Aristotele Fioravanti

• 1. Introduction

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  Ridolfo Fioravanti, known to history as Aristotele, was an Italian Renaissance architect and engineer. His surname also appears as Fieraventi, and Russian readers know him as Аристотель Фиораванти. He is remembered for a building far from his birthplace, raised in the Russian capital. Why would a master from Italy travel so far to build a church? Which earlier patrons had already trusted him with their towers and palaces? And how did his life end? The surviving accounts disagree, and one of them involves a prison.

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• 2. Bologna Roots

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  Bologna, around 1415, is where Fioravanti was born, into a family of architects and hydraulic engineers. Little is known about his early years. What is recorded is the reputation he earned in his home city. Bologna's noble families owned towers, and when those towers needed rebuilding, Fioravanti became renowned for the very innovative devices he used to do it. That skill with machinery and structure, rather than with decoration, set him apart. It also carried his name beyond Bologna, to patrons in other cities.

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• 3. Patrons Across Europe

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  Between 1458 and 1467, Fioravanti worked in Florence for Cosimo de' Medici the Elder, and in Milan. He then returned to his native Bologna. There he drew up the plans for the Palazzo Bentivoglio. He did not complete the building himself. Giovanni II Bentivoglio finished it, and the work ran from 1484 to 1494. In 1467 Fioravanti also took on work for King Matthias Corvinus in Hungary. His next patron ruled farther east still, and would offer him the largest commission of his career.

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• 4. The Dormition Cathedral

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  Ivan III, ruler of Moscow, invited Fioravanti to the city in 1475. The architect built the Dormition Cathedral there between 1475 and 1479. He did not ignore local tradition. His model was the Dormition Cathedral of Vladimir, a symbol of the center of the Russian Church. Yet he introduced new influences alongside it. This is the work for which he is best remembered. It is also considered evidence that Moscow attracted leading Italian masters. The same ruler who hired him may have found other uses for his talents.

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• 5. Two Accounts Of His End

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  Accounts of Fioravanti's final years do not agree. According to some, Ivan III threw him into prison after he asked to return to Italy, and he died in captivity. According to others, he served as a military engineer and artillery commander. These accounts place him in the campaigns against Novgorod in 1477-1478, against Kazan in 1482, and against Tver in 1485. All agree he died around 1486. If the second account is right, the Tver campaign came only about a year before his death.

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