Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, in which there was a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Classical Greek and Roman thought and material culture.
The Renaissance style places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of Classical antiquity and in particular, the architecture of Ancient Rome, of which many examples remained. Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings.
Developed first in Florence, with Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, the Renaissance style quickly spread to other Italian cities and then to France, Germany, England, Russia and elsewhere.
Renaissance style – 15th-17th centuries
The architectural style developed in early 15th century Italy during the rebirth (rinascimento) of classical art. The Renaissance period in Europe, from the 15th century to about the end of the 17th century, when art, architecture, philosophy and literature had a rebirth based on Greek and Roman models.
Vitruvius’s Treatise on Architecture, originally written in the time of Augustus, was issued in Rome in Latin, in 1486, and translated into Italian in 1621. This became one of the bibles of Renaissance architecture, and through it, of design. It succeeded the Gothic as the style dominant in all of Europe after the mid-16th century, and evolved throughout the Mannerist phase into Baroque.
Renaissance art is defined as art and architecture, painting, sculpture, and allied arts produced in Europe in the historical period called the Renaissance. Broadly considered, the period covers the 200 years between 1400 and 1600, although specialists disagree on exact dates. The word renaissance literally means “rebirth” and is the French translation of the Italian “rinascita”.
The two principal components of Renaissance style are: 1) a revival of the classical forms originally developed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and 2) an intensified concern with secular life — interest in humanism and assertion of the importance of the individual. The Renaissance period in art history corresponds with the beginning of the great Western age of discovery and exploration, when a general desire developed to examine all aspects of nature and the world.
During the Renaissance, artists were no longer regarded as mere artisans, as they had been in the medieval past, but for the first time were seen as independent personalities, comparable to poets and writers. They sought new solutions to formal and visual problems, and many of them were also devoted to scientific experimentation. In this context, mathematical or linear perspective was developed, a system in which all objects in a painting or in low-relief sculpture are related both proportionally and rationally.
To respect and honor to the Renaissance style, for the International Stamp Exhibition Italia ’85 in Rome, Italy issued nice set of stamps, introducing the Renaissance Art.
