Filarete

Filarete, Antonio actually Averlino (* around 1400 in Florence; ? † around 1469 in Rome ) was an Italian sculptor, engineer, architect and architectural theorist of the Renaissance; Averlino gave himself the Greek name Filarete (virtue friend).

Life history

Filarete 's probably born in Florence where he started his artistic career, possibly in the workshop of Ghiberti. His first job as a sculptor he received from Pope Eugene IV, for which he. 1433-1445, a bronze portal for old St Peter created, which was later incorporated as the main portal to the new building of St. Peter. After a stay in Florence ( 1448 ) and Venice, he was appointed on the recommendation of Piero de 'Medici by Francesco Sforza to Milan. Filarete was instrumental in its ambitious project of urban transformation of Milan. The stay in Milan was interrupted only by two construction projects Filarete in Bergamo and Venice. Little has been done about his plans, but his construction plans and his architectural treatise are the architecture of the Renaissance and the Baroque town planning is of particular importance.

Work

Filarete Trattato d' architettura ( architectural treatise ) in 25 volumes was 1460-1464. It is Piero de ' Medici devoted. In the literary form of an allegorical novel, the ideal city Sforzinda is described. The city is equipped among other things with weird constructions, such as a ten-story tower of virtue and vice - a brothel - in whose attic is an astronomical observatory located. In addition, issues of equipment and decoration of houses, the building material, the use of machinery and the usual construction techniques of the time are discussed, treated equally fundamental questions of engineering and fortress building. The book was distributed in copies and printed for the first time in the 19th century.

Vasari sneers about the book and considers it one of the silliest books ever written. Alberti's satire Speculum Principis directed against Filarete's treatise may. The current classification is significantly more positive: Filarete's merit consists in the introduction of plans that describe the building in its entirety. These opposite the medieval building practice fundamental innovation makes the construction of a building comprehensible manner, the construction can be carried out even in the absence of the master builder. Filarete differs also by Brunelleschi, who developed all building parts of geometric shapes.

A designed on the basis of his ideal plans city is Palma Nova in the province of Udine.