Emulating Antiquity: Renaissance Buildings from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo

A revelatory account of the complex and evolving relationship of Renaissance architects to classical antiquity

Focusing on the work of architects such as Brunelleschi, Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo, this extensively illustrated volume explores how the understanding of the antique changed over the course of the Renaissance. David Hemsoll reveals the ways in which significant differences in imitative strategy distinguished the period’s leading architects from each other and argues for a more nuanced understanding of the widely accepted trope—first articulated by Giorgio Vasari in the 16th century—that Renaissance architecture evolved through a linear step-by-step assimilation of antiquity. Offering an in-depth examination of the complex, sometimes contradictory, and often contentious ways that Renaissance architects approached the antique, this meticulously researched study brings to life a cacophony of voices and opinions that have been lost in the simplified Vasarian narrative and presents a fresh and comprehensive account of Renaissance architecture in both Florence and Rome.

David Hemsoll is senior lecturer in the Department of Art History, Curating, and Visual Studies at the University of Birmingham.