Greco-Roman Architecture

Architects from the 14th century to the mid 18th century incorporate elements from ancient Greco- Roman architecture into their designs for social, cultural and political reasons. The movement to revive “ancient Greco-Roman culture” is known as the “Renaissance.” The epicentre of this movement was in fourteenth and fifteenth-century Florence. It began with the leading merchant republics studying and teaching ancient Greek and Latin sources of history, science, art, architecture and literature. Looking back on Philosophers like Plato, these merchants adopted humanist ideals and began reconsidering the role of the “city in human culture” and began embracing ancient Greco-Roman designs: styles based on symmetry, correct and harmonious proportions, …show more content…
When the leaders of the merchant republics (like the Medici, Strozzi and Ruccellai families ) began studying classical Latin and Greek texts to ”guarantee justice against tyranny” they inspired a new curriculum of study. With a surplus of wealth in the merchant guilds, these families often channeled their wealth for collective city projects such as Palazzo Vecchio, the Cathedral of Santa Maria Del Fiore, city walls and bridges. These projects (along with the emergence of private palazzo buildings ) added grandeur to civic architecture and improved local economy by boosting employment. Many important architects emerged from this period including Fillipo Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti. Both artists pulled on Greco- Roman techniques using Corinthian and Doric columns, pilasters, and triumphal arches. One of the best examples of the use of Greco-Roman building techniques during this period was the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore (fig. 10.1-3), a public work that used rounded arches, symmetrically placed bays and harmonious proportions. It’s construction began in 1296 under the prominently gothic design of Arnolfo di Cambio, it was later taken on by Fransesco Talenti and eventually Brunelleschi, who wished to take the cathedral in a more all’antica route. On the exterior he inserted rounded tribunes between three apses, each of which had five shell-capped niches flanked by pairs of Corinthian columns, buttresses with classical fluted pilasters and reversed curve volutes (detail in fig. 10.1-4). All of which point to the cathedral’s revival of ancient Greco-Roman