 Giotto's bell tower seen from the top of the Duomo. Giotto’s bell tower (campanile) stands on the Cathedral square (Piazza del Duomo) in Florence, Italy. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2218x3327, 6373 KB) Giottos belltower (campanile) in Florence, Italy. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2218x3327, 6373 KB) Giottos belltower (campanile) in Florence, Italy. ...
St. ...
Florences skyline Florences skyline at night from Piazza Michaelangelo Florence (Italian: ) is the capital city of the region of Tuscany, Italy. ...
This bell tower is one of the showpieces of the Florentine gothic style. Standing isolated next to the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore and in front of the Baptistery of St. John, this splendid construction attracts the eye and the admiration of every art lover by its design, rich sculptural decorations and the many-coloured marble encrustations. The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is the cathedral church, or Duomo, of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Florence, noted for its distinctive dome. ...
The Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistery of St John) is believed to be the oldest building in Florence. ...
This slender structure stands on a square plan with a side of 14.45 meters (47.41 ft). It attains a height of 84.7 meters (277.9 ft) sustained by four polygonal buttresses at the corners.[1] These four vertical lines are crossed by four horizontal lines, dividing the tower in five levels. A buttress (and mostly concealed, a flying buttress) supporting walls at the Palace of Westminster Four different types of buttress: diagonal, on the statues plinth; an ordinary buttress supporting a flying buttress, to the right of the statue; a small ordinary buttress to the right side of the picture...
History
On the death in 1302 of Arnolfo di Cambio, the first Master of the Works of the Cathedral, and after an interruption of more than thirty years, the celebrated painter Giotto di Bondone was nominated as his successor in 1334.[1] At that time he was 67 years old. Giotto concentrated his energy on the design and construction of a campanile (bell tower) for the cathedral. He had become an eminent architect, thanks to the growing autonomy of the architect-designer in relation to the craftsmen since the first half of the 13th century. The first stone was laid on 18 July 1334. His design was in harmony with the polychromy of the cathedral, as applied by Arnolfo di Cambio, giving the tower a view as if it were “painted”. In his design he also applied chiaroscuro and some form of perspective instead of a strict linear drawing of the campanile. And instead of a filigree skeleton of a gothic building, he applied a surface of coloured marble in geometric patterns. The tabernacle over the high altar of St. ...
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July 18 is the 199th day (200th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 166 days remaining. ...
Events Births January 4 - Amadeus VI of Savoy, Count of Savoy (died 1383) January 13 - King Henry II of Castile (died 1379) May 25 - Emperor Suko of Japan, third of the Northern Ashikaga Pretenders (died 1398) August 30 - King Peter I of Castile (died 1369) James I of Cyprus (died...
Polychrome is one of the terms used to describe the use of multiple colors in one entity. ...
Filigree (formerly written filigrann or filigrane) is a jewel work of a delicate kind made with twisted threads usually of gold and silver. ...
When he died in 1337, he had only finished the lower floor with its marble external revetment: geometric patterns of white marble from Carrara, green marble from Prato and red marble from Siena. This lower floor is decorated on three sides with bas-reliefs in hexagonal panels, seven on each side. When the entrance door was enlarged in 1348, two panels were moved to the empty northern side and only much later, five more panels were commissioned from Luca della Robbia in 1437. The number “seven” has a special meaning in Biblical sense: it symbolizes human perfectibility. It is difficult to attribute artistic paternity to these panels, some may be by Giotto himself, the others by Andrea Pisano (or their workshops). Carrara is a city in the Massa Carrara province of Tuscany, Italy, famous for the white or blue-gray marble quarried there. ...
Prato is a city in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. ...
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. ...
Bas relief is a method of sculpting which entails carving or etching away the surface of a flat piece of stone or metal. ...
Luca della Robbia (1400-1482) was a Florentine sculptor noted for his terracotta roundels. ...
 the lower levels with the hexagonal panels, lozenges and statues. Through this work, Giotto has become, together with Brunelleschi (dome of the cathedral of Florence) and Alberti (with his treatise De re aedificatoria, 1450), one of the founding fathers of Italian Renaissance architecture. Filippo Brunelleschi, 1377 - 1446, was the first great Florentine architect of the Italian Renaissance. ...
Leone Battista Alberti (February 1404 - 25th April 1472), Italian painter, poet, linguist, philosopher, cryptographer, musician, architect, and general Renaissance polymath . ...
Giotto was succeeded as Master of the Works in 1343 by Andrea Pisano[1], famous already for the South Doors of the Baptistery. He continued the construction of the bell tower, scrupulously following Giotto’s design. He added, above the lower level of Giotto, a second fascia, this time decorated with lozenge-shaped panels (1347–1341). He built two more levels, with four niches on each side and each level, but the second row of niches are empty. Construction came to a halt in 1348, year of the disastrous Black Death. Andrea Pisano (c. ...
Illustration of the Black Death from the Toggenburg Bible (1411). ...
Pisano was replaced in his turn by Francesco Talenti who built the top three levels, with the large windows, completing the bell tower in 1359.[1] He did not build the spire designed by Giotto, thus lowering the designed height of 122 meters (400 ft) to 84.7 meters (277.9 ft) The top, with its breathtaking panorama of Florence and the surrounding hills, can be reached by climbing 416 steps.
Works of art All the present works of art in the campanile are copies. The originals were removed between 1965 and 1967 and are now on display in the Museum Opera del Duomo, behind the cathedral.
