HISTORY PRESENTATION ON

FILARETE

BHRIGU C. KALIA- PRATEEK GULATI-SAKSHI RAJPUT-TAHMEENA TARIQ

INTRODUCTION

Antonio di Pietro Averlino (c. 1400 - c. 469), also "Averulino", known as Filarete (Greek for "lover of excellence") was an Italian Renaissance architect, sculptor and architectural theorist from Florence.

He is perhaps best remembered for his design of the ideal city of Sforzinda, the first ideal city plan of the Renaissance.

Biography - Life History - Early Influence

• Antonio di Pietro Averlino was born c. 1400 in Florence Italy where he probably trained as a craftsman.

• Sources suggest that he worked in Florence under the Italian painter, architect, and biographer Lorenzo Ghiberti, who gave him his more famous name “Filarete” which means “a lover of excellence”.

• In the mid 15th century, Filarete was expelled from Rome after being accused of attempting to steal the head of John the Baptist and he moved to Venice and then eventually to Milan.

• There he became a ducal engineer and worked on a variety of architectural projects for the next fifteen years. According to his biographer, Vasari, Filarete died in Rome c. 1469.

Filarete’s Works

•Bronze Doors of Old St. Peter's Basilica• Filarete's Treatise on Architecture•Design of the ideal city of Sforzinda

I.Bronze Doors of Old St. Peter's Basilica

Filarete is thought to have been trained under Lorenzo Ghiberti in Florence. From 1433 to 1445 he was employed by Pope Eugenius IV to execute the bronze central doors of Old St. Peter's in Rome (installed in the new St. Peter's in 1619).

By comparison with the contemporary bronze doors of Ghiberti and Donatello in Florence, Filarete's door is less accomplished in composition and technique but is important for its hieratic classicizing style.

Bronze door (detail)-1433-45Basilica di San Pietro, Vatican

Sauer's list is the most accurate in description and thoughtful in interpretation, and although he is unable to bring conclusive evidence, he suggests that Filarete might have used Virgil, Livy and Valerius as well as Ovid and Aesop. The first thing that becomes apparent to anyone studying these borders is that, apart from the portrait medallions, which cannot be considered in this note, there arc at least seven very different groups of beings in them:

(I) Animals rendered with great beauty and observation of nature, reminiscent of those in bestiaries, and in the borders of such manuscripts as Queen Mary's Psalter and the Gorleston Psalter. These would make a fascinating study, but cannot be dealt with here.

(II) Bacchanalian figures belonging to no particular story which, although they are smaller than the animals and birds and seem to have been drawn from antique gems and reliefs, lurk among the foliage not unlike mediaeval drolleries.

(III) Smaller animal scenes, obviously from Aesop.(IV) Scenes from Greek mythology in which most of the men are nude, or clad in Creek armour

with crested helmets.(V) More prosaic scenes from Roman history, where the male figures wear short tunics, Roman

armour and close-fitting helmets(VI) Slightly larger figures, pastoral in character(VII)A few figures more like mediaeval drolleries, although one, the Death of Hercules, is classical

in subject.

Bronze door (detail)1433-45Bronze

Basilica di San Pietro, Vatican

II. Filarete's Treatise on Architecture

Filarete completed his substantial book on architecture some around 1464, which he referred to as his Libroarchitettonico ("Architectonic book").

The Libro, which comprises twenty-five volumes, enjoyed a fairly wide circulation in manuscript form during the Renaissance. The most well known and best preserved copy of the Libro is a profusely illustrated manuscript known as the Codex Magliabechiano (probably drafted c. 1465; now held in the archives of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze). The book, which is written as a fictional narrative, consists principally of a detailed account of the technical aspects of architecture (e.g., site and material selection, drawing, construction methods, and so on) and a sustained polemic against the Gothic style of Northern Italy, which Filarete calls the "barbarous modern style."

III. Design of the ideal city of Sforzinda

The most famous part of his book is his plan for Sforzinda, an ideal city named after Francesco Sforza, then Duke of Milan. Although Sforzinda was never built, certain aspects of its design are described in considerable detail.

The basic layout of the city is an eight point star,created by overlaying two squares so that all thecorners were equidistant. This shape is theninscribed within a perfect circular moat.This shape is iconographic and probablyties to Filarete’s interest in magic and astrology. 

In terms of planning, each of the outer points of the star had towers, while the inner angles had gates. Each of the gates was an outlet of radial avenues that each passed through a market square, dedicated to certain goods.

All the avenues finally converged in a large square which was centrally located. The town contained three squares – one for the prince’s palace, one for the cathredal, and one for the market.

Because the Renaissance was much taken with the idea of the canal town, in Filarete's Sforzinda every other street had a canal for cargo transport.

The canal system also connected with the river, and thus the outside world, for the import and export of goods.

The city also contained many buildings, including parishes and separate schools for boys and girls.

An example of a building that appears in the treatise is Filarete’s House of Vice and Virtue, a ten-story structure with a brothel on the bottom and an academy of learning on the higher levels.

The design of Sforzinda may have been in part a direct response to the cities of the Medieval period, whose growth did not necessarily depend on city planning as such, which meant they could be difficult to navigate. 

Filarete’s ideal plan was meant to reflect on society – where a perfect city form would be the image of a perfect society, an idea that was typical of the humanist views prevalent during the High Renaissance. The Renaisance ideal city, ironically, implied the centralized power of a prince in its organization.

Influence on Architecture and UrbanismFilarete's plan of Sforzinda was the first ideal city plan of the

Renaissance and his thorough organization of its layout embodied a greater level of conscious city planning than anyone before him.

The treatise gained interest from many important leaders such as Giangaleazzo Sforza and Piero de' Medici and later when Francesco di Giorgio and Leonardo da Vinci began to plan their ideal cities they borrowed ideas from Filarete.

Although it was never built, Sforzinda served as an inspiration for many future city plans. For example, in the 16th century, Renaissance military engineers and architects combined Filarete's ideal city schemes with defensive fortifications deriving from a more sociopolitical agenda. This notion of combining the ideal and the fortified city became widely disseminated throughout Europe and beyond.

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