Church of San Spirito
From Archiplanet
 | Church of San Spirito |
| Designer | Filippo Brunelleschi |
| Location | Florence, Italy |
| Date | 1434 to 1482 |
| Building Type | church |
| Climate | mediterranean |
| Context | urban |
| Architectural Style | Italian Renaissance |
| Street Address | |
| Notes | "S. Spirito". Cross plan |
| At Great Buildings | http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildings/Church_of_San_Spirito.html |
Contents |
Images
Discussion
Commentary
"In S. Spirito, begun in 1436, the side chapels ended in niches meant to be seen as semicircular protrusions on the outside. We have something more sculptural here, something approximating the effect, internally, of gouged out spaces in the thickness of the wall characteristic of the Roman vaulted style, and externally of bulging niches in the manner of the so-called temple of Minerve Medica or San Vitale...S. Spirito (has) domed crossings from which emanate three arms of equal length; the fourth, longer arm is the nave. The scheme thus combines a longitudinal, three-aisled basilica, the stock Western formula, with a centralized structure for the altar and the clergy."
— Spiro Kostof. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. p382-3.
"Heavier and more sculptural in effect than its predecessor (S. Lorenzo), S. Spirito is also simpler with regard to ornament and embellishment. The soffits of the arches, for example, and the impost blocks atop the capitals of the nave colonnade, are without carved relief. This emphasis on form without decorative overlay, on the depth of the wall, and on the three-dimensional character of the membering, reflected an escalating Classicism in Brunelleschi's work during the 1430s."
— Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. p292.
Maps
References
Roger H. Clark and Michael Pause. Precedents in Architecture. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1985. ISBN 0-442-21668-8. LC 84-3543. NA2750.C55 1984. drawings and diagrams, p30-31.— Updated edition available at Amazon.com
James Stevens Curl. Classical Architecture: an introduction to its vocabulary and essentials, with a select glossary of terms. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992. ISBN 0-442-30896-5. NA260.C87. interior photo of chapel, f4.4, p69.
Sir Banister Fletcher. A History of Architecture. London: The Butterworth Group, 1987. ISBN 0-408-01587-X. LC 86-31761. NA200.F63 1987. discussion p797, p803. prespective drawing, p796.— The classic text of architectural history. Expanded 1996 edition available at Amazon.com
Spiro Kostof. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. ISBN 0-19-503472-4. LC 84-25375. NA200.K65 1985. p382-3. Available at Amazon.com
John Julius Norwich, ed. Great Architecture of the World. London: Mitchell Beazley Publishers, 1975. interior photo, p145.Reprint edition: Da Capo Press, April 1991. ISBN 0-3068-0436-0. — An accessible, inspiring and informative overview of world architecture, with lots of full-color cutaway drawings, and clear explanations. Available at Amazon.com
Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture, from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986. ISBN 0-13-044702-1. NA200.T7. p292.— available at Amazon.com
