INTRODUCTION:

On being required to write my first critical book review for a higher level studies,
initially it was above my level of understanding, but after some struggle started
understanding the process of discipline. The most difficult part of assignment is
understanding what needs to be done, and how
The purpose of the critical book review for history is to share information about
an historical topic - it is not a book report that summarizes the content, it’s about
learning and understanding what historian is writing and why .And learning and
making our own interpretation from the source. It is like finding truth or
questioning what had been written and for what reasons.
The historical source under review is usually secondary that is it is about an
event in history that the author has contributed some new information. The
review is critical in that it discusses and evaluates the significance of this new
information. Writing a book review requires that you assess the books strengths
and weaknesses. We should also give our comments on the book.
Book reviewed of historian is to understand : who wrote it, why did they write it,
and what do they have to offer.
Here I am making an effort to understand and go through the process under my
limitation of knowledge
Here we have been given to review books on Brunelleschi's Dome on
Renaissance genius Brunelleschi, whose 1400 design revolutionized architecture
I have selected three well known historian of time, P et e r Mu rra y, He in rich
K lo t z , Ross King , and all of them are describing it very different ways , also
gives us direction to think on.

MANALI BHADRA : PD001714

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INDEX

1. Peter Murray…………………………………………3
2. Heinrich Klotz………………………………………..6
3. Ross King…………………………………………………..9

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Peter Murray(1377-1446)

Book: The architecture of the Italian renaissance

About Brunelleschi's what authors think?

Brunelleschi born in 1377 died 1446,, is usually credited with the creation of “the
renaissance style” in architecture , but this is subject to a number of reservations, it is
certain that he was the first man to begin to comprehended the structural system of
classical architecture and to adapt its principles to modern needs. He demonstrate their
cultural superiority by erecting a dome 138 feet across , while at the same time they
were well aware of the difficulties inherent in the undertaking of construction.
Brunelleschi learnt this from the study he had made during his various stays in Rome of
ancient roman construction

About Author:
Born: 1920 London, United Kingdom The younger Murray attended King Edward VI School,
Birmingham, and Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen, Scotland. Intent on becoming a painter,
Murray next studied at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen, and, in 1937 entered the Slade School
of Fine Art, University of London, graduating in 1940.

After World War II, his interest moved to art history. He was admitted to the University's
Courtauld Institute of Art where he received a B.A. (with honors) in 1947. The same year he
married a fellow Courtauld Institute student Linda Bramley, who, as Linda Murray would
collaborate on many of his later texts. He taught as a lecturer at the Courtauld and Birkbeck
College beginning in 1948, continuing to work on his Ph.D.

About his background:

Murray’s gift for languages--particularly German and Italian--and a strong appreciation for
historical literature, led to his first translation of what would be a number of seminal texts of art
history, Klassische Kunst, by Heinrich Wolffin in 1952. He received his Ph.D. from the Courtauld
in 1956 with a dissertation on the textual sources of Giotto's work.

Murray embarked on a sub-career of reference books in 1959 with his immensely

successful Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists, co-authored with his wife, which was frequently
updated and reissued. He was made Senior research fellow at the Courtauld in 1961. In 1963,
two substantial introductory texts appeared, The Art of the Renaissance, co-authored with
Linda, and what became a classic primer, The Architecture of the Renaissance.

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In 1985, he brought a second art history translation to light, Die Geschichte der Renaissance by
Jacob Burckhardt (q.v.).

Murray's expertise on the architect Bramante and his contention that the architect's work
explained most of 16th-century Italian architecture,

He never wrote the book (except for a printed piece, the resulted of a Charlton Lecture),
preferring to focus his energies on lectures and translations. The Murrays were working
together on a companion book to Christian iconography when he died suddenly. Throughout his
life, Murray was a devout Roman Catholic.

About his writings:

Murray’s art-history writing is today thought of primarily as introductory texts to art and
(scholarly) art histories for the reading public. He did not pander to publicity like many focused
on this readership, preferring lecturing and employing a simple, clear and relaxed manner. His
editions of other art histories, such as his Burckardt book, made this foreign art historian’s work
more accessible to the English reading public. Leopold Ettlinger characterized Murray as a
fastidious scholar whose contributions to the history of art had always been original, filling gaps
in the knowledge of fellow-scholars.

As an architectural historian, he held the belief--stronger than most--that classical antiquity was
the only way to understand and interpret Renaissance architecture, boldly asserting Bramante
as the key to understanding the whole of Italian sixteenth-century architecture. He was one of
the principal founder members of the Association of Art Historians.

