Brunelleschi, Santo Spirito
Video transcript
(piano music) Steven: We've in Santo Spirito, one of Brunelleschi's last churches; in fact, I believe only
one column was raised by the time he passed away. Beth: And we see a lot of
the same things that we see in the Old Sacristy or in the
Pazzi Chapel by Brunelleschi. The use of this dark
grayish green pietra serena that creates the columns and the mouldings and the cornices. Just yesterday we were in
the Laurentian Library, designed by Michelangelo, which is also these white
walls and the pietra serena and also very muscular, energetic space, and when we're here
today in Santo Spirito, I can really see that Michelangelo was building on what Brunelleschi did. Steven: There is a kind
of willingness to allow what would formally have
been the trim of the wall to become a visual force in itself. Beth: The church is a
basilica in its plan, with a dome over the crossing, but Brunelleschi, in his
typical interest in geometry, used the square that forms the crossing as the basic unit of measurement
throughout the church. Steven: There's also a relationship between those widths and
the elevation of the church. Rigorous continuity in
the geometry throughout. Beth: A sense of circles and semicircles and squares and rectangles that all relate to one another. Steven: Brunelleschi has
created a mathematical system that is so self-evident
and makes so much sense that there aren't other options. Beth: The mathematics determine the space, and I think that that idea of beauty residing in the relationships between the parts of the church, not in any one feature, but in those proportional relationships, is something that is very
important to Brunelleschi, and is also something that Brunelleschi is deriving from his study of
ancient Roman architecture. Steven: This is a
building that feels to me about the relationship also between the line of the pietra serena and the plain of the stucco in between, but unlike some of
Brunelleschi's earlier work, the pietro serena has expanded; it's become more muscular. Beth: You can see the
pietra serena expanding, almost as if it's growing over the arches, so it almost reaches the stringcourse molding
below the cornice. Steven: There seems to be that expansion of the pietra serena in
the stringcourses above; in the extra cornices that exist above each of the capitals
of each of the columns, and even at the bases of the column, the pietra serena seems to expand outward into the paving itself until the pietra serena
is no longer functioning, really, as line against plain, but becoming a kind of sculptural form. In fact it gives the entire church a kind of visual density. Beth: It's a space that has a tension between energy in the pietra serena and the simplicity of
the spatial elements. I think it's also really
important to talk about how classic this looks;
we really have a sense of being in an ancient Roman building, but there is a kind of severity here. We don't see fluting in the
columns or in the pilasters. Steven: And the pietra serena's tone is a serious tone. This church is one of
the great expressions of early Renaissance architecture. It's sometimes seen as a summation of the vocabulary that
Brunelleschi created over his lifetime,
which was revolutionary. (piano music)