FREE ESSAY ON PALAZZO RUCCELAI

PALAZZO RUCCELAI

The Palazzo Ruccelai was one of the first works by Leon Battista Alberti. He was an
Italian architect, architectural theorist, and universal genius. Albert was the most
important early Renaissance architect after Filippo Brunelleschi (Gympel, 44).
The Palazzo originated in Florence. The monumental private building is derived from
palatium. This Latin word comes from the Roman hill which Emperor Augustus and his
successors lived. During the 13th and 14th centuries, many of Italian towns were
destroyed during the power struggles. This explains why the exterior of the Early
Renaissance palaces were dark, defensive, raw and uninvited (Gympel, 44).
Construction on the Palazzo Ruccelai began somewhere between 1455 and 1460. Leon Batista
Alberti designed the original Palace to have five bays, the center being where the door
was located. Later on, two more bays were added by someone else (class notes 1/19/00).
There are three stories on this building. Each story is equal in height and rustication
is uniform. This evenness is what gives the Renaissance its name. Most buildings made at
this time have similar attributes.
Each story has its own column capital to it. The ground floor has the Tucson order, the
middle floor has Alberti's own design, and the top floor has the Corinthian order. I
thought in Leon Battista Alberti's treaty, The Ten Books of Architecture, I would find
out what each of the column capitals meant to him, but all I could find is dimension
requirements for each order. The Colosseum has similarities with the Palazzo Ruccelai
also. I believe some of Alberti's ideas came from at least the columns. It has a similar
placement of the columns. They both have the Tucson order on the ground story, and the
Corinthian on the top story. Where the Palazzo Ruccelai has the composite though, the
Colosseum has the Ionic (Kostof 207). I wish I could find what was on the inside of this
building. This could have some importance in the placement of the columns, but I came up
empty.
The exterior gives no consideration to what is inside the Palazzo Ruccelai. Each window
is the same, except for the two over the doors, which I could only think are used to
emphasize the entry into the Palazzo. The Palazzo Ruccelai is a building that can
continue to grow, as it has. It started with the original five bays, and two and a half
more were added. If there was enough space, even more could be added. The last bay not
being completed gives some indication of how this building can continue to grow.
The Palazzo Ruccelai is a very simply building. Everything is equal. Measurements would
be simple because everything is similar in design and dimension. I wish there was more
information on the Palazzo Ruccelai. I believe this is a very interesting building. Even
though the last bay is incomplete, I believe it gives it a very unique quality.
Bibliography
Alberti, Leon Battista. The Ten Books of Archtecture. 1755. New York: Dover Publications
Inc., 1986
Gympel, Jan. The Story of Archtecture: From Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge:
Goodfellow & Egan, 1996.
Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architeture: Settings and Rituals. 2nd Ed. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995.