joints Secondary ribs Primary eight ribs Inner shell Outer shell

In terms of the techniques, the double-shelled dome system might be considered the most revolutionary design proposal for the dome structure of the Florence Cathedral. Brunelleschi ingeniously designed two domes that complemented the other.

There would be an inner and outer shell held together by using gigantic brick arches structures and interlocking rings, adhered to the eight main ribs down toward the base. Additionally, the Doubleshelled structure also managed the asymmetry problem of the imprecise octagon so that the construction process could be conducted without identifying the centring (Hartt and Wilkins 2007, 66-69).

For the bricklaying works, he conceived a distinctive herringbone composition of bricklaying to fill and cover the curving rib-lattice structural frame. Each horizontal ring of bricks incorporates a vertical brick at the very end, interacting with the previous vertical brick beneath it (King 2001, 59). This composition contributes not merely to overall stability, but also to the weight reduction of the structure. Brunelleschi even invented hoisting machines, which included lift devices for masons to carry heavy loads.

Finally, the completion of the lantern indicates the epilogue of the dome construction in 1446.

Brunelleschi used the weight of the lantern to retain the ribs in compression, which would further promote the stability and intensity of the entire structure (Ching, Jarzombek and Prakash 2011, 475).

Intellectual Ferment It is undeniably notable that Brunelleschi’s dome is unprecedently extraordinary, which radically reveals the extensive creativity in structure and the universality of technological advancement in the early period of the Italian Renaissance. It was the highest ever constructed rotunda (157 feet in height and 143 feet in diameter), compared with the dimension of the Pantheon (140 feet in height and 142 feet in diameter) (Anderson and Speirs 1907, 221). The Florence Cathedral is a splendid instance of how humankind exerts rational thoughts and adventurous attitudes to achieve the most magnificent ground-breaking engineering on a human scale. The completion of the dome also symbolises the victory of the rational spirit.

It catalysed the city of Florence to become the birthplace of the Renaissance. It is worth noting that this shift in knowledge has allowed the Renaissance to play an indispensable role in connecting the Medieval ages with modernity.

Buttressing of Dome

Figure 9: Section of the dome of Florence Cathedral

Showing the detail of the chain

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Emancipation of the Centralised Form

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The Florence Cathedral not only has revolutionary innovations in its techniques and structure but also breaks the ingrained ecclesiology.

During the late medieval period, the iconographical significance of the Cathedral in western European society was rigorously restricted.

In the Islamic culture, the dome structure was widely adopted in the middle ages, for example, in the mausoleum of Oljaytu (1302-12) in Soltaniyeh, Iran (Ching, Jarzombek and Prakash 2011, 475). Thus, the Catholic Church regarded the centralised plan and the dome as an unacceptable pagan temple. It was not until the early Renaissance that the Italians gradually became accustomed to the cultures of other countries such as Arabia and Egypt after the long-term trade.

Therefore, religious commandments started to be weakened and broken to some extent. In this social context, the Florence Cathedral applied the centralised form of the dome structure to break through the precepts of the church’s spiritual autocracy. The internal central structure reflects the people-oriented, re-emerging the value of people.

In this sense, the centralised structure of the dome of the Florence Cathedral is also a celebration of the emerging ethical tendency related to the ideal of Humanism.

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1 Figure 10: Plan of the Cathedral of Florence (Not to scale )

Campanile Nave Aisle Crossing with dome Chapels Apses

The Resurgence of Ancient Roman Techniques

Figure 11: Section of the dome of Pantheon

The completion and mechanism of the Florence Cathedral Dome were intimately in relation to the ancient Roman building techniques and mathematical knowledge. Although the dome was constructed in the Fifteen Century, there were multifaceted aspects and inspirations extracted from the ancient Roman architectural feats, such as the Hadrian’s Pantheon. After the competition, Brunelleschi travelled to Rome and attempted to assimilate the essence of ancient architecture by sketching and examining many samples (King 2000, 17-20). He studied the Pantheon as the typical Roman monument with a semispherical cupola and reinterpreted it with the aesthetics of the Italian Renaissance. As a result, when Brunelleschi was back in Florence, he attained the adequate capability of acquired techniques and theories of ancient Roman architecture, to successfully accomplish the milestone breakthrough in the field of engineering. For instance, the exedrae are associated with Roman monumental temples which Brunelleschi had investigated instead of Gothic structures (King 2000, 17-20). In addition, the mathematician Paolo Toscanelli, as the company of the travelling, inspired and enlightened Brunelleschi with mathematics and proportional systems of the ancient precedents.

