Renaissance architects wanted to build like the ancient Romans. They measured ruins such as the Pantheon, read the Roman architect Vitruvius, and revived the classical orders, round arches, domes and, above all, clear proportions: simple ratios like 1 to 1 and 1 to 2 that make every part fit the whole.
- Filippo Brunelleschi built the first great Renaissance buildings in Florence in the 1420s, with round arches on slender Corinthian columns and spaces measured in simple ratios.
- Leon Battista Alberti designed church fronts based on Roman temples and triumphal arches.
- Andrea Palladio (1508 to 1580) built palaces, churches and country villas around Vicenza and Venice and published them in The Four Books of Architecture (1570), which spread his designs across Europe and to America.
Key idea
Why it works
Looking closely: Villa La Rotonda. Palladio designed this villa on a hilltop for a retired churchman, Paolo Almerico. The plan you see is a square with a round hall at its center under a dome, and an identical temple-front porch, with columns and a pediment, on each of the four sides, so the house looks the same from every direction and opens to views all around. Every room is measured to fit the whole like a puzzle. Palladio died before it was finished; Vincenzo Scamozzi completed it.
Palladio's book crossed the Atlantic. Thomas Jefferson owned it and drew on Palladian ideas, among others, for his house, Monticello, with its columned porch and central dome. You will meet it again in Neoclassicism.
Worked example: Renaissance or Gothic?
- Pointed arches and spires would mean Gothic.
- Columns, a pediment and round arches are classical.
- Symmetry and clear proportion fit the Renaissance.
Answer: Renaissance.
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