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Title: Character of Renaissance Architecture
Author: Moore, Charles Herbert
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Character of Renaissance Architecture" ***
ARCHITECTURE ***
CHARACTER OF
RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE
[Illustration]
CHARACTER OF
RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE
BY
CHARLES HERBERT MOORE
AUTHOR OF “DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTER OF
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE”
_WITH TWELVE PLATES IN PHOTOGRAVURE AND ONE HUNDRED
AND THIRTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT_
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1905
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1905.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO MY DAUGHTER
E. H. M.
PREFACE
In the following attempt to set forth the true character of the
architecture of the Renaissance I have endeavoured to reduce
mere descriptions of buildings to a minimum, and to give graphic
illustrations enough to make the discussions clear. The illustrations
in the text are mainly from my own drawings, for the most part from
photographs: but in a few cases I have reproduced woodcuts from the
works of old writers, indicating, in each case, the source from which
the cut is derived. The photogravure plates are from photographs by
Alinari, Moscioni, Naya, Wilson, and Valentine. The right to reproduce
and publish them has been obtained by purchase.
With the best intentions and the greatest care, it is almost inevitable
that a writer on such a subject should make some mistakes, and I cannot
affirm that no inexact statements will be found in these pages, but I
believe that no fundamental errors occur.
I am again indebted to my almost life-long friend, Professor Charles
Eliot Norton, for valuable criticism, and painstaking revision; but
Professor Norton is not responsible for anything that I have said. I am
indebted, also, to my publishers for their courteous compliance with my
wishes as to the style and manufacture of the book, and to Mrs. Grace
Walden for the care and thoroughness with which she has prepared the
index.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.,
October, 1905.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
Character of the Fine Arts of the Renaissance not hitherto
correctly set forth--The Fine Arts always an expression of
the conditions and beliefs of a people--Mediæval Christianity
as a source of artistic inspiration--Conditions that gave
character to the Fine Arts of the Middle Ages--Artistic
productions of the Renaissance qualified by the immoral
tendencies of the time--Luxury and extravagance of Florence
at the close of the fifteenth century--The Fine Arts made to
minister to sensuous pleasure--Best classic art unknown in
the Renaissance time--Mixed influences actuating the artist
of the Renaissance--The Renaissance and the Middle Ages
compared as to development of the individual--Lack of aptitude
for construction among the architects of the Renaissance--The
Italian genius for painting--The painter’s habits of design
shown in the Renaissance use of the orders--Classification of
architectural styles--Painting the best art of the
Renaissance--Yet Italian painting of the sixteenth century
is not all of exemplary character--Best art of the Renaissance
founded on the earlier Christian art--A retrospective movement
not a vital force in artistic development 1
CHAPTER II
THE DOME OF FLORENCE
Exhibits a wide departure from older dome constructions--Sources
of the architect’s inspiration--General character of earlier
domes--Remarkable construction of the dome of the Florentine
Baptistery--It probably supplied the chief inspiration to both
Arnolfo and Brunelleschi--Brunelleschi’s departures from the
Baptistery scheme--His structural system and his own account of
it--No Gothic character possible in a dome--The dome of Florence
a daring innovation--Its general dimensions--Brunelleschi’s
great ability as a constructor--His achievement of the work
without the usual centring--Consideration of the dome as a work
of art--The inherent weakness of its form--This not appreciated
by the early Italian writers--Precautions taken for its
stability--Signs of disintegration--Uncertainty as to its
duration--Opinions of the early Italian writers as to its
security--Structural integrity essential to good
architecture--No classic character in Brunelleschi’s
dome--Inferior character of the classic details of the lantern 10
CHAPTER III
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE
The Pazzi chapel--Gothic character of its central
vault--Architectural treatment of the interior--Impropriety of
a classic order in such a building--Awkward result of an
entablature passing through an arch impost--Incongruities of
design and construction in the portico--Use of stucco--Sources
from which the façade may have been derived--Other church
architecture by Brunelleschi--San Lorenzo and Santo
Spirito--Use of the entablature block in these
churches--Survival of mediæval features and adjustments--Church
architecture of Leon Batista Alberti--The façade of Santa Maria
Novella--The façade of San Francesco of Rimini--The church of
Sant’ Andrea of Mantua--Return to Roman models in the
structural forms of this building--Sant’ Andrea foreshadows St.
Peter’s at Rome--Its west front an adaptation of the Roman
triumphal arch scheme--Such fronts peculiar to Alberti--The
designers of the Renaissance worked unconsciously on a
foundation of mediæval ideas 26
CHAPTER IV
THE DOME OF ST. PETER’S
Bramante in Rome--His early training--Character of the
Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio--Its likeness to a Roman
temple of Vesta--Bramante’s project for St. Peter’s--Uncertainty
as to his scheme for the whole building--His design for the
great dome--Sources of his inspiration--Comparison of his dome
with that of the Pantheon--Structural merits and defects--The
architect’s probable intention to use a great order for the
interior of the church--Michael Angelo’s appointment as
architect--His scheme for the great dome--Its statical
defects--Its supposed Gothic character--Comparison with the
dome of Salamanca--Its illogical buttress system--Its ruptures
and the alarm which they occasioned--Commission appointed to
examine the fabric and report on its condition--Poleni’s
opinion and his binding chains--The grandiose character of the
dome--In following Brunelleschi, Michael Angelo went farther in
a wrong direction--Such a scheme cannot be safely carried out
without resort to extraneous means of support--The proper mode
of constructing a dome settled by the ancient Roman and the
Byzantine builders--Condition of the dome ignored by recent
writers--The ruptures attributed by the early Italian writers
to carelessness on the part of Bramante--The beauty of the
dome exaggerated--Its violation of structural propriety
incompatible with the highest architectural beauty 44
CHAPTER V
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMAN RENAISSANCE
Other parts of the church of St. Peter--Beauty of its
plan--This plan could not be carried out with a good result in
classic Roman details--Awkward makeshifts to which Michael
Angelo was led--The colossal order of the interior--The
magnitude of the structural parts of the church unavoidable--The
real character of the building contradicted by the external
order--Makeshifts which this order necessitated--The real
character of St. Peter’s has been rarely analyzed--Its grandeur
due to its magnitude and to what it derives from the design of
Bramante--Its incongruity and extravagance--Use of stucco in
the ornamentation of the interior--Extravagant laudation of the
building by the earlier Italian writers--Antonio San Gallo’s
project for St. Peter’s--Earlier examples of Roman Renaissance
church architecture--Sant’ Agostino a mediæval building with
Renaissance details--Its façade--Santa Maria della Consolazione
at Todi--Its attribution to Bramante--Irrational treatment of
its interior--Merit of the exterior in its larger features--San
Biagio at Montepulciano--The order of the interior--The
Renaissance use of a pilaster coupled with a column on the corner
of a building--Roman treatment of the corner--Instance of the use
of a corner pilaster described by Serlio--The exterior of San
Biagio--Its campanile and lantern--The evolution of this form of
tower--System of Santissima Annunziatta at Arezzo--Vignola, and
Milizia’s remarks on him--His book of architecture--His advocacy
of ancient Roman art and his disregard in practice of its
principles--His design for Sant’ Andrea di Ponte Molle--Its
derivation from the Pantheon--Vignola’s design for the church of
Santa Maria degli Angeli at Assisi--His design for the Gesù at
Rome--Aberrations of design in this work--The façade by Della
Porta--Palladio, and his great influence on modern art--His
book of architecture--His design for the church of San Giorgio
Maggiore at Venice--The Redentore and San Francesco della
Vigna 66
CHAPTER VI
PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE
The neo-classic ideas most extensively carried out in palatial
houses--Domestic architecture of the Middle Ages in Italy--The
Palazzo Riccardi--Its mediæval features--Its general form--Its
court arcades--General character of the interior--Vasari’s
remarks on the Riccardi--The Palazzo Pitti--The Strozzino--The
Strozzi--The Pazzi--The Quaratesi--The Guardagni and its
reasonable character--The Rucellai--Introduction of orders in
the façade of the Rucellai--The architect Alberti--His
archæological and literary tastes--Alberti’s initiative in the
use of the orders not immediately followed--Further neo-classic
innovations introduced by Baccio d’Agnolo--Milizia’s remarks on
these innovations--Increase in the spirit of display in
domestic architecture--Decline of Florentine ascendency by the
beginning of the sixteenth century--Artistic activities
transferred to Rome--Erection of sumptuous palatial houses in
Rome 102
CHAPTER VII
PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMAN RENAISSANCE
The Cancellaria--Its attribution to Bramante--Exhibits features
in further conformity with the Roman antique--Its pilasters in
pairs--Its projecting bays--Its portals--Arcades of its
court--The Palazzo Massimi--The functional order of its
portico--Treatment of the upper façade--The Palazzo
Farnese--Application of orders and pediments to the
windows--The broken entablatures of these windows--An ancient
example of similar treatment--Orders of the court--Awkward
result in the angles--Rhythmical scheme of the cloister of
Santa Maria della Pace--Lack of reason for this scheme--The
architect Sansovino--His design for the Library of St. Mark
at Venice--Treatment of the angles of the Doric
order--Free-standing column in the order of the upper
story--Sansovino’s design for the Loggetta of the
Campanile--His design for the Palazzo Cornaro--Sanmichele--His
design for the Porta del Palio at Verona--His design for the
Palazzo Canossa--The Palazzo Pompei alla Vittoria--The Palazzo
Bevilacqua--Its singular aberrations of design--Vignola’s
design for the Palazzo Caprarola--Influence of its circular
court on De l’Orme and Inigo Jones--The civic and domestic
architecture of Palladio--The Portico of Vicenza--Its derivation
from the town hall of Padua and from the Library of St.
Mark--Syrian instance of the free-standing column in connection
with the arch--Palladio’s own estimate of the merits of this
design--Use of poor materials by Palladio--His versatility in
meaningless composition--His palace fronts--Palladio a
grammatical formalist--The art of Scamozzi--His use of an
entablature broken by an arch 112
CHAPTER VIII
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN NORTH ITALY
Various other phases of the architecture of the
Renaissance--The façade of San Bernardino of Perugia--The
façade of the Certosa of Pavia--Its combination of local
mediæval and distorted neo-classic features--The church and
sacristy of San Satiro--Evidence that both were designed by
Bramante--Santa Maria delle Grazie--Its dome--Architectural
treatment of its exterior--Its attribution to Bramante--The
chapel of St. Peter Martyr attributed to Michelozzi--The
Monastero Maggiore--The cathedral of Como--Evidence of
Bramante’s hand in the east end--Its details of mediæval
Lombard character mixed with neo-classic elements--The south
portal--The windows of the nave--Architecture of the Venetian
Renaissance--The church of San Zaccaria--Peculiar column of its
interior--The church of San Salvatore--Its piers--Attic of the
interior--The church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli--Architectural
treatment of its exterior--Excellence of its mechanical
execution--The façade of Santa Maria Formosa 135
CHAPTER IX
PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN NORTH ITALY
Marked local character of the palace architecture of
Venice--Façade of east side of court of the Ducal
Palace--Irregularities of its composition--North side of the
same court--The Giant’s stair--Façade of the Scuola di San
Marco--Composition of the main portal--Notable refinements of
execution in this portal--Façade of the Scuola di San
Rocco--Unique architectural character of the palaces of the
Grand Canal--Those of the mediæval period alone have the
distinctive Venetian character--Neo-classic details used
sparingly in the early Renaissance palaces of Venice--The
Palazzo Corner-Spinelli--Disposition and character of its
windows--Questionable propriety of the panelling of its
pilasters--The beauty of the façade independent of its
neo-classic details--The Palazzo Contarini--The varied
proportions of its pilasters--The Palazzo Vendramini--The
distinctive Venetian character altered by the application of
complete orders--This character largely lost in the palaces
of the Roman Renaissance--The Palazzo del Consiglio of
Verona--Its mediæval scheme--The Palazzo Comunale of
Brescia--The Ospedale Maggiore of Milan--Its lack of distinctive
character--The later palace architecture of north Italy 154
CHAPTER X
ARCHITECTURAL CARVING OF THE RENAISSANCE
Little architectural character in the sculpture of the
Renaissance--Close imitation of Roman models--Great delicacy
of design and execution in much carving of the
Renaissance--Lack of vital beauty in this carving--Comparison
with Greek conventional ornamentation--Exceptional beauty of
foliation in the reliefs of the Lombardi--Lifeless character
of the scroll leafage of Filarete--Artificial convolutions of
Renaissance ornamental designs--Artificial and inorganic
composition in the works of Benedetto da Maiano--Representation
of artificial objects in Renaissance ornamentation--Disordered
composition in the borders of the Ghiberti gates--Comparison of
Greek leafage with that of the Renaissance--The grotesque in
Renaissance ornamentation 167
CHAPTER XI
ARCHITECTURE OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE
The Renaissance had not the same meaning north of the Alps that
it had in Italy--A fundamental change in French architecture
effected by the Renaissance influence--Survival of the Gothic
style--Conditions which favoured the change from Mediæval to
Renaissance forms--The transformation of the feudal castle into
the Renaissance château--Factitious character of the French
Renaissance château--Peculiar mixture of pseudo-Gothic and
neo-classic details in early French Renaissance
architecture--The château of Azay le Rideau--Survival in this
building of the larger mediæval forms--Its ornamental portal
based on that of Châteaudun--Analysis of this portal--A
different manifestation of Flamboyant ideas in the portal of
Chenonceaux--The château of La Rochefoucauld--The eastern wing
of Blois--The staircase tower of the court--The garden side of
the eastern wing--The château of Chambord--Its florid upper
part--Fontainebleau--Écouen--Bullant’s portico--Exceptional
character of the château of St. Germain en Laye--Further
transformation of French architecture in the later sixteenth
century 179
CHAPTER XII
LESCOT AND DE L’ORME
French architecture further changed by Lescot and De l’Orme,
yet still without elimination of native
characteristics--Lescot’s design for the Fountain of the
Nymphs--The sculptures by Goujon--Possible derivation of the
design from a drawing by Serlio--Lescot’s design for the
Louvre--Capricious treatment of neo-classic details in this
design--The traditional logic of French design ignored by
Lescot--Excessive ornamentation of the Louvre--The
architectural work of De l’Orme--Paucity of extant examples--His
design for the palace of the Tuileries--De l’Orme’s column--His
claim that this column was his own invention--Earlier instances
of the same--A conscious effort to be original gave rise to
most of the artistic aberrations of the Renaissance--Noble
architecture not a personal, but a communal and national,
product--Analysis of the façade of the Tuileries--De l’Orme’s
other architectural aberrations--The château of Charleval--The
freakish character of this design--Discussion of Viollet le
Duc’s comments on it--The church architecture of the French
Renaissance--The church of St. Eustache--Its unmodified Gothic
structural system--Its neo-classic details--St. Étienne du
Mont--SS. Gervais and Protais at Gisors--The apse of St. Pierre
of Caen--The Portal of St. Maclou at Pontoise 194
CHAPTER XIII
ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND
I. _Elizabethan Art_
Derivation of the Elizabethan domestic architecture from the
native mediæval art--The reasonable character of the early
Elizabethan house in its integrity--The ostentatious character
and pseudo-classicism of the great English houses of the
sixteenth century--Use of flimsy materials in ornamental
details--General excellence of construction in the main body of
the building--Employment of foreign craftsmen in
ornamentation--Kirby Hall--Its lack of native English
character--Peculiar aberrations in the use of structural forms
without structural functions--Fantastic ornamentation of the
gables--Longford Castle--Its resemblance to Chambord--Manifold
forms of capricious design in Lower Walterstone Hall, Cranborne
Manor-House, Tixall, Stanway, and other buildings--Fantastic
composition of the gate at Caius College, Cambridge--Aberrations
of design in Wollaton Hall--Ungrammatical and tasteless misuse
of distorted classic elements in Elizabethan architecture
largely due to Flemish and Dutch workmen--No professional
architects in Elizabethan times--The classic orders foreign to
the genius and the needs of the English people 216
CHAPTER XIV
ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND
II. _Jones and Wren_
The architecture of England in the seventeenth century
properly called Renaissance only by extension of the term--Jones
and Wren the only architects of importance at this
time--Walpole’s extravagant estimate of Inigo Jones--The early
career of Jones--His design for the Banqueting Hall of the
palace of Whitehall--Its lack of English character--Analysis of
the design--Kent’s exaggerated estimate of Jones’s genius--The
scheme for the whole palace--Jones’s design for the façade of
old St. Paul’s--Thoughtless laudation of the art of Inigo
Jones--Sir Christopher Wren--Artistic notions of the English
dilettanti in the seventeenth century--Wren’s architectural
training--His visit to France--The Sheldonian Theatre--Wren’s
project for repairs of old St. Paul’s--His commission to
rebuild--His first scheme for the new edifice--Sources of
inspiration for the great dome--Rejection of the first
scheme--The so-called warrant design--The existing edifice--The
structural system of the dome--Character of the interior of the
church--The masking of the buttress system--Wren’s city
churches 226
CHAPTER XV
CONCLUSION
The architecture of the Renaissance not based on consistent
principles--Incorrectness of the notion that the Renaissance
aberrations in the use of the orders was but a free adaptation
of the old elements to new conditions--The ancient
architectural forms do not lend themselves to new
conditions--Adaptation involves creative changes which wholly
transform original elements--Influence of the writings of
Vignola and Palladio in recent times--Modern recognition of the
arbitrary character of the rules of the formalists--Genuine
works of art not produced from rules--A juster sense of the real
character of the architecture of the Renaissance shown by a few
recent writers 247
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
PAGE
1. Hagia Theotokos. From Dehio and Bezold 11
2. Aachen. From Dehio and Bezold 11
3. Dome of Pisa 12
4. Dome of Arnolfo 13
5. Section of the Baptistery of Florence 14
6. Dissection of the vault of the Baptistery 15
7. System of the dome of Florence 17
8. Section of the dome of Florence. From Sgrilli 18
9. Part plan of the dome of Florence. From Sgrilli 18
10. Plan of the chapel of the Pazzi 26
11. Section of the vault of the Pazzi chapel 27
12. Interior of the Pazzi chapel 28
13. Façade of the Pazzi chapel 30
14. Badia of Fiesole 32
15. Impost of San Lorenzo 33
16. Crossing pier of San Lorenzo 34
17. Façade of Santa Maria Novella 36
18. Plan of Sant’ Andrea, Mantua 39
19. Façade of Sant’ Andrea, Mantua 40
20. Arch of Septimius Severus 41
21. Temple of Vesta, Tivoli. From Serlio 45
22. San Pietro in Montorio. From Serlio 46
23. Bramante’s dome for St. Peter’s. From Serlio 48
24. Section of the Pantheon. From Fontana 50
25. Plan of Bramante’s dome. From Serlio 51
26. Michael Angelo’s model for the dome of St. Peter’s 54
27. Diagrams of vault construction 56
28. Interior of dome of Salamanca 57
29. Diagrams of vault construction 58
30. Dome of St. Peter’s. From the Report of the Mathematicians 61
31. Plan of St. Peter’s. From Fontana 67
32. Section of aisle of St. Peter’s. From Fontana and
Letarouilly 69
33. Pier of Sant’ Agostino 72
34. Façade of Sant’ Agostino 73
35. Exterior of Todi 75
36. Interior of Todi 76
37. Plan of San Biagio 77
38. Interior of San Biagio 78
39. Arcade. From Serlio 79
40. Exterior of San Biagio 80
41. Tower of Santo Spirito 82
42. Santissima Annunziatta, Arezzo 83
43. Vignola’s entablature. From Vignola 85
44. Half plan of Sant’ Andrea. From Vignola 86
45. Section of Sant’ Andrea. From Vignola 87
46. Sant’ Andrea 88
47. Order of Santa Maria degli Angeli 90
48. Plan of the Gesù. From Vignola 91
49. Façade of the Gesù. From Vignola 93
50. Façade of the Gesù, Della Porta. From Vignola 94
51. Pediment of Baalbek 95
52. Tablet from Vignola 96
53. Orders of San Giorgio 98
54. Façade of San Giorgio 99
55. The Redentore 100
56. Window-head of the Mozzi, Florence 103
57. Window-head of Perugia 103
58. Court of the Riccardi 105
59. Façade of the Rucellai 108
60. Window of the Bartolini 110
61. Façade of the Cancelleria 113
62. Portico of the Massini 115
63. Window of the Farnese 117
64. Portal. From Serlio 118
65. Part of façade of the Library of St. Mark 120
66. Corner of the Parthenon 121
67. Roman corner. From Serlio 122
68. Corner of Library of St. Mark 123
69. Window of Palazzo Cornaro 124
70. Part of façade of the Porta del Palio 125
71. Detail of Palazzo Bevilacqua 127
72. Part of the Portico of Vicenza. From Palladio 129
73. Plan of supports, Portico of Vicenza. From Palladio 130
74. Arch of St. Simeon Stylites 131
75. Loggia Bernarda, Vicenza 132
76. Window of Palazzo Branzo 133
77. Niche of the Basilica of Shakka 134
78. Window of the Certosa of Pavia 137
79. Sacristy of San Satiro 139
80. Santa Maria delle Grazie 141
81. East end of Como 143
82. Portal of Como 145
83. Porch of San Zeno 146
84. Portal of San Pietro in Cielo d’Oro 147
85. Window of nave of Como 148
86. Column of San Zaccaria 150
87. Plan of pier of San Salvatore 151
88. Plan of pier of St. Mark’s 151
89. Façade of Santa Maria dei Miracoli 152
90. Part of window of court of the Ducal Palace 155
91. Portal of the Scuola di San Marco. 157
92. Part of the façade of the Scuola di San Rocco 158
93. Window of the Palazzo Contarini 162
94. One bay of basement of the Ospedale Maggiore 164
95. Window of the Palazzo Martinengo 165
96. Roman Arabesque relief 168
97. Renaissance Arabesque relief 169
98. Greek coin, magnified 170
99. Arabesque by Filarete 171
100. Console of pulpit in Santa Croce 172
101. Leafage from the Ghiberti gates 173
102. Pilaster in the National Museum, Florence 174
103. Greek leafage 175
104. Roman leafage 175
105. Leafage of Brunelleschi 176
106. Leafage of Brescia 176
107. Leafage of San Gallo 177
108. Relief of the Scala d’Oro 177
109. Grotesque mask 177
110. Cornice of Blois 181
111. Azay le Rideau 182
112. Portal of Azay le Rideau 183
113. Portal of Châteaudun 185
114. Part of the portal of Chenonceaux 187
115. Part of the court façade of Blois 189
116. Du Cerceau’s print of the Fountain of the Nymphs 195
117. Roman arch. From Serlio 197
118. Part of Du Cerceau’s print of Lescot’s Louvre 198
119. Plan of the Tuileries. From Du Cerceau 201
120. Elevation of the Tuileries. From Du Cerceau 202
121. De l’Orme’s column. From De l’Orme 203
122. De l’Orme’s doorway. From De l’Orme 204
123. Doorway. From Serlio 205
124. Doorway of De l’Orme. From De l’Orme 208
125. Façade of Charleval. From Du Cerceau 210
126. Interior façade of Charleval. From Du Cerceau 212
127. Chimney of Burghley House 217
128. North side of court, Kirby Hall. From Gotch 219
129. Gable of Kirby Hall. From Gotch 220
130. Window of Walterstone Hall. From Gotch 222
131. Impost of Cranborne Manor-House. From Gotch 222
132. Portal of Wollaton Hall. From Gotch 224
133. Basement of Whitehall. From Kent 230
134. Front of old St. Paul’s. From Kent 231
135. Section of Wren’s rejected scheme for St. Paul’s. From
Bloomfield 236
136. Section of the dome of St. Paul’s. From Longman 240
137. Vaulting of St. Paul’s 242
138. Crossing pier and impost of St. Paul’s 244
139. Half section of the nave of St. Paul’s. From Longman 245
LIST OF PLATES
PAGE
I. The Dome of Florence 16
II. Interior of Sant’ Andrea, Mantua 38
III. The Dome of St. Peter’s 63
IV. The Riccardi Palace 103
V. San Bernardino, Perugia 135
VI. Ducal Palace, Venice 154
VII. Palazzo Corner-Spinelli, Venice 160
VIII. Palazzo del Consiglio, Verona 163
IX. Relief of the Lombardi 169
X. The Banqueting Hall, Whitehall 228
XI. The Dome of St. Paul’s 239
XII. Interior of St. Paul’s 242
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The great change in ideas and ideals which, after the remarkable
intellectual and artistic life of the Middle Ages, was manifested
in the so-called Renaissance, is not always correctly conceived or
fairly stated; and the character and merits of the Fine Arts of the
Renaissance, as compared with those of mediæval times, have not, I
think, been often set forth in an entirely true light. Of the merits
of the best Italian art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there
can be no question, but the belief that this art is altogether superior
to that of the Middle Ages will not bear examination in the light of
impartial comparison.
The Fine Arts are always an expression of the historical antecedents,
the intellectual, moral, and material conditions, and the religious
beliefs of the peoples and epochs to which they belong. They derive
their whole character from these antecedents and conditions, and cannot
be rightly understood or appreciated without reference to them. Thus a
brief consideration of these conditions in the Middle Ages on the one
hand, and in the period of the Renaissance on the other, may help us
to understand the nature of the above-mentioned change, and to gain a
more discriminating appreciation of the real character of the artistic
productions of the latter epoch.
During the Middle Ages ideas and imagination were governed by a
religious faith which, though in many ways mistaken and misguided, was
for the most part firm and unquestioning. Mediæval Christianity was
a living power with the masses, and an inspiration to men of genius.
The mediæval Christian mythology was well fitted to stimulate artistic
invention, and the ideals which it maintained were full of beauty. It
is true, indeed, that human conduct was not wholly governed by this
faith; but the precepts of the Christian religion, as defined and
interpreted by the Roman church, were generally held as of supreme
authority, and to them most people acknowledged that they ought to
conform. This Christianity gave the chief motive power for the best
activities of the time, and the social relations of men were, in
theory at least, based upon its teachings. The history of the Middle
Ages abounds in evidence that popular habits of life were in many
ways exemplary. Villani tells us that the citizens of Florence lived
in sobriety and frugality, that they had loyal hearts, were faithful
to one another, and that they required the same fidelity in the
administration of public affairs.[1] Florence in the fourteenth century
was alive with industry, and the open country around the city was
prosperous with agriculture. Of such conditions her Fine Arts were an
outgrowth and expression.
But the mediæval faith began at length to weaken. The church, as an
ecclesiastical establishment, had grown corrupt and oppressive, so
that men of spirit were moved to reject its dogmas and to resist its
intellectual tyranny. Independent thought began to widen the range
of ideas, and the reading of ancient authors gave a fresh incentive
to philosophical speculation, and awakened a spirit of scientific
investigation, as well as a taste for ancient poetry and mythology.
The desire for intellectual freedom, and the thirst for new knowledge,
which were thus stimulated in the fifteenth century constitute the good
side of the Renaissance movement, the side which has hitherto been
most emphasized by writers, and to which the modern world is indebted
for a strong stimulus in the direction of some of its most fruitful
activities.
But there were other conditions that must not be ignored if we would
rightly understand the spirit of the Renaissance, by which the ideals
and aims of this brilliant epoch were materially qualified and
weakened. Influences were at the same time at work that were not in
harmony with what was best. The humanist learning bred a Neo-pagan
spirit which favoured and strengthened a growing indifference to moral
principles and religious beliefs. The strong feeling of opposition
to the church was in part due to this. In fact, the Renaissance was
by no means an entirely noble movement in the interest of spiritual
and intellectual emancipation, or an unqualified advance in ideas and
attainments beyond those of the Middle Ages. With all of its abuses
the church still stood for moral order and spiritual aspirations.
The revolt against it was in part a revolt against both religion and
morals. The animating spirit of the movement contained much that was
unchristian and destructive of high ideals.
It is true that noble, and even pious, feelings survived in the minds
of many men, especially during the early Renaissance time. Generous
acts were still common among the merchant princes of Florence. In
the early part of the fifteenth century the lives of Florentine
patricians continued to be simple, and many of them recognized the
responsibilities which their wealth imposed.[2] But toward the close
of that century a different spirit prevailed. Luxury and extravagance
took the place of plainer living, the pursuit of pleasure without
regard to justice or morality engrossed the minds of men, and vice and
crime flourished in high places until the prophetic denunciations of
Savonarola were called down upon the wickedness and vanity of the upper
classes.
Into the service of this luxurious and immoral life the Fine Arts were
now called, and of the motives which animate such life they become
largely an expression. The mediæval endeavour to embody the beauty
of Christian ideals in works of art gave place to the desire to make
the Fine Arts minister to sensuous pleasure and to mundane pride. In
the height of its splendour the vicious life of Florence, the chief
centre of literary and artistic productions, was appalling. Men now
not only sought to escape from all forms of ecclesiastical and ascetic
restraint; they went further, and freely proclaimed the sufficiency of
intellectual, æsthetic, and sensuous enjoyments to satisfy the whole of
man’s nature. They mistook the illusive pleasures of self-indulgence
for the true joys of life. In abandoning himself to mundane pursuits
and gratifications, the man of the Renaissance fancied that he got the
utmost good out of this life, and took little thought of any other.
In a corresponding spirit the architect now set himself to the task
of producing a luxurious and specious style of palatial architecture,
drawing his inspiration from the monuments of imperial Rome, and the
sculptor and the painter sought to portray physical beauty as the
primary and sufficient end of their art. Their conceptions of this
beauty were in part drawn from the remains of the art of classic
antiquity that were then accessible. But the ancient works of art known
at that time were not those of the best periods of ancient artistic
culture. They were, for the most part, works of the decadent Greek
schools as represented in Roman copies. Many of these have, indeed, a
great deal of sensuous charm, and display much technical refinement;
but they are wanting in the nobler qualities that characterize the
finest arts of Greece. From the Roman copies of fauns, Apollos, and
Venuses that had been preserved in Italy, it was impossible that high
inspiration and true guidance should be drawn.
The Fine Arts of the Renaissance are in part a reflection of this
decadent art of classic antiquity, and in part an expression of
something quite different which was peculiar to the Italian genius at
this time. To the man of the Renaissance the classic inspiration was
necessarily different from what it had been to the man of antiquity.