Figure 12: Building techniques of the Florence Cathedral

These intrinsic connections virtually revived and undertook the ancient Roman principles in architecture, responded to the ethics of the Italian Renaissance and generated a trend of rethinking ancient Rome across most of the Italian cities. It enlightens urban improvement rather than monolithic new building development, creating a harmonious relationship between past and present (King 2000, 30). Therefore, the construction of the dome inspired by the rationality of the ancient Rome precedents exhibits how humanism is materialised in Brunelleschi’s design for the Florence Cathedral.

Figure 13: Plan and section of Pantheon

Philosophical Implications The dome has two primary philosophical meanings.

Firstly, the shape of the semicircle is an important symbol of medieval and Renaissance architectural art, representing the theological concept of infinity, which can connect heaven with God. This philosophical connotation can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy, such as the philosophy of Plato. The circle as an eternal totem is the perfect geometric shape (Lotz 1977, 66-67). During the Italian Renaissance, Plato’s philosophy was relatively coordinated with Christian thought, so Neo-Platonism has become a prominent philosophy, reflecting the revival of ethical thought (Kristeller 1979, 50-51). Because the rational attitudes of Renaissance thinkers are homologous to the theories in Plato’s philosophy and the relationships between ideal and reality are similar conceptions to some extent (Copenhaver and Schmitt 1992, 1). The dome can symbolise not only the eternal philosophy of Plato but also the continuation of humanism (Kenny 2004, 50).

Figure 14: Inside the Dome

Décor Inside The dome tended to be an important tool for depicting the sky in western aesthetics and became the main symbol of the cosmos during the Italian Renaissance. The fresco painting inside Brunelleschi’s dome also represents the humanism in Christian art. The painter Giorgio Vasari displayed the Heavens on the interior skin. The spherical dome vividly expresses the depth of the sky, which is more convincing and embodies the symbol of humanism in the Renaissance (King 2001, 54).

Furthermore, the transition from the longitudinal plan to the centralised plan guides the congregation’s attention to the top of the central building, to the inner core of themselves. This distinguished sacred experience based on the centralised structure may enlighten people to perceive spiritual and philosophical sobriety (Davis 2005, 11), emphasize the value of people and even extricate humankind from the state of ‘immaturity’(Foucault 1984, 32-50).

Figure 15: Décor inside the Dome Figure 16: The Details of the Fresco Painting inside the Dome

Conclusion The Florence Cathedral demonstrates the potential trends of technological progress at the beginning of the Italian Renaissance through unparalleled structural design and revolutionary composition of the centralized form. Correspondingly, it expresses its own sociocultural ideals and ethical thoughts by reviving ancient Roman and Greek building techniques and selectively applying them to the works. The Florence Cathedral constitutes an ideology of the emancipation of humanity. It involves dissatisfaction with the era of extreme dictatorship and corruption with contempt for its hypocritical asceticism. This architectural creation reveals complex philosophical questions about the nature of art and the nature of the human being, which is associated with the spirit of humanism. It embodies the religion and philosophy of the origin of the Italian Renaissance and creates a sumptuous monument to the time.

The Florence Cathedral has a complex philosophical background and the ideals embodied in this architecture have been rooted in western culture, making the Cathedral relevant to contemporary culture and transcending its historical values. The philosophical connotation elucidates the self-reflection of the human on many levels, the selfdiscovery of oneself and the emphasis on safeguarding human dignity and the promotion of a tolerant secular culture. These manifold progressive thoughts are all in intimate relation to the ideal of humanism. The Florence Cathedral conveyed these ethics to the world and stimulated other following architecture and facilitate the summit of the high Italian Renaissance.

