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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 3
Lesson 2: Sculpture and architecture in central Italy- Brunelleschi & Ghiberti, the Sacrifice of Isaac
- Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Isaac (quiz)
- Ghiberti, "Gates of Paradise," east doors of the Florence Baptistery
- Brunelleschi, Old Sacristy
- Brunelleschi, Dome of the Cathedral of Florence.
- Brunelleschi, Dome (quiz)
- Brunelleschi, Pazzi Chapel
- Brunelleschi, Pazzi Chapel
- Brunelleschi, Santo Spirito
- Nanni di Banco, Four Crowned Saints
- Orsanmichele and Donatello's Saint Mark
- Donatello, Saint Mark
- Donatello, St. Mark (quiz)
- A soldier saint in Renaissance Florence: Donatello's St George
- Donatello, Feast of Herod
- Donatello, Madonna of the Clouds
- Donatello, David
- Donatello, David
- Donatello, David (quiz)
- Donatello, The Miracle of the Mule
- Donatello, Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
- Donatello, Mary Magdalene
- Andrea della Robbia’s bambini at the Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence
- Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai
- Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai
- Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai
- Alberti, Façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence
- Alberti, Sant'Andrea in Mantua
- Michelozzo, Palazzo Medici
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Michelozzo, Palazzo Medici
Michelozzo, Palazzo Medici, Florence, begun 1444
A conversation with Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(gentle music) - [Steven] We're in Florence,
looking at the Palazzo Medici. - [Beth] The Medici Palace and we're on a busy street in Florence. This is really in the heart of Florence. - [Steven] In fact,
it's situated at a point where Cosimo had to buy the properties of some 22 land owners in
order to be able to build, what is a magnificent and enormous palace. And it's a palace that has a view of the most important
religious sites in the city. - [Beth] Del Duomo, the
Cathedral of Florence. - [Steven] And the Baptistry,
in fact, we have a direct view down the street to the Baptistry. - [Beth] The place where
all the citizens of Florence were baptized. - [Steven] If we look the other direction we see San Marco, which was a monastery that the Medici family underwrote, they were the primary patrons. - [Beth] And we also see San Lorenzo, which is their parish church
and which they also supported and endowed and had rebuilt and even had funerary chapels built there. - [Steven] Now in the 14th, and especially in the 15th century, the city of Florence had become extremely wealthy. Its wealth came largely from manufacturer and largely from the production of wool, but then increasingly banking
became an important source of wealth. - [Beth] And there were
several leading families in Florence, the Medici
being the most prominent. - [Steven] Now the Medici
family would be in, they would be out. There were times when the
Medici family was exiled. There were times when the Medici family was ruling explicitly. There were other times
when the Medici family was simply pulling all the
strings behind the scenes. So I think now in the 21st century, it's easy for us to correlate somebody who has a lot of wealth,
living in a splendid home. But in the 15th century
ostentation had a price. - [Beth] It was morally and
spiritually questionable. - [Steven] And so, just
because you had a lot of money didn't mean that you
should necessarily spend it on a grand edifice. - [Beth] And yet Cosimo did
and the citizens of Florence were intended to understand this as a way of Cosimo of the Medici family
ennobling Florence itself, contributing to the beautiful
appearance of the city that they were so proud of
in the early 15th century. - [Steven] And one of the
ways that this building pulls that off, is by referencing
the classical tradition. We can see these
beautiful, elegant voussoir rounding the arcade that
was originally open. We're calling this a
private home, but in fact it was a much more public
space than we might expect. Although this building is fortress-like, although it seems tremendously
solid and protective, it was meant to be a place
where the city could enter, where business could be conducted. - [Beth] And you used
the word fortress-like and I think that's important because this building is looking
back to a building a few blocks away, the Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence
which does look very much like a fortress which had been built a hundred years earlier. - [Steven] This palace
refers to the Palazzo Vecchio in a very specific way and that is the rusticated masonry. On the ground floor of this building we see these huge blocks of stone that have not been polished,
that have not been finely cut, that feel rough, that feel heavy, and the density of that
material is so tangible. Look at the way that those stones are cut. Not only to refuse the sort
of clarity of a flush surface but they're also cut irregularly so that there is no uniformity of size. - [Beth] So while the ground
floor has a sense of being like a fortress, there's a clear recalling of classical antiquity of
ancient Roman architecture and therefore a sense
of Renaissance humanism that this building
would have communicated. - [Steven] There are classical
references everywhere. There's the voussoir
over the Roman arches. There are Corinthian
columns in the window bays and then just at the
bottom of the cornice, there's egg-and-dart and dentil motifs, and then of course there's
the cornice itself, which is this massive
form that comes right out of the classical tradition
and really stops our eye from moving past the building. And inside is a courtyard which comes directly out of the Roman tradition with a lovely Brunelleschian arcade. - [Beth] So all of this within the context of the incredible wealth
of the Medici family, the political power of the Medici family, looking back to the classical tradition. - [Steven] And looking
forward to a building boom in new palace architecture
by wealthy Florentines, this building in a sense gave permission for the other great ruling families to build their own immense palaces. (upbeat music)