To the ancient Greek and Roman the pagan ideals had been real, and
their inspiration was genuine; but to the Italian of the fifteenth
century these ideals could not have the same meaning, or supply a true
incentive. After the intervening centuries of Christian thought and
experience it was impossible for men to approach the ancient themes in
the spirit of the ancients. Thus the Neo-pagan Art of the Renaissance
is not wholly spontaneous and sincere. It contains elements that are
foreign to the pagan spirit, and not compatible with it. The art of
the Renaissance is, in fact, an embodiment of heterogeneous ideas and
conflicting aims.
Much has been said of the importance of the Renaissance movement in
developing the individual man, and it is true that one of the most
marked characteristics of the artistic productions of this time, as
contrasted with those of the Middle Ages, is a distinctly individual,
or personal, stamp. This is especially marked in architecture. Whereas
before, and during, the Middle Ages in particular, architecture had
been a communal art, the joint product of companies of men working
together on traditional lines, with common aims and aspirations, it
was now become very largely an expression of the personal tastes of
individuals working independently of each other. The architects of the
Renaissance were scholars and artists, newly acquainted with the Roman
antique, animated with desire to appropriate what they apprehended of
its principles, and at the same time ambitious to achieve personal
fame. A building of the Renaissance is thus always the product of the
fancy of a particular designer, as a building of the Middle Ages is
not. But architecture of the highest excellence can hardly be produced
by an individual working independently. The noblest architecture of
the past has always been an evolution of a people, the joint product
of many minds, and the natural expression of many conditions. The
importance of the opportunity for the development of the individual
opened by the Renaissance has been exaggerated, and the conditions
conducive to such development which had existed before have been too
much overlooked. We are apt to forget that the mediæval communal life
stimulated the faculties of the individual in many noble ways, and we
do not always enough consider that individuality may be exercised in
harmful as well as in salutary directions. The individuality that had
been developed by the institutions and the intellectual life of the
Middle Ages was vastly different from that which was produced by the
influences of the Renaissance, and it was in many ways more excellent.
The individuality of the Middle Ages was obedient to the demands
of corporate and coöperative life, while that of the Renaissance
was independent and capricious. Conditions favourable to individual
development had arisen early in the Middle Ages in connection with
organized monastic life. The cultivation of literature, philosophy, and
the Fine Arts in the monasteries had given considerable range to the
exercise of individual powers,[3] though in limited directions, and
the rise of the great communal organizations tended still further to
stimulate an admirable individual development. But the individual of
the Middle Ages felt himself a part of an organized body from which he
derived moral support, and with which he felt that he must coöperate.
It was the strong communal spirit, giving unity of purpose to the
varied faculties of individuals, that made possible the production of
the noble arts of the Middle Ages; and it is as the expression of this
unity of purpose coördinating the fine artistic energies of the time,
that these arts are preëminently notable. In so far as the development
of the individual in the period of the Renaissance differed from that
of the Middle Ages, it did so mainly in favouring individual caprice
at the expense of harmonious collective effort. The capricious and
irresponsible individuality of the time, together with the confused
complexity of ideas and aims, gave rise to most of that which is open
to criticism in the Fine Arts of the Renaissance.
Nearly all of the architects of this epoch were sculptors and painters.
Few of them had ever had a thorough training in architectural design
and construction, such as had been general with the members of the
great mediæval building corporations; and hardly any of them were
endowed with a natural aptitude for logical construction. The artistic
genius of the Italian people has, in fact, always been essentially a
genius for painting, and the painter’s habits of mind are constantly
manifested in the Italian architecture of all epochs. This is
especially noticeable in their use of the Orders, which is rarely
based on any structural need, but is governed only by the fancy of the
designer in seeking to produce a pleasant surface composition. Columns
and pilasters, answering to nothing in the real structural scheme of
a building, are disposed with no thought save for agreeable lines and
rhythmical spacings. Thus they soon came to be used in many novel ways.
They were set in pairs, stretched through several stories, embraced
by pediments, and varied in countless fanciful ways. In this way the
architecture of the Renaissance even more than that of imperial Rome,
became a mere surface architecture differing fundamentally from all of
the great architectural systems of ancient times, and of the Middle
Ages. This is a consideration of capital importance of which too little
account has been taken. The unqualified and short-sighted laudation of
this architecture by the sophisticated writers of the sixteenth century
has been too readily accepted, and a more discriminating judgment
cannot fail to alter materially the esteem in which it has been held.
In surveying the history of architectural design with attention to
its fundamental principles we shall find that there have thus far
existed in Europe but three entirely consistent and distinctive styles;
namely, the Greek, the Byzantine, and the Gothic. All other varieties
of architecture may be broadly divided into two classes, the one
consisting of buildings of transitional character, and comprising all
organic and progressive types of Romanesque, and the other composed
of styles made up of mixed elements not in process of organic fusion.
The first architecture of the second class is that of imperial Rome
with its off-shoots, the Christian Roman and the numerous subsequent
forms of the basilican type, and the second is the architecture of
the Renaissance. When, after studying the architecture of Greece, we
come to examine that of Rome, we are at once struck by the incongruous
mixture of elements which it exhibits; and although we may be impressed
by its grandeur, we are unable to give it our unqualified admiration.
In Byzantine art we find Greek, Roman, and Oriental elements, logically
modified in adaptation to new uses, and fused into a radically new
and distinctive style of entire consistency and great nobility.[4] In
the transitional art of western Europe we see the creative genius of
Northern races gradually evolving the Gothic style, in which elements
derived from the older systems are wholly recreated and assimilated
in a wonderful manner, and when we turn from the beauty, and the
structural logic, of the consummate Gothic Art[5] to the architecture
of the Renaissance, a similar contrast is again apparent.
In one branch of art, however, the best achievements of the Renaissance
period command our unqualified admiration; namely, the art of painting.
As before remarked, the Italian genius appears to have been primarily
a genius for painting, and in this field the conditions all conspired
to produce results that were without precedent for excellence, and that
still remain unrivalled. Yet here, too, we shall need to discriminate.
Italian painting of the sixteenth century presents a variety of phases
that are by no means of equal merit, and the noblest forms of it
show the least of the essentially Renaissance spirit. The Christian
painters of the fourteenth century had laid a foundation on which their
successors could build, and this gave a character to much of the art
of the Early Renaissance which the dominant influences of the time
itself could not give.[6] But the spirit of the sixteenth century was
unfavourable to the highest ideals and the most exemplary practice,
and, save for the works of a few exceptional men, there were no high
achievements in painting after about 1520, except in Venice, where more
than elsewhere natural and wholesome conditions had been maintained.
Among the many influences that were stirring the artistic minds of the
Renaissance there were two of chief importance, the Neo-pagan revival,
and the true intellectual life of the people which was independent of
the retrospective movement, and had been growing up through the Middle
Ages. The most sterling qualities of the artistic products of the
period are due to this intellectual life, and Florentine and Venetian
painting, the two most admirable phases of the supreme art of Italy,
are the finest expression of this. In other words, it was not the
revival of interest in ancient thought and feeling, nor the influence
of classic models, so much as the ripened development of the native
Italian genius itself, that produced what is most excellent in the Fine
Arts of the Renaissance. A consciously retrospective motive can hardly
be a vital force in artistic development, and the direct attempt, in so
far as such attempt was made, to shape the arts after classic models
was an unmixed evil. The native traditions and innate tendencies of
the Italian people were enough of themselves to give a strong classic
quality to their art. In architecture what of classic feeling was
natural to them needed only in the fifteenth century to be freed from
the elements which had been misappropriated from the mediæval art of
the North to allow it true expression in forms adapted to their needs.
In normal human progress each successive stage of development creates
its own appropriate forms; but peoples, like individuals, sometimes
pass through periods of partial aberration, and while genius may
still find scope enough, as in the Renaissance, to produce much that
is admirable, the noblest forms of art are not an outgrowth of such
conditions.
CHAPTER II
THE DOME OF FLORENCE
The great dome of the cathedral of Florence marks the beginning of
the Renaissance movement in architecture, though in its general form
and structural character it has no likeness to ancient domes, and has
few details drawn from the Roman classic source. It exhibits a wide
departure from any previous forms of dome construction, and is an
expression of the creative genius of a remarkably gifted man of great
independence, working under inspiration drawn in part from ancient
sources, in part from mediæval building traditions, and in still larger
part from the new motives that were beginning to animate the artistic
ambitions of the fifteenth century.
The dome of the Pantheon and the dome of St. Sophia, the two greatest
domes of former times, had been built on principles that did not admit
of much external effect, and the numerous smaller ones of the Middle
Ages, in western Europe, had been equally inconspicuous externally, if
not entirely hidden from view, in consequence of rising from within
a drum which reached far above the springing level. In most cases
the whole construction was covered with a timber roof, so that from
the outside the existence of a dome would not be suspected. This was
a secure mode of construction, and one that for stability could not
be improved; but it did not give the imposing external effect that
Brunelleschi sought.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Hagia Theotokos.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Aachen.]
Attempts to make the dome a conspicuous external feature had indeed
been made before Brunelleschi’s time. The later Byzantine builders
had raised small domes on drums resting on pendentives, and rising
above the main roof of the building, but they had still carried these
drums up somewhat above the springing of the dome, and had further
fortified them with buttresses built over the supporting piers, as in
Hagia Theotokos of Constantinople (Fig. 1). Thus in such designs the
dome still remains partly hidden from view, the drum being the most
conspicuous part of the composition. Among the early domes of western
Europe is that of Aachen (Fig. 2). In this case the drum is carried
up far beyond the springing, and is covered with a timber roof which
completely hides the dome from external view. The same adjustment of
the dome to its drum is, with minor variations of form (the dome being
in some cases polygonal on plan, as at Aachen, and in some cases
hemispherical) found in most other mediæval domes, and the timber roof
over all is likewise common. But in a few cases a different scheme
was adopted in which the dome is set on the top of the drum instead
of within it. In such cases, however, the drum is low, not rising
above the ridge of the timber roof of the nave, and the dome, being
unprovided with abutment, is insecure except in so far as it may have a
form that is self-sustaining as to thrusts (which removes it from the
true dome shape, or may be secured by some kind of binding chain.[7]
An example of such a dome occurs on a small scale over the crossing
of the cathedral of Pisa (Fig. 3). This dome is not hemispherical,
its sides rise steeply, and with such moderate curvature as to render
it measurably self-sustaining as to thrust.[8] Another instance of a
similar scheme, and on a larger scale, is that which appears to have
formed a part of Arnolfo’s design for the cathedral of Florence. This
dome was never executed, and our knowledge of it is derived from the
well-known fresco in the Spanish chapel of Santa Maria Novella.[9]
Here both the dome and the drum are octagonal in conformity with the
plan of the part of the building which it covers. The outline (Fig. 4)
is slightly pointed, but the sides are nevertheless so much curved in
elevation that a structure of this form would not stand without strong
cinctures. It is, however, not unlikely that the fresco painter has
given it a more bulging shape than Arnolfo intended. But domes of this
character were exceptional in the Middle Ages. The builders of that
epoch confined their practice for the most part to the safer form in
which the vault is made to spring from within the drum, and is thus
necessarily, either in part or entirely, hidden from external view.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Dome of Pisa.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Dome of Arnolfo.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Section of Baptistery.]
A remarkable dome of this latter class is that of the Baptistery of
Florence, which, though the building has undergone various superficial
transformations since its original construction at an early, though
uncertain, epoch, has come down to us in essential integrity. This
building on plan is in the form of an octagon, and the dome is of
corresponding shape, and sprung from a level far below the top of the
enclosing walls. In elevation the dome (Fig. 5) has a pointed outline,
and is covered by a pyramidal roof of stone the upper part of which
is incorporated with the dome itself, while beneath the lower portion
is a void between the dome and the enclosing wall. The structure has
an internal anatomy that is both ingenious and admirable. The span is
about 25 metres, and the wall at the level of the springing is over 3
metres thick. Above this the wall (_a_, Fig. 5) rises to a height
of about 8 metres. The dome at its base is about 1 metre thick, and
its extrados rises vertically to a height of about 2½ metres, leaving
an open space between it and the wall of the enclosing drum of 1.26
metres in width. Above this vertical portion the extrados is stepped
by several courses of masonry, somewhat after the manner of the dome
of the Pantheon. From the reëntrant angles of the octagon (_a_,
Fig. 6) solid abutments are built up against the salient angles of
the vault, and, between these, two secondary abutments (_b_) are
carried up against each of its sides. These buttresses are in the
form of cross walls dividing the space on each side of the octagon
into three compartments, and over each of these compartments a barrel
vault, on an axis inclined in conformity with the slope of the roof,
is turned. The upper ends of these vaults intersect on the surface of
the dome, as shown in Figures 5 and 6. The voids between the crowns
of these vaults and the buttresses are filled in with masonry so as
to form the sloping planes of the roof below where it is incorporated
with the dome, and on these are laid the slabs that form the external
covering. With such an effective buttress system as is here provided
it is hard to find a reason for the chain of timbers which is inserted
at the haunch of the dome. The constructive principle embodied in this
monument is altogether sound,[10] and its architectural character is in
keeping with the construction.[11]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Dissection of the vault of the
Baptistery.]
Such were the models of mediæval dome building accessible to
Brunelleschi when he was forming his great scheme for the covering of
the octagon of the cathedral of Florence. But the idea of a low dome,
or a hidden dome, could not meet the wishes of the Florentines of the
fifteenth century. Their civic pride and large resources called for an
imposing design which should make the dome a dominant architectural
feature of their city. It was decided that it should be raised upon the
top of a high drum, and the task to which Brunelleschi applied himself
was to fulfil this requirement.
Of the vast and soaring dome which he succeeded in erecting many
opinions have been held, but all beholders are impressed with its
grandeur. It has been common to speak as if the master had been chiefly
inspired by the ancient monuments of Rome, and had taken the Pantheon
as his principal model.[12] But although he came to his task fresh
from the study of the ancient Roman monuments, and undoubtedly had
the Pantheon much in mind, yet the dome which he produced has little
in common with that great achievement of imperial Roman constructive
skill. In general it follows, though with great improvements as to
outline and proportions, the scheme of Arnolfo as illustrated in
the fresco of the Spanish Chapel; but the model to which it most
closely conforms, notwithstanding the obvious and essential points
of difference, is that of the Baptistery just described. There can,
I think, be little question that this monument supplied the chief
inspiration and guidance to both Arnolfo and Brunelleschi. A comparison
will show that the dome of the cathedral, with its supporting drum,
is, in fact, little other than a reproduction of the Baptistery of San
Giovanni in a modified form, and enlarged proportions, raised over the
crossing.
[Illustration:
Plate I
DOME OF BRUNELLESCHI
Florence]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--System of the dome.]
But while taking the scheme of the Baptistery as the basis of his own
scheme, Brunelleschi was obliged to make some daring changes in order
to give his design the external character which he sought. This great
dome (Plate I), like that of the Baptistery, is octagonal in plan and
pointed in elevation. It rises from the top of the octagonal drum, and
consists of two nearly concentric shells of masonry, with an interval
between them. Eight vast ribs of stone rise from the angles of the drum
and converge on the curb of an opening at the crown. These ribs
extend in depth through the whole thickness of the double vault and
unite its two shells. Between each pair of these great ribs two lesser
ones are inserted within the interval that divides the two shells, and
nine arches of masonry, lying in planes normal to the curve, are sprung
between the great ribs and pass through the lesser ones on each side of
the polygon (Figs. 7 and 8), while a chain of heavy timbers (_a_,
Fig. 8, and Fig. 9), in twenty-four sections clamped together at the
ends with plates of iron, binds the whole system between the haunch and
the springing. So much of the internal structure can be seen in the
monument itself, but further details are described in Brunelleschi’s
own account of what he intended to do.[13] From this we learn that
the base of the dome, which was to be built solid to the height of 5¼
braccia, was to consist of six courses of long blocks of hard stone
(_macigno_) clamped with tinned iron and upon this were to be
chains of iron.[14] Mention is also made of a chain of iron over the
timber chain (“in su dette quercie una catena di ferro”); but no
such chain is visible in the monument, and if it exists, it must be
embedded in the masonry of the vault, like the chains at the base.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Section.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Part Plan.]
It will thus be seen that while Brunelleschi’s scheme is essentially
different from that of the Baptistery, its structural system is little
more than an ingenious modification of it. The parts of the one answer
to those of the other with singular completeness. The attic wall and
pyramidal roof of San Giovanni are transformed into the external shell
of the cathedral dome, the angle buttresses of the older monument
become the great angle ribs of Brunelleschi’s vault. The intermediate
abutments of the Baptistery are changed into the intermediate ribs of
the great dome, and the inclined barrel vaults of the Baptistery scheme
are represented in the cathedral dome by the arches sprung between the
great angle ribs.
It has been thought by some writers that the rib system of the dome
of Florence gives the structure a somewhat Gothic character, and it
is sometimes called a Gothic dome.[15] But there can be no such thing
as a Gothic dome. It is impossible for a dome of any kind to have
the character of a Gothic vault. The difference between the two is
fundamental. A Gothic vault is a vault of concentrated thrusts, and
it requires effective concentrated abutments. A dome is a vault of
continuous thrust, and for sound construction it requires continuous
abutments, as in the Pantheon. Whatever use the ribs of Brunelleschi’s
vault may have, they do not, and cannot, perform the function of the
ribs in Gothic vaulting. Their use is to strengthen the angles of the
dome, and to augment its power of resistance to the weight of the
lantern which crowns it. They do not support the vault as the ribs
of a Gothic vault do. Being composed of very deep voussoirs, they
have more strength to withstand thrusts, as well as to bear crushing
weight, than the enclosing shells have, and thus to some extent they
may hold these shells in. But it appears plain that the architect did
not feel confidence in their power to perform this function without
reënforcement by a chain, or chains, which, in his own words, “bind
the ribs and hold the vault in” (che leghino i detti sproni e cingano
la volta dentro). However this may be, the ribs of a dome cannot
have any function like that of the ribs in Gothic vaulting. The
shell of a Gothic vault is not held in by the ribs, nor is it in any
way incorporated with them. Both shell and ribs are held in by the
buttresses. This point will be considered further in connection with
the dome of St. Peter’s.
The whole scheme of this dome was a daring innovation of one man, and
in this it differs from former architectural innovations, which were
the comparatively slow outcome of corporate endeavour, progressive
changes being so gradual that no wide or sudden departures from
habitual modes of building were made at any one time, or by any one
person.
It was a prodigious undertaking. The span of the dome is nearly
a hundred and forty feet, the springing level is a hundred and
seventy-five feet above the pavement, and the height of the dome
itself, exclusive of the lantern, is about a hundred and twenty feet.
Such a project might well appall the most courageous of building
committees, and we need not wonder that the Board of Works drew back in
dismay when it was first laid before them.[16]
The successful accomplishment of the work, and the stability which it
has thus far maintained, show that the architect was a constructor
of great ability,[17] and the fact that he managed to raise the vast
fabric without the use of the ponderous and costly kind of centring
that had been commonly employed in vaulting, makes the achievement
still more remarkable. The precise manner in which he did this is not
clear, but of the fact there appears no question.[18]
The dome of Florence is indeed a remarkable piece of construction,
and it is no less remarkable as a work of art. In beauty of outline
it has not, I think, been approached by any of the later elevated
domes of which it is the parent. Yet with all of its mechanical and
artistic merit, the scheme is fundamentally false in principle, since
it involves a departure from sound methods of dome construction. A
bulging thin shell of masonry on a large scale cannot be made secure
without abutment, much less can such a shell sustain the weight of a
heavy stone structure like the lantern of this monument, without resort
to the extraneous means of binding chains. A builder having proper
regard for true principles of construction in stone masonry would not
undertake such a work. For although it may be possible to give the
dome a shape that will be measurably self-sustaining as to thrusts, as
Brunelleschi clearly strove to do,[19] it is not possible to make it
entirely so, and therefore if deprived of abutment it must be bound
with chains. But a structure of masonry which depends for stability
on binding chains is one of inherent weakness, and thus of false
character.[20]
From these considerations it appears to me that Brunelleschi led
the way in a wrong direction, notwithstanding the nobility of his
achievement from many points of view. And in following his example
modern designers of elevated domes have wandered still farther, as we
shall see, from the true path of monumental art.
Moreover, when we consider that a dome set within its drum is not only
stronger, but that it is also much better for interior effect, the dome
of the Pantheon still remaining the grandest and most impressive arched
ceiling of its kind in the world, the unbuttressed modern domes, with
their manifold extraneous and hidden devices for security, appear still
less defensible.
But in the architectural thought of the Renaissance little heed was
given to structural propriety or structural expression, and the Italian
writers, who have largely shaped our modern architectural ideas, have
not only failed to recognize the inherent weakness of such a building
as the dome of Florence, but have even considered the work praiseworthy
on account of those very characteristics which make it weak. Thus
Sgrilli lauds Brunelleschi for having had the “hardihood to raise to
such a height the greatest cupola which until its time had ever been
seen, upon a base without any abutments, a thing that had not before
been done by any one.”[21] And Milizia says, “It is worthy of special
notice that in the construction of this cupola there are no visible
abutments.”[22]
As to the permanent stability of this dome various opinions have been
held by the experts among the older writers.[23] Its form is, as we
have seen, as favourable to stability as it would be possible to make
that of any vault which could be properly called a dome. It appears
to the inexperienced eye as stable as a crest of the Apennines. Every
precaution as to material and careful workmanship seems to have been
taken to make it secure. The wall of the drum on which it rests is five
metres in thickness, and the solid base of the dome itself is built, if
the architect’s scheme was carried out as he had stated it before the
Board of Works, of large blocks of hard stone, thoroughly bonded and
clamped with iron. The lower system is sufficiently strong, and appears
to rest on a solid foundation. But nevertheless there are ruptures in
various parts of the structure which have caused apprehensions of
danger,[24] and its future duration must be regarded as uncertain.
The writers who have maintained that it is secure have argued on the
assumption that the parts of a dome all tend toward the centre.[25]
These writers overlook the fact that the force of gravity above,
especially when the dome is heavily weighed by a lantern, neutralizes
the inward tendency of the lower parts and causes a tendency in those
parts to movement in the opposite direction. This neutralizing force is
lessened by giving the dome a pointed form, as Brunelleschi has done,
but, as before remarked (p. 22), it can hardly be overcome entirely so
long as any real dome shape is preserved.[26]
It may be thought that the object which Brunelleschi had in view,
of producing a vast dome that should be an imposing feature of the
cathedral externally, justifies the unsound method of construction
to which he resorted (the only method by which the effect that he
sought could be attained). But structural integrity is, I think,
so fundamental a prerequisite of good architecture that in so far
as this gifted Florentine was obliged to ignore sound principles
of construction in order to attain an end not compatible with such
principles, the result cannot be properly considered as an entirely
noble and exemplary work of art, however much beauty and impressiveness
it may have.
The example set by Brunelleschi was, in point of construction, a
pernicious one, and bore fruit of a still more objectionable character
in the works of other gifted men less scrupulous than he, and less
endowed with mechanical ingenuity, as we shall see farther on.
Though there is nothing whatever of classic Roman character in this
great dome, the lantern which crowns it, built from Brunelleschi’s
design after his death, has classic details curiously mingled with
mediæval forms. Its eight piers are adorned with fluted Corinthian
pilasters surmounted by an entablature, while the jambs of the openings
have engaged columns carrying arches beneath the entablature in ancient
Roman fashion. From the entablature rises a low spire with finials set
about its base, and flying buttresses, adorned with classic details,
are set against the piers. None of the classic details have any true
classic character, nor has the ornamental carving, with which the
composition is enriched, any particular excellence either of design or
execution. But these details are invisible from the ground, and in its
general form and proportions the lantern makes an admirable crowning
feature of this finest of Renaissance domes.
CHAPTER III
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE
No other work by Brunelleschi is comparable in merit to the great dome
of the cathedral. None of his other opportunities were such as to call
forth his best powers, which appear to have required great magnitude
to bring them into full play. In his other works the influence of his
Roman studies is more manifest, and his own genius is less apparent. In
these other works he revives the use of the orders, and employs them
in modes which for incongruity surpass anything that imperial Roman
taste had devised.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Plan of the chapel of the
Pazzi.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Section of vault of the Pazzi
chapel.]
The first of these works is the small chapel of the Pazzi in the
cloister of Santa Croce. It is a simple rectangle on plan (Fig. 10),
with a square sanctuary on the short axis, and a porch across the
front. The central area is covered with a circular vault which by
most writers is called a dome, but it is not a dome; it is a vault
of essentially Gothic form, like two early Gothic apse vaults joined
together (Fig. 11). It rests on pendentives, and is enclosed by a
cylindrical drum, which forms an effective, though not a logical,
abutment to its thrusts, and is covered with a low-pitched roof of
masonry having a slightly curved outline. Whether this external
covering is connected with the vaulting in any way above where it
parts from the crowns of the vault cells it is impossible to discover,
because there is no way of access to the open space between the two
parts. Through a small opening in the outer shell, near its crown, the
hand may be thrust into the void, but nothing can be reached. It is a
curious form of double vault, and differs fundamentally from the great
double dome of the cathedral. The scheme as a whole is structurally
inconsistent; for while the inner vault has the concentrated thrusts
of Gothic construction, these thrusts are met by the enclosing drum,
and not by the isolated abutments that the vault logically calls for.
The sanctuary has a small hemispherical dome on pendentives, and the
portico is covered with a barrel vault bisected by another small dome
on pendentives.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Interior of the Pazzi chapel.]
The architectural treatment of the interior (Fig. 12) exhibits a
wide departure from that of any previous type of design. The form of
the building is mediæval, being, with exception of the central vault,
essentially Byzantine,[27] but the details are classic Roman, and
consist of a shallow order of fluted Corinthian pilasters with the
entablature at the level of the vaulting imposts. In such a building,
however, and used in this way, a classic order is out of place; for an
order is a structural system designed for structural use, but the order
here has no more structural function than if it were merely painted on
the walls. It is used, of course, with a purely ornamental motive, but
as ornament it is inappropriate. A proper ornamental treatment of such
an interior would be either by marble incrusting, mosaic, or fresco,
or else by pilaster strips, or colonnettes, and blind arches, which
would break the monotony of the broad wall surfaces without suggesting
an architectural system foreign to the character of the building. Such
arcading would have an appropriate structural suggestiveness, if not an
actual structural use; but a classic order is unsuitable for a building
of mediæval character. The mediæval pilaster strip and blind arcade
were designed for this use, and they have the further advantage that
their proportions may be indefinitely varied to meet varied needs, as
the proportions of the classic orders may not. But in their lack of a
true sense of structural expression, and in their eagerness to revive
the use of classic forms, the designers of the Renaissance failed to
consider these things.
A particularly awkward result of this improper use of an order is that
the entablature passes through the arch imposts, making an irrational
structural combination. This scheme was, however, extensively followed
in the subsequent architecture of the Renaissance, but it is a
barbarism for which no authority can, I believe, be found in ancient
Roman design.[28] The nearest approach to it in Roman art is the
entablature block resting on the capital (as in the great hall of the
Baths of Caracalla), which was a blundering device of the later Roman
architects. The complete entablature running through the impost, as
in the chapel of the Pazzi, sometimes, indeed, occurs in the early
churches of Rome and elsewhere,[29] as a result of unsettled conditions
of design, while the architects were struggling with the traditional
use of the entablature and the introduction of the arch sprung from the
columns. But after the admirable logic of the mediæval arched systems
of construction had been reached it appears strange that any designer
should go back to this irrational combination.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Façade of the Pazzi chapel.]
In the portico (Fig. 13) the incongruities of design are of a still
graver nature because they involve weakness of construction. The order
of the interior is, as we have just seen, but a simulated order, and
has no structural function, but in the portico a real Corinthian order
is made to carry the barrel vault and dome above mentioned, and an
attic wall which encloses the vaulting. But a classic order was never
intended for such use, and cannot properly perform it. Such an order
is adapted only to the support of crushing weight, and has no power of
resistance to the thrusts of vaulting. The weight of the attic wall
tends, indeed, in some measure to neutralize the force of the vault
thrust, but this is not enough to render the structure secure, and
unless the order were effectively steadied by some extraneous means the
attic load would constitute a source of danger, as with any disturbance
of its equilibrium by thrust its weight would hasten the overthrow of
the system. How it is actually maintained is not apparent. No tie rods
are visible beneath the vault, such as are common in Italian vaulted
structures, which are rarely buttressed in an effective manner. Ties
or clamps may, however, be concealed within the attic, though they
would be less effective so placed. But in whatever way the system is
held together, it is bad architecture, because the parts have no proper
adaptation to their functions.
The ornamental treatment of the attic wall is worthy of notice. The
surface is divided into panels by diminutive pilasters, and these
panels are subdivided by mouldings in a manner which recalls the
treatment of the attic of the Baptistery. The coupling of the pilasters
was an innovation in the use of classic members, but it enabled the
architect to avoid unpleasant proportions in these details. Single
pilasters of the same magnitude would be too slender for the deep
entablature over them, or to harmonize with the great Corinthian
order below, while wider single ones would be stumpy and inelegant.
The pair give good proportion in the total composition, while each
pilaster is well proportioned in itself. Another noticeable point is
the manner in which the central archivolt and the archivolts spanning
the ends of the porch intersect the pilasters at the springing. This
could not be avoided, because the pilasters cover the whole space on
the entablature over the capitals of the columns, and leave no place
for the archivolts. Thus the mediæval principle of interpenetration is
carried over into the neo-classic design.
It should be observed that the details of this attic are wrought
in stucco, so that we have with the beginning of the Renaissance a
revival of a common ancient Roman practice of architectural deceit.
The great order, however, is necessarily of stone, and its general
proportions are good, though the details are poor in design, and coarse
in execution.[30]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Badia of Fiesole.]
The façade of the Pazzi has been considered as showing noteworthy
originality of design. But there are older buildings in the
neighbourhood to which it bears enough likeness to suggest its
derivation from them. The façade of the Badia of Fiesole (Fig. 14) is
one of these. By substituting a free-standing colonnade for the blind
arcade of this front, and breaking its entablature and attic wall with
an arch, we should get the leading features of the Pazzi front. Sant’
Jacopo Soprarno, with its attic surmounting an open portico having an
arcade on Corinthian columns, is also strongly suggestive of the same
scheme. The features that are peculiar to the Pazzi, the arch breaking
the entablature, the barrel vault sprung from the order, and the dome
bisecting this vault, do little credit to the architect as a consistent
designer.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Impost of San Lorenzo.]
