The Renaissance was aesthetically one of the most demanding and fascinating periods in the history of architecture. It developed out of Filippo Brunelleschi's Foundlings' Hospital in Florence and subsequently evolved into a pan-European phenomenon, the end of this period being marked by works by Carlo Maderno, Inigo Jones and Elias Holl. The style is based on rationality and clarity, the harmony of proportions and a balanced relationship between the individual and the whole. Influenced by Classical models, there was a growing awareness in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that something new could be created, something new that could be compared to the art of the ancient world.
As opposed to other works on Renaissance architecture, this publication does not focus solely on Italy with its buildings and urban areas in central and northern Italy and the palace architecture of Mantua and Urbino. The inclusion of the 'Italian architectural model' in the buildings of other European countries is also treated in depth. Readers can relish in a delightfully varied and often surprising panorama of Renaissance architecture reaching out from Italy to Germany, France, England, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Russia. This volume captures the rediscovery of harmony in architecture throughout Europe by focusing on the most impressive buildings and describing this development in exquisite photographs, numerous drawings and explanatory texts, placing the buildings in their appropriate architectural, cultural and historical setting. Interesting details about patrons, a building's specific requirements, its function and the impression it was intended to make are also discussed.