Figure 17: Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence.

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Image Sources Title page James, Linda. 2016. Night scenery with Duomo Santa Maria del Fiori. In Florence, Italy. Gettyimages.

Available at: https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/photo/ cityline-of-florence-with-duomo-at-night-royalty-free-image/653061528. Accessed October 1, 2018.

Figure 1 National Geographic team. 2014. How an Amateur Built the World’s Biggest Dome. In Florence, Italy. YouTube.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IOPlGPQPuM. Accessed October 2, 2018.

Figure 2 Artist Unknown. 2013. The overall view of the Cathedral of Florence. The art of the Renaissance. Available at: https://arterenacimiento2013.wordpress.com/category/4-1-arquitectura. Accessed October 2, 2018.

Figure 3 Domenico Ghirlandaio. 1449-1494. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala dei Gigli details. Available at: https://heraldica. hypotheses.org/tag/late-middle-ages. Accessed September 21, 2018.

Figure 4 Lieferinxe, Josse. 1497-1499. A later medieval (c 1491) altar piece depicting the intercession of St. Sebastian with God during the Black Death. Wikimedia Commons.

Available at: https://hubpages.com/education/What-Were-theCauses-of-the-Black-Death. Accessed September 22, 2018.

Figure 5 National Geographic team. 2014. Capture the time line from the Poster of the Cathedral of Florence. National Geographic. Available at: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ d4/19/7d/d4197d4ca77711b74a4767c442b990cb.jpg. Accessed September 22, 2018.

Figure 6 National Geographic team. How an Amateur Built the World’s Biggest Dome. In Florence, Italy. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IOPlGPQPuM. Accessed October 2, 2018.

Figure 12 National Geographic team. 2014. Building techniques of the Florence Cathedral. National Geographic.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IOPlGPQPuM. Accessed October 2, 2018.

Figure 7 Aislesalvotimeingh. 2015. Portrait of Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi. Pinterest. Available at: https:// www.pinterest.com.au/pin/798544577654902685. Accessed October 2, 2018.

Figure 13 Artist Unknown. 2012. Plan and section of Panthon. Pinterest. Available at: https://www.pinterest.com.au/ pin/376402481341281839/. Accessed October 2, 2018.

Figure 8 Artist Unknown. 2013. Structure of the dome of Florence Cathedral. Italian Renaissance Art. Available at: https://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Brunelleschi.html.

Accessed October 2, 2018.

Figure 9 Artist Unknown. 2012. Section of Brunelleschi’s dome of the Florence Cathedral. ArchiMaps. Available at: http://archimaps.tumblr.com/post/25094294545/section-ofbrunelleschis-dome-of-the-cathedral. Accessed September 27, 2018.

Figure 10 Haines, Margaret. 1989. Plan of the Florence Cathedral. Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Figure 11 Heidiewalton. 2013. The Section of the dome of Pantheon. Available at: https://heidiewalton.wordpress. com/2013/09/23/florence-cathedral. Accessed October 2, 2018.

Figure 14 Artist Unknown. 2013. Inside the Dome of the Florence Cathedral. Pinterest. Available at: https://www. pinterest.com.au/pin/31877109841843792/?lp=true. Accessed October 5, 2018.

Figure 15 Vasari, Giorgio. 1572. Décor inside the Dome. Pinterest.

Available at: https://online.kidsdiscover.com/unit/renaissance?ReturnUrl=/unit/renaissance. Accessed October 5, 2018.

Figure 16 Vasari, Giorgio. 1572. The Details of the Fresco Painting inside the Dome. Pinterest. Available at: https:// online.kidsdiscover.com/unit/renaissance?ReturnUrl=/unit/ renaissance. Accessed October 5, 2018.

Figure 17 James, Taylor. 2010. Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence. Archdaily. Available at: https://www.archdaily. com/545664/how-did-filippo-brunelleschi-construct-thedome-of-florence-duomo. Accessed October 5, 2018.