Two more important examples of church architecture in Florence,
which appear to be mainly by Brunelleschi, are San Lorenzo and Santo
Spirito. What part Brunelleschi had in the design of San Lorenzo
is not perfectly clear,[31] but the main scheme was probably his,
though the work was not completed until after his death. In the old
sacristy of this church, which appears to be the part that was first
built, the interior design of the Pazzi chapel is reproduced with
some modifications of proportions and details, including the celled
vault on a system of ribs, resting on pendentives. The church itself
exhibits a frank return to primitive basilican forms and methods of
construction, though with modifications and some additions. The nave
has a flat wooden ceiling, but the aisles are covered with domical
vaulting on salient transverse ribs, and over the crossing is a
hemispherical dome on pendentives. In the arcades, which are carried
on Corinthian columns like those of the portico of the Pazzi, the
entablature blocks of late Roman design are reproduced in the impost
(Fig. 15). The revival of this meaningless feature shows again how
little impression the logic of mediæval art had made on the Italian
mind, and what lack of discrimination in their borrowings from the
antique the designers of the Renaissance often show. Whatever features
the Roman models displayed were looked upon as authoritative, and
copied without question; and the frequency with which this superfluous
detail was reproduced in the subsequent architecture of the Renaissance
has given it wide acceptance in more recent times. Notwithstanding
the intention of the designer to revive the ancient style, mediæval
features are conspicuous in San Lorenzo, and something of the mediæval
logic of structural adjustment occurs in some details. Not only is
the dome over the crossing supported on pendentives, which, in their
developed form, are mediæval features and thus foreign to classic Roman
design, but the piers sustaining this dome are compound, and consist
of members of different proportions adjusted in the organic mediæval
manner. The members which take part in the support of the aisle arcades
are necessarily short, while those which carry the great pendentive
arches are lengthened to reach the higher level from which those arches
spring. But all of these members have the form of fluted Corinthian
pilasters (Fig. 16). Thus were classic members used in ways that are
foreign to classic principles, and their proportions altered with as
much disregard for the rules of Vitruvius as the mediæval builders had
shown.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Crossing pier of San Lorenzo.]
The church of Santo Spirito, built after the architect’s death, closely
resembles San Lorenzo in its architectural character, though it is
larger in scale. The entablature blocks occur in the arcades here
also, but instead of a dome over the crossing as in San Lorenzo, there
is a circular celled vault on converging ribs, like the vault of the
Pazzi chapel. The interior is spacious and finely proportioned, but it
presents no features that afford further illustration of the progress
of neo-classic design.
The retrospective movement was carried further by the Florentine
scholar and architect Leon-Batista Alberti, who, says Milizia, is
justly regarded as one of the principal restorers of the architecture
of antiquity.[32] His chief designs in church architecture are found
in Santa Maria Novella of Florence, in San Francesco of Rimini,
and in Sant’Andrea of Mantua. The first two of these are mediæval
structures in which Alberti’s work is confined to the remodelling of
the exteriors, but the last was wholly designed by him, though the work
was not completed within his lifetime, and the dome over the crossing
is the work of another architect of a later time.
How much Alberti did to the façade of Santa Maria Novella, the part of
the building to which his work is confined is not very clear. Vasari
speaks vaguely as if the whole front were by him,[33] but from a
foot-note by Milanesi it would appear that he merely completed a part
which had been left unfinished by an older architect, and the work
remaining by the older architect is said to include all below the first
cornice except the central portal, which is attributed to Alberti.
Milizia says[34] that although it is common to attribute the whole
façade to Alberti, it has too much Gothic character to be entirely by
him, and that therefore a part of it may, with more probability of
correctness, be assigned to Giovanni Bettini, an older architect; but
he adds that the central portal is undoubtedly by Alberti.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Façade of Santa Maria Novella.]
An examination of the monument itself would seem to show that the part
below the first entablature, with exception of the great Corinthian
columns and the central portal, is mediæval work (Fig. 17). The whole
Corinthian order, with the angle pilasters and the pedestals on which
the order is raised, look like neo-classic work, and are probably by
Alberti. This order is wholly different in character from mediæval
design, and quite foreign to the mixture of Pisan Romanesque and
Italian Gothic features of the distinctly mediæval part with which
it is associated. The columns of the order are, however, of mediæval
proportions, being eleven or twelve diameters in height, and they
are built of small stones in a common mediæval manner. But these
proportions were necessitated by the older work to which the order
had to be adjusted, and the small masonry of which they are composed
makes them harmonize with the older parts. The central portal has a
round arch on fluted Corinthian pilasters framing in a deeply recessed
rectangular opening with a classic lintel and jamb mouldings. It is
noticeable that the arch does not spring directly from the capitals
of the pilasters, but that the entablature block is interposed, as
in Brunelleschi’s arcades of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito. Milizia,
speaking of this feature in another work by the same architect, says:
“In these arcades Alberti observed a rule always followed in the good
ancient times, but since universally disregarded. The arches are
not sprung from the columns, because this would be incorrect, but
architraves [_sic_] are interposed. It would now be ridiculous
to inculcate the importance of this rule, which is familiar to
children.”[35] This, like other notions to which the Renaissance
gave currency, is a mistake. In inserting the entablature block at
the arch impost Alberti did not follow a rule always observed in the
ancient times. This feature is uncommon in ancient Roman art. It was,
as before remarked, introduced by the late Roman architects, who,
being accustomed to the use of the entablature over the column in the
trabeate system which they had borrowed from the Greeks, did not see,
when they began to spring arches from columns, that the entablature had
no longer any reason for existence. The radical nature of the change
wrought in architecture by the introduction of the arch was never
grasped by the imperial Roman designers. First framing the arch with an
order, thus uniting two contradictory systems, they afterwards, when,
as in the basilica of Maxentius, springing the arches of vaulting from
columns, thought that the rules required them to crown these columns
with bits of entablature.
This façade appears to have been originally designed in the Pisan
Romanesque style, with a tall, shallow blind arcade on pilaster-strips
reaching across the ground story. But the Romanesque character was
modified in some details, the portals having pointed arches, pointed
arched niches sheltering tombs being ranged in the intervals between
the pilaster-strips. How far the upper part of this façade had been
left incomplete until Alberti took it in hand we have no means of
knowing; but no mediæval features occur in it as it now stands, except
the circular opening in the central compartment. Upon this front,
then, Alberti appears to have ingrafted the great Corinthian order,
placing a wide pilaster paired with a column on each angle, breaking
the entablature into ressauts to cover the columns, which have nothing
else to support, and replacing the central portal with the existing one
in the revived classic style. The preservation of the greater part of
the mediæval work in the ground story made it impossible to get in more
than the four columns in the great order, and these are necessarily
spaced in an unclassic way, with a narrow interval in the middle and
very wide ones on either side. To the upper compartment the architect
has given an order of pilasters surmounted by a classic pediment, and
flanked by screen walls over the aisle compartments in the form of
gigantic reversed consoles, apparently the first of these features
which became common thereafter in Renaissance fronts. The pilasters
of this order are again four in number, and are set in pairs on either
side of the circular opening, the width of this opening making it
impossible to space them otherwise. We thus have in the clerestory
compartment of this façade a forced arrangement of pilasters, which may
have led to that alternation of wide and narrow intervals that became
very common in the subsequent architecture of the Renaissance. The
attic over the ground story, which extends across the entire front and
answers to nothing in the interior of the building, is presumably also
by Alberti.
The front of Santa Maria Novella is notable as the first mediæval one
which was worked over by a Renaissance architect, and as a whole,
notwithstanding that it is a patchwork of incongruous elements, it
exhibits a remarkable unity of effect. The merit of Alberti’s work
here consists in its quietness. The applied orders are in low relief,
their details are unobtrusive, and the mellowing effect of age on the
beautiful marble incrusting has fused the whole front into an exquisite
colour harmony that is almost unmatched elsewhere.
Very different is the west front of San Francesco of Rimini, in which
Alberti has introduced a Roman composition without any admixture of
mediæval elements. It is substantially a reproduction of the arch of
Septimius Severus. The details are in higher relief here in conformity
with the ancient model, and the ressauts of the entablature become
correspondingly more salient. A ressaut of this kind is another
feature of Roman art which has no justification on structural grounds,
and to which there is nothing analogous in any reasonable style of
architecture. To set a useless column in advance of an entablature and
then make a ressaut to cover it, is irrational.
[Illustration:
Plate II
SANT’ANDREA
Mantua]
Alberti’s capital work in church architecture is Sant’Andrea of Mantua,
begun in 1472, the year of the architect’s death, in which he made
a frank return to Roman models in the structural forms of the whole
edifice, as well as in the ornamental details--a thing that was rarely
done by the architects of the Renaissance. The plan (Fig. 18) is,
however, cruciform, and the dome over the crossing is supported in
the Byzantine manner on pendentives. The nave (Plate II) has a barrel
vault on massive square piers connected by arches, the intervals
between the piers forming side chapels, and the lower part of each
pier having a small square chamber within it, so that it does not
look as massive on the plan as it does in elevation. The east end has
the strictly Roman form of a semicircular apse with a half-dome vault.
The details of the interior consist of a single order of pilasters,
on high pedestals, set on the angles of the piers, and of rich Roman
coffering on the surfaces of the vaulting. The piers closely resemble
those of the so-called arch of the Silversmiths in Rome, which it is
not unlikely that Alberti had in mind in designing them, inasmuch as he
was a devoted student of Roman architectural antiquities. This interior
is, I think, one of the very finest that the Renaissance produced. The
justness of its proportions, the simplicity of the structural scheme,
and the quietness of the ornamental details are all admirable. With
the given elements it is hard to see how a better composition could
be made; but the incongruity between the structural and ornamental
systems, the entirely superficial use of the order, and its unfitness
as ornament where it has no structural meaning, are fundamental defects
of this as of most other Renaissance designs. The scheme of St. Andrea
foreshadows that of St. Peter’s, and was undoubtedly in the mind of
Bramante when he was preparing his colossal project for Pope Julius II.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Sant’Andrea, Mantua.]
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Façade of Sant’Andrea, Mantua.]
The west front of this church (Fig. 19) is again an adaptation of
a Roman triumphal arch design. It is, in fact, as the plan (Fig.
18) shows, a great porch set against the true front, and has no
correspondence in its parts with those of the building itself. In
outline it is an unbroken rectangle crowned with a pediment. A very
shallow order of Corinthian pilasters divides it into a wide central
bay and two narrow ones. A great arch over a smaller order opens into
a barrel-vaulted recess, on the three sides of which the entablature
is returned. A rectangular portal, with square jambs and a cornice,
opens into the nave, and an arch reaching to the entablature opens into
the lateral compartment on each side, and each of these compartments
has a barrel vault with its axis perpendicular to that of the great
central one. The entablature of the small order is carried across the
front of each lateral bay, dividing it into two stages, and the great
order rises through it, embracing both stages, and forming an early
instance of the so-called colossal order that became common in the
later Renaissance. The great order is raised on pedestals, and both
pedestals and pilasters of this order are panelled, while the small
order rests directly on the pavement and its pilasters are fluted. It
is noticeable that the design of the central arch is almost exactly
like that of the central portal of Santa Maria Novella in Florence,
the smaller entablature being broken into shallow ressauts over the
pilasters, giving the same character to the imposts. The front as a
whole has the quiet and refined character that distinguishes this
architect’s work in general.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Arch of Septimius Severus.]
That Alberti derived all of these façades, and especially that of St.
Andrea, from the Roman triumphal arch scheme a direct comparison will
show; and the arch of Septimius Severus (Fig. 20) may, I think, be
taken as the model that he had chiefly in mind. In Santa Maria Novella
the mediæval scheme upon which he had to fit his work prevented such
a disposition of the columns, and such general proportions as this
model exhibits. He was obliged to make the lateral intercolumniations
much wider than the central one, and to make the whole rectangle of the
composition more oblong than that of the ancient monument; but in most
other points he has followed the arch of Septimius Severus closely.
As in the Roman design the entablature crowns the wall instead of the
order, so that ressauts have to be formed to cover the columns. The
insertion of the angle pilaster is a departure from the Roman scheme,
and the placing of the stumpy pilaster of the attic over the great
pilaster, instead of on the column, is another point of difference.
But the general scheme of the ground story and attic will be seen to
resemble that of the Roman design about as closely as the mediæval
edifice on which it is ingrafted would allow. In San Francesco at
Rimini the architect had a freer hand, and the order is treated in
closer conformity with the ancient model as to the spacing of the
columns and other details. The angles are treated precisely as they
are in the arch of Septimius Severus, the pilasters being omitted,
and the entablature at each end extending beyond the ressaut. The
attic is omitted here, and the unfinished upper part of the façade is
necessarily of different design.
In St. Andrea at Mantua the use of pilasters instead of columns,
and the absence of ressauts in the great order, as well as the
substitution of a pediment for the attic, make a great difference in
the general character of the design; and yet the triumphal arch idea
is even more strongly marked in this case, because it is not confined
to the mere façade but extends to the form of the whole porch. The
great barrel-vaulted recess is an exact reproduction of the central
passageway of the Roman arch, and so are the lesser arches which open
out of this recess on either side.
The triumphal arch idea applied to church fronts appears to be
peculiar to Alberti. Most other architects among his contemporaries
and immediate successors limit themselves to an application of the
orders variously proportioned and disposed. In some cases the mediæval
scheme of buttresses dividing the front into bays is retained, and
this scheme is enriched with pilasters, or columns, and mouldings of
classic profiling, as in the façade of the Duomo of Pienza by the
Florentine architect Rossellino. In the later Renaissance façades,
as we shall see, there is frequently no organic division of the whole
front into bays by continuous members embracing its whole height, but
superimposed pilasters and entablatures are variously disposed upon the
surface without any suggestion, in the composition as a whole, of the
triumphal arch idea (as in Vignola’s fronts, Figs. 49 and 50). But in
the characteristic Palladian scheme an organic division is formed by
a great order of columns reaching to the top of the nave compartment,
and overlapping a smaller order of pilasters extending across the whole
front as in Figure 54.
The foregoing examples are enough to illustrate the character of
Florentine church architecture, and that which was wrought elsewhere
under Florentine influence, in the fifteenth century. These examples
show us that the designers, while ostensibly striving to revive the
antique forms, were in reality working more or less unconsciously on a
foundation of mediæval ideas from which they could not free themselves.
The inconsistencies of their work are largely due to the irreconcilable
nature of the elements which they sought to unite, not appreciating
the logic of mediæval art on the one hand, nor the true principles
of the best art of antiquity on the other. The classic orders were
entirely unsuited to the buildings to which they affixed them. They
properly belong to a very different type of architecture which had been
developed by the Greeks in ancient times, and the Greeks alone have
used them with propriety. The Romans misapplied and deformed them,
and the Italians of the Renaissance now surpassed the Romans in their
misapplication and distortion. Many further illustrations of this will
appear as we go on.
Early in the sixteenth century this architecture began to assume
another phase in which the mediæval elements became less conspicuous,
though they were not eliminated, and the imperial Roman features were
more rigorously reproduced, yet they were never used with strict
conformity to ancient models. This phase of the art was inaugurated by
the architect Bramante after his settlement in Rome. We shall consider
the Roman work of Bramante, in the following chapter.
CHAPTER IV
THE DOME OF ST. PETER’S
When in the year 1503 Pope Julius II came to the papal chair, the
architect Bramante had recently settled in Rome. Born in Urbino, he
had spent his early manhood in the North of Italy, where he had come
under the influence of the Florentine architect Alberti at Mantua, and
of the early Renaissance masters at Milan and elsewhere. Under these
influences he had acquired a style that was peculiar to the North at
that time. But since coming to Rome he had begun to form a new manner
under the more direct influence of the Roman antique,[36] and he soon
developed a style in which the ancient Roman forms were reproduced with
stricter conformity to the ancient usage, and with smaller admixture of
mediæval features than had before prevailed.
An early work in Rome in which he exhibits this more rigorous classic
tendency is the small building known as the Tempietto in the cloister
of San Pietro in Montorio. It consists of a circular cella with shallow
pilasters, surrounded by a colonnade of the Roman Doric order, and
surmounted by a hemispherical dome on a high drum. It is thus in form
like a Roman temple of Vesta with its dome raised out of the abutting
drum and set upon its top without abutment. A glance at Figures 21
and 22, a part section and part elevation of the temple of Vesta at
Tivoli, and an elevation of the Tempietto, respectively,[37] will show
how great a change Bramante made in the adjustment of the vault to
the supporting drum, while it will show also the essential likeness
in other points between the two monuments. In Figure 21 it will be
seen that the vault is well abutted by the roof of the portico, and by
stepped rings of masonry over the haunch, while in Figure 22 the drum
is raised high above the encircling portico, and the vault is sprung
from its top, and has no abutting rings. The architect appears to have
realized that such a scheme would be unsafe on a large scale, for in
the one which he prepared for the dome of St. Peter’s he took care, as
we shall see, to provide strong abutment.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Temple of Vesta, Tivoli, from
Serlio.]
The Tempietto is but a modified copy of an ancient model, and in no
true sense an original design. The changes wrought by the copyist are
not of a creative kind consistent with true principles of building.
The pilasters, and the balustrade with which the order of the portico
is crowned, are superfluous, and the work as a whole shows little
of Bramante’s real ability as an architect. Such merit as it has is
primarily due to the ancient model which he would have done better to
have reproduced more exactly.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--San Pietro in Montorio, from
Serlio.]
But Bramante manifested his real powers in his project for the
great church of St. Peter, his capital work, which, however, was
never carried to completion. It is well known how Pope Julius II
had conceived the idea of erecting a vast tomb for himself, and
had employed Michael Angelo to prepare the design. We are told by
Vasari[38] that the project submitted by this great artist so pleased
the Pope that he determined to rebuild the church of St. Peter in order
to make it more worthy to enshrine so magnificent a monument. Under
Pope Nicholas V, half a century before, the grand old basilica, that
had stood since the time of Constantine, had been partially demolished,
and a new edifice on a larger scale begun by the Florentine architect,
Rossellino. This work had not progressed very far when it was suspended
on the death of this Pope, and operations had not been resumed until
now, when Pope Julius resolved to demolish Rossellino’s beginning along
with what remained of the old structure, and to make a fresh start with
a still grander scheme, which was prepared by Bramante, who began the
new work in the year 1506.
There is much uncertainty as to the exact nature of Bramante’s design
for the building as a whole. No authentic drawings embodying the
definitive project are known to exist, and in the monument itself
Bramante did not go far enough to show his whole intention. Even what
he actually did cannot be wholly made out with clearness, because
so many other hands were employed after his death. The exact form
of his plan is uncertain, though there appears little question that
it was to be in the form of the Greek cross with towers set in the
external angles, and it is certain that a vast dome was to rise over
the crossing.[39] The work, though considerably advanced, was not
nearly completed when, in the year 1514, the master died. He appears
to have built the great piers for the support of the dome, with their
connecting arches and pendentives, but not to have begun the dome
itself.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Bramante’s dome for St.
Peter’s, from Serlio.]
The scheme was to be a colossal one, and the dome was to be its main
feature. We may presume that Bramante naturally shared the universal
feeling of admiration for Brunelleschi’s dome, and that he wished to
rival its imposing character. But his ardent and intelligent study of
the monuments of Roman antiquity had given him a better appreciation
of their superior structural merits, and in his project for the great
dome he had sought to adhere more closely than Brunelleschi had done to
the ancient principles and ancient forms.
In seeking guidance from the antique two monuments in particular
appear to have appealed to him as offering appropriate suggestions,
the Pantheon and the Basilica of Maxentius, then called the Temple
of Peace. The first of these monuments gave the model for a mighty
hemispherical vault securely suspended over a vast area, while the
second offered an example of a stupendous system of piers and arches.
In maturing his great scheme with these models before him, he conceived
the idea of uniting their respective sublimities, and is said to have
boasted that he would set the Pantheon upon the arches of the Temple
of Peace. While it is probable that the majestic elevation of the
dome of Florence haunted his imagination, and led him to feel that
he must lift his dome high, he wished, at the same time, to give
the design a more classic character, and a sounder structural form.
In striving to accomplish this double purpose Bramante produced a
scheme for an elevated dome of almost thoroughly Roman character, and
at the same time of imposing external effect. The architect Serlio
gives an illustration[40] (Fig. 23) of this project which is highly
instructive.[41] A comparison of it with the scheme of the Pantheon
shows a close likeness in essential forms and adjustments. The points
of difference are mainly such as Bramante’s desire to make his dome
externally conspicuous would require. In the Pantheon (Fig. 24) the
dome springs from within the massive drum at a level far below the
external cornice, so that the wall above the springing forms a solid
and powerful abutment, reaching almost to the haunch of the vault.
Above this a stepped mass of masonry, diminishing in thickness as
it rises, is carried well over the haunch, effectively overcoming
any tendency to yield to the force of thrust. A Corinthian order,
surmounted by an attic, is carried around the wall of the interior,[42]
while the wall on the outside is plain.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--The Pantheon.]
In Bramante’s project every essential feature of this ancient monument
is reproduced, but with modifications which give a different aspect to
the design as a whole, but do not constitute any such radical departure
from the principles embodied in the Pantheon as those wrought by
Brunelleschi in adapting the scheme of the Baptistery to that of the
dome of the cathedral of Florence. In order to secure greater elevation
for external effect, the architect has raised the springing level of
the dome considerably, though he has still kept it below the top of
the drum. The drum itself is of great thickness, and forms a strong
continuous abutment at the springing, and the haunch of the vault is
loaded with steps of masonry as in the Pantheon, though not quite so
heavily. The lower half of the drum is a solid wall resting on the
pendentives, while the upper part, which is less than half as thick
(Fig. 25), is pierced with eight wide openings, and its inner and
outer faces are each adorned with an order of pilasters alternating
with free-standing columns in the intervals. The upper wall stands on
the inner circumference of the massive lower ring, while an encircling
order of Corinthian columns is ranged on its outer circumference, and
gives an effect of lightness and elegance to the exterior, which,
together with the lantern at the crown of the dome, goes far to
disguise the real likeness of the whole to the Pantheon scheme.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Plan of Bramante’s dome, from
Serlio.]
In these changes and additions Bramante was governed by a clear
understanding of the exigencies of his project. He was obliged to
raise the internal order from the place on the ground level which
it occupies in the Pantheon, to the upper part of the drum, in order
to provide a solid foundation resting on the pendentives; and this
compelled him to eliminate the attic story of the Pantheon scheme. The
most radical change was that of substituting the open colonnade for the
solid wall on the outside of the drum. It is doubtful, I think, whether
the drum thus lightened would have had enough strength to withstand the
enormous thrusts of such a dome.
Like the dome of the Pantheon, Bramante’s dome was to be hemispherical
and to have an opening at its crown. Over this he was to set the
lantern which in outline recalls that of Brunelleschi, though it is
of lower proportions, in keeping with the less elevated form of his
dome, and has a small hemispherical dome instead of a conical roof. The
shape of the lantern accords well with the composition as a whole, and
contributes much to the aspiring expression which was now demanded,
without wholly contradicting the classical spirit that the architect
was striving to maintain.
The structural merit of this scheme lies in what it has derived from
the forms and adjustments of the Pantheon. Its weakness consists in the
increased elevation, lifting the dome away from its abutment to such
an extent that it may be questioned whether it could have been made
safe without chains. The thrusts of a hemispherical dome are vastly
more powerful than those of a vault of pointed outline, like the dome
of Florence, but if properly abutted, as in the Pantheon,[43] it is
perfectly safe, and makes a better ceiling than a pointed vault. In
reducing the efficiency of his abutment by raising the springing of the
dome so high, the architect ought to have diminished the force of its
thrust in a corresponding degree by giving it a pointed form. This
would have made it more safe, but it would have been inconsistent with
the classic Roman models to which he was striving to conform.
As for Bramante’s intended architectural treatment of the rest of
the building we have, as before remarked, no precise information. It
appears, however, most probable that he meant to cover the arms of the
cross with barrel vaulting on massive square piers and arches, with a
single order of pilasters such as Alberti had used in St. Andrea at
Mantua, and such as Michael Angelo actually employed, though in a way
peculiar to himself, and probably unlike that in which Bramante would
have done it. For Bramante would, I think, have followed Alberti’s
example in raising the order on pedestals--the great scale of St.
Peter’s especially calling for such treatment. Bramante would have
realized that a single order large enough to rest directly on the
pavement and allow the entablature to pass over the crowns of the
arches of the great arcades, would dwarf the apparent scale of the
whole interior, as Michael Angelo’s order actually does. But whatever
his intention was as to these details, Bramante died before they could
be carried out, and we are left in the dark as to what the church as a
whole would have been had he lived to complete it.
To the work of his numerous successors prior to the appointment of
Michael Angelo, we need give no attention because their labours did
not materially affect the final result. Their work was largely on
paper only, and the building as it now exists is substantially Michael
Angelo’s design, based on that of Bramante, but with extensive, and
damaging, additions by subsequent architects.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--The model.]
Michael Angelo at the time of his appointment as architect, in the year
1546, was seventy-two years of age. He professed great respect for the
original scheme of Bramante, yet he radically changed the form and
adjustment of its main feature, the dome. In conformity with Bramante’s
project, he made the drum massive at the base and thinner above, but in
place of Bramante’s external colonnade surmounted by a solid ring of
masonry, forming a continuous abutment at the springing of the vault,
he substituted a series of sixteen isolated buttresses, and raised the
dome so high above them that they do not meet its thrusts at all. The
drum is carried up above the buttresses so as to form an attic over
the order with which the buttresses are ornamented, and from the top of
this attic the dome is sprung. The stepped circles of abutting masonry
at the haunch are omitted, and instead of one solid vault shell, such
as Bramante intended, Michael Angelo’s project provided for a variation
of Brunelleschi’s double vault, and was to include (as the model,
Fig. 26, shows) three separate shells.[44] The inner shell was to be
hemispherical (Michael Angelo thus showing that he appreciated the
superior character of the dome of the Pantheon and that of Bramante’s
scheme to the dome of Brunelleschi as to internal effect), while the
other two were to be pointed, with diverging surfaces. Following
Brunelleschi, he introduced a system of enormous ribs rising over the
buttresses of the drum, and converging on the opening at the crown of
the vault. These ribs unite the outermost two shells, extending through
the thickness of both, and support the lantern.
Of this hazardous scheme only the drum was completed when Michael
Angelo died. But the existing dome, which was carried out by his
immediate successors, is substantially his design, though the innermost
shell of the model was omitted in execution, and the vault was thus
made double instead of three-fold (Fig. 30). This dome does not,
however, divide into two shells from near the springing, but is carried
up in one solid mass almost to the level of the haunch. Michael Angelo
may have thought that this would strengthen it, but the solid part
has not a form capable of much resistance to thrust, and the isolated
buttresses are located so far below the springing that they contribute
practically nothing to the strength of the system, as already remarked,
and as we shall presently see.
Although this great dome has been almost universally lauded, it is
entirely indefensible from the point of view of sound principles of
construction. The work shows that Michael Angelo was not imbued,
as Bramante had been, with a sense of the essential conditions of
stability in dome building as exemplified in the works of Roman
antiquity. He had conceived an ardent admiration for the dome of
Florence, and in emulation of it he changed the external outline from
the hemispherical to the pointed form, and, lifting it out of the
buttressing drum, set it on the top.[45]
[Illustration:
_A_ FIG. 27. _B_]
This vast dome is an imposing object, but it is nevertheless a monument
of structural error. Not only does its form and construction render it
much less secure than Brunelleschi’s dome, but its supporting drum is
entirely unsuited to its function, save as to its strength to bear
the mere crushing weight of the vault. In replacing the continuous
colonnade, with its abutting load, of Bramante’s drum by the isolated
buttresses, Michael Angelo ignored the true principle of resistance
to the continuous thrusts of a dome. It has been thought that the
rib system justifies this, that the ribs gather the thrusts upon the
buttresses and give the dome a somewhat Gothic character. But this
cannot be so. It is impossible for a dome to have any Gothic character.
In addition to what has been already said (p. 20) on this point, it
may be further remarked that, so long as the surfaces between the ribs
remain straight on plan, as in the dome of Florence, or are segments
of a hemisphere, or of a dome of pointed form on a circular base, like
the dome of St. Peter’s, no ribs can be made to act in a Gothic way.
A circular vault on Gothic principles would necessarily be a celled
vault, more or less like the small vault of the Pazzi already described
(p. 27). In such a vault there would have to be an arch (in a true
Gothic vault a much stilted arch) in the circumference of the drum over
the space between each pair of ribs. The crowns of these arches would
reach to a considerable height, in a developed Gothic vault to nearly
or quite the height of the crown of the vault itself. The triangular
spaces enclosed by these arches and converging ribs would then be
vaulted over by slightly arched courses of masonry running lengthwise
of the triangle, or from the arches to the ribs, and approximately
parallel with the crown of the cell (_A_, Fig. 27). Thus in
place of an unbroken hemispherical or oval vault, we should have one
consisting of deep cells. The drum would have to rise far above the
springing, and the haunches would need to be loaded with a solid
filling of masonry. The vault would thus be completely hidden from view
on the outside. Nothing short of this would produce a circular vault
on Gothic principles, or one in which the ribs could act in a Gothic
way.[46] The nearest approach to such a form, in a vault that may with
any propriety be called a dome, occurs over the crossing of nave and
transept in the old cathedral of Salamanca in Spain (Fig. 28).[47] But
this vault has a very different character from the imaginary one just
described. It rises from the top of a high drum resting on pendentives,
and is built on a system of salient converging ribs. The spaces
between these ribs are vaulted over with courses of masonry slightly
arched from rib to rib, and thus running in a direction perpendicular
to that of the courses in a Gothic vault cell, as in _B_, Figure
27. A series of hollowed gores are thus formed which give a scalloped
instead of a plain circular plan to the vault as a whole. But such a
vault differs fundamentally from a Gothic vault. For the line of the
crown of each cell is the steep segmental curve _ab_ in _A_,
Figure 29. In other words, the vault as a whole is a hemisphere with
its surface broken into shallow hollows like the gores of a melon.
It is obvious that in a vault with cells so shaped the thrusts are
as great at all points in the circumference as they are in a simple
hemispherical dome, and that such a vault can have no Gothic character.
To develop this into any real likeness to a Gothic vault, it would be
necessary to reduce it to an unbroken circular plan by cutting off the
scallops at its base so that it would fit into the circular drum, upon
the inner surface of which it would now intersect in series of small
arches, one for each hollowed gore, with its springing at the point
_d_ and its crown at the point _c_. Then these arches would
have to be raised by stilting and pointing until their crowns were
brought up to the level, or near the level, of the point _b_ as in
_B_ of the same figure. Thus the line _dc_, which represents
the height of the arches in the first stage of this development,
becomes the line _ac_ in the second stage. So long as the chord of
the arc _bc_ is a steeply inclined line, the vaulting cells cannot
bear upon the ribs, nor can the thrusts of the vault be concentrated in
a Gothic way.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Interior of dome of Salamanca.]
