Luca della Robbia (or the Della Robbia Family)

Florentine sculptor Luca della Robbia (b. 1399/1400–d. 1482) is best remembered as the inventor of a popular new form of glazed terracotta sculpture and as founder of the flourishing family workshop that produced it for roughly a century. He has long ranked among the greatest artists of the early Florentine Renaissance: tellingly, Leon Battista Alberti celebrated him as one of five exceptional modern artists in the dedication to his 1436 treatise On painting (Della pittura), alongside Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Masaccio. Luca was a consummate craftsman, praised by writers during and after his lifetime for his activity in marble, bronze, terracotta, and even goldsmithery. Modern scholarship on the artist is substantial and has consistently sounded two notes, celebrating his exemplary classicizing style and recognizing that the story of his artistic success is also, simultaneously, that of a new sculptural medium. While the exact details of its initial development (accomplished by the year 1441) remain unknown, Luca’s glazed terracotta art soon attracted eminent patrons, such as Piero de’ Medici, and was praised by contemporaries as an invention. In the tradition of artistic family dynasties, Luca passed the secrets of his new art to his nephew, Andrea della Robbia (b. 1435–d. 1525), who succeeded him as head of the workshop. Andrea conducted a brisk business in glazed sculpture and taught the family craft to five of his sons: Marco (Fra Mattia, b. 1468–d. 1534), Giovanni (b. 1469–d. 1529/1530), Luca “il giovane” (b. 1475–d. 1548), Francesco (Fra Ambrogio, b. 1477–d. 1527/1528), and Girolamo (b. 1488–d. 1566). Andrea and Giovanni are the best-studied among these artists, while the others long suffered from general neglect owing to their geographically disperse activity and a perception that production quality fell with the later generations. Similarly under-studied are two final artists who made glazed sculptures: the Florentine Benedetto Buglioni (b. 1459/1460–d. 1521), who likely trained under Andrea and opened his own shop around 1480, and his adopted ward, Santi Buglioni (b. 1494–d. 1576). Recent scholarship has illuminated the ongoing efforts of the later artists in both families to integrate workshop traditions forged under Luca with new contexts and artistic innovations, all while serving patrons ranging from Franciscan friars to King François I of France.

Recupero architettonico e strutturale del “mastio” e del suo cortile della fortezza nuova di Volterra

Architectural and structural recovery of “mastio” and its courtyard of the new fortress of VolterraThe recovery of the “mastio” and the surrounding courtyard of the new fortress of Volterra (1472-1474) has as its objective the opening to the public of this fortified work, after 542 years from its construction, with the possibility of being enjoyed without interposing with the prison function of the complex, it also represents the possibility of knowledge and study of a constructive typology in the context of the Renaissance fortified architecture of the Italian school called “transition” with the use of the first artillery. The fortress was born as a military garrison and at the time of Lorenzo the magnificent only a part was used as a prison, it will be definitively transformed into a House of Imprisonment during the Grand Duchy of Lorraine in the middle of the eighteenth century. It is the first work by Francesco di Giovanni di Matteo called the Francione (1428-1495), it has an almost square shape with large cylindrical towers at the corners (rondelle) and at the center of the inner courtyard, a large cylindrical tower like of “mastio” (donjon) and inserted the artillery in the walls. The “mastio” consists of a basement and five floors above ground with a domed roof and connected by a narrow spiral staircase. After the cognitive essays carried out on the internal domes of the “mastio”, placed in the first three floors including the cistern, the presence of “hemispherical domes” emerged, made by workers of the Opera del Duomo in Florence, built entirely in bricks without the carpentry of “centina” (self-supporting), with the system called “alla fiorentina”, as well as the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi. This construction system is also applied in the fortified structures of Pietrasanta, Poggibonsi, Sarzanello, Castrocaro, Pisa and Terra del Sole.

The Vanishing Point

Filippo Brunelleschi was a pivotal figure in the Renaissance. He designed and constructed the dome of the cathedral in Florence whose size has only been surpassed using modern building materials. Even more influential was his invention of single-point perspective as a technique for producing geometrically realistic paintings. His methods were disseminated by Alberti and developed by painters such as Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca. Chapter 12 provides a simple explanation of how a perspective grid is constructed and discusses examples of its use, including Raphael’s School of Athens.

