Brunelleschi didn’t just design the dome of Florence’s cathedral. By reviving “the ancient Roman style,” he invented Renaissance architecture itself.
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) is best known for designing the great dome atop Florence’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, one of the largest churches in the world.
When the building was constructed in the 1300s, an opening was left for a dome, measuring about 50 meters (165 feet) across. But that opening stayed empty for fifty years, covered over by a wooden roof. A dome of that size had never been built anywhere in the world, and its construction would be extremely difficult and dangerous.
That task was left to Brunelleschi. Beginning in 1420, construction took sixteen years, resulting in the largest masonry dome in the world. Built with millions of bricks, it still towers above the skyline of Florence, and its completion set off a wave of “Renaissance optimism.” It encouraged people in Florence to believe they could accomplish anything.
Brunelleschi’s biographer, who knew him in person, was Antonio di Tucci Manetti, and we can still read his Life of Brunelleschi today.
According to Manetti, Brunelleschi set off to Rome in 1402, with his friend Donatello, to study the remains of Roman architecture. His goal was to recover the secrets and proportions of ancient architecture by making detailed drawings, taking measurements, and studying the proportions of Roman buildings — or what was left of them.
Manetti describes how the pair spent months in Rome, surveying the buildings. They even built their own devices for making measurements. Local residents referred to them as “treasure hunters” — but the only treasure they sought was the lost knowledge of ancient architecture.
In Manetti’s words, Brunelleschi “decided to rediscover the fine and highly skilled method of building and the harmonious proportions of the ancients.” Brunelleschi also studied the classical forms of architecture, which he would later use in his own buildings.
Brunelleschi’s work reveals him as an intellectual revolutionary. Starting with Brunelleschi, Rome was the one destination that all Renaissance architects sought out. It was “the ultimate standard of reference” for emulation and inspiration. By studying the proportions and methods of earlier architecture, Brunelleschi created Renaissance architecture all’antica — in the ancient style — and all the great Renaissance architects who came later followed in his footsteps.
Importantly, Brunelleschi’s quest was in harmony with the goals of Renaissance humanism: to recover the lost knowledge of antiquity, in order to create a better, more humane, and civilized world, to heal the fractures of Italian society.
And this is exactly the way that humanists and Renaissance architects interpreted Brunelleschi’s work: as a creative renewal of classical principles in architecture, which ran parallel to the humanist project itself.
While Brunelleschi designed several buildings in Florence, the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence is certainly the most grand and harmonious expression of his “New Roman Style.”
Built on the site of a much smaller basilica — supposedly the oldest church in Florence — Brunelleschi’s masterpiece was completed shortly after his death. What makes the structure compelling are the bright, Corinthian columns, soaring in a perfect mathematical harmony that embraces and defines the dimensions of the entire nave.
In addition to designing the dome and creatively rediscovering ancient architecture, Brunelleschi did something else that would define the Renaissance: he also discovered the principle of linear perspective, which would go on to transform Renaissance art.
In San Lorenzo, Brunelleschi took the idea of “perspective” out of the two-dimensional world and showcased it in three-dimensional space. This creates a sensation in which every part of the structure is harmonized into a greater whole, through the mathematical proportions on which the interior is based.
This was meant to affect the viewer directly, just as Gothic churches were designed to do. The desired effect, though, was entirely different.
Renaissance humanists and architects both rejected the Gothic, for two main reasons. But you don’t need to agree with this rejection to understand the humanist way of thinking.
First of all, in the humanist mind, it was the invasion of the Gothic tribes that brought about the fall of the Roman Empire and the loss of classical knowledge. This is exactly the condition that the humanists were trying to reverse with their Renaissance movement of renovatio: recovering and restoring the wisdom, knowledge, and culture of the classical world.
Second, the term Gothic was invented and used as a pejorative. Humanists and Renaissance architects did not like Gothic architecture. They wanted to move beyond it because it departed so greatly from the classical norms of clarity, balance, and proportion — the very qualities they wanted to revive from Roman architecture.
Gothic cathedrals, for example, minimize the human. They focus on an overwhelming, vertical scale, to emphasize the transcendent and eclipse the individual. Gothic churches draw the eye upward toward heaven, with soaring vaults and colored light filtered through stained glass. They were designed to overwhelm the senses and exalt the divine.
