Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi was a Florentine architect, engineer, goldsmith and sculptor active in the early Italian Renaissance. Trained as a goldsmith, he entered the 1401 competition for a set of Florence Baptistery doors; the commission went to Lorenzo Ghiberti (the trial panels submitted by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti both survive in the Bargello in Florence). A pro-Brunelleschi tradition, first recorded by Antonio Manetti and echoed by Vasari, holds that the judges proposed to award the work jointly and that Brunelleschi declined; this account is contested and no joint execution ever took place. He then turned to architecture, studying the ruins of ancient Rome. He is best known for engineering the great brick dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, raised between 1420 and 1436 without traditional wooden centering, using hoisting machines of his own design. He is also credited with formulating the geometric principles of linear perspective. He died in Florence and was entombed in the cathedral.