[Illustration:
_A_ FIG. 29. _B_]
The vault of Salamanca is not a Gothic vault in any sense, though its
rib system and its hollowed cells conform with the earliest stage of
apsidal vault development leading to Gothic.[48] It is a dome, and like
the larger dome of St. Peter’s, it is sprung from the top of the drum;
but unlike St. Peter’s dome, it is powerfully abutted by turrets and
dormers built against its springing and its haunch, and it is loaded at
the crown with a cone of masonry, so that from without it looks like a
stumpy spire, and not like a dome.[49]
But Michael Angelo’s vault has not even such remote approach to
Gothic character as the small dome of Salamanca has. Its surface
is unbroken by any hollowing into cells. It is a perfect circle on
plan, and its ribs, which are embedded and not salient on the inside,
cannot, therefore, sustain the vault in any Gothic way. This dome
has, moreover, so much of a spherical shape as to give it a stronger
tendency to thrust than the dome of Florence has, and the thrusts are
exerted equally on all points in the circumference of the drum. The
isolated buttresses are therefore illogical, and being set against
the drum only, and not even reaching to the top of the drum, they are
ineffectual. Thus though the dome was bound with two iron chains, one
placed near the springing, and the other at about half the vertical
height of the vault,[50] it began to yield apparently soon after its
completion. Fissures opened in various parts of both dome and drum
which at length caused such apprehensions of danger, that Pope Innocent
XI called a council of the most able engineers and architects of the
time[51] to examine into the extent of the damage, and ascertain
whether serious danger existed. This council concluded that the cupola
was in no danger of disintegration, and the Pope, in order to restore
confidence in its safety, charged Carlo Fontana, the architect, to
write a book on the building and prove the groundlessness of any
fears of its collapse. Thus the matter appears for the time to have
been dropped. But subsequently the condition of the structure became
so alarming that three eminent mathematicians, among whom was the
celebrated Boscovich, were, in the year 1742, commissioned by Pope
Benedict XIV to make a further examination and submit a report with
recommendations for its consolidation.
The condition of the fabric at the time of this examination will be
understood from Figure 30, a reproduction of the illustration subjoined
to the mathematicians’ report.[52] They found the structure, as the
illustration shows, rent into numerous fissures, some of which were
large enough to allow a man’s arm to be thrust through them. In some
places these cracks had been filled up with brick and cement, and new
ones had opened in the filling.[53] At what time the ruptures had
commenced could not be definitely ascertained, but the mathematicians
express the opinion, for which they state their reasons, that they
may have started very soon after the completion of the work.[54] That
they were not due to any weakness in the substructure was shown by the
fact that this remained apparently quite firm. Had the fractures been
caused by any weakness in the piers or pendentives, the mathematicians
say,[55] they would be wide at the base of the drum, whereas they were
found (as shown in the illustration) to be small at the base and to
increase in magnitude toward the top of the drum, and in the region of
the haunch of the dome. This was thought by them to show that they were
clearly due to weakness resulting from the form of the structure. The
report states[56] that the weight of the lantern had caused the heads
of the great ribs to sink, the dome to expand at the haunch and at the
springing, and the wall of the drum to be pressed outward at the top.
To consolidate the fabric they recommended that additional chains be
placed at various levels, the old ones having, they thought,[57] burst
asunder by the force of the thrusts; but this could not be verified
because they are embedded in the masonry. They also recommended clamps
of iron to hold in the buttresses.
[Illustration: CVPOLA DI S PIETRO
FIG. 30.--The dome with its ruptures.]
The Marquis Poleni of Padua, a distinguished engineer of the time,
was then called to examine the dome and to take such means as he might
judge most effective to secure it against further disintegration.
Milizia tells us[58] that Poleni, after careful examination, expressed
the opinion that although the cupola had not the catenary outline which
he considered the best for stability, it had nevertheless a good form,
and was in no danger of ruin. He pronounced the fissures of no material
consequence,[59] and attributed them to two classes of causes. The
first of these he thought was haste in construction. The dome having
been built in twenty-two months with materials of unequal quality,
and not carefully laid, unequal consolidation resulted and caused
numerous ruptures. The second class of causes he considered to consist
in the action of heat and cold, humidity and dryness, lightning and
earthquake. Thus far, says Milizia, the reasoning of Poleni is just,
and worthy of his great mind, and he adds, “It would seem, then, that
since the cupola was solid, it ought to have been left in peace, but he
nevertheless advised five chains, which were placed under the direction
of Vanvitelli.”[60] The first of these chains was located at the base
of the drum, the second at the level of the attic, the third at the
springing of the dome, the fourth above the haunch, and the fifth
around the opening at the base of the lantern.
[Illustration:
Plate III
DOME OF ST. PETER’S
Rome]
Poleni, in his own book, is not wholly consistent in what he says of
the dome. While affirming its form to be admirable and its strength
sufficient, and attributing the ruptures to other causes than those
inherent in the nature of the design, he yet, in another place, admits
that they may be to some extent due to the shape of the vault which
he here pronounces not high, or acute, enough.[61] His admiration for
Michael Angelo makes it hard for him, as a rule, to find any radical
defect in the composition; but this passage, and the fact that he
caused the additional binding chains to be applied, would seem to show
that he had misgivings, and did not consider the monument so entirely
safe as the general tenor of his book would lead us to believe. And
the same misgivings are betrayed in what is said by the numerous other
writers whose opinions are cited by him, though like himself they write
for the most part with a manifest bias in favour of Michael Angelo.
Thus one of these writers proposes that the outer covering of lead
should be stripped off on account of its weight, and be replaced with
copper, to which Poleni objects,[62] affirming that the weight is an
advantage, and tends to hold the dome together. Another writer suggests
that the lantern be removed in order to relieve the fabric of its
weight. Another thinks that the buttresses should be heavily weighted
with statues. It was also proposed that additional buttresses should
be set against the attic of the drum, and carried up against the dome
itself; and again it was proposed that massive abutments be built up
over each of the four great piers, but to this it was objected that
the additional weight of such abutments would dangerously overcharge
the substructure. The most radical suggestion was that both dome and
drum be demolished and rebuilt in a more pointed form. All of these
suggestions were rejected, and it was finally decided to employ the
additional chains proposed by Poleni as already stated.
The dome of St. Peter’s (Plate III) was conceived in a grandiose
spirit, which, while it drew inspiration in part from the ancient Roman
source, recklessly disregarded the lessons which Roman art should teach
as to principles of construction. I have said that Brunelleschi led
the way in a wrong direction when he set his great dome on the top
of its drum, and had resort to clamps and chains for the resistance
to its thrusts that should have been given by abutment. In following
his example, Michael Angelo wandered still farther from the path of
true and monumental art. To make a dome on a large scale a conspicuous
object, from the springing to the crown, is a thing that cannot be
safely done in stone masonry. To make it stand at all, resort must be
had to extraneous and hidden means of support, and even these are of
uncertain efficiency for any length of time. The ancient Roman and
the Byzantine builders settled, I think, for all time the proper mode
of constructing domed edifices. Bramante had recognized this, and
while striving to include in his design for the dome of St. Peter’s
as much as he could of the new character embodied in Brunelleschi’s
dome, he tried at the same time to keep safely within the limits of
the principles that had governed the ancient practice. He gave as much
elevation to his dome as he thought these principles would allow, but
even this, as we have seen, was too much, and in greatly increasing
this elevation, so as to leave the dome entirely without abutment,
Michael Angelo took unwarrantable risks, and lent his genius to the
support of false principles.
That this has not been generally recognized is due to the fact, already
remarked, that the architects and leaders of taste of the Renaissance
have made too little account of structural propriety, and structural
expression, as a necessary basis for architectural design.
Recent writers have ignored the condition of this monument. They do
not appear to be aware of it; and although it has been fully set
forth, and discussed at great length by the earlier Italian writers,
few of them have found the true cause in its flagrant violation of the
fundamental laws of stability. They attributed the alarming progress
of disintegration, as we have seen, to accidents and circumstances
of various kinds; and have sought to shift the responsibility to the
shoulders of Bramante. They have affirmed that he did not take enough
care to make his foundations secure. There appears to be some justice
in this, though since his work was strengthened by his immediate
successors[63] the ruptures in the dome cannot, according to the
mathematicians, be attributed to this. The remarks of the old writers
on Bramante must, I think, be taken with some allowance. Their bias
against him is very marked. Thus Poleni quotes Condivi, a disciple
of Michael Angelo, as saying, “Bramante being, as every one knows,
given to every kind of pleasure, and a great spendthrift, not even the
provision given by the Pope, however much it was, sufficed him, and
seeking to expedite his work, he made the walls of bad materials, and
of insufficient size and strength.”[64]
A great deal has been said of the beauty of St. Peter’s dome. It
has been held up as a model of architectural elegance by countless
writers from Vasari down. But no abstract beauty, no impressiveness
as a commanding feature in the general view of the ancient city
that it may have, can make amends for such structural defects. Its
beauty has, however, I think, been exaggerated. Its lack of visible
organic connection with the substructure makes it inferior in effect
to the dome of Florence, where the structural lines of the edifice,
from the ground upward, give a degree of organic unity, and the
buttressed half-domed apses, grouped in happy subordination about the
base of the drum, prepare the eye to appreciate the majesty of the
soaring cupola as it rises over them. The dome of St. Peter’s has
not the beauty of logical composition. Beauty in architecture may, I
think, be almost defined as the artistic coördination of structural
parts. As in any natural organic form, a well-designed building
has a consistent internal anatomy, and its external character is a
consequence and expression of this. The dome of St. Peter’s violates
the true principles of organic composition, and this I believe to be
incompatible with the highest architectural beauty.
CHAPTER V
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMAN RENAISSANCE
As for the rest of the church of St. Peter, we need give attention to
that part only which was designed by Michael Angelo on the basis of
the original scheme of Bramante, namely, all to the eastward of,[65]
and including, the first bay west of the crossing. The western bays
of the nave as it now stands were, as is well known, added at a later
time by the architect Maderna. The plan (Fig. 31) of the earlier part
is thoroughly fine, and if the elevation had been made consistent with
this plan, St. Peter’s might have been one of the noblest monuments
in Christendom. But the architects of the Renaissance rarely sought
consistency in design; they were prone, from first to last, to mix
incongruous elements. The essentially Byzantine plan here adopted
could not be carried out in elevation with classic Roman details
with a noble result; and the attempt which Michael Angelo made to
produce an architectural effect foreign to the real structural system
led of necessity, not only to such inconsistencies as are common in
Renaissance motives, but to some awkward makeshifts which have not, I
believe, been hitherto noticed by writers on this edifice.
Following what appears to have been Bramante’s intention, Michael
Angelo constructed barrel vaults over the arms of the cross,[66]
supporting them on piers and arches which had been begun by Bramante.
To this simple and reasonable scheme he applied a colossal order of
Corinthian pilasters, a pair against each pier, as Alberti had done on
a smaller scale at Mantua, and as Bramante appears to have intended in
the great piers of the crossing, if not in all of the others. Apart
from the superficial and purely ornamental character of the order, and
its inappropriateness as ornament in such a system, its exaggerated
scale dwarfs the effect of magnitude in the whole interior. The eye
naturally estimates this magnitude by the customary proportions of a
large classic order, and while these are by no means fixed, there is an
approximate mean scale upon which we base our judgment. No beholder on
entering St. Peter’s can, indeed, fail to be impressed with the unusual
size of the order; but he is not apt to realize how far it exceeds
the largest orders of antiquity. The order of the Parthenon is about
forty-five feet high, and that of the portico of the Pantheon is about
sixty feet. These are exceptionally large among the orders of Greek and
Roman antiquity[67] but the order of St. Peter’s is one hundred feet
high.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Plan of St. Peter’s, from
Fontana.]
The lack of due effect of scale in this interior has been often
remarked, and it is generally attributed to the great magnitude of the
structural parts. The size of these parts could not, however, well be
different from what they are. Their magnitude is determined by the
scale of the great dome and the width and altitude of the arms of the
cross. The piers of the crossing are masses of masonry measuring on
their longer sides more than fifty feet on the pavement, while the
pendentive arches are one hundred and fifty feet high, and those of
the arms of the cross are seventy-five feet high. But with appropriate
treatment their scale might have been made more apparent. To adorn such
piers and frame such arches with a classic order is to destroy the
proper effect of scale, as well as to violate the true principles of
architectural design by using structural members without any structural
meaning.
Apart from the barbarism already remarked (p. 29) of springing a vault
from a classic entablature, the effect of the gigantic order is unhappy
in other respects; the great salience of its cornice cuts off from view
the lower part of the vaulting, and this pronounced overhanging ledge,
extending around the whole interior, breaks the continuity of the
upright lines into the vaulting, and diminishes the effect of altitude.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Section of aisle of St.
Peter’s.]
But not only did Michael Angelo employ this incongruous and ineffective
ornamental scheme for the interior of St. Peter’s, he also adopted a
corresponding design for the exterior which wholly contradicts the real
character of the structure and led the architect into some curious
makeshifts. For this exterior he used another gigantic order surmounted
with an attic story. This obliged him to carry up the enclosing walls
of the aisles to a height equal to that of the nave, and led to
difficulties within. For the aisle vaulting was now far down below the
top of these walls, and it therefore became necessary, unless the space
above this vaulting was to be left open to the sky, with the enclosing
wall standing as a mere screen answering to nothing behind it,[68] to
construct a flat roof at the level of the attic cornice. Figure 32, a
section through this part of the structure, will explain this and some
other awkward expedients to which the architect was driven by the use
of this colossal external order. Of the two compartments through which
the line _AB_ (plan, Fig. 31) passes, one has a barrel vault
and the other a dome, and, as each of the other corresponding parts of
the plan are vaulted in the same way, there are four small domes in
all. The effect of four smaller domes grouped around the great central
one would be happy for both internal and external effect, if they were
properly related in proportions, and the scheme were carried out in a
structurally consistent and rational way; but such a scheme could not
be developed here. For from the level of the aisle arches a dome, even
on a proportionately high drum, could not be made to reach the level
of the cornice of the enclosing wall unreasonably elevated for the
sake of the gigantic external order. But Michael Angelo nevertheless
constructed such a dome (_A_, Fig. 32), although it had to be sunk
up to its crown beneath the aisle roof, and then, for external effect,
he built another dome over it (_B_, Fig. 32). To light the lower
dome it was necessary to sink oblique openings, _a_, through the
massive masonry of the roof, and to light the useless vaulted chamber,
_b_, which he was obliged to make over the barrel vault of the
inner compartment (the crown of which is still farther down below the
roof), the well, _c_, had to be sunk. Thus instead of making a
reasonable design with ornamental details appropriate to its structural
forms, Michael Angelo first conceived an ornamental scheme consisting
of the inappropriate colossal order, and then fitted the building to
it, filling up vacant spaces with extravagantly massive solids and
useless voids, and resorting to other tortuous devices to piece out a
fundamentally irrational system.
Such is St. Peter’s church, which, though it has been much criticised,
has been more generally lauded as a model of architectural greatness.
Its real character has rarely been analyzed or rationally considered.
That it has qualities of majesty and grandeur need not be denied; but
these qualities are mainly due to its vast magnitude, and to what
it retains of the design of its first, and greatest, architect. The
manner in which the scheme of Bramante was modified and distorted
by his successors, and chiefly by Michael Angelo, notwithstanding
his professions of admiration for Bramante’s intentions, is far
from admirable, as I think the foregoing account of its structural
and artistic aberrations must show. The building as a whole is
characterized by incongruity and extravagance, and when we consider
further that the ornamentation of the interior is for the most
part a cheap deception, the rich coffering of the vaulting and the
pilasters of the great order being wrought in stucco on a foundation of
brickwork, we get the measure of the ideals and architectural standards
of men who, like Vasari, could write of it that, “not in Christendom,
nor in all the world, can a building of greater magnificence and
grandeur be seen.”[69] And this short-sighted admiration did not abate
as time went on, as we learn from the estimates quoted by Fontana in
his well-known book,[70] among which are the following: “Temple more
famous than that of Solomon,” “Unique miracle of the world,” “Chief
among the most celebrated of Christendom,” “Compendium of the arts,”
“Basis of the Catholic faith,” “Unique edifice of the orb of earth,”
etc., etc.
Before leaving St. Peter’s a word may be said of a project for the
building which was prepared by Antonio San Gallo the younger, Michael
Angelo’s immediate predecessor as architect for the fabric. This
design, no part of which was ever carried out, is embodied in a wooden
model preserved with that of Michael Angelo in the existing edifice.
The most meritorious feature of this model is the dome which, from
a structural point of view, is better than the one that was built,
since it is well abutted both at the springing and at the haunch. This
important condition is secured, however, by an architectural treatment
that cannot be commended, and consists of two superimposed concentric
arcades, the lower one surrounding the drum and abutting the vault at
the springing, while the upper one is set in retreat and fortifies the
haunch. The architectural effect of these arcades, which are of course
adorned with classic orders, is not happy because an arcade with a
classic order is not an appropriate form of abutment, though it may be
made mechanically effective, and also because the upper circle, rising
from within the circumference of the lower one, gives the composition
an unpleasantly telescopic effect.
Our consideration of St. Peter’s has led us to an advanced phase of the
church architecture of the Roman Renaissance, and we must now go back
and examine a few of the earlier structures in Rome and elsewhere that
were produced under the distinctly Roman influence.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.]
The church of Sant’Agostino is spoken of as a building of the early
Roman Renaissance, and is said to have been built by the architect
Giacomo da Pietra Santa between 1471 and 1484. But it is incredible
that such a church could have been designed by any architect of the
Renaissance, or by an Italian architect of any time. Letarouilly says
of it that from the thirteenth century the Augustinians had a convent
and small church in Rome, and that two centuries later they resolved to
enlarge the church, and employed as architects Giacomo da Pietra Santa
and a Florentine named Sebastiano.[71] The character of the building is
such, however, as to warrant the belief that it is a mediæval structure
with slight interior ornamental additions of the Renaissance, which
may be by Pietra Santa, and a façade, dating from before the close
of the fifteenth century, by Baccio Pintelli. In general character
the church is in the style of the Rhenish Romanesque architecture of
the twelfth century. It has a nave with groined vaulting in square
compartments, each embracing two vault compartments of the aisles. It
has also the Rhenish alternate system with plain square piers, and
archivolts of square section, originally without mouldings, and the
main piers have each a broad pilaster-strip carried up to the springing
of the vaults. The triforium space has no openings, and the clerestory
has plain round-arched windows. It is thus a thoroughly northern
Romanesque scheme, entirely logical in its simple construction and fine
in its proportions. The Renaissance interpolations consist of a few
ornamental details only. A stilted composite column is set against the
pilaster-strip of each main pier (Fig. 33), this column is crowned with
an entablature-block reaching to the level of the triforium, and upon
it is set a short pilaster surmounted with a smaller entablature-block
at the vaulting impost. This superfluous and irrational compound,
breaking the reasonable and effective continuity of the mediæval
pilaster-strip, greatly disfigures the originally noble design. The
only other neo-classic details of the interior are mouldings at the
arch imposts and on the archivolts, and coffering on the soffits of
the arches. These are quiet and less injurious in effect, though
equally superfluous and inappropriate. Thus did the sophistication
of the Renaissance designers often blind them to real architectural
excellence, and lead them to fancy that they could improve such an
admirable and consistent interior by incongruous and meaningless
features.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Façade of Sant’ Agostino.]
The façade (Fig. 34) is wholly of the Renaissance, and has no mediæval
character except in its general outline, which conforms with that of
the building itself. It is a simple design, and foreshadows those of
Vignola and Della Porta for the church of the Gesù, to which it is
superior in merit, being more reasonable and quiet. Shallow pilasters
of considerable elegance mark the divisions of the interior, the
portals are framed with simple classic mouldings without orders, and
the aisle compartments are surmounted with reversed consoles after the
manner of those introduced by Alberti in the façade of Santa Maria
Novella in Florence. These consoles are, however, so different in
character from the rest of the façade, having their details in higher
relief and being set a little in retreat, that they would appear to
be later interpolations. Answering to nothing in the building, they
are superfluous ornaments, and do not improve the composition, which
without them is as reasonable as a composition made up of superficial
classic details can well be. A peculiar feature of this front is the
truncated pediment that crowns the lower division, and forms the basis
of the clerestory compartment. The small rectangular tablets that break
the wall surfaces are also noticeable as foreshadowing a treatment
that was subsequently much affected by Vignola. Contemporaneously
with the façade, and by the same architect, a dome on a drum resting
on pendentives was built over the crossing. The present dome rising
directly from the pendentives is an alteration of a later time.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--Exterior of Santa Maria della
Consolazione, Todi.]
In the earlier churches that were wholly built under the Roman
Renaissance influence, the Byzantine scheme largely prevails in the
plan and structural forms, probably because it lent itself to the most
effective display of a high central dome. Among the first of these
buildings is the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione outside the
wall at Todi. The design is attributed to Bramante,[72] and it seems
to bear enough resemblance to what we know of his work to justify the
attribution. The arms of the cross here take the form of apses, the
eastern one being semicircular on plan, and the others polygonal.
The dome (Fig. 35) is raised on a high drum, and is almost an exact
reproduction of that of San Pietro in Montorio. Its thrusts are thus
entirely unbuttressed, but it is probably bound with chains, as was
the custom at this time in domes constructed in this manner.[73] The
half-domes of the apses are better adjusted. They spring from within
the supporting walls, which are carried up high enough to give
effective abutment, and are loaded at the haunch by stepped rings of
masonry, as in the Pantheon. The details of the interior (Fig. 36)
consist of two superimposed orders of small pilasters, with great
pilasters on the angles of the crossing reaching from the pavement to
the springing of the pendentive arches, and from ressauts of the upper
entablature converging ribs rise against the surfaces of the vaults.
Several further awkward results are here noticeable as a consequence
of this application of the inappropriate classic details to the
Byzantine structural scheme. The entablature which is carried around
the whole interior at the springing of the vaults, has to do duty at
once for the small order of the upper stage and for the great angle
pilasters, and thus in so far as it is in good proportion for the one
it cannot be so for the other. Then the true magnitudes of the piers
and the pendentive arches are falsified by the pilasters and simulated
archivolts which spring from them. These piers and arches really
embrace in width both the pilasters and archivolts and the spaces of
wall and vaulting between them and the pilasters of the smaller orders
and ribs which spring from them. The proper and impressive massiveness
of the essentially Byzantine system employed is thus contradicted by an
apparent skeleton of classic orders simulating an organic structural
scheme which has no real existence.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Interior of Todi.]
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Plan of San Biagio.]
The exterior of this monument (Fig. 35) has much merit in its general
form and proportions. The great central square mass, visible from the
ground upward, gives the sense of support for the dome which the eye
demands, and the apses with their half-domes are effectively grouped
in subordination to the crowning feature. But this merit, which Todi
shares with many other buildings of the Renaissance, is primarily due
to the Byzantine scheme adopted, and cannot, therefore, be wholly
credited to the Renaissance architect.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Interior of San Biagio.]
[Illustration: FIG. 39.]
A variation of this scheme occurs in the church of San Biagio at
Montepulciano by Antonio San Gallo the elder, and begun in the year
1518. Here the arms of the cross (Fig. 37) are square, with an apse
added to the eastern arm. The interior is ornamented with a single,
and very heavy, Doric order (Fig. 38), framing arched recesses in the
imperial Roman manner. The use of pilasters on the angles makes the
awkward combination of a pilaster coupled with a column necessary,
and since the entablature is in the plane of the wall, it has to be
broken into very salient ressauts in order to cover these members.
Above the entablature is a low ledge in retreat, broken into ressauts
in conformity with those of the entablature, and from these ressauts
coffered archivolts are sprung under the ends of the barrel vaults
which cover the arms of the cross. The Doric order is designed here,
for the most part, in close conformity to ancient models, save for
the pilaster on the angle, which does not generally occur in Roman
monuments. The common Roman treatment of the angle is shown in the
arch of Septimius Severus (Fig. 20, p. 41), where the end column of
the order is placed at some distance from the end of the façade, which
is left in retreat without any pilaster. But Serlio[74] describes the
ruins of an ancient Roman building (Fig. 39) that appears to have been
a sort of open arcade or stoa, used as a meeting place for merchants,
on the angles of which pilasters are set together with columns,
somewhat as they were by Alberti in Santa Maria Novella, by San Gallo
here in San Biagio, and by many other architects of the Renaissance. He
speaks of the treatment of the angles of this building as follows: “The
corner pilasters are larger than the others, and were truly made with
excellent judgment, for they strengthen the angle with good effect;
and from this architects may learn how to design angles with columns
and pilasters bound together, in order that the corner may be brought
into line with the column, which gives more solidity to the angle. If
the said angle were withdrawn into line with the middle pilasters,
the façade, when viewed obliquely, with the round column on the angle,
would appear imperfect, and for this ... I strongly commend this form
of angle because it may be fully seen from all sides.”
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--San Biagio, Montepulciano.]
Externally the composition is remarkably good in its larger features
(Fig. 40). The dome, of slightly pointed outline, on a high drum, rises
grandly from the substructure, and is well proportioned in relation
to it. The wall surfaces are treated broadly, with no orders carried
across them. They are divided into two stages, with a pediment over
each façade. Super-imposed pilasters are set on the angles, and a Doric
entablature, carried across the whole front, with ressauts over the
lower pilasters, divides the two stages. The wall of the lower stage is
entirely plain, with a severely simple rectangular portal surmounted
by a pediment. The wall of the upper stage is divided into rectangular
panels, as in the attic of the Pazzi chapel in Florence, the central
panel being pierced with a square-headed window and framed with an
order of which the capitals are Ionic and the entablature Doric. The
cornice of the top story and the raking cornice of the pediment of
each façade are broken into ressauts over the pilasters, and an order
of Ionic pilasters, with a very high entablature broken into ressauts,
surrounds the drum which supports the dome. Square detached towers
are set in the reëntrant angles of the west side, only one of which
was carried to completion. The completed one is in three stages, each
adorned with a heavy order, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian respectively.
In these orders half-columns are coupled with angle pilasters, as in
the interior, and the entablatures have ressauts on the angles over
these members. An octagonal spire-like lantern, with a tall drum
adorned with an order of Corinthian pilasters and surmounted by an
attic, crowns the tower. Small obelisks set on the tower angles and
reversed consoles against the angles of the attic give a simulation
of Gothic form to the neo-classic scheme, and show the strong hold
that mediæval ideas still retained upon the minds of the designers.
The first of these spire-like towers of the Renaissance appears to
be that of the church of Santo Spirito in Florence, which is spoken
of by Milizia as the most beautiful of Italian bell towers.[75] It
was designed by Baccio d’Agnolo, who, beginning as a wood carver,
imbibed the new enthusiasm for the antique, and after studying the
ancient monuments of Rome[76] began the practice of architecture.
This campanile is thus noteworthy as the first of a large class of
modern towers with spires of which Wren’s famous steeples were the
ultimate outcome. The scheme is based on the mediæval campanile, the
earliest form of which is the Lombard Romanesque tower. The Lombard
tower is characterized by its simple rectangular outline, the walls
rising sheer from the ground to the cornice, and strengthened and
adorned with shallow pilaster-strips, corbelled string-courses marking
the successive stories, and by small grouped openings. The tower of
Santa Maria Novella in Florence is designed on this model, and the
neighbouring tower of Prato and Giotto’s famous campanile are later and
richer modifications of the same type. In the tower of Santo Spirito
(Fig. 41) Baccio d’Agnolo has taken the Lombard scheme and clothed it
with a pseudo-classic dress. While his classic details have much of
that elegance which belongs to the best Italian work, they are out of
place in such a structure. The tall pilaster-strips of the mediæval
tower gave an expression as of an organic skeleton running through the
building. They had been developed out of the classic pilaster to meet
the needs of the mediæval type of structure, and in substituting the
superimposed classic orders for the appropriate continuous members, the
artist did violence to the true principles of design.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Tower of Santo Spirito.]
The lantern with which this tower is crowned is an adaptation of
Brunelleschi’s lantern on the dome of the cathedral, but made more
aspiring in form, so that the general outline is like that of a Gothic
spire. But the form of a Gothic spire is far removed from anything that
is proper to classic composition.
Returning to San Biagio, it may be said that the orders here have a
closer conformity with those of classic antiquity than occurs in the
earlier monuments already mentioned, except the Tempietto of San Pietro
in Montorio by Bramante.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Santissima Annunziatta, Arezzo.]
In the nave of the church of Santissima Annunziatta in Arezzo, the same
architect produced a different design. The nave (Fig. 42), of only
three bays, is covered with a barrel vault, and the aisles have small
domes on pendentives. The supporting piers are square with a shallow
Corinthian pilaster on the face of each and an entablature passing over
the crowns of the arches. The archivolts are deep, and each one is
moulded on the face and plain on the soffit. These are carried on plain
pilasters with simple impost mouldings. The wall above the entablature
is plain and unbroken, except by a round-arched window over each bay of
the ground story, and is crowned with a heavy cornice from which the
vaulting springs. We have here a structural system of imperial Roman
massiveness, necessitated by the use of the great barrel vault.
After the early part of the sixteenth century Italy produced few
architects of a high order of genius. Most of the more advanced
neo-classic art is the work of mediocre men who, while professing to be
ardent advocates of grammatical correctness according to the ancient
rules, were hardly less capricious in their misuse of classic elements
than their predecessors had been. To enter upon the examination of any
large number of buildings in this later Renaissance style would be
tedious and unnecessary; but in addition to what we have already seen
of it in the work of Michael Angelo in St. Peter’s, we may give some
attention to a few characteristic works of the two leading architects
of the later time: Vignola and Palladio.
Few men did more to make the neo-classic ideas authoritative than
Giacomo Barrozzi, called Vignola. Beginning like so many others with
painting, Vignola was led early to the study of architecture, in which
he strove to gain an exact knowledge of classic Roman forms by drawing
and measuring the remains of the ancient edifices. He thus became a
devoted partisan of the antique, and he wrote a treatise on the Five
Orders which has been widely accepted as an authoritative guide in
modern architectural practice. To him, says Milizia, “Architecture is
under lasting obligations because he established it upon system, and
prescribed its rules.”[77] And the same author tells us further that
Vignola “purified architecture from some abuses which neither his
contemporaries nor the ancients had perceived”; yet nevertheless, he
adds, “his book has produced more harm than good, for to make the rules
more general, and more easy of application, he has altered the finest
proportions of the antique.” No system of architecture, Milizia says
further, “is more easy than that of Vignola, but the facility of it is
obtained at the expense of architecture itself.”
