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The Pazzi Chapel ( it, Cappella dei Pazzi) is a chapel located in the "first cloister" on the southern flank of the
Basilica di Santa Croce The (Italian for 'Basilica of the Holy Cross') is the principal Franciscan church in Florence, Italy, and a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church. It is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 meters south-east of the Duomo. The ...
in
Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...
,
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. Commonly credited to
Filippo Brunelleschi Filippo Brunelleschi ( , , also known as Pippo; 1377 – 15 April 1446), considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture, was an Italian architect, designer, and sculptor, and is now recognized to be the first modern engineer, p ...
, it is considered to be one of the masterpieces of
Renaissance architecture Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought ...
.


History

Though funds for the chapel were assembled in 1429 by Andrea Pazzi, head of the Pazzi family, whose wealth was second only to the
Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...
, construction did not begin until about 1442. The chapel was completed in 1443. The building is considered to be an Early Renaissance masterpiece. Formerly considered a work of
Filippo Brunelleschi Filippo Brunelleschi ( , , also known as Pippo; 1377 – 15 April 1446), considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture, was an Italian architect, designer, and sculptor, and is now recognized to be the first modern engineer, p ...
(d. 1446), it is now thought that he was responsible for the plan, which is based on simple geometrical forms, the square and the circle, but not for the building's execution and detailing. The most common argument for crediting Brunelleschi is the chapel's clear similarity to the Old Sacristy; others argue that his style had developed in the twenty-year interim and that the Pazzi Chapel would represent a retrograde step. The first written mention of Brunelleschi as the architect was written by an anonymous author in the 1490s. Scholars now consider the chapel as possibly the work of Giuliano da Maiano or
Michelozzo Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi (1396 – 7 October 1472) was an Italian architect and sculptor. Considered one of the great pioneers of architecture during the Renaissance, Michelozzo was a favored Medici architect who was extensively em ...
. A
façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...
thought to have been begun by Brunelleschi, of which only the lower register can be seen, was partially obscured by the addition of a porch. The main inspiration for this piece was the Dominican monastery of
Santa Maria Novella Santa Maria Novella is a church in Florence, Italy, situated opposite, and lending its name to, the city's main railway station. Chronologically, it is the first great basilica in Florence, and is the city's principal Dominican church. The chu ...
, also located in Florence. The main purpose of the building was the cathedral
chapter house A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole commun ...
(meeting room for the governing chapter) and use as a classroom for the teaching of monks and other religious purposes. There was also a chapel behind the altar where the commissioning family had the right to bury its dead. The Pazzi's ulterior motive in building the chapel was probably to make their mark on the city of Florence and to emphasize their wealth and power. The fact that the city was at war with a neighboring city at the time and still acquired the funds to build this chapel showed the importance it had to the Pazzi family and the people of Florence. The size of the
chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common type ...
was predetermined by existing walls, creating an unusual situation, however, where the space was not square as in the Old Sacristy, which was the model for this building, but rectangular and transept-like and thus in contradistinction to the square, axially placed altar. Despite this, and its complex history, the building gives us insight into the ambitions of Renaissance architects in their struggle to bring coherence to the architectural language of columns,
pilasters In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...
,
arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vau ...
es and vaults. Between the pilasters in the transept there are tall, blank, round headed panels and, above them, roundels, common Renaissance decorative motifs. The architectural elements of the interior are all in pietra serena, a high quality, fine grained sandstone. The load-bearing structure of this building is its masonry, i.e. it is the walls that support the arches and domes, not the pilasters which are decorative rather than structural. The tondi of the seated
Apostles An apostle (), in its literal sense, is an emissary, from Ancient Greek ἀπόστολος (''apóstolos''), literally "one who is sent off", from the verb ἀποστέλλειν (''apostéllein''), "to send off". The purpose of such sending ...
are by
Luca della Robbia Luca della Robbia (, also , ; 1399/1400–1482) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Florence. Della Robbia is noted for his colorful, tin-glazed terracotta statuary, a technique which he invented and passed on to his nephew Andrea dell ...
, who also did the terracotta decorations in the cupola of the porch. It has been suggested that the roundels of the Evangelists may have been the work of
Donatello Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi ( – 13 December 1466), better known as Donatello ( ), was a Florentine sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used this to develop a complete Renaissance st ...
.


See also

*
History of medieval Arabic and Western European domes The early domes of the Middle Ages, particularly in those areas recently under Byzantine control, were an extension of earlier Roman architecture. The domed church architecture of Italy from the sixth to the eighth centuries followed that of the ...
* History of Italian Renaissance domes *
History of early modern period domes Domes built in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries relied primarily on empirical techniques and oral traditions rather than the architectural treatises of the time, but the study of dome structures changed radically due to developments in mathemati ...


References


External links


GreatBuildings.com , Pazzi Chapel
{{Filippo Brunelleschi 15th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Chapels in Florence Filippo Brunelleschi church buildings Pazzi family Capella Pazzi