Filippo di Ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi (Father: Ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi, Mother: Giuliana Spini)
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) was an Italian architect, designer, and engineer, widely considered the founding father of Renaissance architecture and the first modern engineer.
Born into a well-to-do Florentine family, Brunelleschi was initially trained as a goldsmith and sculptor. In 1401, he entered the famous competition to design the bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery but lost to Lorenzo Ghiberti. This defeat prompted him to pivot from sculpture to architecture. He reportedly traveled to Rome with his friend Donatello, where he meticulously studied ancient Roman ruins, analyzing their proportions and construction methods—knowledge that had been largely lost during the Middle Ages.
Brunelleschi’s most significant contribution to visual art was the rediscovery (or invention) of Linear Perspective around 1415. By using a single vanishing point, he provided artists with a mathematical method to depict three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface, a breakthrough that fundamentally changed Western art.
His magnum opus is the Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral). The cathedral had remained unfinished for decades because no one knew how to build a dome that wide (45 meters) without using wooden centering (scaffolding) to support it during construction. Brunelleschi devised a revolutionary double-shell design, using a herringbone brick pattern and a complex system of internal chains to make the dome self-supporting.
Other masterpieces include the Ospedale degli Innocenti (Foundling Hospital), which established the rhythmic, modular style of the Renaissance, as well as the Basilica of San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel. Upon his death, he was buried within the Cathedral of Florence, a high honor usually reserved for saints or nobility
Active in others filds : Engineering (invented hoisting machines for construction), Mathematics, Ship Design (The ‘Badalone’ transport vessel), Theatrical Machinery, Sculpture (Silver Altar of San Jacopo).
