Palazzo Ruccelai essays

Palazzo Ruccelai essays The Palazzo Ruccelai was one of the first works by Leon Battista Alberti. He was an Italian architect, architectural theorist, and universal genius. Albert was the most important early Renaissance architect after Filippo Brunelleschi (Gympel, 44). The "Palazzo" originated in Florence. The monumental private building is derived from "palatium." This Latin word comes from the Roman hill which Emperor Augustus and his successors lived. During the 13th and 14th centuries, many of Italian towns were destroyed during the power struggles. This explains why the exterior of the Early Renaissance palaces were dark, defensive, raw and uninvited (Gympel, 44). Construction on the Palazzo Ruccelai began somewhere between 1455 and 1460. Leon Batista Alberti designed the original Palace to have five bays, the center being where the door was located. Later on, two more bays were added by someone else (class notes 1/19/00). There are three stories on this building. Each story is equal in height and rustication is uniform. This "evenness" is what gives the Renaissance its name. Most buildings made at this time have similar attributes. Each story has its own column capital to it. The ground floor has the Tucson order, the middle floor has Alberti's own design, and the top floor has the Corinthian order. I thought in Leon Battista Alberti's treaty, The Ten Books of Architecture, I would find out what each of the column capitals meant to him, but all I could find is dimension requirements for each order. The Colosseum has similarities with the Palazzo Ruccelai also. I believe some of Alberti's ideas came from at least the columns. It has a similar placement of the columns. They both have the Tucson order on the ground story, and the Corinthian on the top story. Where the Palazzo Ruccelai has the composite though, the Colosseum has the Ionic (Kostof 207). I wish I could find what was on the inside of this building. This could ...