Renaissance - Rebirth of Classic Forms

The term Renaissance is drived from the Italian word for rebirth, 'rinascimento'.  As in art and literature, Renaissance architects, beginning in fifteenth-century Italy, took the rediscovered surviving documents and buildings of antiquity as inspiration. The church centered, mystical forms of medieval buildings were replaced by a scientifically ordered system based on humanistic ideals.

Renaissance architects eagerly tried to replicate the forms and decorative motifs of ancient Roman buildings, and started to codify rules of design and proportion. Columns, arches, and domes assembled in prescribed ways and using exact measurements were mandatory.

Renaissance design principles spread across Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, finally reaching Britain in the work of Inigo Jones in the 17th century.

The Medici palace and the famous dome on the cathedral of Florence are well known examples of pioneering Renaissance architecture.