The Life of Filippo Brunelleschi and his Contributions in the Field of Architecture

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In Florence, Italy a cathedral stands over the grave of its architect, Filippo Brunelleschi. The Cathedral of Florence that now serves as his monument was one of his largest architectural developments. Little is known about Filippo’s childhood because he was not very famous; however, later in life he made huge accomplishments in the field of architecture. Filippo Brunelleschi’s structures were considered glorious at the time and are still standing today.

Filippo Brunelleschi was born in 1377 in Florence, Italy. He had one older brother and one younger brother. His mom was Giuliana Spini and his dad was Ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi, who was a Florentine notary. Even though Brunelleschi never married, he had one adopted son, Buggiano. After Brunelleschi trained to be a sculptor and goldsmith, in 1398, he applied to make the bronze reliefs for the door of the Baptistery of Florence in 1401. Sometime around this time he picked up the nickname “Pippo” by his friends. He was competing against six sculptors, one of them being Lorenzo Ghiberti. Unfortunately, Filippo didn’t win; Lorenzo Ghiberti did. After he lost, Filippo decided to leave his sculpting and to focus on architecture, where he worked with gears, clocks, wheels, and weights and math. He became very successful in those two fields. He turned out to be an architect and a clockmaker, but he was still a goldsmith too. He was also the first engineer in the renaissance (“Filippo Brunelleschi 1377-1446”). He was the architect for the Cathedral of Florence, also called the Santa Maria del Fiore.

Later on, he started working on the Cathedral of Florence, one of his most prestigious works. He worked on the dome, which itself took about sixteen years to finish. Filippo barely got to...

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... how the arch rings fit within two sides of the octagon (King 106). People are still amazed by his dome and many of his other creations.

Filippo Brunelleschi’s magnificent buildings and churches are still standing today. This genius will always be remembered for his superb works and very helpful discoveries. If you think about it, art would be really boring, because everything would be flat, without linear perspective being discovered. How would have cartoonists make their cartoons look believable? Everything would be flat. If Filippo Brunelleschi didn’t exist you might not be watching movies in three dimensional. He could have been the only one to discover the correct formula for linear perspective. Even though nearly no one I know has heard of Filippo Brunelleschi, he is a very important person. How fun would movies or art be if Filippo Brunelleschi never lived?

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