In his book,[78] which is made up largely of drawings and diagrams,
Vignola shows how the proportions of an order may be regulated by a
module down to the smallest details. He explains how to construct Ionic
volutes and other curves from centres, and how to describe the details
of Corinthian and composite capitals by means of plan and elevation.
He thus introduces a mechanical system modelled after the formulas of
Vitruvius.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Vignola’s entablature.]
But notwithstanding his ardent advocacy of the principles of ancient
Roman art, Vignola, in his own practice, not only altered the
proportions of the orders as Milizia says, but made many fanciful
changes in them. He introduced details which have no counterparts in
correct Roman design, and freely mixed those of different orders. An
instance of this occurs in an entablature figured in his book,[79]
which he calls his own invention. In this composition (Fig. 43) we have
a pseudo-Doric frieze between an architrave with multiplied faciæ, and
a cornice on modillions. In the place of triglyphs this frieze has
consoles with two channels, like those of a triglyph, on the curved
face of each. To such travesties of classic design did the striving
after novelty, which was curiously mingled with their ardour for the
antique, lead the men of the later Renaissance. For an advocate of
classic correctness such aberrations are the more surprising as they
are expressly condemned by Vitruvius, who warns his readers against
them as follows: “If dentiled cornices are used in the Doric order,
triglyphs applied above the voluted Ionic, thus transferring parts to
one order which properly belong to another, the eye will be offended,
because custom otherwise applies these peculiarities.”[80] The Roman
writer might, indeed, have given a better reason why the purity of the
orders ought to be maintained, namely, because to each of them the fine
artistic genius of the Greeks had given its appropriate details.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Half plan of Sant’Andrea.]
In designing entire buildings Vignola shows no less freedom in
unclassic and incongruous combinations. This is manifested in the
earliest of his church edifices, that of Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle
outside of the Porta del Popolo at Rome (Figs. 44, 45, and 46). It is a
small, oblong, rectangular enclosure covered with a dome of oval plan
on pendentives. The structural scheme is thus primarily Byzantine,
but the architectural treatment is Roman. The dome is built in a
praiseworthy form, and follows the construction of the dome of the
Pantheon. An enclosing drum is carried up from the pendentives to a
considerable height, and the haunch of the vault is well fortified by
stepped rings of masonry. These rings are criticised by Milizia[81] as
awkward and unnecessary because, he affirms, the vault might have been
made secure without them. He probably means that it might have been
bound with chains in the usual manner of the Renaissance. As in the
Pantheon, the drum rises so high above the springing that but little
of the dome is visible externally. The character of the rectangular
substructure is puzzling to the eye of a beholder who looks for meaning
and congruity in architectural forms. Wrought in shallow relief upon
its façade is an order of Corinthian pilasters surmounted by a classic
pediment, and the entablature of the order is returned on the sides
of the building. The effect of the whole may be compared to that of a
Greek temple with an attic supporting a dome built upon it. So awkward
is the combination that it might be supposed to be a piece of patchwork
in which a building of Greek temple form had been altered to gain more
height within, were it not that we find in the architect’s own book
the plan and section reproduced in Figs. 44 and 45, which show that
the building as it now exists was originally designed in its present
form.[82]
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Longitudinal section of
Sant’Andrea, from Vignola’s book.]
On reflection we discover that the scheme suggests a derivation
from the Pantheon. Not only is the dome shaped and adjusted as in
that ancient monument, save for its oval plan, but the rest of the
composition is pretty clearly from the same source. To realize this it
is necessary only to eliminate, in idea, the portico of the Pantheon
with the exception of its pediment, and to conceive this pediment as
drawn back into the plane of the rectangular façade. The pediment
would then surmount the order of Corinthian pilasters which adorn this
façade, and the resulting composition would be substantially identical
with that of the façade of St. Andrea. The minor differences are
unimportant, as where Vignola has placed a pair of pilasters, instead
of only one, at each end of the façade, has given the whole order more
shallow relief, and has omitted the fluting on the pilasters. Even the
niches on either side of the portal are reproduced from the Pantheon,
though Vignola has pierced them with windows.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle.]
The likeness extends farther. The return of the entablature along
the side walls and the cornice of the attic are the same in both
instances; but the second pediment in the Pantheon façade Vignola has
not reproduced. St. Andrea is thus a close, though a modified, copy of
the rectangular part of the Pantheon, with the rectangle elongated and
surmounted by a dome designed on the Pantheon model. It was not known
in the sixteenth century that the ancient monument is not a homogeneous
structure, but an awkward patchwork, the result of successive
alterations and additions.[83] Vignola took it entire as an example
of that ancient style which he regarded as authoritative, and based
his design for St. Andrea upon it, just as many modern architects have
taken motives from Vignola himself. If it were proposed to erect a dome
upon the Parthenon, few people would fail to see that the result would
be an architectural monstrosity, yet this would not be very different
from what was done in St. Andrea by an architect who has been looked
upon as a champion of classic correctness in design.
M. Palustre has called attention to the fact that, in the interior
of St. Andrea (Fig. 45), the two parts of the entablature which have
no _raison d’être_ under a vault have been omitted.[84] But the
impropriety of a complete entablature in connection with vaulting is
no greater than that of any part of a classic order, which has no
justification in such connection, as we have already remarked.
The pilgrimage church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built over the
oratory of St. Francis at Assisi, is a more extensive monument which
was begun by Vignola in the year 1569. Though completed by other
architects, and extensively restored in 1832, the building as it now
stands is uniform in style throughout, and bears the marks of Vignola’s
manner of design. It is cruciform in plan, with a long nave and aisles,
and a square chapel opening out of each bay of each aisle. The nave and
transept have barrel vaulting, a half-dome covers the apse, and a dome
on a high drum resting on pendentives rises over the crossing. The
aisles have domical groined vaulting with transverse ribs, and the side
chapels have barrel vaults with their axes perpendicular to that of the
nave. These chapels thus form abutments to the inner vaulting, so that
no external buttresses are needed. The entire fabric is of brick, but
the details, including the orders of the interior, of the west front,
and of the drum, are wrought in stucco. For the interior the architect
has employed a great order of Doric pilasters, a single pilaster on
the face of each pier, and on the sides of the piers, under the aisle
archivolts, he has placed pairs of smaller pilasters. The soffits
of the archivolts are very wide, and have each a pair of salient
sub-archivolts corresponding with the pilasters. It had been common for
the architects of the Roman Renaissance to break the entablature into
ressauts over the columns or pilasters of the orders when used in this
way, as San Gallo had done in Montepulciano and Michael Angelo in St.
Peter’s. But the effect of thus breaking the continuity of the cornice
line is unpleasing, and Vignola has avoided it here by confining the
ressaut to the architrave, frieze, and bed-mouldings, leaving the
corona of the cornice unbroken as in Figure 47. The great piers of the
crossing show the influence of St. Peter’s in being splayed, and the
forms of the pendentives lose their spherical surfaces in being fitted
to the straight line of the splay, as they do in St. Peter’s. The
design of the façade expresses with unusual truthfulness the divisions
of the interior, which are marked by pilasters like those of the great
order within, and by an arch coinciding with the curve of the vaulting.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Order of Santa Maria degli
Angeli.]
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Plan of the Gesù.]
The Gesù in Rome, another large church by Vignola, and built at about
the same time as Santa Maria degli Angeli, is a variation of the
same scheme, and shows in a more marked degree the influence of St.
Peter’s. A plan of this building, the intended façade which Vignola
did not live to construct, and the existing façade by Jacomo della
Porta are given in the addendum to the edition of the architect’s book
on the Five Orders published in 1617 already referred to (p. 84),
and are reproduced in Figures 48, 49, and 50. The aisles are omitted
here so that the side chapels, which communicate with each other by
narrow openings in the dividing walls, open directly out of the nave.
The transept is short, and extends on either side beyond the nave
only by the thickness of its walls. An elevated dome on pendentives,
circular on plan within and octagonal on the outside, rises over the
crossing, and barrel vaults cover the nave and transept arms. The
side chapels are vaulted, with small domes on pendentives, except
those in the angles of the crossing, which do not require pendentives
because their supports are shaped to the circular form as shown in the
plan, Figure 48. These supports are made heavier than the others in
order to strengthen the crossing piers, which, in consequence of this
reënforcement, do not need to advance so far into the space under the
great dome as they otherwise would. In Santa Maria degli Angeli the
aisles prevent this treatment, and the crossing piers extend far into
the nave and narrow the spans of the crossing arches.
The scheme of the interior of the Gesù is a close reproduction of
that of St. Peter’s, though the great pilasters are of the composite,
instead of the Corinthian, order, and other minor differences are
noticeable. It is worthy of remark that the entablature has no
ressauts except at the crossing, and the vaulting is raised upon an
attic, so that no part of it is hidden from view by the cornice of the
entablature, as it is in St. Peter’s. It is also noticeable that, while
capricious in the use of elements derived from the antique, Vignola
in his church architecture eliminates mediæval forms more completely
than most architects of his time. Where in St. Peter’s, for instance,
the apses have celled vaults on converging ribs, he employs the plain
half-dome of Roman antiquity.
[Illustration: _Questa facciata no fu messa in opera per la
morte del architecto_
FIG. 49.--Façade of the Gesù, Vignola.]
[Illustration: _Facciata del Giesu come al presente si troua
fatta da Iacomo della Portta._
FIG. 50.--Façade of the Gesù, Della Porta.]
Vignola’s design for the façade (Fig. 49) presents the familiar
features of his style as already embodied in the earlier façade of St.
Andrea, but with additional infractions of propriety, as well as of
classic form in its more elaborate details. This façade corresponds in
outline with the form of the building, except for the podium of the
upper story (which contradicts the roof lines of the side chapels),
and the abutting walls of curved outline over the side compartments.
The chief aberrations of detail are the broken pediments of the
doors and windows, and the barbaric scrollwork and hermæ, the use of
which this architect did much to establish. How far the barbarism of
breaking the pediment was an independent freak of the Renaissance I
do not know. Instances of somewhat similar treatment occur in the
Roman architecture of Syria, as in Baalbek (Fig. 51), where the middle
part of the pediment is in retreat of the rest, so that the ends form
ressauts. Of the complete removal of a part of the cornice I know no
instance in the Roman architecture of antiquity. To this, however, the
architects of the later Renaissance were, in their desire for novelty
of design, led. But the cornice of a pediment is, like the roof of an
entire building, suggestive of shelter for the parts below. The actual
necessity for such shelter may be slight, but any justification which
the raking cornice has must be for expression, if nothing more, of a
sheltering roof to what it surmounts (unless we are to assume that
architectural design is a matter of purely fanciful composition of
lines with no structural meaning or expression). To cut a piece out of
the middle of it is an architectural solecism.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Pediment of Baalbek.]
The actual façade by Della Porta (Fig. 50) follows the main lines of
Vignola’s design, but the details are much altered. The podium of the
upper story is raised in height, reversed consoles are substituted for
the plain curved abutments of Vignola, and the raking cornices of the
small pediments are made whole. But other aberrations take the place
of those which are eliminated, as that of placing one pediment within
another over the central portal, and the ugly shapes and framings of
the tablets and niches that break the wall surfaces. Della Porta had
acquired these habits of design from his master, Vignola, and how far
Vignola himself could go in such monstrosities is shown in some of the
figures of his book already spoken of. Figure 52 from this book affords
an instance.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Tablet from Vignola.]
If Vignola did much to make authoritative the later ideas of the
sixteenth century as to the principles of ancient art and their
application to modern uses, Palladio did even more. By the example
of his numerous architectural works, as well as by his writings,
the influence on modern art of this famous neo-classicist has been
greater than that of any other architect of the Renaissance, so that
we have, in the principal countries of Europe, a style of architecture
which is known as Palladian. Palladio was the first architect of the
Renaissance who was not at any time either a painter or a sculptor.
He begins his well-known book[85] as follows: “Guided by natural
inclination, I began in my earliest years to devote myself to the study
of architecture, and having been always of the opinion that the ancient
Romans were in building, as in many other things, far in advance of all
those who came after them, I took for my master and guide Vitruvius,
who is the only ancient writer on this art, and I set myself to the
investigation of the remains of the ancient edifices which, injured
by time and the violence of barbarians, are still extant. And finding
them much more worthy of attention than I at first thought, I began
with great diligence to measure most minutely every part of them. I
became so ardent an investigator, not having known with what judgment
and fine proportion they had been wrought, that not once only, but many
times, I visited different parts of Italy and elsewhere, in order to
understand and delineate them completely. And seeing how far the common
manner of building differs from what I have observed in the ancient
edifices, and read in Vitruvius, and in Leon Batista Alberti, and in
other excellent writers since Vitruvius, and from that new manner which
I have practised with much satisfaction, and which has been praised by
those who profited by my work, it has seemed to me right, since man is
not born for himself alone, but also to be useful to others, to publish
the drawings of these edifices, which at the cost of much time and
peril I have gathered; and to state briefly that which has seemed to me
most worthy of consideration in them, together with those rules which I
have observed, to the end that those who shall read my book may profit
by such good as may be in it, and supply that which may be wanting (for
much, perhaps, may be) so that, little by little, we may correct the
strange abuses, the barbarous inventions, avoid the superfluous cost,
and (what is more important) the various and continued deterioration
which we see in so many buildings.”
The implicit confidence of the neo-classicists in the art of Roman
antiquity as the embodiment of all true principles of architectural
design, and their unquestioning belief that mediæval art was wholly
false in principle and barbaric in character, have seldom been more
naïvely expressed.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--Orders of San Giorgio.]
Of church architecture by Palladio we have two important buildings,
San Giorgio Maggiore and the Redentore, both in Venice. The first of
these stands on the island of San Giorgio, opposite the Piazzetta, and
is a characteristic Palladian design, though some parts of the west
front may have been added after the architect’s death. This church is
cruciform, and has barrel vaulting with interpenetrations for light,
and a dome on pendentives over the crossing. The piers are heavy, with
a single engaged column of the composite order, raised on a high
pedestal, against each one, except at the crossing, where the columns
are coupled with pilasters, while the wide archivolts rest on pairs
of smaller pilasters of the Corinthian order, without pedestals (Fig.
53). Both columns and pilasters have strong entasis, and the frieze of
the entablature is rounded in profile. In raising the great order on
pedestals Palladio conformed more closely to ancient Roman practice
than Michael Angelo and Vignola had done; but the pedestals have a
clumsy effect thus ranged along the nave, and their sharp angles are
in the way of moving crowds of people. It is noticeable, too, that
Palladio has introduced complete orders under the archivolts, giving an
entablature to each pair of small pilasters. The entablature had before
been omitted in this situation. The whole scheme shows in a marked
degree how inappropriate is the use of classic orders in a church
interior. The application of such orders to a building with aisles and
a high nave obliges the designer to make awkward combinations, and
to violate true classic usage in manifold ways, as we have already
abundantly seen. He must associate large and small orders, and give
them relationships and adjustments that belong to mediæval, rather
than to classic, composition. The façade of this building (Fig. 54)
has the merit of conforming in outline to the shape of the nave and
aisles. It is the outline of the primitive Christian Roman basilica
without any disguises in the way of reversed consoles over the aisle
compartments, or divisions contradicting those of the interior. Instead
of the superimposed orders of Vignola’s west fronts, Palladio has
here, in the nave compartment, one great order of engaged columns, on
high pedestals, rising through the entablature of a small order of
pilasters, which is carried across the whole front, reaching to the
height of the aisles. The total scheme gives a suggestion of mediæval
organic composition, but has no real organic character pertaining to
the building.
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--Façade of San Giorgio.]
In the façade of San Francesco della Vigna, also in Venice, and by
the same architect, the design of San Giorgio is repeated, with some
notable changes in detail. In this case the small order, as well as the
larger one, consists of columns, except that on each angle a pilaster
takes the place of a column, and both orders rise from the same level,
the smaller one resting on a continuous podium, and the larger one
on pedestals which are ressauts of the podium. The entablature of
the small order is here not continuous, but is broken by the nave
compartment, though a fragment of it is inserted in the central bay of
this compartment over the small columns that flank the portal.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--The Redentore, Venice.]
The scheme of the Redentore differs from that of San Giorgio. It has
no transept and no aisles, but in the place of aisles a series of side
chapels. A square area in front of the sanctuary is covered with a
dome on pendentives, while the nave has a barrel vault, and the side
chapels have barrel vaults with their axes perpendicular to the axis
of the nave. From the dividing walls of these chapels solid abutments
in pairs are carried up through the lean-to roofs over the chapels to
meet the thrusts of the nave vaulting, as shown in the general view of
the exterior (Fig. 55). The plan of the east end is peculiar. A round
apse opens out of the north and south sides of the square covered by
the dome, and a colonnade on a curved plan forming the sanctuary bounds
this square area on the east side. Beyond this is an oblong enclosure
the eastern wall of which is on a curved plan, and the sanctuary is
flanked by small towers. The interior has a great order of Corinthian
columns, one against each pier, resting directly on the pavement, and
the small pilasters under the archivolts carry entablatures which
extend to the outer wall and from them the barrel vaults of the chapels
spring. The entablature of the great order is not set in the wall and
broken by ressauts to cover the columns, as in San Giorgio; but is
carried by the columns, and thus overhangs the wall with a supporting
corbel in the middle of each intercolumniation which forms a keystone
to the arch beneath. The façade of the Redentore is a variation of
that of San Giorgio with the pedestals omitted from the great order,
as in the interior, and it has an attic behind the pediment like that
of Vignola’s small church of St. Andrea at Rome. Such is the nature
of Palladian church architecture. We shall see more of Palladio’s art
when we come to the consideration of the later civil and domestic
architecture of the Renaissance.
It is unnecessary to multiply examples of the church architecture of
the Roman Renaissance, _i.e._ that architecture which derived
its character primarily from the influences that were active in Rome
from the beginning of the sixteenth century. For while the churches
of this style differ considerably one from another in details, they
agree essentially in architectural treatment growing out of a closer
contact with ancient monuments, though with no strict conformity to
them. Descriptions of minor differences in the forms of such buildings,
and in the composition of their ornamental details, are tedious, and
enough of them have now been given. We may, therefore, in the next
chapter, pass on to the consideration of the palace architecture of the
Renaissance.
CHAPTER VI
PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE
While it was in church edifices that the neo-classic ideas in
architecture were first embodied, it was in vast palatial houses that
they were most extensively carried out. Early in the fifteenth century
luxurious living began to prevail among the upper classes of society,
and sumptuous private dwellings on an unprecedented scale were now
erected in Florence. Magnificent palaces had, indeed, been built in the
later Middle Ages which were among the chief ornaments of the mediæval
towns; but those were civic monuments expressive of the communal spirit
and artistic culture of their time. Such buildings as the Palazzo
Vecchio in Florence, the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, the Ducal Palace
of Venice, and many others were the material manifestation of a state
of municipal pride, and popular love of beauty and propriety in public
monuments. Upon these buildings the best craftsmanship was lavished,
while the dwellings of the most wealthy citizens were modest in scale,
though often beautiful in design.
[Illustration:
Plate IV
PALAZZO RICCARDI
Florence]
A fine example of an unostentatious, though dignified, house of a
Florentine Patrician of the thirteenth century still extant is the
Palazzo Mozzi. Its broad walled front of two stories over a high
basement, with narrow string courses of simple profile and moderate
projection, its well-faced and finely jointed masonry, and its plain
window openings of the characteristic mediæval Florentine form in
which the extrados is pointed while the intrados is round (Fig.
56), is a model of architectural simplicity, while it expresses the
superior social station of its inmates. A few smaller houses of similar
character as to quietness and simplicity of design, many of them suited
to the needs of humbler citizens, have been preserved in some of the
Italian towns. A few interesting examples of these may be found in
Perugia. They have plain stone fronts, with simple string courses
marking off the stories, and windows in some cases wholly round arched,
in others having the extrados pointed with an ogee curve (Fig. 57).
[Illustration: FIG. 56.]
[Illustration: FIG. 57.]
But early in the fifteenth century vast structures for private use
began to arise which rivalled in scale, and in costly splendour, the
great civic monuments of the former time. The first of these larger
palaces in Florence is the one now known as the Riccardi, designed
by the architect Michelozzi for Cosimo de’ Medici in 1430. It is a
princely edifice, and though comparatively plain in general aspect, it
is in many ways superior in architectural character to all of those
which followed it. Like other buildings of its class it is in plan a
survival of the ancient Roman house, having the form of a rectangle
enclosing an open court. In elevation (Plate IV) it has two stories
over a high basement, and is grandly simple in design, and fine in its
proportions. In buildings of this class there is no peculiar internal
system which requires attention before the outside can be understood.
The apartments have generally flat wooden ceilings, and where vaulting
occurs, as usually in the basement and sometimes in the upper stories,
it is of a kind that calls for no buttresses against the wall, the
thrusts being met by the thickness of the walls, and by the weight of
the upper stories. The façades of the Riccardi have no engaged orders,
but the great cornice has classic profiling, and its bed mouldings have
dentils and other classic details, while modillions of semi-classic
form support the corona. The window openings are of thoroughly mediæval
character in their larger features, and are each composed of a round
arch embracing two smaller arches with a central shaft and jamb
shafts, but the shafts have the tapering form with entasis, and the
_congé_, of classic design. The capitals are of nondescript form,
with a channelled bell, an ovolo with egg and dart ornament, reversed
Corinthianesque leafage depending from its angles, and a Corinthian
abacus in each. The openings are uniform in each story, and their
archivolts are treated in the mediæval Italian manner, the extrados
being struck from a higher centre than the intrados. The graduated
heights of the stories, and the varied treatment of the wall surfaces
by rough-faced rustication in the basement, smooth-faced rustication in
the principal story, and smooth close-jointed masonry in the top story,
add much to the beauty of this finest of early Renaissance palaces. It
is worthy of notice that here, as in the Italian domestic architecture
of the Renaissance generally, the roof is not visible in a near view of
the building, and no dormers or chimney-stacks appear. The conditions
of climate did not call for a high-pitched roof, nor for any of those
features that are naturally developed in the architecture of more
northern countries. The general outline of the edifice is thus severely
simple, and its agreeable effect is due to its fine proportions and
arrangement of parts. It is noticeable, too, that the reveals are
shallow on the outside, in marked contrast to the deep reveals of
the later Renaissance architecture. This is not only conducive to
quietness of effect, but it has the advantage of giving to the interior
the maximum of light--since the farther out the glass is placed the
less will be the shadow thrown upon it, while the internal reveal,
especially when it is splayed, reflects light into the interior.
The interior court of the Renaissance palace has a vaulted arcade on
each of its four sides beneath the overhanging upper stories. These
arcades are, in the Riccardi (Fig. 58), supported on columns of classic
form with capitals of a composite type, but of no great beauty. The
arches spring directly from these capitals, and have classic profiles,
while two string courses, with an interval forming a semblance of a
frieze, give the effect of an entablature passing over the crowns of
the arches.
The spacious apartments of these early Florentine palaces are generally
fine in their proportions and simple in their architectural treatment.
They are, however, rarely well lighted. The ceilings are at a great
height above the comparatively low windows, and the windows are
disposed for external effect, rather than for convenience within. Thus
while these apartments are stately, they are rarely adapted to cheerful
indoor life, and in a northern climate they would be intolerably
gloomy. When used, as they now often are, as galleries for the
display of works of art, they do not serve well, very small portions
of their vast wall spaces being well lighted, and the disposition of
the openings often such as to produce embarrassing cross lights and
reflections.
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Court of the Riccardi.]
Vasari tells us that “after Brunelleschi, Michelozzi was held to be
the most consistent architect of his time, and the one who with best
judgment planned either palaces, monasteries or houses.” And concerning
the Riccardi he adds, “All the more praise is due him since this was
the first Palace in Florence built in the modern manner, and which has
a disposition of apartments both useful and beautiful.”[86] He does not
explain in what the superior planning of the Riccardi consists, and it
is doubtful whether these remarks were based on any definite idea. But
however this may be, the building is indeed a stately and magnificent
one, of quiet aspect, and for the most part free from meaningless
features.
Hardly any other one of the Florentine palaces of the Renaissance
equals the Riccardi in beauty and dignity. That part of the Pitti which
was begun by Brunelleschi in 1435, though equally free from meaningless
features, is almost too bald to be called an architectural design. Each
story of its long façade is as monotonous as the Claudian aqueduct
which it closely resembles.
The front of the small palace called the Strozzino is in the style of
the Riccardi, and is attributed to the same architect. It has but one
story above the high basement, and the treatment is even more mediæval
in character, the window arches having the pointed form.
The Palazzo Strozzi, begun in 1489 by Benedetto da Majano, follows
the same general scheme as the Riccardi, but is less admirable in its
proportions. Vasari tells us that Majano carried the exterior almost
to completion, but that the court and the great cornice were the work
of Simione Pollaiuolo, called Il Cronaca. This cornice, he says, was
copied from an ancient model in Rome which the architect had drawn and
measured with great exactness, but he had here enlarged the scale to
suit the proportions of the building.[87] I think it may be said that
he enlarged it too much, and that, in common with the cornices of most
of these Renaissance palaces, it is too heavy. The Strozzi, more than
any other of the palatial houses of its time, has the fortress-like
character which indicates the turbulent condition of Florence in the
fifteenth century. The vast basement of ponderous masonry, with no
window openings near the ground, gives a gloomy and forbidding aspect
to the front, and marks a survival of the savage habits of feudal life
in this epoch of advanced Italian civilization and culture.
The Palazzo Pazzi, now known as the Quaratesi, is attributed to
Brunelleschi, and has the marks of his style in the details of the
windows. It has the same general scheme of design as the foregoing
houses, and its stories are proportioned with the same pleasing
gradation in their heights that we have noticed in the Riccardi;
but the wall surfaces are different, being uniformly overlaid with
stucco. A series of small circular openings, with mouldings over the
windows of the topmost full story, resembling those of the drum of the
Pazzi chapel, seem to give further evidence of Brunelleschi’s hand.
Still another building in this style, though of even plainer external
character, having small undivided openings, is the Palazzo Gondi,
designed by Guiliano da San Gallo toward the close of the fifteenth
century. The arcades of the court of the Gondi have Corinthian columns
of great elegance, and the arches have ornamental keystones.
Another type of Florentine palace of the early Renaissance is
exemplified in the Palazzo Guardagni, attributed to Simone Pallaiuolo.
It has an open loggia at the top, and the portals and windows have
the round arched form with the extrados pointed. This is a thoroughly
reasonable and appropriate Italian style of domestic building, and
if it had been consistently adhered to, without any admixture of the
classic elements that were soon introduced, the domestic architecture
of Florence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries might have merited
our unqualified admiration. On the simple and appropriate scheme of
the Palazzo Guardagni there was opportunity for such variations of
disposition, proportion, and details as utility and taste might call
for, without any resort to neo-classic elements.
The foregoing buildings, though larger and more elegant than the
private houses of the Middle Ages, are still in their main features
largely mediæval in character. But before the later buildings of this
class were erected, another phase of design in palatial architecture
arose in which the spirit of the Renaissance is more manifest in the
application of the classic orders to the walls of the façades. This
application, as is well known, occurs first in the Palazzo Rucellai,
designed by the architect Alberti and built just after the middle of
the fifteenth century. We have already (pp. 35–42) seen something of
Alberti’s use of classic orders in church architecture, and we have
now to consider further the influences which were guiding the public
taste as they are reflected in the works of the man who on the whole
did most at this early epoch to establish the new architectural ideas.
Alberti was a scholar and a man of high social station. Like most men
of culture in Florence he had a taste for the fine arts, but, as Vasari
tells us, he “applied himself not only to discover the principles and
the proportions of antiquity, but also, being naturally so inclined,
much more to writing than to practice.”[88] The moving purpose with
him was thus primarily archæological and literary, rather than artistic.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Façade of the Rucellai.]
The Rucellai is in form substantially like the Riccardi and other
buildings of its class, but in place of the plain wall surfaces which
are appropriate for a building that has no structural framework, we
have an order of classic pilasters dividing the face of each story into
bays answering to nothing in the real system of construction (Fig. 59).
We thus have here in domestic architecture an instance of that false
use of the orders which in church architecture was first introduced in
the chapel of the Pazzi. Alberti’s classic tendencies are here shown
further in the introduction of a diminutive entablature passing through
the smaller arches of the windows, and these arches are merely cut in
relief on a solid tympanum (Fig. 59). It is worthy of notice, too, that
the rustication of the masonry of this façade does not mark the true
joints. The blocks of stone are in many cases much larger than they
appear, channels being cut upon them to simulate joints. The arch of
one window, for instance, which by the rustication would appear to be
made up of fourteen voussoirs, has in reality only three. The same lack
of conformity of the simulated jointing with the true masonry joints
is noticeable also in many parts of the façade of the Riccardi, and I
know not how general this treatment may be in the architecture of the
Renaissance.[89]
The initiative thus given by Alberti was not at once universally
followed. The orders did not come into general use in the façades of
domestic architecture until the period of the later Renaissance. The
most important Florentine palaces of the latter part of the fifteenth
century have, as we have seen in the Strozzi, no classic orders. The
classic elements of these buildings are confined to details such as
the profiling of cornices, and the introduction of dentils and other
kindred ornaments, and to the capitals of court arcades.
Early in the sixteenth century a further innovation in the treatment of
palace fronts was made in Florence by the Architect Baccio d’Agnolo,
whose design for the campanile of Santo Spirito we have already noticed
(p. 82), in the Palazzo Bartolini. This consisted in framing the
windows with small orders crowned by pediments (Fig. 60). Milizia thus
refers to this innovation: “This was the first palace with windows
adorned with frontispieces and with columns at the doorway carrying
architrave, frieze, and cornice. A novelty, like most others, at first
disapproved and then idolized. The Florentines all ridiculed Baccio for
this new style of architecture, not only with words, but with sonnets,
and with jesting devices attached to the building, taunting him with
having made a church of a palace.”[90] For the rest, though Baccio
d’Agnolo has not adorned the walls of this building with orders, he has
marked the stories with entablatures, and placed rusticated pilasters
at the angles.
