BRUNELLESCO

BY

LEADER SCOTT

LONDON

GEORGE BELL & SONS

1901

A

62353 MAR 19 1902

W10 .883 333

PREFACE

IT
T is very difficult to obtain enough data for an
authentic life of Filippo di Ser Brunellesco. In
writing the life of a painter, his own works are before us
just as he painted them, and they unerringly reveal the
genius and character of the man. A sculptor's statues
and reliefs also show us visibly his own handiwork
untouched by any sacrilegious hand but the gentle one
of time; the music of a composer who lived a hundred
years ago, is with us still as he conceived it; and the
thoughts of the poet or philosopher are embalmed in
their own language within the leaves of their books.

But with an architect like Brunelleschi the case is different.

His designs were changed even in the hands that continued them on his death; his buildings were restored (?) by subsequent architects and incongruous bits inserted in them, like Ammannati's Roman pediments inserted to Brunelleschi's grand arched doorways in the Pitti. Beyond the Pazzi chapel and the old sacristy of San Lorenzo, which Brunelleschi finished during his lifetime, I believe there is not another work of his by which a modern critic could fairly judge his design. Thus, the works which should best illustrate his nobility of conception are now more misleading than convincing in their evidence.

The only original fountain of information is the anonymous MS. written by a contemporary, which was first edited by Canon Domenico Moreni in 1812. From this fountain, aided by tradition and a few scarce documents, both Baldinucci and Vasari drew their facts. As far as regards the work of the cupola of the Florence Cathedral, we have now a full and true account, thanks to the learned archivist Sig. Cesare Guasti, who in 1887 published his interesting extracts from the archives of the Opera, under the title of "La Cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore illustrata. Firenze, 1887."

But of all Brunelleschi's other works the documentary evidence is distressfully scarce, and in some cases utterly wanting. For these we have only the vague assertions of the earlier biographers, and to many of his commissions we can only fix an approximate date suggested by some concomitant circum

stance.

Thanks to Sig. Gaetano Milanesi, late of the State Archives, the anonimo is now no longer anonymous, but takes form as Antonio Manetti, a master joiner and architect, who knew Brunelleschi in life, and continued some of his works after his death. In the preface to his publication of the "Opere istoriche di Antonio Manetti, edite ed inedite," Milanesi gives all the proofs he has discovered of the authorship of the anonymous biographer. First, the similarity of writing with a MS. of the fifteenth century in the Magliabecchian, which MS. came from the Badia a Ripoli. It contains several different essays-among others, one entitled "De viri illustri di Firenze." At the end of the second part, "Dell' Arcadreo di Maestro Gherardi da Chermona "