The hexagonal panels The hexagonal panels on the lower level depict the history of mankind, inspired by Genesis, starting with on the west side: - The creation of man and woman: Creation of Adam, Creation of Eva, Labours of our first parents
- The beginnings of “mechanical arts” and “creative arts” (according to the Bible): Jabal (animal husbandry), Jubal (music, harp and organ), Tubalcain (first blacksmith), Noah (first farmer). This series continues on the south side and the east side of the campanile.
 The heaxagonal panels on the east side (from left to right) Agriculture, Art of festivals and Architecture  Relief on the Campanile depicting the art of pottery. The Genesis panels are attributed to Andrea Pisano, except “Jubal” to Nino Pisano and “Tubalcain” to an assistant of Andrea Pisano.
The seven hexagonal panels on the south side show us Gionitus (Astronomy), the Art of Building, Medicine, Hunting, Wool-working, Phoroneus (Legislation), Daedalus (flight). They are again attributed to Andrea Pisano, except Gionitus and the Art of Building to his workshop, and Medicine and Phoroneus to Nino Pisano.
The east side only contains five panels, because of the entrance door. They depict the ‘liberal arts’: Navigation, Social Justice, Agriculture, Art of festivals and Euclid (architecture). The first three panels are attributed to Andrea Pisano, while the last two to Nino Pisano. "The Madonna and Child" in the lunette and the "Two Prophets and the Redeemer" on top of the gable above the entrance door, are both attributed to Andrea Pisano. In architecture, a lunette (diminutive of French lune, moon) is a half-moon shaped space, either masonry or void. ...
The House of the Seven Gables, Salem, Massachusetts, showing four gables in this view. ...
The north side hexagonal panels depict: Sculpture, Phidias (both moved to this side from the east side in 1347–1348), Painting, Harmony, Grammar, Logic and Dialectic (represented by Plato and Aristotle), Music and Poetry (represented by Orpheus), Geometry and Arithmetic (represented by Euclid and Pythagoras). The first panel is attributed to Andrea Pisano, the second to Nino Pisano, the others to Luca della Robbia. The last five panels were added after removal of the raised passageway between the campanile and the cathedral.
The lozenges The lozenges, on the next level, already show a different style: the marble figures stand out on a background of blue majolica. These allegorical representations are almost all attributed to Andrea Pisano or his school: Majolica is earthenware with a white tin glaze, decorated by applying colorants on the raw glazed surface. ...
- West side: The Planets — Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. (Venus and Mercury are attributed to Nino Pisano).
- South side: The three Theological and four Cardinal Virtues — Faith, Charity, Hope, Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude (Faith is attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello).
- East side: the seven "Liberal Arts" — Astronomy, Music, Geometry, Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, and Arithmetic. (Geometry and Rhetoruic are attributed to Andrea Pisano; the others, except Astronomy, are attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello).
- North side: the Seven Sacraments (represented realistically and not allegorically) — Baptism, Confession, Matrimony, Holy Order, Confirmation, the Eucharist, and the Extreme Unction. They are all attributed to Maso di Banco, except Matrimony, attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello.
The statues in the niches On the next level on each side there are four statues in niches They have been sculpted in different periods: - The four statues on the west side were sculpted by Andrea Pisano and date from 1343. These gothic statues are rather high-reliefs, left unfinished at the back. They represent the Tiburtine Sibyl, David, Solomon and the Erythraean Sibyl.
- The four Prophets on the south side are already more classical in style and date between 1334 and 1341. The statue of Moses and the fourth statue are atrributed to Maso di Banco.
- The four Prophets and Patriarchs on the east side date from between 1408 and 1421: the beardless Prophets by Donatello (probably a portrait of his friend, the architect Filippo Brunelleschi), the Bearded Prophet (perhaps by Nanni di Bartolo), Abraham and Isaac (by Donatello and Nanni di Bartolo) and Il Pensatore (the thinker) (by Donatello).
- The four statues on the north side were added between 1420 and 1435: Prophet (probazbly by Nanni di Bartolo, however signed by Donatello), Habacuc (a masterpiece of Donatello, a tormented and emaciated prophet, portraying Giovanni Chiericini, an enemy of the Medicis), Jeremias (by Donatello, portraying Francesco Soderini, another enemy of the Medicis), Abdias (by Nanni di Bartolo)).
Statue of Donatello outside the Uffizi, Florence. ...
The three top levels These levels were built by Francesco Talenti, Master of the Works from 1348 to 1359. Each level is higher than the lower one, so as, when seen from below, to look equal in height. The vertical windows open up the walls, a motif borrowed from the Siena campanile. Instead of a spire, Talenti built a large projecting terrace.
The reliefs, statues and decoration make a coherent whole when interpreted in terms of medieval scholastic philosophy.
References - Jepson, Tim (2001). The National Geographic Traveler Florence & Tuscany. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. ISBN 90-215-9720-9.
- (German) Wirtz, Rolf C. (2005). Kunst & Architektur, Florenz. Tandem Verlag GmbH. ISBN 3-8331-1576-9.
- Montrésor, Carlo (2000). The Opera del Duomo Museum in Florence. Florence, Italy: Mandragora. ISBN 88-85957-59-5.
- (German) von Schlosser, Julius (1896). Quellenbuch zur Kunstgeschichte des abendländischen Mittelalters. Ausgewählte Texte des vierten bis fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, gesammelt von Julius von Schlosser.. Wien, C. Graeser. ISBN 88-7166-096-X. (Describes the relations between Florentine art and medieval scholastic doctrines.)
- ^ a b c d Zucconi, Guido (1995). Florence: An Architectural Guide, 2001 Reprint, San Giovanni Lupatoto (Vr): Arsenale Editrice. ISBN 88-7743-147-4.
External links - Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 43.772895° 11.255235°
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