Exhibition notes
“Italian Renaissance Architecture:
Brunelleschi, Sangallo, Michelangelo”
at the National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
December 18, 1994—March 19, 1995
For those of us who missed last summer’s sumptuous exhibition of
Renaissance architecture in Venice, the much reduced version of
the show at the National Gallery, Washington, is consoling. It
offers a glimpse of the complex, often tortuous history of the
construction of three paradigmatic buildings of the Renaissance—the
cathedrals of Florence and Pavia, and St. Peter’s, Rome— with
drawings, engravings, quotations from Renaissance commentators, and,
most dramatically, fourteen spectacular architect’s models.
It’s all absorbing—from preliminary sketches to finished
records, from carefully measured studies to meticulous renderings
of the models, as well as views of the neighborhoods before and
after the erection of
the buildings. But the real stars
of the show are the elegant, lovingly crafted wooden models: Antonio
da Sangallo’s monumental vision of his proposal for St. Peter’s, the
largest surviving example from the period; Filippo Brunelleschi’s
sturdy model for the drum and dome of the Duomo of Florence, a
workman-like object with little decorative detail; Michelangelo’s
model for the vault of the south apse of St. Peter’s. And more. (The
proximity of the National Gallery’s fine collection of Renaissance
paintings is an added bonus.)
The models were made to show patrons what they might expect, and
also to test or perfect a design, to guide workmen, and to estimate
the amount of material required.
They are appealing as joinery and as miniature visions