This is a masterly work of architectural criticism, based on intensive first-hand study of the buildings and underpinned by deep scholarship and voracious exploration of the sources of inspiration. In his introduction H. argues that the sources that fed the imagination of designers created new meanings through the acquired associations. These links were not only direct allusions to antique sources, but included others that referred to local tradition and more recent models. H. does not chart the ‘progress’ of Renaissance modernity in terms of the extent of classical erudition, but rather as a layered integration of ideas drawn from a richer, more varied past.
The book takes as its starting point the Vasarian model of the evolution of Italian Renaissance architecture. According to Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists the pioneer was Brunelleschi who first began to learn the lessons of classical antiquity in the early fifteenth century. Vasari writes that during his first study visit to Rome Brunelleschi ‘went without food or sleep and concentrated entirely on the architecture of the past … And he could see Rome as it had stood before it fell into ruins’ (trans. G. Bull [1965], pp. 140–1). Later, at the start of the sixteenth century, Vasari continues, the work of Bramante in Rome ushered in the next phase, when architects began to equal the achievements of their Roman past. Finally, in the work of Michelangelo, Vasari's narrative asserts, the artist's genius and imagination allowed him to ‘break the chains’ that had bound architects to the rules of classical theory so that he could supersede the achievements of the ancients. This Vasarian scheme has long provided a lucid, (perhaps too) convenient structure for general histories of Renaissance architecture and for teaching the subject to students. In this book H. offers a personal critical reassessment of Vasari's legacy, and his three chapters reconsider each of these stages in turn.
The first chapter on fifteenth-century Florence confronts the Vasarian legacy head-on. It is obvious from looking at Brunelleschi's architecture that he did not revive the full range of classical orders, as Vasari claims, yet his designs clearly mark a ‘paradigm shift’ (p. 32). What really makes his architecture seem new? One certainty is that he rejected Gothic, and H. attributes this to the hostilities between Florence and Milan at the time. Brunelleschi's buildings do not look like ancient Roman precedents, yet his biographers thought they did. Moreover, he certainly referred frequently to Florentine Romanesque sources and respected established typologies, and H. also identifies other possible sources of inspiration in the Veneto. His later work, more three-dimensional in character, more obviously draws on ancient precedent – for example in Santa Maria degli Angeli.
H. suggests that Brunelleschi's immediate followers in Florence, especially Michelozzo and Alberti, imitated aspects of his designs without understanding the underlying principles, even if both architects introduced new classical sources and used them in a different way. Instead, H. identifies Giuliano da Sangallo later in the fifteenth century as the true heir to Brunelleschi in Florence. As the author of some of the period's most beautiful and carefully observed drawings after the antique, Giuliano had a deep knowledge of ancient models, and the printing of Alberti's treatise in 1485 fuelled his interest further. Building on Brunelleschi's legacy, he created a series of new designs that were attuned to the ideology of the time of Lorenzo de’ Medici, such as the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano. H. seeks to identify literary and linguistic parallels to these shifts in architectural method in humanist circles of the time, particularly the ideas of Poliziano and Ficino.
In the second chapter, the so-called High Renaissance, ushered in by the Jubilee year of 1500, shifts the setting to Rome. H. reassesses critically the personal contribution of Bramante and discredits the usual view that the architect, on his arrival from Milan, was overwhelmed instantly by the impact of Roman antiquity. By preferring a later date for two of Bramante's most all'antica works, the Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio (as suggested long ago by this reviewer) and the Palazzo Caprini, he characterises Bramante's first Roman works such as the Palazzo Giraud and Santa Maria della Pace as relatively traditional and sees his assimilation of the lessons of antiquity as more gradual. Vasari is surely right to stress the importance of Julius II in formulating the scale and ambition of Bramante's papal projects, the Cortile del Belvedere and St Peter's, as well as the impatience of the patron and his architect, both advanced in years, to press ahead as fast as possible. Nevertheless, H. sees these not as lightbulb moments but instead as schemes subject to gradual evolution, whenever pragmatic modifications and adjustments became necessary. He downplays the influence of classical models, although both Serlio and Palladio asserted that Bramante revived the great architecture of the ancients. Because of the Pope's evident aspirations to rival the greatness of antiquity, classical elements were ever-present in Bramante's Roman work, but these were tempered and enriched by his wide knowledge of more recent precedents as well.
Among the followers of Bramante, Raphael receives the closest attention in the book. His programme to survey the whole of ancient Rome gave him a close familiarity with the antique, and he drew freely on classical sources, but he, too, blended these with the conventions of his own time. For the papal suburbana, the Villa Madama, Raphael's famous letter, written in collaboration with Baldassare Castiglione, laid down an overtly Plinian and Vitruvian agenda. Yet this work is shown here to represent a ‘new and appropriate assemblage of select components of diverse origin’ (p. 172). H. proposes the impact of the literary theories of Castiglione and Pietro Bembo, who sought an authentic Italian maniera suited to the purpose and status of a work of art or literature.
The book briefly charts the legacy of Bramante and Raphael as their followers dispersed across Italy (Giulio Romano in Mantua, Peruzzi in Siena, Sanmicheli in Verona, Sansovino in Venice) while Antonio da Sangallo and his setta (‘sect’) remained in Rome. H. notes in passing that Palladio's architecture, though deeply rooted in the study of Roman remains, was more systematic than antiquity itself. He argues that, whereas Bramante had created a version of antiquity that fitted the Rome of his time, it was Raphael who enriched and refined it to generate models that would be adaptable all over Italy.
Michelangelo's architecture forms the subject of the third chapter, and H. reflects on the inspirations of Florentine political ideals and of humanists such as Poliziano who remarked that ‘the bee takes nectar from many flowers’ (p. 216). Numerous elements from Florentine tradition can be traced in Michelangelo's Florentine works such as the New Sacristy and the Library at San Lorenzo. H. attributes the ‘licence’ highlighted by Vasari both to Michelangelo's ideals of political freedom and to his personal sense of artistic authority. The detailed examination of Michelangelo's designs in this book points to possible sources of inspiration drawn from both Roman and Florentine precedents, while every ancient source was transformed almost beyond recognition. Such close reading of Michelangelo's work is illuminating in its revelation of the complex range of ideas embodied in the designs. The presumption that the viewer of the time would have been more aware of the full range of sources and their ‘meanings’ than later critics and historians raises questions of reception and reading that are not fully explored here, but which offer much food for thought.
The book is a very personal one, and it radiates H.'s infectious enthusiasm, new insights and careful reflection on every page. The writing is energetic and fresh, using only the minimum of architectural jargon. This is not a study of the theoretical basis of classical language. Here the treatise writers – Vitruvius, Alberti, Filarete, Francesco di Giorgio, Serlio, Vignola and Palladio – receive only scant attention. Nor is it dedicated to the step-by-step infusion of classical archaeology. Although ancient Roman sources are often mentioned, they are usually illustrated by drawings or engravings of the time rather than by photographs of the ruins themselves. In this book, antiquity forms part of a much more heterogeneous range of architectural models from the distant and recent past, to be assembled and ‘emulated’ rather than simply ‘imitated’.