DIMENSÕES FÍSICAS, GEOMETRIA, PERSPECTIVA, FILOSOFIA E ARTE

A ideia de um espaço tridimensional começou a se formar no século XV. Antes disso, em um mundo dominado pelo aristotelismo, o espaço era vinculado à superfície e não ao volume. Foi através das artes que essa realidade começou a mudar. A perspectiva racional, definida aqui como um recurso gráfico que utiliza o efeito visual de linhas convergentes para criar a ilusão de tridimensionalidade do espaço e das formas representadas sobre uma superfície plana de um papel ou tela, nascida a partir de uma retomada da geometria euclidiana, entrou em cena para ficar no século XVI. Entre os muitos nomes que poderiam ser citados, destacaram-se o matemático e filósofo John Dee, o arquiteto e designer Filippo Brunelleschi, e o pintor e matemático Pierro della Francesca. Através da combinação das ideias e realizações desses três atores é possível entender uma época de transição entre o antigo e o moderno, em termos de ciência e arte.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Espaço tridimencional. Geometria. Perspectiva racional. Filosofia e arte. ABSTRACTThe idea of a three-dimensional space began to form in the fifteenth century. Before that, in a world dominated by Aristotelianism, space was bound to the surface and not to the volume. It was through the arts that this reality began to change. The rational perspective, defined here as a graphic resource that uses the visual effect of converging lines to create the illusion of three-dimensionality of space and forms represented on a flat surface of a paper or canvas, born from a resumption of Euclidean geometry, came into the scene to stay in the sixteenth century. Among the many names that could be cited were the mathematician and philosopher John Dee, the architect and designer Filippo Brunelleschi, and the painter and mathematician Pierro della Francesca. By combining the ideas and achievements of these three actors it is possible to understand a time of transition between the old and the modern, in terms of science and art.KEYWORDS: Three-dimensional space. Geometry. Rational Perspective. Philosophy and Art.

Imaging the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore using cosmic rays

The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence Cathedral, was built between 1420 and 1436 by architect Filippo Brunelleschi and it is now cracking under its own weight. Engineering efforts are under way to model the dome's structure and reinforce it against further deterioration. According to some scholars, Brunelleschi might have built reinforcement structures into the dome itself; however, the only known reinforcement is a wood chain 7.75 m above the springing of the Cupola. Multiple scattering muon radiography is a non-destructive imaging method that can be used to image the interior of the dome's wall and therefore ascertain the layout and status of any iron substructure in it. A demonstration measurement was performed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on a mock-up wall to show the feasibility of the work proposed, and a lightweight and modular imaging system is currently under construction. We will discuss here the results of the demonstration measurement and the potential of the proposed technique, describe the imaging system under construction and outline the plans for the measurement. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Cosmic-ray muography’.

Aux commencements de la perspective : section ou projection ?

La projection est-elle l’autre nom de la perspective centrale ? Incontestablement; mais si la méthode est bel et bien à l’oeuvre chez les artistes dès le 15e siècle, il ne faudra pas moins de deux siècles pour la nommer comme telle. Nous tenterons de comprendre sur quoi repose pareil décalage entre un nom (la projection) et sa pratique (la perspective). L’article se propose de définir la méthode projective en remontant aux sources des premières mises en perspective au 15e siècle, afin de rendre compte du rôle déterminant du miroir dans les nouvelles images. Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti et Jan van Eyck sont les principales figures de la transformation de la perspective en méthode projective.

Perspectiva naturalis y perspectiva artificialis: los aportes de la óptica y catóptrica en el desarrollo del sistema perspectivo de Filippo Brunelleschi

Entre 1416 y 1424 aproximadamen-te, el arquitecto, escultor e ingeniero floren-tino, Filippo Brunelleschi, hizo la primera demostración de la que se tiene noticia de una pintura en correcta perspectiva matemática. Si bien estos datos son recogidos por distintas fuentes, ninguna de ellas aclara el medio por el cual llega a la deducción de los principios de este sistema. En el presente artículo argu-mentaremos que la óptica, cuya autonomía como ciencia es alcanzada de manera defi-nitiva hacia mediados del siglo XIII, tuvo un rol crucial en el desarrollo del método perspectivo de Brunelleschi. Intentaremos esclarecer también el rol que el espejo cumplió en su demostración así como los principios básicos de la catóptrica aplicados en la misma.