Solitary

cavetocanvas:

Giotto’s (?) Campanile design for Florence c. 1334

This is an extremely rare document that shows what appears to be the design for the Florence campanile (bell tower). It was found in Siena, and art historians have essentially no idea how it got there. It has been proposed that this drawing was done by Giotto who designed the campanile; however, the existing bell tower is more pictorial than this design suggests. During this time, painters were often called in as architects and builders without any sort of training; as a result, structural problems often plagued their architecture, including the campanile at Florence. Giotto worked on the design of the campanile until his death in 1337; afterwards, Andrea Pisano and Franceso Talenti stepped in and took over until its completion in 1359.

(via impossiblegeometry)