"Pazzi Chapel" by Howard A. Risatti Professor Emeritus and Donald Schrader
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Abstract

Why speculate on Filippo Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel? As Giorgio Vasari wrote, many of Brunelleschi’s projects were not finished in his lifetime and not as he wished. The lesson to be drawn, says Vasari, who was writing a century after Brunelleschi’s death, is that “anyone who wishes to leave a memorial of his existence should complete it in his own lifetime and not put faith in anyone else.” Since Brunelleschi died well before the chapel was completed, issues have been raised for over a century about its inconsistencies regarding the open loggia, the barrel-vaulted portico, and the façade. This paper addresses these issues in relation to the “new Humanism,” early Christian Roman architecture, and Brunelleschi’s ideas of ideal form in relation to the deity.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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