born 1377, Florence [Italy] died April 15, 1446, Florence Florentine architect and engineer. Trained as a sculptor and goldsmith, he turned his attention to architecture after failing to win a competition for the bronze doors of the Baptistery of Florence, having tied with Lorenzo Ghiberti. He worked out the laws of linear perspective (later codified by Leon Battista Alberti). By the early 1420s Brunelleschi was Florence's most prominent architect. His major work, the octagonal dome of the cathedral (1420-36), was constructed with the aid of machines of his own invention. The Medici family commissioned him to design the (old) sacristy and basilica of San Lorenzo (begun 1421), considered keystones of the early Renaissance; he adhered to the conventional format while adding his own interpretation of antique designs for capitals, friezes, pilasters, and columns. His later monumental works foreshadowed the strong profiles and massive grandeur of the work of Alberti and Donato Bramante
born Dec. 22, 1876, Alexandria, Egypt died Dec. 2, 1944, Bellagio, Italy Italian-French writer, the ideological founder of Futurism. In early poetry such as Destruction (1904), he showed the vigour and anarchic experimentation with form that would characterize his later work. Futurism officially began with the 1909 publication of his manifesto in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. His ideas were quickly adopted in Italy, and he later elaborated on his theory in a novel and several dramatic works. Arguing that fascism was Futurism's natural extension, he became an active fascist and lost most of his following in the 1920s
born Dec. 22, 1876, Alexandria, Egypt died Dec. 2, 1944, Bellagio, Italy Italian-French writer, the ideological founder of Futurism. In early poetry such as Destruction (1904), he showed the vigour and anarchic experimentation with form that would characterize his later work. Futurism officially began with the 1909 publication of his manifesto in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. His ideas were quickly adopted in Italy, and he later elaborated on his theory in a novel and several dramatic works. Arguing that fascism was Futurism's natural extension, he became an active fascist and lost most of his following in the 1920s
born 1406, Florence died Oct. 8/10, 1469, Spoleto, Papal States Italian painter. In 1421 he became a Carmelite monk at Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, where Masaccio was soon decorating the Brancacci Chapel with frescoes. Lippi himself painted frescoes in the church, much influenced by Masaccio's, then disappeared from the monastery in 1432. In 1434 he was in Padua, but in 1437 he returned to Florence under the protection of the Medici family and was commissioned to execute several works for convents and churches. His Madonna and Child (1437) and Annunciation ( 1442) show a maturing style characterized by warm colouring and attention to decorative effects. Later critics have recognized in Lippi a "narrative" spirit that reflected the life of his time and translated into everyday terms the ideals of the early Renaissance. In 1456, while painting in a convent in Prato, he fled with one of the nuns, Lucrezia Buti. The couple was later released from their individual vows and permitted to marry, and from that union was born the illustrious Filippino Lippi. The former friar returned often to Prato, and his frescoes in the cathedral there stand among his finest achievements