By contrast, San Lorenzo creates a horizontal and perfectly harmonious space filled with clear daylight. It invites contemplation and emphasizes the human scale. While walking down the nave, its beauty elevates the spirit, but we still feel rooted in this world. This reflected the humanist worldview: that human beings could understand and recreate divine harmony in earthly buildings.
San Lorenzo’s human-centered proportion and classical inspiration truly embodied the Renaissance spirit, and would influence architecture for centuries. It was a manifesto that reshaped architecture by blending ancient Roman elegance with Renaissance humanism.
To early visitors, San Lorenzo must have felt like another world. Gone was the Gothic twilight, the forest of pointed arches, the restless vertical pull toward heaven. In its place was light, clarity, and order — a calm geometry of columns and arches, each in perfect proportion, stretching out in harmonious rhythm.
This was not just a new style. It was a new way of thinking about space and about humanity’s place in the world. Brunelleschi’s design showed how a human scale could intersect with the sacred.
Brunelleschi moved in humanist circles, which surely influenced his thinking. To confirm this, shortly after his death, architects and writers celebrated San Lorenzo and Brunelleschi’s work as a revival of the classical style and a rejection of the Gothic.
One of Brunelleschi’s closest humanist friends was Niccolò Niccoli — an eccentric yet massively influential book collector and thinker in Florence. According to a vivid firsthand account, Niccoli was obsessed with ancient architecture, which he praised in the strongest possible terms. When he spoke about it, he waved his arms wildly in the air, making it hard to believe he did not share these ideas with Brunelleschi. Given his passion, there can be little doubt that Niccoli also hoped to see classical architecture revived.
In addition to knowing Niccoli and other humanists, Brunelleschi became friends with Leon Battista Alberti, the second great Renaissance architect, who also studied in Rome. The two are even pictured together in a portrait.
Alberti was fully dedicated to classical architecture and the revival of the Roman style. In his comprehensive treatise On the Art of Building in Ten Books, he did not mention the Gothic style even once. Alberti deliberately excluded the “modern” Gothic as unworthy of discussion. But in his earlier work On Painting, Alberti published Brunelleschi’s rules of linear perspective for the first time. He also dedicated the book to Brunelleschi, in recognition of his groundbreaking achievements.
Writing just twenty years after Brunelleschi’s death, the Italian architect Filarete made one point repeatedly in his Treatise on Architecture (1464): the Gothic style was barbarous and un-Italian, and it was Brunelleschi who restored good architecture in the Roman style.
This view was echoed later by the great art historian and humanist Giorgio Vasari, who affirmed that the Renaissance was a revival of classical ideals — and firmly rejected the Gothic. According to Vasari, the Gothic was the invention of architects from “barbarous nations,” until “better artists” returned to “the purer” and less confusing style of the classical. For Vasari, too, it was Brunelleschi who revived the classical tradition.
What this shows is that there was both an “inner” and “outer” dimension to the Italian Renaissance. The inner dimension began with Petrarch and the humanists, who sought to restore the soul of culture by recovering the ethical, philosophical, and literary wisdom of the ancient world.
But the “outer” dimension began with Brunelleschi and his circle, who revived classical architecture and introduced new ways of seeing, like linear perspective. Their work transformed not just how buildings and paintings were made, but how people saw the world.
If Petrarch taught people how to think like the ancients, Brunelleschi taught them how to build like the ancients. His revival of Roman principles in physical form gave tangible shape to humanist ideals, anchoring them in the world of space, stone, and light.
Together, these inner and outer dimensions created a culture that pursued both intellectual insight and architectural beauty. It was a Renaissance that touched the soul and reshaped the world.
David Fideler explores the role of philosophy and the humanities in modern life. He’s the founder of the Renaissance Program and edits the Living Ideas Journal. His book on the Stoic philosopher Seneca has been published in over 15 languages. Originally from the United States, he now lives in Europe.
To learn more about Brunelleschi, Renaissance humanism, and the ideas that shaped the art and architecture of the Renaissance, we invite you to explore the Renaissance Program in Florence, taking place in March 2026. The program will feature lectures, presentations, and guided visits to many significant Renaissance sites, including the Basilica of San Lorenzo.
The Renaissance Program in Florence. Experience five incredible days in Florence, Italy. Learn in person about “The Energizing Ideas Behind the Italian Renaissance.” Read more >>
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