 An Index of Attributions made in Tuscan Sources before Vasari. Floren e s h i

trans ate ith Murray in a ff in, Heinrich.
 Classic Art: An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance. The Phaidon Press, 1952;
 A History of English Architecture. Part II. New York: Arco Pub. Co. 1963; and Murray,
Linda.
 The Art of the Renaissance. New York : Oxford University Press , 1963;
 The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance. London: Batsford,1963; and Murray, Linda.
 The High Renaissance and Mannerism. London: Thames & Hudson, 1967; revised and
edited, Burckhardt, Jacob.
 The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1985;

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Why?:
Peter Murray's appropriately illustrated everything to the point and knowledge[1], guides the reader in
form of story very smoothly described and put his point and explain structure so simplify that any
person who don’t have any architectural background can also understand what he is talking about.[2]
Everything here is discussed to the point and elaborated appropriately, effortlessly leads the reader
through the story, Well-illustrated, undeniably useful and very readable.[3]

I n i t i a l l y h e w a s i n t e re s t e d t o w a r d s f i n e a rt s b u t a ft e r Wo r l d Wa r I I his interest moved

to art history. He was admitted to the University's Courtauld Institute of Art where he received a B.A.
(with honors) in 1947. And taught at Birkbeck College beginning in 1948, and focus on research in the
arts and humanities (1948-1980), during that period he translated many books of renaissance period.
And along with that he has done his PhD ON Giotto (1266-1337) who was Italian painter and architect
from Florence in the late Middle Ages , which inspired Murray towards the writing of renaissance period
and increased his knowledge and also Giotto was the first in line of great artists who contributed to the
Italian renaissance . From this we can make a judgment that Murray experience and background of
knowledge was the source for his writings in an elaborate manner.

[1] The architecture of the Italian renaissance , Peter Murray, pg32,1st p

[2] The architecture of the Italian renaissance , Peter Murray, pg35, 3rd p

[3] The architecture of the Italian renaissance , Peter Murray, pg41, 2nd p

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Heinrich Klotz (1935-1999)

Book: Filippo Brunelluschi , The early work s and the

medieval tradition

About Brunelleschi's what authors think?

Brunelleschi (1377-1446), a pioneer of the early Renaissance--the architect credited with
``overcoming the Gothic''--himself followed the Florentine Gothic tradition, according to this
challenging monograph. Supposedly the rediscovered of classical antiquity, this Florentine
builder-engineer used virtually no marble, a material beloved of the Greeks. Instead he built with
sandstone and covered his walls with plaster. In this amply illustrated study, originally a
postdoctoral thesis, Klotz ( 20th Century Architecture ) shows how Brunelleschi evolved an
elegant, transparent style by synthesizing classical, medieval, Gothic and Romanesque
elements. Among the projects analyzed with the aid of documentary photographs and plans is
Brune es hi’s ofty gent y urving ome for Florence Cathedral--predecessor of Michelangelo's
cupola for St. Peter's--plus the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo and the Barbadori Chapel in
Florence.

About :
Born in 1935, Heinrich Klotz first came into contact with postmodern architecture as a young
visiting professor in Yale in 1969-70. He was a professor at the University of Marburg as of
1972. From 1979 he headed Deutsches Architekturmuseum. The Cologne-based architect
s a Mathias Ungers as tas e ith housing DAM in a vi a ating from 2 The atter’s
onversion into the or ’s first ar hite ture museum ith programmati a y stri ing ar hite ture
elicited a strong global response. In 1989, Klotz moved to Karlsruhe where he established the
Center for Art and Media (ZKM) and the Design Academy. Klotz died in Karlsruhe on June 1,
1999.

Heinrich Klotz is Professor at the University of Marburg and Director of the German Architecture
Museum in Frankfurt, the most distinguished showcase of contemporary architectural
exhibitions in Europe. He is the author of 14 books, founder and editor ofArchitectura magazine,
the Jahrbuch fuer architecktur, and winner of the Schinkel prize of the German Society of
Architects.

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About his background:
Klotz focuses both on architects' individual projects and their work as a whole, combining
structural analysis with an assessment of programmatic and philosophical content. "Not only
function, but also fiction!” that is the guiding concept of this book. His approach leads quite
naturally to a gallery of celebrities from the modern as well as the postmodern period: Mies,
Kahn, Venturi, Moore, Ungers, Rossi, Stirling, Hollein, Gehry, Graves, Meier, Hedjuk,
Eisenman, Botta, Krier, and Stern among them.

Heinrich Klotz is one of Europe's leading architectural critics. In this panoramic work he
challenges popular notions of postmodernism as synonymous He seeks to clarify the
postmodern in other than stylistic, historic, or regional terms and identifies a long tradition of
canonical, "modern" buildings which were breaking ground for what would become
"postmodern" long before the word existed. His criteria for what defines postmodern will be
challenged, debated, and quoted by historians and architects alike. [4]

About his writings:

In this translation of an apparently unrevised post-doctoral thesis submitted in 1968, we are
given both a technical reading of critical aspects of Brunelleschi's style and a useful
consideration of his probable medieval sources

Klotz shows how Brunelleschi evolved an elegant, transparent style by synthesizing classical,
medieval, Gothic and Romanesque elements; we are given both a technical reading of critical
aspects of Brunelleschi's style and a useful consideration of his probable medieval sources.
Klotz freshens our perception of Brunelleschi's genius by more insistently embedding it within a
tradition of Romanesque and Gothic practice.