As time went on the spirit of display in domestic architecture
increased. Buildings like the Riccardi owe their admirable character
largely to their moderation. The well-known remark of Vasari[91]
that Cosimo de’ Medici had rejected a scheme for that building which
had been prepared by Brunelleschi on the ground that so sumptuous a
dwelling for a private citizen might excite envy, indicates the more
modest feeling and sense of fitness, which as yet held in check the
spirit of ostentation. But the boast of Filippo Strozzi that he would
make his great palace excel all others in magnificence betrays the
ambition that governed the later builders of the great houses of the
Renaissance.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--Window of the Bartolini.]
By the beginning of the sixteenth century the vigour of the Florentine
Republic was spent, and its artistic ascendency was declining. Lorenzo
de’ Medici had died, and the chief seat of artistic activity was, as we
have already seen, transferred to Rome where the conditions were very
different from what they had been in Florence during the earlier time.
Ideals and aspirations were further changed, and the quest of material
splendour was more than ever stimulated under the mundane ambitions
of a luxurious and profligate society. Thus it was that in connection
with the later neo-classic church architecture already considered there
arose a corresponding movement in the erection of sumptuous palatial
houses, though still for some time palatial architecture retained much
of the earlier moderation in design. The great Roman houses of the
early part of the sixteenth century have a dignity and grandeur that go
far to redeem their incongruities. It was not, as we shall see in the
next chapter, until men like Sansovino, Vignola, and Palladio appeared
that the Roman influences bore their full fruit.
CHAPTER VII
PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMAN RENAISSANCE
Among the first of the great Roman palatial houses of the Renaissance
is the so-called Cancelleria, which together with the Palazzo Girand
Torlonia of similar design, has been attributed to Bramante. The
building is believed, however, to have been begun before Bramante had
settled in Rome, but it is not impossible that he may have had a hand
in its design and construction at a later time while he was at work on
the church of St. Peter. Some ground for belief in his authorship of
the façade is found in some of its leading features which resemble, on
the one hand, those which are characteristic of the early Renaissance
architecture of the north of Italy, where Bramante received his early
training, and on the other, the work of Alberti under whose influence
it is reasonable to suppose that he had come while in Mantua. The north
Italian features[92] are the windows of the principal story (Fig. 61),
which are undivided and flanked with pilasters carrying archivolts
surmounted with cornices on panelled spandrels, and the disks in the
wall over the windows, while the features bearing likeness to the work
of Alberti are the orders of pilasters applied to the walls, as in the
Rucellai of Florence. But Bramante, if this be his design, has gone
a step farther in conformity with the Roman antique in introducing
a podium beneath each order, as in the Flavian Amphitheatre. He
has also extended Alberti’s arrangement of the pilasters of the
clerestory of Santa Maria Novella, setting them in pairs across the
whole front instead of spacing them equally. He thus established a
mode of treatment that was afterwards extensively followed, with many
variations, in palatial façades. Among Renaissance innovations in the
use of the orders this is one of the most marked. In ancient Greek
usage the columns of an order were equally spaced, save in exceptional
cases where the central intercolumniation is considerably widened to
give a more ample passageway, as in the Propylæa at Athens. The Romans,
in their triumphal arches, increased the width of the central space,
but no other inequality of spacing is common in ancient art.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--Façade of the Cancelleria,
Rome.]
The façade of the Cancelleria has a feature that is not common in
Italian architecture, that of a slight advance of the wall at each
end, so as to form projecting bays, as in the pavilions of the French
Renaissance châteaux. The salience of these bays is very slight,
however, and is hardly noticeable in a general front view. The scheme
of the upper façade resembles that of the Rucellai very strikingly,
save in the points just noticed; but the basement is different, having
no order, its rusticated wall being unbroken except by the portals, of
which there are two, and a series of small arched window openings. Only
one of these portals belongs to the original design. This one, shown
in the illustration, is of stately magnitude and fine proportions. Its
jambs and lintel are profiled with severely classic mouldings, and it
is crowned with a cornice on consoles with a frieze between it and the
lintel. It is an amplification of Alberti’s portals in the Rucellai,
and is of almost Greek purity of design, though it differs from a
Greek portal in the more pronounced character of its cornice, in the
introduction of the frieze, in the greater development of the consoles,
and in its vertical jambs, which in Greek design would incline inward.
A comparison with the portal of the Erechtheum will illustrate the
points of likeness and of difference. The other portal appears to be
an interpolation of a later time. An order of Doric columns framing
an arch is set against a double order of Doric pilasters, the whole
supporting a balcony, and forming a scheme characteristic of the later
Renaissance.
The court of the Cancelleria has an arcade of two vaulted stories.
These arcades support the overhanging upper story and attic, both of
which are embraced by a single order of pilasters not arranged in
pairs, as in the external façade, but evenly spaced.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.--Portico of the Massimi, Rome.]
In Rome as in Florence many of the great palaces are without engaged
orders dividing the wall surfaces into bays. The Palazzo Massimi,
for instance, the next one of importance, designed by Baldassare
Peruzzi, and dating from the early part of the sixteenth century, has
an order on the basement story only, while the wall above is unbroken
even by string courses. In conformity with the line of the street on
which it stands, the façade of the Massimi is curved on plan. A wide
recessed portico (Fig. 62) gives a reason for the introduction of a
free-standing Doric order, and in continuation of this order, an order
of engaged Doric pilasters is ranged along the basement wall on either
side. Both columns and pilasters are here again placed in pairs, the
narrow intervals being narrower than in the Cancelleria, and in the
portico the interval on the axis, opposite the portal, is wider than
the other wide ones, while at each end a column is necessarily paired
with a pilaster. The plain wall of the upper stories is uniformly
rusticated and smooth-faced. The windows of the principal story are
framed with mouldings of quiet classic profiling, have simple cornices
on consoles, and are ranged on a podium with a ressaut under each
window. Above are two tiers of small oblong rectangular windows with
cartouche frames. The details of this façade have great refinement, and
show the influence of Alberti. The Roman Doric order of the portico has
much simple beauty. The entasis of the columns is more moderate than
is common in later Renaissance design, and the light falls on their
rounded surfaces, as they stand relieved against the dark void of the
porch, with admirable effect. The façade as a whole is monotonous, but
it has an expression of architectural reserve that is worthy of praise.
The façade of the Palazzo Farnese, by Antonio da San Gallo the younger,
the grandest of these Roman palaces, again has its wall surfaces
unencumbered with orders. The basement is comparatively low, and all
three stories are in effect of nearly equal height. The walls are of
brick with rusticated quoins of stone, and a rusticated stone portal
in relief, of the simple early Florentine type, occupies the centre
of the basement. The quoins suggest the influence of the rusticated
pilasters on the angles of the Bartolini palace in Florence, and San
Gallo has followed Baccio d’Agnolo, the architect of the Bartolini,
further by introducing small orders with pediments to frame the windows
of the upper stories. But for pilasters he has substituted engaged
colonnettes on high pedestals, and in the principal story has made
angular pediments alternate with curved ones. This mode of designing
doors and windows has since become so common that it generally passes
without question of its propriety. It is, however, justifiable only
on the principle, universally accepted by the architects of the
Renaissance, that structural members may be used for ornamental
purposes without any structural meaning or expression in harmony with
the character of the building to which they are applied. But this is
a principle which finds no support in any thoroughly noble system of
architecture--Greek, Byzantine, or Gothic. Structural members may be
used properly enough with a primarily ornamental purpose when they have
a character in keeping with the real structural system in which they
are used. The blind arcades, and shafted archivolts of the portals, of
Romanesque and Gothic architecture, are largely of this nature;[93]
but to surround the windows of a walled structure, like the Farnese,
with columns and entablatures applied to the surface of the wall, is an
architectural solecism. A further barbarism occurs in the windows of
the top story, which are said to have been designed by Michael Angelo,
and the fact that they are like the upper windows of the church of St.
Peter lends support to the attribution. These windows of the Farnese
are arched, and the crowns of the arches rise above the capitals of the
flanking colonnettes so that an entablature resting on these capitals
cannot pass over them. Complete entablatures are therefore omitted,
entablature blocks being set upon the capitals to support the raking
cornices of the pediments (Fig. 63). This makes a bad composition,
because the structural system simulated would in reality be an
insecure one in consequence of the absence of a tying member which the
entablature should form in such a scheme. The eye instinctively feels
that the pediment cornices are tending to thrust so as to overthrow the
supporting colonnettes. It is true that in the windows of the principal
façade (the figure is taken from a window on the side of the building)
the cornice of the entablature block is returned against the wall over
the arch; but this is so far in retreat, and so inconspicuous, that it
does not properly complete the pediment triangle. Precedents for many
of these Renaissance aberrations of design may be found in ancient
Roman art, and this particular one is foreshadowed at Baalbek, where
in the pediment already noticed (p. 95) the entablature, as well as
the raking cornice, is broken, the middle part being set back in the
plane of the wall, and the parts over the supporting pilasters forming
ressauts. But I know of no ancient instance in which the entablature
is completely removed between the ressauts, unless the one figured by
Serlio[94] (reproduced in Fig. 64) be ancient. He does not say that it
is, but he describes it among other things that he calls ancient, and
says that he found it between Foligno and Rome, and that it exhibits an
architectural license because the architrave is broken by the arch.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.--Window of the Farnese.]
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--Portal from Serlio.]
In the court of the Farnese we have a frank return to the ancient
Roman combination of arch and entablature, with a Doric order in the
basement, an Ionic order next above it, and an order of Corinthian
pilasters in the top story. Where engaged orders are thus used in the
inside of a rectangle it is usual to set a section of a pilaster in the
angle, as the architect has done here. But the treatment of the capital
in this angle becomes a matter of difficulty which cannot be overcome
in an entirely satisfactory manner. This is especially the case where
the Ionic order is used, as in the principal story of this court. It
is necessary here to have parts of two capitals, on the angle strip of
pilaster, in order that there may be a bolster on each side parallel
with those of the other capitals in the colonnade to which it belongs,
and a volute on each side facing in the same direction as the others
in the same series. Thus two volutes have to be mitred together with
awkward effect. A further awkwardness arising from this misuse of the
orders is that of bringing three supporting members together in the
angles, the end column of each adjoining colonnade, and the pilaster
set in the angle in which they meet.
An earlier instance of the Roman arch and entablature scheme applied to
a continuous arcade occurs in Rome in the cloister of Santa Maria della
Pace, the design of which is attributed to Bramante. The upper story of
this arcade is worthy of notice as having a rhythmical scheme, such as
is common in mediæval design, wrought into the neo-classic composition.
This story has no arches, but a simple entablature is carried on square
piers rising over the piers of the ground story, with a pilaster on
the face of each, and in each interval is a small round column rising
over the crown of the arch below. But this alternation of large and
small, and compound and simple, members has no meaning apart from that
of ornamental effect. In mediæval design, the larger members would
have the function of supporting heavier weights, and the rhythmical
arrangement would thus have a primarily structural meaning.
After the early part of the sixteenth century Italy, as before
remarked, produced few architects of a high order of genius. The later
architecture of the Renaissance is the work of men of little genuine
artistic inspiration, though many of them had great enthusiasm for what
they conceived to be the true principles of the art and unbounded zeal
in its practice. A few typical examples of the later forms of palatial
design by such men as Sansovino, Sanmichele, Vignola, Palladio, and
Scamozzi will be enough for us to consider. All of these men based
their practice theoretically, as we have seen, on the writings of
Vitruvius and on a rigorous study of the architectural remains of Roman
antiquity; and nearly all of them wrote treatises on their art which
have formed the basis of most modern practice.
[Illustration: FIG. 65.--Part of façade of the Library
of St. Mark.]
Jacopo Tatti, called Sansovino, went to Rome early in the sixteenth
century in company with Giuliano de San Gallo, and there formed a
friendship with Bramante[95] under whose influence he acquired that
exclusive predilection for classic forms which we find reflected in
his art. Coming to Florence, we are not told in what year, he designed
a false front of wood for the cathedral church of Santa Maria del
Fiore, which is said to have called forth the admiration of Pope Leo
X.[96] This incident is significant of the spirit of the time, and such
architectural shams were extensively produced by the architects of the
later Renaissance. The most important works of Sansovino are in Venice,
where he built the well-known Library of St. Mark, the so-called
Loggia of the Campanile, the Palazzo Cornaro, and several other large
buildings.
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--Corner of the Parthenon.]
The façade of the Library of St. Mark has but two stories including
the basement, and these are adorned with a Doric and an Ionic order
respectively (Fig. 65); the first noticeable peculiarity of this design
is its very florid character. The reveals are deep, the orders are in
high relief, and the friezes and arch spandrels are loaded with showy
ornamental carvings. Milizia says[97] that in the Doric order of this
façade Sansovino attempted to solve a problem which had troubled all of
the Italian architects, namely, how to make exactly half of a metope
fall at the end of the frieze. The Greeks had placed a triglyph at the
angle, but in so doing they had been obliged to sacrifice uniformity,
since this angle triglyph fell over one side of the corner column,
instead of over its centre as the other triglyphs of the series did
(Fig. 66). This had made it necessary to lengthen the last metope,
and to narrow the last intercolumniation. The Romans had set the last
triglyph over the centre of the corner column, and had thus been
obliged to give less than half a metope to the corner (Fig. 67), though
they secured uniformity in all the rest of the parts. The frieze,
however, had now an appearance of incompleteness at each end, as of a
thing cut off arbitrarily through one of its members. The architects
of the Renaissance appear to have disliked this narrow section of a
metope at the end of the frieze, and to have sought a way to make it
exactly half. This, as Milizia tells us, Sansovino did in the Library
of St. Mark by lengthening the frieze enough to give the fragment of
metope the width that was desired. Turning to the design itself (Fig.
68), we find that this obliged him to set a square pier with a pilaster
on its face at the angle. Of this device Milizia remarks that it was a
folly.[98]
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Roman corner.]
In the general scheme of this façade (Fig. 65) Sansovino has followed
that of the ancient theatre of Marcellus, with a free introduction of
additional enrichments. In the order of the basement he has departed
from the severe plainness of the Roman model by adding mouldings and
keystones to the archivolts, reliefs to the spandrels, and disks to
the metopes of the frieze. But all this is done with a commendable
feeling for breadth of effect. To the order of the upper story he has
made more striking additions, the most noticeable of which is the
insertion of a small free-standing column on each side of the pier to
bear the archivolt, an innovation which was followed by Palladio and
many later architects. The least admirable features of the design are
the frieze of the upper order, which is widened beyond all tolerable
proportion, and an ornamental balustrade over the main cornice. The
frieze is ornamented with inelegant festoons in high relief, and
pierced with oblong windows opening into a low upper story which the
entablature encloses. The columns of the upper order, as well as the
free-standing colonnettes, are raised on panelled pedestals, and
balustraded balconies are formed in front of each window opening. This
sumptuous scheme embodies very fully the ideal to which the designers
of the Renaissance had been tending under the Roman influence of the
sixteenth century, and it has been extensively reproduced, with various
minor modifications, in the civic architecture of all parts of Europe.
[Illustration: FIG. 68.--Angle of Library of St. Mark.]
As the façade of the Library of St. Mark is based upon that of the
ancient theatre of Marcellus, so the Loggetta of the Campanile is an
adaptation of the scheme of the Arch of Titus extended to include three
arches, and enriched with statues and reliefs to suit the florid fancy
of the time. But while the scheme is plainly derived from the Arch of
Titus, the proportions of the parts are very different, and much less
admirable. The order is made lower and the attic higher. The Arch of
Titus is the finest in proportions of all the Roman triumphal arches,
and the grandest in monumental simplicity. Sansovino’s changes and
ornamental additions spoil the composition, and do not fit the design
for the building to which it is attached. Such a design could not have
any proper relationship to such a building. To attach any sort of a
Roman triumphal arch scheme to the base of a mediæval tower is an
architectural absurdity.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--Palazzo Cornaro.]
In the scheme of the Palazzo Cornaro an Ionic order and a Corinthian
order frame in the round-headed windows of the upper stories. The
columns of these orders are set in pairs, each pair having a plinth
and pedestal in common. On the side walls of the building these orders
are returned to the extent of one bay, which brings four columns
together at the angles with clumsy effect. The frieze of the uppermost
entablature is widened, as in the Library of St. Mark, but its
surface is plain save for a series of oval openings which light a low
attic. The high rusticated basement, which includes a mezzanine, has
square-headed windows framed by a rusticated Doric order resting on a
projecting sill supported on plain consoles; and over each of these a
low rectangular window, flanked by elongated consoles on square blocks
set upon the entablature of the window below, lights the mezzanine.
A curved pediment over each of the lower windows, between the blocks
that support the flanking members of the windows above, gives further
awkwardness to the total scheme (Fig. 69). Barbaric compositions such
as this were now to become of frequent occurrence in the architecture
of the later Renaissance. While the designers were eliminating the
mediæval forms more completely than their predecessors had done, they
were at the same time departing more widely from classic models, and
introducing many monstrosities of composition, from the influence of
which modern art has greatly suffered.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--Two bays of the Porta del
Palio.]
The works of Sanmichele show an equally exclusive employment of
classic features, with the same freedom in deforming them and using
them in novel and ungainly ways. In the Porta del Palio of Verona, a
characteristic example of his work, he has used a pseudo-Doric order
in which the columns are fluted after the Ionic manner with fillets
between the channels, and are raised on heavy square plinths. The
columns are disposed in pairs, dividing the façade into three wide
intervals and four narrow ones (Fig. 70), and each wide space has a
large rectangular recess spanned by a flat arch, with a sculptured
keystone in the form of a console, under the entablature of the
order. At the level of the soffit of this arch the wall is crowned
by a cornice passing behind the columns. The central bay has a large
rectangular portal without jamb mouldings, and in each lateral bay is
a small doorway framed with classic jamb mouldings and a pediment on
consoles. Over each of these openings is a secondary flat arch with
deep voussoirs reaching to the soffit of the upper one. Pilasters take
the place of columns on the angles of the façade, and the walls are
rusticated. In the façade of the opposite side the scheme is varied,
and is plainer. The columns of the order are disposed as before, but
instead of being fluted they are rusticated like the walls, and have no
bases, while a large round-arched opening, with impost mouldings and a
plain keystone, fills each wide interval.
Of Sanmichele’s palace fronts the best in Verona is, I think, that
of the Palazzo Canossa, where over a high rusticated basement he
has placed a shallow order of Corinthian pilasters in pairs, set
close together, on a podium with ressauts. This order embraces both
the principal floor and a low story above it, and has considerable
elegance. The effect of the whole front is broad and quiet, save for
the heavy balustrade with showy statues which crowns it. It will be
seen, as we pass in review these different compositions, that the range
of eccentricities of design embodied in them is as great as we find in
the works of the earlier Renaissance, though they show fewer mediæval
characteristics. The Palazzo Pompei alla Vittoria, also by Sanmichele,
for instance, has a Doric order over a plain rusticated basement, like
that of the Porta del Palio, but with the columns equally spaced,
except that the central intercolumniation is made wider than the others
in conformity with the width of the portal beneath it, and a pilaster
is coupled with a column on each angle. Plain round-arched windows
occupy the intervals between the columns, and a corbel in the form
of a sculptured head is set under the entablature of the order over
the crown of each arch. The plain windows of the basement have clumsy
rectangular sills on consoles.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Palazzo Bevilacqua.]
A more elaborate design by the same architect is that of the front of
the Palazzo Bevilacqua (Fig. 71). Here an order of rusticated Doric
pilasters, supporting an entablature with channelled consoles in
the place of triglyphs, and a cornice surmounted with a balustrade
forming a balcony to the story above, divides the basement wall into
alternately wide and narrow bays. A round-arched window in each bay
has a heavy keystone in the form of a sculptured bust, which forms
at the same time a corbel to the entablature. The unequal spacing of
the pilasters leads to an awkward irregularity in the spacing of the
channelled consoles which do duty as triglyphs in the frieze. One of
them is set over the centre of each pilaster, and the spaces over the
wide intervals each give place to three of them, while over the narrow
intervals there is too much room for one and not enough for two. The
designer has chosen to have but one, and the effect of the resulting
wider spacing over the narrow bays is both unpleasant and unclassic.
The upper story has a still more barocco character. A Corinthian order
with columns of alternately straight and spiral channelling, spaced in
conformity with the pilasters of the basement and raised on pedestals,
frames in a series of round-arched windows which are alternately large
and small in correspondence with the magnitudes of the intervals.
The window of each wide bay nearly fills the space enclosed by the
order, and a keystone in the arch forms a corbel to the entablature,
while the spandrels are adorned with sculptures in high relief after
the manner of those of the Roman triumphal arches. Over the smaller
arch in each narrow bay the spandrels are in relief and are crowned
with a pediment surmounted by a horizontal cornice on a shallow
ressaut corresponding to that of the spandrels, while over all this
a plain oblong rectangular opening lights a low top story which is
not otherwise expressed in the composition. In these narrow bays the
corbels are introduced under the entablature as in the wider ones, and
carved festoons fill the spaces between them and the capitals on either
side. It is a capricious scheme, by which the designer has sought to
quicken the jaded sensibilities of people surfeited with architectural
aberrations. Of course the arrangement of these elements is based on a
certain rhythmical order which often appears to be thought a sufficient
justification of such meaningless compositions; but order and rhythm do
not alone constitute a fine work of art.
Of the secular architecture of Vignola the Palazzo Caprarola, in the
hill country between Rome and Viterbo, is the most important. This
building, says Milizia, “is without doubt the grandest and the most
beautiful work of this great artist.”[99] The building, which is
illustrated by elaborate drawings in Vignola’s own book, has in plan
the form of a regular pentagon enclosing a circular court. The form is,
of course, given from pure caprice, and imposes needless difficulties,
as if with the sole purpose of ingeniously solving them. The basement,
with a salient fortress-like bastion on each angle, is in two stages,
of which the lower one has a batter wall. Over this are the principal
story of the state apartments, and two other stories containing upward
of eighty sleeping chambers. Slightly projecting bays are formed on the
angles, as in the Cancelleria at Rome, and each façade is divided into
two stages by superimposed orders of pilasters on high pedestals. The
projecting bays have rusticated quoins instead of pilasters, and the
wall of the first story of each of these bays is rusticated. An open
loggia with five arches in the intervals of the order, and one enclosed
arch at each end, reaches across the main front of the principal story
between the salient bays, and the main portal is an arched opening,
with rusticated jambs in relief and an entablature, in the upper stage
of the basement. This portal is reached by a double ramp mounting
an outer terrace and the lower basement stage. Below this, giving
access to the lower basement, is a rusticated portico with an order
of rusticated pilasters and three open arches flanked by two narrow
enclosed bays with niches, and crowned with a balustrade.
The circular court has an open arcade of widely spaced arches in two
stages, of which the lower one has a plain rusticated wall, and the
upper one an Ionic order with columns in pairs, and a balustrade
with statues crowning the entablature. This sumptuous monument was a
source of inspiration to the later architects of the trans-alpine
Renaissance, and De l’Orme’s oval courts of the Tuileries, and the
circular courts of the palace of Whitehall by Inigo Jones, suggest its
influence.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--Part of the Portico of Vicenza,
from Palladio’s book.]
[Illustration: FIG. 73.]
But in domestic and civic architecture Palladio was more prolific
than Vignola, and his work has had a correspondingly wider influence.
Among the earlier civic buildings by him is the well-known portico
of the town hall of his native city, Vicenza. This portico of two
stories covers three sides of a building of oblong rectangular plan,
dating from the Middle Ages, and consisting of a great hall over a
low basement. Palladio’s scheme (Fig. 72) for this portico is plainly
derived from the town hall of Padua to which he refers in his book
as a most notable edifice.[100] But while basing his design on that
of Padua, he modifies it by features drawn from other sources. In
place of the simple arcades of the mediæval Paduan model, he has
substituted a complicated combination of arches with large and small
orders, in which the inspiration of Sansovino’s Library of St. Mark in
Venice is apparent. The free-standing column under the archivolt of
Sansovino’s upper story (Fig. 65, p. 120) is reproduced by Palladio
in both stories of the portico of Vicenza. But instead of a single
column, he has inserted a pair on each side of the arch, ranged in the
direction of the thickness of the wall, as shown in the plan (Fig.
73). The intervals between the columns of the great orders are very
wide, because they had to conform with the spacing of the openings in
the mediæval structure enclosed; but the arches within the intervals
are necessarily of narrower span, since their crowns could not rise
above the soffit of the entablature. Thus the free-standing columns
of the small order which support these arches are set farther away
from the pier than they are in Sansovino’s scheme. This free-standing
column supporting the archivolt is often spoken of as an innovation of
Sansovino and Palladio. It is worthy of notice, however, that instances
of it occur in the Græco-Roman architecture of Syria, as in S. Simeon
Stylites (Fig. 74); but the arch in these cases is not framed in with
the useless order. In the ground story arcade of Padua the spandrels
have circular perforations, and these are reproduced by Palladio in
both stories of his portico.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--Arch of St. Simeon Stylites.]
From a structural point of view Palladio’s scheme is an improvement on
that of Padua. For in Padua, as in Vicenza, both stories of the portico
are vaulted, and the slender columns which alone bear the vaulting
are too weak to withstand the thrusts of this vaulting, and thus both
transverse and longitudinal tie-rods are inserted to maintain the
stability of the fabric. But Palladio’s massive and heavily weighted
piers are strong enough to bear the thrusts without the aid of ties,
and it may be added that the great orders have more function here
than they usually have in Renaissance design, since their columns act
somewhat as buttresses. The shaft of an order has not, indeed, a proper
form for an abutment, and has no buttress expression. Its resistance
to thrust is slight, but it is better than nothing at all. Following
Sansovino, the architect has introduced a balustrade in each opening of
the arcade, and a continuous one as a crowning feature of the cornice.
Palladio himself thought well of this work, and he does not hesitate to
say in his book that it will bear comparison with the most beautiful
buildings of antiquity. He tells us, also, that it is constructed in
the best manner out of excellent cut stone.[101] The last remark is
significant, for genuine stone masonry was not always employed by
Palladio in buildings which had the appearance of stone construction.
The use of brick and rubble with a revetment of stucco had not been
uncommon with the builders of the early Renaissance, and such materials
were extensively employed even by Bramante and Michael Angelo. But
Palladio went further than his predecessors in the creation of
architectural shams.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--Loggia Bernarda.]
Palladio was an earnest devotee of his art as he understood it, but
he had what may be called a theatrical ideal of architecture. The
superficial appearance was what chiefly concerned him. He had great
versatility in scenic and structurally meaningless composition,
and his numerous palace fronts in Vicenza are remarkable for their
superficially varied character. The Palazzo Valmarana, with its
colossal pilasters on a high podium overlapping a lesser order
embracing the basement and mezzanine, while the great entablature is
broken into ressauts over the pilasters; the Palazzo Colleone-Porta,
with its basement wall rusticated over a plain dado and an Ionic order
on the face of the superstructure; the Palazzo Porta-Barbarano, with
its superimposed orders and elaborate ornamentation in stucco relief;
and the Loggia Bernarda, with its gigantic composite order and balcony
corbels in the form of Doric triglyphs (Fig. 75), are sufficient
illustrations of this. The skin of stucco with which many of these
buildings were originally covered has broken off in many places,
revealing the poor materials of which they are built.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Window of Palazzo Branzo.]
Palladio’s compositions are, indeed, based on order and symmetry, but
order and symmetry of a mechanical kind. On these and other kindred
qualities grammarians in art are prone to lay great stress, but unless
accompanied by many others, which for the most part elude all human
powers of analysis and description, though they are instinctively
grasped by the true artist and appreciated by the discerning and
sympathetic beholder, they have little value. Palladio and his
associates were not true artists, they were grammatical formalists
without the inspiration of genius.[102] As for Scamozzi, little need be
said. Milizia tells us that he studied architecture with his father,
but that his real masters were the monuments of art themselves; and
that, stimulated by the fame of Sansovino and Palladio, he observed
their compositions closely, and conceived the ambition to surpass
them. His works, which do not differ materially from those of these
masters, present no features that are worthy of special remark, unless
a peculiar form of compound window, which occurs in the Palazzo Branzo
in Vicenza, be an exception. In this composition, often reproduced
in the later Renaissance architecture of all countries, two narrow
square-headed openings, each crowned with an entablature, flank a wider
one spanned by an arch (Fig. 76). This composition has been called
an invention of Scamozzi’s.[103] But there had been many previous
instances of its most noticeable feature, _i.e._ the entablature
broken by an arch, as in the porch of the Pazzi by Brunelleschi. I do
not know that windows had before been designed in this form in the
architecture of the Renaissance; but the same composition occurs in the
Roman architecture of Syria, as in the Basilica of Shakka (Fig. 77).
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--Basilica of Shakka.]
[Illustration:
Plate V
SAN BERNARDINO
Perugia]
We have thus far confined our attention to the architecture of the
Renaissance as it was developed under the Florentine and Roman
influences, early and late. We must now notice some of the phases which
the art assumed under other local influences that were subordinately
active, chiefly in the north of Italy.
CHAPTER VIII
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN NORTH ITALY
While the architecture of the Italian Renaissance assumed the two
principal phases that are broadly classified as Florentine and Roman,
from the localities in which the conditions and influences that gave
rise to them chiefly prevailed, it is also true, as is well known, that
other influences became active in various parts of Italy, leading to
the production of phases of design that cannot be strictly classed as
either Florentine or Roman. No exact classification of these can be
made, but the most marked types having distinctly local characteristics
are those of Lombardy and Venice.
But before we examine the church architecture of the Lombard and
Venetian Renaissance, one small building of exceptional character in
central Italy is worthy of special notice, namely, the façade of the
church of San Bernardino of Perugia, dating from the second half of the
fifteenth century. This work is remarkable for delicate workmanship,
and affords a rare instance of the use of colour in the architecture
of the Renaissance. It is made up of red and white marble, with points
of dark green and turquoise blue, arranged with quiet harmony of
effect. But it is a combination of members put together with no regard
to structural consistency. The designer appears to have had not the
slightest idea that arches and columns, pilasters and entablatures,
have any meaning save as elements of abstract ornamental composition
to be played about according to his fancy. The front (Plate V) is an
upright rectangle, crowned with an entablature and a low pediment. A
broad pilaster is set on each angle, and the space between is filled
with a wide and deep recess having a splayed arch reaching to the
entablature on splayed jambs. A smaller entablature at the arch impost
crosses the entire front, breaking around the jambs and pilasters,
and dividing it into two nearly equal parts. The smaller details
consist of panellings and medallions in the splays of the jambs and
archivolts, of sculptured reliefs on the tympanum and on the panels,
and of shafted and gabled niches sheltering statues on the pilasters.
