"Located on the southern flank of the great Franciscan church, the Pazzi Chapel was begun after 1442 although an agreement with Brunelleschi may have been made more than a decade earlier...the Pazzi Chapel was designed with a twelve-ribbed hemispherical dome on pendentives above a square extended into an oblong by the addition of barrel-vaulted bays on two of its sides. In keeping with its function as a chapter house, a low bench runs along the walls of the room; opposite the entrance a smaller altar chapel, square and domed, opens from the eastern wall. Similar to the Old Sacristy, but more intricate in pattern and more decorative in effect, is the clear-cut arch and pilaster articulation of the pale stucco walls, with framed circles afloat in spaces left free in the geometric system...

This small, brilliant structure represented a high point in early Renaissance style. Cerebral, rational, and serene, it was a marked contrast to the dynamics of Gothic architecture."

— Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. p286-7.

A personal reflection on drawing the Chapel...

"After the end of WWII in May 1945, Brit Army arranged for those of its members, stationed in Italy, awaiting demobilisation, and having the intention of eventually graduating as architects, to attend the Academy of Art in Florence for some preparatory training to enable them to fulfill the RIBA requirement of presenting Testimonies of Study.

"These were to be in the form of drawings based on measurements, made on site, of a building of architectural merit. George Vickers (now sadly deceased) and I chose Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel, and spent every afternoon, during our attendance at the Academy, measuring and preparing on site sketches.

"We were fortunate enough to find that the Della Robbia plaques, removed for safety during the war, were being replaced at the time and thus we were able to gain access to vertical internal measurements by using the contractors' ladders. Access externally to the roof was gained by the spiral staircase within the thickness of the adjoining wall of Santa Croce revealed to us by friendly clergy.

"George Vickers and I by strange coincidence met up at Sheffield University in the autumn of 1946 in the Department of Architecture, under Stephen Welsh, and eventually graduated in 1949.

"Having migrated to Western Australia in 1957, one of the drawings of the Pazzi Chapel, eventually prepared at University from the notes taken on site, now hangs, block printed, on the wall of my home in Perth, above a black and white photograph purchased during our pre-demobilisation studies. During several post-war visits to Italy I have made a point of renewing old memories by revisiting the Pazzi Chapel whenever I have been in Florence."

— Michael Williams, BA(Hons Arch Sheffield) FRAIA(ret'd) ARIBA(ret'd)