The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance - by Paul Robert Walker (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Joining the bestsellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, a lively and intriguing tale of two artists whose competitive spirit brought to life one of the world's most magnificent structures and ignited the Renaissance

The dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore, the great cathedral of Florence, is among the most enduring symbols of the Renaissance, an equal to the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Its designer was Filippo Brunelleschi, a temperamental architect and inventor who rediscovered the techniques of mathematical perspective. Yet the completion of the dome was not Brunelleschi's glory alone. He was forced to share the commission with his archrival, the canny and gifted sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti.

In this lush, imaginative history--a fascinating true story of artistic genius and personal triumph--Paul Robert Walker breathes life into these two talented, passionate artists and the competitive drive that united and dived them. As it illuminates fascinating individuals from Donatello and Masaccio to Cosimo de'Medici and Leon Battista Alberti, The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance offers a glorious tour of 15th-century Florence, a bustling city on the verge of greatness in a time of flourishing creativity, rivalry, and genius.

From the Back Cover

A lively and intriguing tale of the competition between two artists, culminating in the construction of the Duomo in Florence, this is also the story of a city on the verge of greatness, and the dawn of the Renaissance, when everything artistic would change.

Florence′s Duomo - the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral - is one of the most enduring symbols of the Italian Renaissance, an equal in influence and fame to Leonardo and Michaelangelo′s works. It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, the temperamental architect who rediscovered the techniques of mathematical perspective. He was the dome′s ′inventor′, whose secret methods for building remain a mystery as compelling to architects as Fermat′s Last Theorem once was to mathematicians. Yet Brunelleschi didn′t direct the construction of the dome alone. He was forced to share the commission with his arch-rival, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, whose ′Paradise Doors′ are also masterworks. This is the story of these two men - a tale of artistic genius and individual triumph.

Review Quotes

"Sure to bring such sheer pleasure to people interested in history, architecture and art that many of them will regard the book itself as a work of art. - BookPage