The panels of the splays are flanked with diminutive pilasters which
are superimposed with only a narrow fillet between those below and
those which rest upon them, and the ornamental framing of the niches is
made up of colonnettes carrying rectangular stilt-blocks on which small
pediments are set. The elaborate richness of this façade is unusual in
the Renaissance architecture of central Italy, except in the smaller
compositions of tombs and pulpits, which in treatment it resembles. But
profusion of ornament is a marked characteristic of the architecture
of the Renaissance in north Italy, to which we may now turn. In Milan
and Venice the neo-classic influences were, even more than in Florence
and Rome, confined to ornamental details, and in these details the
designers of the North had still less regard for classic correctness
and consistency than those of central Italy had shown; while the larger
structural forms of their buildings still remained essentially Lombard
and Venetian. Much of the architecture of the North was, it is true,
the work of architects from central Italy, but these architects were
so far influenced by local tastes and conditions as to produce designs
very different in character from those of Florence or of Rome.
A characteristic early example of this Northern Renaissance design in
its most florid form is the well-known façade of the church of the
Certosa of Pavia, dating from the close of the fifteenth century. The
effect of this front is in its larger parts much like that of a late
mediæval Italian one, but the details are pseudo-classic with strange
admixture of mediæval elements. The general scheme is a reproduction
of the pseudo-Gothic façade of the neighbouring cathedral of Milan,
having nearly the same general proportions, and being divided into
five bays by deep buttresses. The steep gable, however, which in Milan
embraces the whole front, is omitted, and in its stead a horizontal
cornice crowns the three central bays, and this, together with the
strongly marked horizontal lines below, greatly modifies the general
effect of the composition. In the smaller details there is no likeness
between the two façades, that of Pavia showing a survival of Lombard
Romanesque forms with the pseudo-classic elements ingrafted on them.
A prominent feature of the Lombard Romanesque architecture is the
diminutive open arcade. This feature is extensively employed in the
mediæval portions of the church to which this façade is the western
enclosure, and it is reproduced, with neo-classic modifications, at
the top of each of the two principal stages into which the façade is
divided. The arches are here carried on small piers, and are framed
with diminutive pilasters and entablatures. The portal has a pair of
free-standing Corinthian columns on each side, bearing a ressaut of an
entablature which spans the opening, and from these ressauts an arch is
sprung with spandrels in relief crowned with a classic cornice. In each
one of the other bays of the ground story a rectangular window, with
classic mouldings and a cornice of classic profile, is subdivided in
the mediæval manner with two small arches on a central column and jamb
shafts. These last have a tapering form, with a profusion of carved
ornament in high relief, and are like the shafts of candelabra (Fig.
78). The mediæval feature of a large circular opening over the central
portal is enclosed within a rectangle surmounted by an entablature and
a classic pediment, while this compound is flanked on either side by
a pair of arches opening beneath a larger arch. To all this mixture
of Romanesque and neo-classic features a pseudo-Gothic character is
superadded by statues set in niches of the buttresses, and spiky
pinnacles over the lateral bays. The details of this overelaborate
composition, the work of several successive architects, have no merit
in themselves, and the work as a whole is trivial and unmeaning.
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--Certosa of Pavia.]
Among the monuments of the early Renaissance in Milan are several of
importance, and of these the church and sacristy of San Satiro are
of special interest because they are said to have been designed by
Bramante.[104]
The church bears, I think, unmistakable marks of Bramante’s
authorship, being a reflection on a reduced scale of St. Andrea of
Mantua by Alberti, which there is every reason to believe had been
studied and admired by Bramante during his travels in the north for
improvement in his art, and a foreshadowing of the great scheme which
he subsequently prepared for St. Peter’s in Rome. Like St. Andrea, it
has a barrel-vaulted nave and transept, with a dome on pendentives
over the crossing. The aisles have groined vaulting, and the piers are
square and are faced with pilasters. The dome is raised on a very low
drum moulded in stucco into the form of an entablature, and the vault
surfaces are elaborately coffered in stucco. The church has no eastern
arm, since a wall with a much-venerated painting of the Virgin is said
to have stood so near the site that space for such an arm could not
be had without demolishing it; and as this was not to be thought of,
Bramante made a semblance of an eastern arm in the form of a sunk panel
with splayed sides, on which he wrought in stucco relief the elaborate
perspective which is so noticeable a feature of the interior.
[Illustration: FIG. 79.--Sacristy of San Satiro.]
The sacristy (Fig. 79) was built immediately after the church, in the
form of an octagon about eight metres in diameter. It is covered with
an octagonal dome lighted by a circular opening in each of its sides
just above the springing level. The walls of the interior are divided
into two stages, the lower one having segmental niches alternating
with shallow rectangular recesses, one on each side of the polygon
except that of the entrance, while the stage above has a gallery, like
a triforium, in the thickness of the wall, with a pair of round-arched
openings in each bay. The dome is enclosed within a drum of brick which
is covered by a low-pitched timber roof.
The ornamental details of the interior are all of stucco, and consist
of two superimposed false orders of pilasters set in the angles,
and broken on plan so as to fit them, the entablature of each order
having a ressaut over each pilaster, and the surfaces of the friezes
and pilasters being profusely enriched with ornaments in relief. But
these details are said to have been extensively worked over in later
times, so that it is doubtful whether any correct idea of the original
character of this interior can now be formed, except as to its larger
features.
The monument is a diminutive adaptation, in simplified form, of a local
mediæval type of building of which San Vitale of Ravenna appears to
have been the original example, and San Lorenzo of Milan an offshoot.
There are points of similarity between the sacristy of San Satiro and
the church of the Consolazione of Todi (Fig. 36, p. 76) that go far to
determine their common authorship. The superimposed pilasters broken
into the angles of a polygon, the niches in the lower bays, and the
ribs on the surfaces of the vault rising from the pilasters[105] are
similar in both.
A curious domed structure of the early Renaissance in Milan is the
east end of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The dome is
hemispherical, and is raised on a drum resting on pendentives over
a square area. The most noticeable part of the composition is the
exterior, which completely masks the inside. The drum (Fig. 80) is
a polygon of sixteen sides, and is in two stages, the lower one of
which is solid, and rises above the springing of the vault, while the
upper stage, in the form of an open arcaded gallery, with an attic in
retreat, reaches far above the haunch of the dome which is covered with
a low-pitched roof of timber crowned with a lantern. The lower stage
has an order of pilasters with a nondescript entablature, having an
enormously high frieze ornamented with an engaged balustrade. A pair of
square-headed windows with mullions, surmounted with pediments, opens
through each face of the polygon, except the four which fall over the
piers of the interior. Against each of these sides a turret rises,
forming an abutment. A panelled podium crowns the entablature of this
lower stage, and upon it the shafted arcade of the top story rests. The
north and south sides of the square beneath have each a low apse, while
on the east is a rectangular choir with an apse like the other two.
The architectural treatment of this exterior is not expressive of the
inside. The square parts are divided into four stages answering to
nothing within, and the lower three of these stages are carried around
the apses. The wall surfaces are broken into rectangular panellings by
mouldings and pilasters, every alternate pilaster in the third stage
having a tapering ornamental member, like the window shafts of the
Certosa of Pavia, worked in relief on its face; and the panels are
adorned with disks and medallions. Like most of the early Renaissance
architecture of Milan, this building is entirely of brick with
ornaments of terra-cotta.
[Illustration: FIG. 80.--Santa Maria delle Grazie.]
The design is attributed to Bramante,[106] and it has features that
lend support to belief in this authorship. The encircling arcade at
the top suggests the encircling colonnade of the same architect’s
subsequent design for the dome of St. Peter’s. It may not be unlikely
that this arcade, wrought while the author was under the influence of
the local Lombard Romanesque, suggested the idea of the encircling
colonnade after he had come under the severer classic influence in
Rome. The alternation of pilasters in the top story of the apses, with
the two intercolumns over each interval in the stage below, corresponds
to the design of the interior of the sacristy of S. Satiro.
In the chapel of St. Peter Martyr of the church of Sant’Eustorgio,
attributed to the Florentine architect Michelozzi, we have a circular
celled vault on salient ribs, like Brunelleschi’s vault of the Pazzi.
This vault is enclosed within a drum carried on pendentives, and is
lighted by a circular opening in the drum under each alternate vault
cell. The drum is polygonal on the outside, is carried up far above the
haunch of the vault, and is covered with a low-pitch roof of timber
crowned with a tall lantern. The lower walls of the interior of the
square beneath this vault have an order of pilasters, and over the
entablature of this order are arched windows, one on the north and the
other on the south side, each of which has a mullion and jamb shafts
of the Certosa tapering type, and pseudo-Gothic tracery. Most of the
details of this interior are of stone, which give it a more monumental
character than the buildings before noticed have. The outside is of
brick, the square part being plain, with simple angle buttresses, and
crowned with a cornice of classic profiling. Pinnacles made up of
neo-classic details rise from the angles, and the drum is adorned with
an order of pilasters, and with moulded circular panels alternating
with circular openings. The building as a whole has the moderation of
the works of the early Florentine Renaissance, and is in noticeable
contrast to the more florid designs of this region already noticed.
A somewhat later example of ecclesiastical architecture of the
Renaissance in Milan is the church of the Monastero Maggiore, dating
from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and said to have been
designed by Dolcebono, a pupil of Bramante. This is a rectangular
structure without aisles, having round-arched pseudo-Gothic vaulting,
and divided into two parts by a screen across the middle, and into two
stories by superimposed orders of pilasters. In each bay of the ground
story is a deep round-arched rectangular recess in the thickness of
the wall, and over each of these an open gallery with two colonnettes
and two small jamb pilasters carrying an entablature over each of the
lateral spaces so formed, and an arch over the central one, an early
instance of a form of compound opening that was much used in the
architecture of the later Renaissance.[107]
[Illustration: FIG. 81.--East end of Como.]
The cathedral of Como affords further illustration of the style of
early Renaissance design that is peculiar to north Italy. The building,
however, has parts which belong to different periods ranging from
1396 to the early part of the eighteenth century. The features most
worthy of attention are chiefly those of the exterior,--the east end
and the sides of the nave. It is said that Bramante worked here also,
and certainly as viewed from the east the composition bears a striking
likeness to the church of the Consolazione at Todi (pp. 74–77). It is,
however, in the larger features alone that the likeness holds. The
details of Como are not, as at Todi, of purely neo-classic character;
they are mediæval Lombard modified by neo-classic elements. Instead
of superimposed orders of pilasters we have here (Fig. 81) Lombard
Romanesque buttresses reaching from the ground to the cornice. The
cornice has the neo-classic profiling, and is broken into ressauts over
the buttresses, and at a lower level a subordinate band of mouldings is
carried along the wall and around the buttresses, the whole forming a
likeness to an entablature. The traditional Lombard features peculiar
to this region are further reproduced in the arcades of each bay just
beneath the pseudo-entablature; but instead of mediæval colonnettes
these small arches are supported by diminutive pilasters. The walls
are divided into three stages by string courses of classic profiling,
and a rectangular window with plain classic jambs and lintel opens in
each bay of the middle stage, while the basement wall is unbroken by
openings. Disks, one in each bay, adorn the frieze of the simulated
entablature, and a sculptured figure is worked on the corresponding
part of each buttress. The bases of the half domes over the apses are,
as at Todi, treated like attics, but the central dome, with its high
drum, is not by Bramante. It is of a later period, and has a more
advanced neo-classic character. The scheme of the Lombard buttresses
is extended along the walls of the nave, but the details of the window
openings, and of the portals here are very different from anything in
the apses, and are in a more florid style.
[Illustration: FIG. 82.--Portal of Como.]
[Illustration: FIG. 83.--Porch of San Zeno, Verona.]
[Illustration: FIG. 84.--Portal of San Pietro in Cielo
d’Oro, Pavia.]
The ornaments of these openings are composed in a manner which appears
to be peculiar to this region. The portal (Fig. 82) of the south side,
for instance, has the mediæval scheme of a shafted round arch of two
orders reproduced in neo-classic details, with an entablature for a
lintel passing through the imposts, and another entablature with a
pediment placed over the crown of the arch on spandrels in relief. To
associate the entablature with the arch in any way is unreasonable, but
to put one entablature under the arch and another one over it in this
manner is childish composition. Yet illogical and puerile as the scheme
is, I believe it is derived from a common form of Lombard Romanesque
porch which is entirely reasonable in design. A comparison of this
portal with the porch of San Zeno of Verona (Fig. 83) will illustrate
this. In San Zeno we have a sheltering porch and a portal, and each is
reasonable in itself, while they are equally reasonable in combination.
But if the porch were eliminated, with exception of its façade, and
this façade were drawn back into the plane of the wall, so as merely
to frame in the portal, the result would resemble, in composition of
lines, the portal of Como, and would be as illogical. The first, or
encompassing, order of the portal of Como is like the façade of such
a mediæval porch wrought in relief against the wall as an ornamental
framework. For the Lombard columns the Renaissance designer has
substituted pilasters, for the plain lintel an entablature, and for the
mediæval gable a classic pediment with an entablature.
A curious instance of a somewhat similar composition of lines in a
Lombard Romanesque portal without an overhanging porch occurs in the
façade of the San Pietro in Cielo d’Oro in Pavia (Fig. 84). Here the
arched opening is flanked by tall engaged shafts which carry a narrow
string course surmounted by a gable over the crown of the arch, while
another string course, on short colonnettes resting on the capitals
of the larger shafts, passes over the apex of the gable. But in this
case it is only the childish association of members without structural
meaning that offends the eye. There is no introduction of forms, like
the classic pilasters and entablatures of the portal of Como, that are
foreign to the architectural system.
[Illustration: FIG. 85.--Window of nave of Como.]
This scheme, with various modifications, became a characteristic one in
the Lombard and Venetian Renaissance, and was extensively applied to
windows, as in the nave of the same cathedral of Como. The windows of
this nave are splayed, and are flanked with pilasters from the capitals
of which their archivolts spring, while in some of them diminutive
pilasters rise from the same capitals and carry an entablature and
pediment over the crown of the arch (Fig. 85).
A variety of forms occur in these openings of the cathedral of Como,
like so many experiments in fanciful composition without any basis
of reason. The window, for instance, of the bay adjoining that here
represented, seems to show that the designer felt dissatisfied with the
small pilaster set upon the larger one, and accordingly omitted it, a
moulding on the edge of the spandrel, profiled like the lower member
of the crowning entablature, taking its place. But again, as if he now
felt that the entablature required a more architectural support, he
has in another window reproduced the small pilaster, but instead of
a large single one below he has employed two narrow ones, thus giving
separate support to the arch and the entablature. The doorway on the
north side of the nave presents a further modification of the scheme.
Here the jambs and the arch are splayed as before, and a tall column
of the ornamental tapering form, already noticed in the windows of
the Certosa of Pavia and in the chapel of St. Peter Martyr, is set on
either side of the composition. This portal, like the one on the south
side, has two entablatures with an arch between, and these columns
reach to the upper entablature of which they carry ressauts. No great
pediment crowns this doorway, but a tall niche, framed in with an order
of diminutive pilasters and surmounted with a small pediment, rises
over the centre of the upper entablature. This niche shelters a statue
of the Virgin, and is flanked by a statue on either side. Many variants
of this ornamental scheme for door and window occur in Lombardy and
Venice, and it was reproduced in many other parts of Italy, occurring,
as we have seen, even in Rome as in the palace of the Cancelleria and
the Palazzo Torlonia.
In the fifteenth century, as in the Middle Ages, the architecture of
each principal locality developed peculiarities of style in accordance
with its peculiar tastes and conditions. Thus the Renaissance design of
Venice has a general character of its own, though it drew some of its
materials from Florentine and Lombard sources. Michelozzi had followed
the exiled Cosimo de’ Medici to Venice, and Vasari tells us[108] that
he made there many drawings and models for private dwellings and public
buildings. On the other hand a family of architects and sculptors from
Lombardy, known as the Lombardi (Pietro Lombardo and two sons, Santo
and Tullio), had come to Venice in the fifteenth century and introduced
features from the Lombard Renaissance.
Among the churches of the Venetian Renaissance San Zaccaria is one of
the earliest, and its interior exhibits a singular mixture of those
mediæval and pseudo-classic forms of which the Italian architects
produced such an astonishing variety. To an apse with a half dome and
pseudo-Gothic substructure is joined a nave of three square bays, the
first of which is covered with a dome on pendentives, while each of
the others has a plain groined vault. These vaults spring from an
entablature which crowns the great arcade, and is returned on the ends
of the building, with ressauts on corbels at the imposts. The aisles
have oblong groined vaults on pointed transverse arches springing from
corbels on the wall side, and tied with iron rods. The main proportions
conform with those of the so-called Italian Gothic churches, the
great arcades of the nave, and consequently the aisle vaulting, being
relatively very high. The most singular feature of this interior is
the column (Fig. 86) of nondescript character, and a variant of the
tapering Lombard Renaissance shaft of Pavia and Como. It consists of a
shaft of pseudo-Corinthian form raised on a high octagonal pedestal,
with a very wide and richly moulded base.
[Illustration: FIG. 86.]
The church of San Salvatore, dating from the close of the fifteenth
century, and attributed to the architect Tullio Lombardo, though begun
by Spavento,[109] has a modified Byzantine structural scheme applied
to a long nave with three domes on pendentives separated by short
sections of barrel vaulting. The supports (Fig. 87) of this vaulting
are peculiar, and are like the piers of the nave of St. Andrea of
Mantua modified by piercing them both transversely and longitudinally
so as to leave four slender solid parts at the angles (two of which are
engaged in the aisle wall), the void being covered with a diminutive
dome on pendentives. The plan of the structure as a whole suggests
this comparison with St. Andrea, but the character of the supports
suggests their derivation from the piers of the church of St. Mark.
These last are square masses of masonry pierced longitudinally and
transversely so as to leave four heavy solids as in Figure 88, the void
in this case being covered with a diminutive groined vault. In San
Salvatore the solids are greatly reduced in volume, and are faced with
neo-classic pilasters, above which the pier is solid, and is faced with
an entablature surmounted by an attic from which the vaulting springs.
The use of an attic in an interior, and especially as a support for
vaulting, is one of those architectural aberrations with which the
Renaissance has made us familiar. I know not when or where it first
occurred, but there can be few earlier instances than this. It was not
seldom introduced by the architects of the later Renaissance, and, as
we shall see, by Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul’s cathedral. It is
worthy of notice that the system of San Salvatore is that of the church
of St. Mark modified by lightening the piers in the way that we have
seen, and by the application of neo-classic details.
[Illustration: FIG. 87.]
[Illustration: FIG. 88.]
The nearly contemporaneous church of S. Fantino has the same general
character, except that groined vaulting takes the place of domes on
pendentives in all but the easternmost compartment of the nave, and the
attic story is omitted.
[Illustration: FIG. 89.--Santa Maria dei Miracoli,
Venice.]
No work of the early Renaissance in north Italy exhibits more
refinement in its details than the small church of Santa Maria dei
Miracoli in Venice, the design of which is ascribed to Pietro Lombardo
(Fig. 89). The plan is a simple rectangle with a rectangular sanctuary.
The plain walls of the nave are covered with a round timber roof,
and the sanctuary has a small dome on pendentives. The interior
is richly incrusted with marble and relief carvings of the utmost
delicacy, and of unusual beauty of design. The walls of the exterior
are divided into two stages by superimposed orders of pilasters on
podiums. The pilasters of the upper order carry archivolts instead
of an entablature, thus recalling the mediæval Lombard blind arcade,
and the walls above this are crowned with an entablature. Over the
portal a curved pediment is set against the entablature of the lower
order, and the whole façade is crowned with a semicircular pediment
pierced with a large round opening and five smaller ones ranged on
its semicircumference. The wall surfaces are incrusted with marble
panelling set with disks and lesser panels of cruciform and rectangular
shapes in faintly coloured marbles, and the whole building is a
marvel of excellence in mechanical execution. But the use of the
inappropriate superimposed orders falsifies the design by giving it the
appearance of two stories while in reality it has only one.
The façade of Santa Maria Formosa exhibits another phase of early
Renaissance design in Venice. This façade is noticeable as reproducing
some of the larger features of Alberti’s west front of St. Andrea of
Mantua with details having the character of the works of the Lombardi.
The great central arch of St. Andrea is omitted here, and the existing
portal is an alteration of a later time in a style that does not agree
with the rest of the design. The three compartments into which the
front is divided are treated as sunk panels flanked by half pilasters
set against the larger ones, over which last the entablature is broken
into ressauts. In each lateral compartment over a podium connecting
the high pedestals on which the pilasters are raised is an opening of
the Lombard type. The main lines of the composition correspond with
the internal divisions of the building, except that the entablature of
the order, which is carried across the entire front, divides the nave
compartment into two stages.
The foregoing examples are enough to show the leading characteristics
of the church architecture of the early Renaissance in north Italy. In
the later period the local peculiarities give place for the most part
to the measurably uniform style of which Vignola and Palladio were
the leading masters, and which has been already considered under the
heading of Church Architecture of the Roman Renaissance.
CHAPTER IX
PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN NORTH ITALY
The palace architecture of the Renaissance in north Italy which has
the most marked local character is that of Venice. We have already, in
the preceding chapter, noticed several buildings here by Sansovino,
but these belong to the later Roman Renaissance style, and are thus
not so distinctly Venetian. Several civic monuments, however, and
many houses of the Grand Canal and elsewhere, exhibit the peculiar
Venetian type. Among the earliest and most noteworthy of these is the
east side of the Court of the Ducal Palace by the architect Antonio
Riccio of Verona.[110] This richly ornamental scheme is wrought upon
a foundation of earlier work to which the architect was obliged
to conform, and this appears to have given rise to the irregular
magnitudes and spacings of the openings of the upper stories, which
are so noticeable, and are in marked contrast with the symmetrical
regularity of Renaissance design in general. The long façade is in two
walled stories above a basement in two stages of open arcading, with
the so-called giant’s stairway giving access to the upper arcade. The
ground story has splayed round arches on piers of corresponding section
adorned with pilasters of neo-classic form, while the stage above has
a pointed arcade on compound shafted supports of mediæval Venetian
character (Plate VI). The upper stories are marked by entablatures,
and the round-arched windows are flanked by pilasters reaching, in the
principal story, to the arch impost, and then stilted to carry curved
pediments worked in relief against the entablature that crowns this
story. The top story is divided into two parts of nearly equal length,
but of different height, and different design. The part extending from
the middle to the sea side of the court is the lower, and has its
windows flanked by pilasters reaching to the crowning entablature.
These pilasters are raised on pedestals forming ressauts to a podium,
and some of the windows are grouped in pairs, some in double pairs,
and some are single. In the taller part the windows are taller, and
show considerable differences of design. One group, consisting of
a double pair, has flanking pilasters reaching only to the impost,
with a stilt-block rising from the capital of each to the crowning
entablature, while Corinthian colonnettes, with strongly marked
entasis, support the archivolts--both pilasters and shafts being raised
on low pedestals. Separated from this by a considerable interval is
another window group of the same design, but consisting of a single
pair, while in the intervening space, and along the rest of the wall
toward the church of St. Mark, are unequally spaced single windows
with pilasters supporting the archivolts, and other pilasters flanking
these, all raised on high pedestals connected by a continuous podium.
In the upper stage of the basement, at the head of the giant’s stair,
the pointed arcade is interrupted by a group of three round arches
on grouped pilasters. The wall surfaces are everywhere elaborately
panelled and enriched with arabesques, and the friezes, spandrels,
and podiums have panelled disks, festoons, and arabesque ornaments in
tiresome profusion.
[Illustration:
Plate VI
FAÇADE OF COURT, DUCAL PALACE
Venice]
[Illustration: FIG. 90.]
The north side is also in the Renaissance style, but here is only
one enclosed story, and this is on the level of the upper arcade of
the east side. The architectural scheme of this part is different,
except that its entablature is a continuation of the lower one of the
eastern façade. The work here appears to have been wholly new, and the
regularly spaced windows are each framed with a pseudo-Corinthian order
in high relief, the shafts of this order being raised on ornamented
round pedestals resting on corbel-blocks (Fig. 90). The walls are
incrusted with large slabs of veined marble, and an ornamental disk in
relief is set in each interspace.
The finest thing in this court is the giant’s stair. Few architectural
works of the Renaissance are so reasonable and so free from superfluous
and unmeaning features. The steps, broken about midway by a landing
stage, are enclosed by balustrades of severely simple design starting
from square newels; and the sides are plainly panelled in marble,
with delicate mouldings and arabesque carvings on the surfaces of the
framing members. The mechanical execution of the whole is superb, no
settlement or fracture appearing in any part.
The façade of the Scuola di San Marco, begun in 1485 and attributed to
the architect Martino Lombardo, is a marvel of delicate workmanship
resembling in many of its features the small church of the Miracole
(p. 151) while including details of a different character. It is in
two stories, and is divided into two parts, answering to an internal
division, one of which, embracing the main portal, is larger and richer
than the other. An order of Corinthian pilasters embraces both parts of
each story, and these pilasters are unequally spaced in conformity with
the proportions of the respective parts and their openings. The main
division, which is on the spectator’s left as he faces the building,
has three bays of which the central one is the wider. The main portal
(Fig. 91) is in this bay, and has two arch orders on pilasters flanked
with larger pilasters, also in two orders, reaching to the entablature
which passes over the arch. A free-standing Corinthian column on a high
pedestal is set in front of each pilaster of the greater suborder, and
from ressauts of the entablature over these columns an archivolt in
high relief is sprung against the wall of the upper story. The shafts
of the flanking columns are unusually short, the pedestals being about
half the total height from the ground to the entablature. Comment on
the unreason of such compositions becomes wearisome, and criticism may
appear like captiousness. But if the reader will consider the character
of a Greek portal, with its jamb mouldings and cornice, as reasonable
and appropriate as they are simple, of a true Gothic doorway with its
consistent arch orders, but with no superfluous or unmeaning features,
he can hardly fail to feel the childishness of this Renaissance design
in comparison.
[Illustration: FIG. 91.--Portal of the Scuola di San
Marco, Venice.]
The other division of this front has a smaller and more simple doorway
in its central bay, with an unbroken wall above, and a narrow arched
window, framed with pilasters and a gabled pediment in each upper
lateral bay, while the lateral compartments of the ground story are
adorned with remarkable carvings in very low relief which present
an extreme instance of that tendency to pictorial treatment that
distinguishes the relief sculpture of the Renaissance. The main
cornice, embracing both divisions of the front, is crowned with a
series of arched pediments, varying in span with the bays beneath,
which recall those of the façade of the church of St. Mark. Those over
the main division of the façade are raised on ornamental attics of
which the middle one is in two stages.
The details of this composition are in very low relief, and the
entablatures are broken into slight ressauts over the pilasters. The
wall surfaces are incrusted with marble slabs, with simple panellings
and small disks introduced sparingly, and the archivolts of the main
portal, and of the crowning pediments, are adorned with arabesques and
with small statues and finials.
The merit of this composition as a whole lies solely in the ordering
of the component details which the designer has employed in a purely
fanciful way without any proper architectural meaning; but the
refinement of execution, and the beauty of the marbles, with their
pearly colours subdued and harmonized by time, make the monument one of
the most notable in Venice.
[Illustration: FIG. 92.--Part of the Scuola di San
Rocco.]
Another characteristic example of early Renaissance design in Venice
is the Scuola di San Rocco (Fig. 92). The façade of this building is
again in two divisions each of two stories, the main division having
three bays and the other but two. These bays are marked by superimposed
pilasters which are carried across both divisions, and in the main
division a free-standing Corinthian column is set in front of each
pilaster. In each story the columns are raised on pedestals connected
by a podium, and each one is wreathed with a band of ornamental
foliage. The entablatures are in the plane of the wall, and are broken
into very salient ressauts which in the main cornice are unpleasantly
conspicuous against the sky. Both the columns and the ressauts are
meaningless, the columns having nothing but the ressauts to carry,
and the ressauts having no function but to cover the useless columns.
The lesser details of this façade are of mixed character. The main
portal has splayed jambs adorned with pilasters, and an archivolt of
corresponding section. This portal is framed by an order of smaller
Corinthian columns, on high polygonal pedestals, with a pediment over
the entablature. The side bays of the basement of the main division
have each a wide arched window subdivided by a central colonnette
and jamb shafts carrying two small arches, with a tympanum pierced
with a circle and triangles in mediæval fashion. The great arches of
these windows have spandrels in relief crowned with cornices in the
Lombard Renaissance manner. In the upper story each bay has a pair of
arched windows framed by a pseudo-Corinthian order of colonnettes on
ornamented round pedestals resting on corbels, the entablature of this
diminutive order being surmounted by a pediment. In the window of the
central bay the pier between the openings is wider than the piers of
the side windows, and has a pair of colonnettes on its face instead of
only one.
But the most characteristic architecture of the Renaissance in Venice
is that of the private palaces of the grand canal. The princely
dwellings ranged along this unique waterway are unmatched by anything
else in the world. The finest of them are, however, those of the later
mediæval period. These alone have the thoroughly distinctive Venetian
character; but a few of the palaces of the early Renaissance retain the
fine proportions, the quiet outlines, and the expression of refined
opulence that belong to the buildings of the preceding epoch. In the
best of them the neo-classic details are used sparingly, though not
without strange new inconsistencies of form and adjustment.
The Palazzo Corner-Spinelli (Plate VII), attributed to Pietro Lombardo,
is one of the most characteristic. Its broad-walled basement, and the
well-ordered subdivisions of the upper stories, are exceedingly fine,
though the basement is high and the principal story rather low. No
complete orders occur in this façade, but superimposed pilasters are
placed on the angles, and an entablature is carried across each of the
upper stories, while only a narrow string course crowns the basement.
The windows are disposed in the manner of those of the mediæval
Venetian palaces, a pair of them being set together in the middle, and
a single one occupying the centre of each lateral bay in conformity
with the divisions of the interior. These windows are wide, and are
composed in the mediæval manner, with a dividing shaft and two small
arches encompassed by a larger arch, as in the Scuola di San Rocco. A
noticeable peculiarity of detail in these windows is the incomplete
circle in the tympanum space, which intersects the smaller arches so
as to form sinuous curves like those of Flamboyant Gothic tracery.
