Biographies

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446)

Filippo Brunelleschi was born in Florence. He began his training there as an apprentice goldsmith, gaining status as a master in 1404. He was active as a sculptor for most of his life. Brunelleschi began his architectural career in 1404 when he acted as an advisor for the Santa Maria Novella, but his involvement with the cupola for the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence marked his first foray as a practicing architect. He worked on this project off and on from 1417 until 1434. All of Brunelleschi’s works indicate that he possessed inventiveness as both an engineer and as an architect. Brunelleschi was the first architect to employ mathematical perspective to redefine Gothic and Romanesque space and to establish new rules of proportioning and symmetry.