1. The History of Postmodern Architecture

2. 20th Century Architecture: The Frankfurt Museum Collection

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Why?:

K otz has riti a y es ribe Brune es hi’s or s he a ays try an give examp e to prove his
points(As in his book of 175 pages he has around 198 footnote to prove his points), klotz
explains both architect and its building both in terms of construction and evolution and
something it is observed that Klotz while describing something lose his way and go on to the
other track explaining other building which is not relevant. Sometime it is difficult to relate what
he is talking about, Klotz is difficult to read and understand at once , need to read at least twice
to go along the flow of his writings , but he had really explain each and every part of the dome
from its concept till it got constructed and how many people was involved in it .His writings are
very intense.

[4] The History of Postmodern Architecture by Heinrich Klotz,

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Ross King

Book:Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented

Architecture
. About Brunelleschi's what authors think?
Filippo Brunelleschi's design for the dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence
remains one of the most towering achievements of Renaissance architecture. Completed in
1436, the dome remains a remarkable feat of design and engineering. Its span of more than 140
feet exceeds St Paul's in London and St Peter's in Rome, and even outdoes the Capitol in
Washington, D.C., making it the largest dome ever constructed using bricks and mortar. The
story of its creation and its brilliant but "hot-tempered" creator is told in Ross King's delightful
Brunelleschi'sDome.

Both dome and architect offer King plenty of rich material. The story of the dome goes back to
1296, when work began on the cathedral, but it was only in 1420, when Brunelleschi won a
competition over his bitter rival Lorenzo Ghiberti to design the daunting cupola that work began
in earnest. King weaves an engrossing tale from the political intrigue, personal jealousies,
dramatic setbacks, and sheer inventive brilliance that led to the paranoid Filippo, "who was so
proud of his inventions and so fearful of plagiarism," finally seeing his dome completed only
months before his death. King argues that it was Brunelleschi's improvised brilliance in solving
the problem of suspending the enormous cupola in bricks and mortar (painstakingly detailed
with precise illustrations) that led him to "succeed in performing an engineering feat whose
structural daring was without parallel."

About:
Born and raised in Canada, Ross King has lived in England since 1992. His writing career
began in 1995 with the publication of a historical novel, Domino, about the world of
masquerades and opera in 18th-century London. Its successor Ex-Libris, was a novel about
bookselling, codes and spies in 17th-century Europe. King is best known to American readers
as the author of the nonfiction Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented
Architecture. The seed of the book was planted when King read a brief account of the building
of Brune es hi’s ome in Giorgio Vasari’s 6th-century Lives of the Artists. That, and a trip to
F oren e pique his interest in earning more about the ome hen he ou n’t fin a boo
that told him what he wanted to know, he decided to write it.

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About his writings:
Brunelleschi's Dome is the story of how a Renaissance genius bent men, materials, and the
very forces of nature to build an architectural wonder we continue to marvel at today.
Denounced at first as a madman, Brunelleschi was celebrated at the end as a genius. He
engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone, built ingenious hoists and cranes (among
some of the most renowned machines of the Renaissance) to carry an estimated 70 million
pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so
carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction—all the while defying those
who said the dome would surely collapse and his own personal obstacles that at times
threatened to overwhelm him. This drama was played out amid plagues, wars, political feuds,
and the intellectual ferments of Renaissance Florence— events Ross King weaves into the
story to great effect, from Brunelleschi's bitter, ongoing rivalry with the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti
to the near catpure of Florence by the Duke of Milan. King also offers a wealth of fascinating
detail that opens windows onto fifteenth-century life: the celebrated traditions of the
brickmaker's art, the daily routine of the artisans laboring hundreds of feet above the ground as
the dome grew ever higher, the problems of transportation, the power of the guilds

Why?
British novelist compiles an elementary introduction to the story of how and why Renaissance
Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) designed and oversaw the construction of the
enormous dome of Florencel--designing its curves so that they needed no supporting framework
during construction: a major Renaissance architectural innovation. Illustrated with 26 b&w
period prints, the book contains 19 chapters, some very brief, King overdoes the simplicity to the
point that the book appears unwittingly as if it was intended for young adults. Despite direct
quotes from letters and period accounts, the "would have," "may have" and "must have"
sentences pile up. Still, the focus on the dome, its attendant social and architectural problems,
and the solutions improvised by Brunelleschi provide enough inherent tension to carry readers
along.

King simply walks away from the subtitle's claim. Brunelleschi did indeed reinvent architecture,
but not with the magnificent engineering feat of spanning the transept of santa maria del fiore.he
has written 16 years period of brunelleschi , he gives quite big picture , but has weaved them
together ,his writings style is acessible ,but at some point king’s bias towards brunelleschi,
which can be certainly seen in some lines” fillopo is the best” . But king’s efforts are appreciated
,as to describe Brunelleschi in very simple story.

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Conclusion:
In my first attempt to do a critical book review, I can say that it has ignited the thinking
beyond, what has written by authors or the historian, describe them from our point of
view.

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