Elizaveta A. Titova
(Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia)

The Problems of the Renaissance Church Architecture in the Treatises by Antonio Filarete and Francesco di Giorgio: the Development of Basilical and Central Plan.

In the 15th century the hierarchy in the sacred architecture was deeply reviewed: new types appeared, the old ones were reconsidered. Results of theoretical research in this field were presented by Antonio Filarete in his “Treatise on Architecture” (1461 — 1464) and by Francesco di Giorgio in the “Treatise on Architecture, Engineering and Military Art” (1470 — 1490). Francesco di Giorgio was one of the first renaissance theorists, who described basilical plan church in details. He based on Vitruvian anthropomorphic approach to determine the proportions of the temple plan, when he experimented with proportions of different elements of longitudinal plan and also dealt with churches of a basilical plan with enlarged eastern part. Following Alberti, architectural theorists of the 15th century gave much attention to centrally planned buildings. Francesco di Giorgio developed a plan of completely central church, crowned by a cupola and encircled by a colonnade. Inspired by the sacred architecture of Milan and of St Mark’s, Filarete described in his treatise the central Greek cross plan. The Temple in his ideal city of Sforzinda was designed as a cross-shaped hall with campaniles on four sides, inscribed in a square and crowned by an octagonal dome. Planimetric ideas of Filarete and Francesco di Giorgio were closely connected with Alberti’s theory, architectural ideas of Leonardo da Vinci and projects of Brunelleschi, Bramante, Antonio and Giuliano da Sangallo.