The word Renaissance originally meant rebirth or resurrection. Back then, when people praised a poet's work, they said it was as beautiful as the works of masters from the classical age.
There was a man named Philippe Brunelleschi. The son of a Florentine notary, he changed careers and became an architect at the age of forty-one. In that age which liberated human imagination, it seemed effortless to produce many such people—engineers, architects, mathematicians.
At the time, the Basilica of Santa Reparata was not only old and dilapidated, but Italian cities were also undergoing tremendous changes. The more people longed for the glory of the Roman Empire, when Italy had once been the center of civilization in that distant past, the more keenly they felt the decline that had followed the invasions of the Goths and Vandals from the Germanic tribes, who had shattered the Roman Empire. People blamed that "intermediate age" and called it the "Middle Ages." The ideas of "revival" and "magnificent Rome" were closely intertwined. Building new landmarks could not only display a nation's strength and honor, but also transform the face of a city. This was especially true for commercial cities like Florence, where people hoped to see an astonishingly fashionable international style.
When construction began in 1295, the Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari was built on the former site of Florentine Cathedral, taking more than a century to complete. Beside the Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari stood the baptistery, which had already been completed in the seventh century and was later remodeled into a white octagonal structure. Florence's children were all baptized there, including Dante and Machiavelli. Bronze reliefs depicting stories from the Old Testament were carved on the baptistery, and Michelangelo called them the "Gates of The Paradise."
Construction on the