Sant’ Andrea
PHOTO Tavernor, R. (1998). On Alberti and the art of building. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Leon Battista Alberti (1404 – 1472) was one of the most influential architects and authors of the Early Renaissance period in Italy. Throughout his life Alberti studied classical ideas of Greek and Roman architecture and worked on developing a theory of universal harmony and perfect mathematical division of space. In his last work of architecture, the Church of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua, he combined his views of a “Renaissance man” with his knowledge of Roman and Etruscan architecture, to create a new prototype of a church that is geometrically perfect. This prototype was dedicated to serve the people and bring them delight. Alberti’s Basilica of Sant Andrea was widely copied until the seventeenth century and had great influence on the development of church typology throughout the world. This paper is a critical analysis of Alberti’s Sant’ Andrea in its architectural language such as canons, Roman and Etruscan origin and expression of Renaissance ideas of
universal perfection through Alberti’s design. The Basilica of Sant’ Andrea was designed around 1462 during the Early Renaissance period, or Quattrocento. During this time in Northern Italy and predominantly in Florence, Classical Greek concepts of architectural order and geometrical perfection experienced a cultural rebirth. They were widely studied and adopted by architects and artists. In contrast to the Middle Ages, a proportional logic and aspiration to achieve perfect symmetry and regularity of parts governed works of architects. The Marquisate of Mantua, a small duchy located in the North of Italy, had just recovered from a political crisis that followed the death of Guido Gonzaga, the lord of Mantua. Willing to re-establish their power over the city, the Gonzaga Family sought to restructure its religious life and build a new significant church on the busiest city square of Piazza Sordello, replacing the old Benedictine monastery (Borsi 230). Alberti entered the competition with a proposal of a church based on a scheme of a classical Etruscan temple and the basic form of the triumphal arch. By this time he was an experienced and mature architect, so he was able to apply all his knowledge of classical architectural language, laws of perspective, mathematical division of space and renaissance aesthetics that he learned and generated throughout his life. During his practice he experimented and studied a myriad of ancient classical styles developing his own architectural language and documenting it in De re Aedificatoria (Castex 160). Moreover, Alberti was greatly influenced by the innovative Florentine architecture of that time having been in close contact to his colleague, Filippo Brunelleschi. The program for the new church formulated by Ludovico II Gonzaga required a new home for Mantua’s most prized relic ‘The Holly Blood of Christ’, which attracted many pilgrims from Italy and the rest of Europe. Alberti’s main concern was to organize the pilgrimage in a more coherent way, than it was prior to that time and build a new great lofty hall for people to gazer in it (Castex 158). Furthermore the new church was meant to become a focal point for Mantua’s city center and represent the power of the Gonzaga family. In his letter to Luca Fancelli, who designed the bell tower on Piazza Sordello, Alberti writes: “Ambassadors and nobleman often pass by and we are obliged to show them some fine work” (Borsi 232). By ‘fine
work’ Alberti meant a more durable, worthier and more cheerful building than the previous monastery, which would first of all bring people delight and serve as a symbol of power and humanism. Renaissance architecture is an architecture of pure form In the views of the 15th and 16th century, reason guided thinking. Architecture was based on the visually clear and the rationally organized. At this time beauty consisted of the integration of uniform proportions working together in perfect harmony where nothing could be added or taken away (Wittkower 7, 33). Classical forms were at a rival and yet new ideas continued to alter the definition of sacred architecture. Like every great style of the past, canons defined the architecture of the period. The following is a dissection of the Mantua church through the ten canons proposed by Jean-Francois Gabriel in his book, Classical Architecture for the 21st century, guided by the arrangement of classical forms. 1. Bilateral symmetry For Alberti, the facade of a building was like a skin to an animal. He was first an artist of facades, then a creator of interiors (Grafton 325). His Santa Maria Novella is often referenced as a classic example of the perfect use of geometry. Similarly in the facade of Sant’ Andrea there is a prominent use of proportion and clearly outlined symmetry. The vertical axis of the facade extends to the division of the Latin cross plan down the centre of the nave into two mirrored halves. Alberti’s influence of the period and intensive study of classical ideas incorporates the use of symmetrical elements evident in the Latin cross plan with three chapels on either side refer-
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