Most gracious and honored fathers of the Church and gentlemen: A man can do all things if he will (Clark 104), by the grace of God. May it please you to consider with favor my hope to praise the divine essence with a facade design for Brunelleschi's basilica of San Lorenzo that will celebrate the heavenly perfection and beauty that it pleases God to allow me to reflect in his name.
My good lords, Master Brunelleschi has used simple and straight forms, as well as perfect symmetry, precise as the pure forms and harmonies of architecture, to construct San Lorenzo. The church in its supreme geometry carries out the theories and principles of perfection in architecture and the ideal of proportion in the universe. The church building is sturdy, according to scientific principles of perspective, but it does not have the deceptive complexity of Gothic art. It recalls the simplicity of the fine basilica designs (Heydenreich 114) of the early Church in Rome, an example to us all.
The church is not on so massive a scale that it towers above every building in the city; that honor is reserved for Santa Maria del Fiori. Nor does it have the same features as a cathedral in the French style. For example, although it has a pitched roof and a suggestion, from the exterior, of a clerestory, it does not have north and south towers on the exterior between the atrium and nave. Rather, San Lorenzo, is on a manageable scale. And there are features that it does not have--such as the extreme decorative detail of the French cathedral schools--that give it a lightness and spaciousness. It is this idea that will be used in decorating the facade of the cathedral.
There are two factors that provide San Lorenzo with its feeling of openness and spaciousness. The first factor that provides San Lorenzo with its feeling of openness and spaciousness is the willingness of Brunelleschi to leave a good deal of wall space undecorated, where "decorated" refers to orna...