The archivolts are carried by small pilasters, and the spandrels are
framed with mouldings. The windows open on corbelled balconies with
balustrades in Renaissance form of great refinement and elegance, and
the balcony rails are carried as string courses along the walls. The
panelling of the pilasters, as in this design and many others that we
have noticed beginning with Alberti’s façade of St. Andrea of Mantua,
is of questionable propriety, for supporting members need to have
an expression of concentrated strength with which such treatment is
hardly compatible. The surface of a pier or pilaster may be enriched by
any kind of fluting or chasing that does not materially diminish its
substance, but to sink panels in such supporting members is to destroy
in a measure the expression of homogeneous compactness. The classic
details in this building show the same disregard for correct classic
forms and proportions that we find in the art of the Renaissance
generally. The superimposed pilasters on the angles are of uniform
width, though they differ greatly in height, and those of the various
openings are of still different proportions and sizes. This association
of members of the same kind, but of many different magnitudes,
is proper to the organic mediæval architectural systems, under the
influence of which these designers were unconsciously working; but
it is foreign to the principles of the classic art. The beauty of
the Corner palace, is, however, quite independent of the neo-classic
details which are sparingly ingrafted upon it, and belongs to the
larger forms and proportions of the mediæval Venetian style.
[Illustration:
Plate VII
PALAZZO CORNER-SPINELLI
Venice]
Other Venetian palaces of the early Renaissance exhibit other
peculiarities which it would be tedious to describe at length, but
it may be well to notice a few of them. The Palazzo Contarini, for
instance, has its three principal interior divisions marked by
superimposed pilasters in addition to the pilasters on the angles. The
basement order is raised on a podium, and both the basement and the
principal story have an entablature, while the top story is crowned
with a low cornice with modillions and no complete entablature. The
arched portal is flanked with pilasters in two orders, both crowned
with entablature blocks, but no entablature spans the opening under the
arch, and the spandrels are framed with mouldings and crowned with a
cornice. The windows are narrow and round arched, and have no dividing
members. Four of these are grouped together in the central bay of each
upper story, and those of the principal story are framed in with a
Corinthian order of five columns surmounted by a pediment, the whole
composition having exactly the form of a diminutive temple front. Each
lateral bay above the basement has two single windows, those of the
principal floor being each framed with a Corinthian order like that of
the central group, and crowned with a pediment. The windows of the top
story are flanked by very slender pilasters of equal height with those
of the main order, and smaller pilasters carry the archivolts. The end
windows of the central group and the inner ones of the lateral bays
come close to the pilasters of the main order, thus giving on each side
a group of pilasters of three different proportions and magnitudes,
as in Figure 93. The front as a whole is good in its proportions, and
quiet in effect. The neo-classic details add nothing to it of value,
and the composition would be better without them.
The Palazzo Vendramini has full orders in all three stories, and the
distinctive Venetian character is materially altered by them. The
usual scheme of the Venetian palace front, in which a wide central
bay wholly occupied by openings is flanked by lateral bays each with
a solid wall on either side of an opening, is indeed retained, but
the effect of it is much obscured by the prominence given to the
orders, which are in high relief, and extend across the whole front.
The openings have the mediæval form of two shafted arches beneath an
embracing arch with a circle in the tympanum space. Three, instead
of two, of these compound openings are grouped within the unusually
wide central bay, and each one fills an intercolumniation of the
order. In each lateral bay the columns of the order are unequally
spaced in conformity with the narrow strips of solid wall, one on
either side of the opening, which they enclose, giving a wide central
intercolumniation and two narrow ones. The cornice of the basement
entablature is widened, and supported on corbels from the frieze, in
front of the windows of the principal story, and balustrades are set on
these projecting ledges so as to form balconies. To give emphasis to
the topmost entablature as the crowning feature of the façade, it is
made so high as to be out of all proportion to the order of which it is
a part.
[Illustration: FIG. 93.]
[Illustration:
Plate VIII
PALAZZO DEL CONSIGLIO
Verona]
Of the later palace architecture of Venice it is unnecessary to give
any extended analysis because it is less distinctly Venetian, and
belongs more fully to the so-called Roman Renaissance style which is
essentially uniform in character in all parts of the country. In these
later palace fronts the main divisions of the typical Venetian scheme
persist indeed, but they are so slightly emphasized, and so overladen
with heavy orders, that they lose their proper effect. In Sansovino’s
Palazzo Cornaro, for instance, already described (p. 124), these main
divisions of the front are hardly noticeable in a general view. The
general effect is of evenly spaced pairs of columns in each of the
upper stories. It is not until we examine the composition closely that
we perceive the narrower proportions of the three middle openings. The
same is true of the façade of the Palazzo Grimani by Sanmichele, though
in this case the grouping is different, the columns being set in pairs
in the lateral bays only. Even in the still later and heavy rococo
design of the Palazzo Pesaro by the architect Longhena, which is based
on the scheme of the Library of St. Mark, the unequal main divisions of
the Venetian palace type are still preserved.
Among examples of north Italian Renaissance palace architecture outside
of Venice the well-known Palazzo del Consiglio of Verona (Plate VIII)
presents a mediæval broletto scheme dressed out in Renaissance details
which it would be better without. The building has but one story over
an open arcaded basement. The arcade is in two divisions of four
arches each, the arches springing from short columns raised on square
pedestals, and the pedestals connected by a balustrade. A central
pier and a pier at each end enclose these divisions, and on the face
of each pier is a shallow pilaster supporting a narrow entablature
which extends across the whole front, with a corbelled capital over
the central column of each division to support the entablature in
the long intervals between the pilasters. The upper story is divided
into four equal parts by pilasters set over the pilasters and corbels
of the basement. These pilasters are on ressauts of a podium over
corresponding ressauts in the entablature below, and the crowning
entablature is likewise broken with ressauts. A twin-arched opening
with central colonnette, flanked by pilasters and crowned with an
entablature and curved pediment, occupies the middle of each division
of this story, and the walls are incrusted with elaborate marble inlay.
The general form and proportions of this monument are exceedingly
fine, but in respect to these qualities it belongs to the Middle
Ages and not to the Renaissance. To the simple arcade and plain
walled superstructure the neo-classic details are inappropriate and
meaningless.
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--One bay of basement of the
Ospedale Maggiore.]
Another northern Renaissance building of the broletto type is the
Palazzo Comunale of Brescia, in which we have a basement arcade of
three arches on heavy piers, with an engaged Corinthian order adjusted
in the Roman manner, and over this a single story in retreat divided
into three wide bays by pilasters carrying a heavy entablature. A
square-headed window in each bay is framed by an order of smaller
pilasters the entablature of which reaches to the soffit of the
crowning entablature. In those parts of the Ospedale Maggiore of
Milan which were designed about the middle of the fifteenth century,
by the Florentine architect, Antonio Filarete, the larger features
are of mixed and debased mediæval character with no application of
classic orders. The building is of brick with elaborate ornaments
of terra-cotta, and has but two stories including the basement. The
basement has a blind arcade of round arches on stumpy columns with
Corinthianesque capitals, and a compound opening of two pointed
arches under a larger pointed arch is set in each bay (Fig. 94).
The faces of the jambs and archivolts of these openings are heavily
adorned with mouldings and foliate ornaments in terra-cotta relief,
while the archivolts of the arcade above have more simple neo-classic
profiling, and more refined and conventional foliate ornamentation.
The window-sills are on coupled corbels of heavy and inelegant form,
and the whole arcade is raised on a high base with ressauts under the
columns. Medallions with busts in high relief are set in the tympanums
of the windows and in the spandrels of the arcade, while a wide frieze
somewhat like an entablature crowns this part of the composition. The
upper story has a plain brick wall with windows like those of the
basement enclosed within rectangular panels.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.]
Other peculiarities of design are found in some of the early
Renaissance palaces of Bologna, where in the Palazzo Bevilacqua the
windows of the principal story have the mediæval form of two small
arches under a larger arch, modified by the omission of the central
shaft which gives the middle of the tympanum the form of a pendant. But
it is not worth while to follow these aberrations of early northern
Renaissance design further. The palace architecture of the later
Renaissance in north Italy has no distinctive character that calls
for particular comment. It is for the most part based on the art of
Palladio and Vignola which we have already enough considered. While
it exhibits many more of those misadjustments of structural members,
and other vagaries of design, in which Italian architects have been
at all times fertile, it has no great importance to justify special
remark. To point out in detail many such meaningless caprices as those
introduced by Pellegrini in the court of the Palazzo Brera in Milan,
where the arches of the superimposed arcades are sprung from pairs of
columns connected by short entablatures, making it necessary to double
the transverse arches of the vaulting behind them, or such novelties
as occur in the windows of the basement of the Palazzo Martinengo
of Brescia, which are adorned with small Doric columns carrying
architraves without the other parts of an entablature, while an upright
block with a ball on it rises over each column (Fig. 95), would be
tiresome and profitless. We may therefore pass on in the next chapter
to a brief consideration of the carved ornament of this architecture,
before taking up the architecture of the Renaissance in France and
England.
CHAPTER X
ARCHITECTURAL CARVING OF THE RENAISSANCE
All effective sculpture on buildings, including that of the human
figure, is architectural carving; but it is in Gothic art only
that sculpture of the human figure, as well as that of subordinate
ornamentation made up of the other elements, has at once an appropriate
architectural character and a high degree of excellence in the
development of form. In the best Greek art the carving of the human
figure has, indeed, a grandly monumental quality; but the Greek
sculptor did not seek primarily to give his work an architectural
expression. He wrought it with a kind of perfection that is not
compatible with the fullest measure of such expression. Greek
sculpture, though placed on a building, is in a measure independent of
it, and thus it not only loses nothing, but may even gain in value,
when taken from its place on the building and set up in a museum where
it can be viewed by itself.
In the art of the Renaissance the human figure in the full round is
treated so independently as to lose nearly all monumental expression,
while for strictly architectural carving we have reliefs on pilasters,
friezes, and capitals, made up of scrolls and meanders with leafage,
grotesque animal life, and a great variety of objects, including the
human figure, represented more or less fantastically as ornament.
Renaissance sculpture of the human figure thus having so little proper
architectural character, we shall not consider it here, but confine
our attention to the relief carving, which has a closer architectural
connection, if not a much truer architectural expression.
[Illustration: FIG. 96.--Roman Arabesque.]
[Illustration:
Plate IX
RELIEF OF THE LOMBARDI
Venice]
[Illustration: FIG. 97.--Renaissance Arabesque.]
A great deal of this carving is in close imitation of Roman models,
as a comparison of a fragment of Roman arabesque from the Museum of
Florence (Fig. 96) with a fragment of Renaissance arabesque from
the Ducal Palace of Gubbio (Fig. 97) will show. But in elegance,
delicacy, and subtlety of line and surface, the best carving of the
Renaissance is superior to that of ancient Rome. The linear basis
of such design is highly artificial, consisting of formal scrolls
and meanders, and the leafage and other forms introduced are treated
artificially without being finely conventionalized. The conventions of
this art are not the natural result of a true sense of ornamental
abstraction, of architectural fitness, and of the nature of materials.
They do not manifest a fine appreciation of the beauty of the object
conventionalized. They are factitious conventions which often do
violence at once to the forms of nature, and to the true principles
of design. The ear of barley, and the flower stalks, in Plate IX, a
characteristic work of the Lombardi in the church of Santa Maria dei
Miracole in Venice, illustrate this. The rigid parallel straight sides
and the square end of the barley ear, and the flaccid sinuousness
of the flower stalk, are expressive of no architectural or material
conditions to which the artist had to conform. They express nothing
but the designer’s insensitiveness to the character and beauty of
the natural forms. Compare the ear of barley (Fig. 98) from an
ancient Greek coin in the British Museum.[111] Though severely
conventionalized, this representation finely expresses the true
character of the real object. Such details as the rectangular barley
ear and nerveless flower stalk in Plate IX would seem to indicate an
incapacity on the part of the designer to appreciate those elements
of beauty in plant life which may be made effective in ornamental
carving, were they not associated with other details that manifest
a fuller sense of vital character. The foliation of the scrolls in
the same relief (Plate IX) has a character which makes us wonder how
a designer who could so finely render the nervous life of leafage
could associate with this leafage the lifeless details just noticed,
and the further monstrosities of the axial composition including the
characterless grotesque animals out of which the scroll leafage issues.
The symmetrical Arabesque scheme of the whole, and the nonsensical
details of the central part, are from the Roman source,[112] while the
leafage, though also cast in the Roman form, owes much of its best
quality to the inspiration of Gothic art. The qualities that give their
subtle charm to such conventionalized forms elude complete analysis
and definition, but they are based on the proportions, curvature, and
relations of lines and surfaces that belong to the organic forms of
nature.
[Illustration: FIG. 98.--Greek coin, magnified.]
Such subtle beauty of leafage is exceptional in the ornamental design
of the Renaissance. The carver of the fifteenth century generally
misses the vigour of line, the finer surface flexures, and the
expression of organic structure shown in the supremely fine details of
the reliefs by the Lombardi. The convolutions of Renaissance design
are apt to be more formal and the leading lines less springy. In some
cases the finer qualities of curvature are wholly wanting, as in the
scrolls that border the bronze door-valves of St. Peter’s in Rome by
the Florentine sculptor Filarete (Fig. 99). In these scrolls the heavy
and lifeless character of the poorest Roman models is reproduced. The
finish of these carvings, in the better examples, is usually elaborate,
and in such work as that of the Lombardi in Venice it is exquisite.
But in many cases it is mere surface smoothing without expressive
character, as in the leafage of Benedetto da Maiano in the pulpit of
Santa Croce of Florence, where the expression of the beautiful leaf
anatomy is almost wholly polished out.
[Illustration: FIG. 99.--Arabesque by Filarete, Rome.]
It is a fundamental weakness of this style of ornamentation that it is
so largely made up of artificial convolutions and formal symmetries.
Reduced to its linear elements, it mainly consists either of an axial
line with scrolls and weak curves set symmetrically on either side of
it, or of a formal meander with alternating scrolls. The wearisome
repetition of these two schemes of composition is a characteristic of
the art of the Renaissance. Many changes are wrung on these primary
motives, but no possible variation of them can relieve their dulness.
That they are derived from an ancient source does not justify their
use. They are not, however, drawn from the best ancient source. In
Greek art elements of a kindred nature had been treated in a finer way,
with exquisite moderation of curvature and vitality of line. But the
ornamental designers of the Renaissance drew their inspiration from the
Græco-Roman travesties of Greek ornamentation, such as the tiresome
arabesques that were painted on the walls of Pompeian houses.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--Console of pulpit in Santa
Croce.]
The arrangements, as well as the treatment, of the details drawn
from plant life that are associated with this style of design are
often most artificial and inorganic, as in the pulpit of Santa Croce
before mentioned, where on the side of a console (Fig. 100) fruit
and leafage issue from a nondescript receptacle of ungraceful shape,
having a clumsy fluted stalk bound with a fluttering ribbon ending in
a tassel. Such unnaturally composed details are unknown in the pure
Gothic art which the men of the Renaissance thought so barbaric. The
introduction of objects like the singular cornucopia and the ribbon of
this design is common in Renaissance ornamentation. Without affirming
that artificial objects may never enter into an ornamental composition,
I think it may be said that such objects, if used as conspicuous
features, ought to have some beauty of form,[113] and certainly every
group of objects, of whatever kind, should be composed so as to
produce an effect of organic unity. Each detail ought to have a place
and a posture which should make it a part of some system of related
ornamental lines. This is, of course, elementary, and the principle is
usually carried out in the ornamentation of the Renaissance, though in
a highly artificial way. But in the design on the triangular panel of
this console there is no fine system of related lines. The fruit and
leafage have a disjointed arrangement, and the wriggled ribbon has no
beauty of line or surface.
[Illustration: FIG. 101.--Leafage from the Ghiberti
gates.]
Instances of such disordered composition are conspicuous in the borders
of the famous Ghiberti gates of the Florentine Baptistery, where
the bosses of leafage set at regular intervals are composed in the
same inorganic way (Fig. 101), and the bunches are bound with spiral
fluted fillets. It is noticeable that the details are here elaborated
with a minute naturalistic completeness that is incompatible with
architectural effectiveness. The possibilities of the bronze material
in which the design is wrought are developed to the utmost in the
rendering of leaf veinings, serrations, and surface textures. This
tendency to combine excessive naturalism with extremely artificial
composition is a curious characteristic of both Roman and Renaissance
art.
We find in the ornamental carving of the Renaissance not only a formal,
and often a disjointed, scheme of composition, with artificial objects
of no beauty or meaning introduced among elements derived from natural
forms, but numerous instances occur where the design is made up
entirely of such objects, as in a pilaster in the National Museum of
Florence (Fig. 102). Such value as this design has lies wholly in its
childish symmetry of arrangement of the ugly elements about an axis.
It contains nothing else on which the eye can rest with pleasure. I
think it may be taken as a true principle that architectural ornament
cannot be good unless it be an expression of the kind of beauty that we
find in organic nature. I do not say that the elements of such ornament
must be directly, or consciously, drawn from nature; but every quality
of line and surface that, in a healthy state of mind, we feel to be
beautiful is exemplified in organic nature, so that however abstract
or conventional a piece of good carving may be, its forms will have a
correspondence with those of natural objects.
[Illustration: FIG. 102.--Pilaster in the National
Museum, Florence.]
The finest forms that occur in the carvings of the Renaissance are
those of foliation such as we have already noticed (p. 170). But even
these are rarely of real excellence. An appreciation of the vital
beauty of leafage has in general not been manifested by the Italians,
whether ancient or modern. The leafage of Roman art is as inferior
to Greek leafage as that of the Renaissance is to the foliation of
the French Gothic carvers. Take, for instance, the crisp acanthus
leaves of the capital from Epidaurus (_A_, Fig. 103) in the National
Museum of Athens, with their strong nervous life notwithstanding their
severely conventional treatment; or the leaf _B_ in the same figure,
from another Greek capital in the same museum, with its spiky cusps and
its exquisite systems of radiating lines--at once true to nature and
effective as ornament; and compare with these any examples of Roman, or
Græco-Roman, leafage, as _A_ and _B_ (Fig. 104). Observe in _A_, from
a composite capital in the Naples Museum, the excessive convolution
of the leaf ends, the obtuse rounded cusps, the lack of radial
relationship in the lines of depression, and the unmodelled flatness of
the surfaces between the furrows. And notice in _B_, from a Corinthian
capital supposed to have belonged to the so-called Temple of Jupiter
Stator, the immoderate and artificial undulations of line and surface.
[Illustration: FIG. 103.--Greek leafage.]
[Illustration: FIG. 104.--Roman leafage.]
Turning now to the Renaissance leafage of capitals, we may take,
first, any one of the portico of the Pazzi chapel by Brunelleschi. The
obtuseness shown here (Fig. 105) to the fine qualities of natural forms
that may be made effective as architectural ornament is really amazing.
The treatment is of the Roman kind with emphasis on the artificial
conventions of Roman art. The rigid lines and rectangular sections of
the furrows, each ending abruptly in a straight line across the bottom,
and the unmodelled flatness of the intervening surfaces indicate a
surprising lack of appreciation of those elements of beauty which
distinguish really fine ornamental carving. Such leafage is, indeed,
exceptionally poor, yet instances of a kindred sort are not seldom met
with, as in the capitals of the doorway of the sacristy of Santa Croce
in Florence by Michelozzi.
[Illustration: FIG. 105.--Leafage of Brunelleschi.]
The more characteristic Renaissance leafage is, however, sometimes
beautiful, as in the capitals of the municipal palace of Brescia (Fig.
106). Nevertheless, a curious, and singularly artificial, convention is
noticeable here in the fillet-like form, and abrupt angular termination
of the upper end, of the ridges which mark the subdivisions of the leaf
surface. This peculiar detail is of almost constant occurrence in the
acanthus foliation of the Renaissance, and is in marked contrast with
the finely rounded and more natural treatment of the corresponding
parts of the Greek leaf forms as in Figure 103. This unnatural detail
sometimes takes another form, as in a capital by Giuliano da San Gallo
in the Palazzo Gondi, where its edges (Fig. 107) are less angular, its
surface grooved lengthwise, and the upper end is rounded. But whatever
beauty this Italian leafage may have, the design is rarely more than
a recast of Roman models, with little manifestation of that fresh
inspiration from nature that gives such charm to Gothic foliation.
[Illustration: FIG. 106.--Leafage of Brescia.]
[Illustration: FIG. 107.--Leafage of San Gallo.]
[Illustration: FIG. 108.--Relief of the Scala d’Oro.]
[Illustration: FIG. 109.]
The grotesque, which enters largely into these ornamental
compositions, is uniformly weak and characterless. This has been
already noticed (p. 170) in the work of the Lombardi. It is equally
marked in all other neo-classic representations of imaginary
creatures. The southern genius appears never to have been capable of
conceiving the grotesque in an imaginative way. That power appears
to have belonged exclusively to the northern races. The monster of
the Renaissance, like his Roman ancestor, has no organic life, no
suggestion of reality, and therefore no impressiveness comparable to
that of the grotesque creature of the Gothic carver. And not only is
the grotesque of the Renaissance unimaginative and insipid, but its
forced monstrosities not seldom have a repulsive vulgarity, as well as
a structureless incoherence. Take, for instance, the silly creatures
in the relief of the Scala d’Oro in the Ducal Palace of Venice by
Sansovino (Fig. 108). These nondescript monsters, without anatomy, and
without point or meaning of any kind, are merely disgusting when we
attend to anything more than the ornamental lines in the abstract, and
even these lines are without any fine qualities. The masks ending in
leafage (Fig. 109), from a pilaster in the church of the Miracole in
Venice, are fantastical, but neither witty nor effectively grotesque;
and the _Putti_ treated in the same way, so frequently introduced,
are equally pointless, and without particular merit as design.
CHAPTER XI
ARCHITECTURE OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE
On the north of the Alps the Renaissance had not the same meaning that
it had in Italy, and in France, where its influence was first felt, the
art naturally assumed a different character. The term “Renaissance” is
not, in fact, properly applicable here, for the French people had not
had a classic past, and the adoption of architectural forms derived
from classic antiquity was not at all natural for them. Through the
developments of a noble history they had acquired and perfected a
peculiar genius which had found expression in forms of art that were
radically different from those of ancient times; and in now departing
from the principles of this art they did violence to their own native
traditions and ideals.
It has been often affirmed that French architecture was but
superficially changed by the Renaissance influence, and that its
essential character survived beneath the Italian dress.[114] This
is not wholly true. The Italian influence did effect a fundamental
change in this architecture by giving it, as we shall presently see,
a factitious, in place of a natural, character. This point has been
overlooked by those writers who have maintained that the French
artistic genius suffered no loss of integrity while yielding to the
Renaissance movement.
But it must not be forgotten that the native art had lost its best
character long before the Italian influence supervened. The finest
Gothic impulse was spent before the close of the thirteenth century,
and the feeble spirit and florid extravagance of the Flamboyant style
which now prevailed betrayed a weakened condition of the national
artistic mind which made it an easy prey to the foreign innovations.
Until the sixteenth century the Gothic style survived in its decadent
forms. Yet in some quarters before this time an interest in the
arts of antiquity was gaining foothold, and a few Italian artists
had come into France and wrought some small architectural works in
the neo-classic manner. But the way appears to have been opened for
a more general movement in the new direction when the French upper
classes began to construct fine houses adapted to the requirements of
luxurious life. This movement was favoured by the changed conditions
of the times. Concomitant with the cessation of feudal turmoil and the
need for fortified castles was a great increase of material wealth,
far exceeding that which France had enjoyed at any former time in
its history. Life and property were now secure, population grew,
the towns enlarged their borders, and the resources of the king and
the nobles were correspondingly enlarged.[115] These conditions had
found expression in architecture during the fifteenth century in such
palatial houses as that of Jacques Cœur at Bourges, and the Hôtel Cluny
in Paris. These houses, though retaining the irregular character of
mediæval French castles, have no defences, and are abundantly lighted
on all sides by large window openings. They are the forerunners of the
Renaissance châteaux.
To understand the early French Renaissance château it is necessary
to recall the character of the feudal castle of the Middle Ages out
of which it was evolved. The plan of the feudal castle was generally
irregular and its outline picturesquely broken. But its irregularity
and picturesqueness were not the result of any purpose on the part of
its builders to produce a picturesque effect. It was a consequence
of the natural conformation of the rugged site to which the building
had to shape itself, of the need for defensive towers, and of the
conditions of climate calling for high-pitched roofs, more or less
broken by dormers and chimney-stacks.
The earlier palatial residences of the open country were in many
cases the older castles remodelled or enlarged, and opened, by great
windows cut through their massive walls, to the light and air.[116] And
although there was no longer need for such defences as would withstand
the siege of a feudal army, it was still for some time necessary to
provide for security against roving bands of marauders which continued
to move about, and thus the surrounding fosse and the drawbridge were
retained for a considerable time after the loopholes and embattled
towers of the Middle Ages had become unnecessary.
[Illustration: FIG. 110.--Cornice of Blois.]
In cases where the château was a wholly new building, it was generally
placed on even ground, and the plan became symmetrical. Yet still the
outline remained broken with the steep gables, chimneys, and dormers
that are proper to a northern climate; and even the towers, turrets,
and other features of feudal architecture were largely retained. The
French château, as has been often remarked, was never transformed
into any likeness to the Italian villa; but it was, nevertheless,
so radically changed as to lose that admirable logic of design
which distinguishes the French architecture of the Middle Ages. The
composition of the Renaissance château is factitious in the sense
of being artificially made up; it is not, like the mediæval castle,
an outgrowth and expression of natural conditions and actual needs.
Thus while it is still peculiarly French in character, it is not an
expression of the French genius in its integrity. The French genius in
its integrity has not been manifested in architecture since the Middle
Ages.
The earliest palatial houses of the Renaissance in France are
ornamented with debased Gothic details almost exclusively. The
neo-classic elements are introduced sparingly, and are hardly
noticeable in the general effect. An illustration of this is afforded
in those parts of the château of Blois which were built under Louis
XII. Here the egg and dart scheme is worked on the lower members of
the cornice, while elsewhere the mediæval details are retained. This
cornice (Fig. 110) is a curious medley, though of no exceptional kind.
Against a flat lower member is a corbel-table (a Romanesque feature)
treated in a Flamboyant way, the small arches being splayed and having
the three-centred form. The crowning mouldings have approximately
true Gothic profiling, while a Flamboyant parapet of elaborate design
surmounts the whole.
[Illustration: FIG. 111.--Azay le Rideau.]
[Illustration: FIG. 112.--Portal of Azay le Rideau.]
Of the distinctive early French Renaissance architecture, which took
form during the reign of Francis I, a fine example is the château of
Azay le Rideau (Fig. 111). This building was an entirely new structure,
not a mediæval one remodelled. It is of moderate dimensions, and,
although it has considerable beauty, it well illustrates the hybrid
and factitious character of early French Renaissance design. There was
no need of defences, yet round towers are set on the angles simulating
those of feudal times, and each one of these is crowned with a low
overhanging story supported on corbels, and having a superficial
resemblance to the mediæval machicolated gallery. This overhanging
attic is carried along each side of the building, and its numerous
small square windows are so spaced as to give the intervening wall
solids somewhat the appearance of battlements, while steep gables,
crowned with spiky pinnacles, and high dormers and chimneys make up a
total composition of great picturesqueness. The larger features are all
of mediæval form, but the windows are flanked with classic pilasters
and crowned with entablatures. The most elaborate, and least admirable,
feature of this building is an ornamental bay (Fig. 112), not seen in
the general view here shown (Fig. 111), which embraces the main portal.
This bay is worthy of analysis because it is a highly characteristic
example of French Renaissance design in which distorted neo-classic
details are worked into a pseudo-Gothic scheme. The composition is
plainly derived from the neighbouring castle of Châteaudun, which was
built at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and ornamented in the
Flamboyant Gothic style. In Châteaudun (Fig. 113) a staircase tower
rises over the main portal of the south façade in four stories. The
front of this tower, which is flush with the wall of the façade, is
treated as an enriched bay, the upper two stories of it reaching above
the main cornice, and being flanked by round turrets overhanging the
wall, which is corbelled out to support them. The portal is double, and
each upper story of the bay has a pair of large openings. All of these
openings have the Flamboyant depressed arches, and the whole bay is
flanked by buttresses, while a smaller buttress is set against a middle
pier that rises through the composition. All of these parts have the
characteristic Flamboyant forms and ornamental details. The openings
are splayed, and their profilings have the sharp Flamboyant arrises.
The buttresses have the multiplicity of angular members set obliquely,
with the simulated interpenetrations, and the niches and canopies, of
the latest Gothic style.
[Illustration: FIG. 113.--Châteaudun.]
Returning now to the portal of Azay le Rideau (Fig. 112), we find
this scheme substantially reproduced, but with greatly altered
details. In place of the buttresses we have a remarkable combination
of columns, pilasters, and other neo-classic ornaments put together
so as to produce a pseudo-Flamboyant Gothic effect. The portals and
windows are flanked with pilasters and crowned with entablatures, and
the whole is bounded right and left by superimposed columns broken
by highly ornamented niches, and banded by the string courses and
entablatures. On the first floor over the portal the window pilasters
are made to appear as hidden behind tall ornamental niches, composed
of many neo-classic and nondescript elements, arranged in the manner
of the details on Flamboyant buttresses. Only small portions of the
base mouldings of the pilasters appear beneath this filigree overlay.
In the story next above, the central pilaster only is hidden in this
way, but here a part of the capital, instead of the base, comes into
view. The manner in which the pseudo-Gothic features are adjusted to
the neo-classic elements of the composition is curious in other ways.
The pilasters of the several superimposed orders are, of course, of
equal length in each story, and their entablatures make strongly marked
horizontal lines. But the nondescript ornaments laid over these orders
are carried up to unequal heights, all of them crossing the middle
entablature, and the finial of the central one reaching above the
architrave of the top entablature, while the lateral pilasters of this
upper order are wholly exposed to view, except that the finials of the
canopies over the niches below cover parts of their bases. The mixture
of neo-classic and pseudo-Gothic forms is carried out in the details
of these superimposed ornaments. Under the base of each niche are two
diminutive pilasters, set obliquely so as to present an arris in front,
like the angular members in Flamboyant buttresses, as in Châteaudun,
and between these is a small shaft supporting a corbel which forms
the base of the niche. The niche is flanked by slender pilasters set
obliquely in conformity with those below, but these pilasters are
almost entirely hidden from view by very salient nondescript ornaments
worked on the face of each. The mouldings of the grouped bases, which
are of different magnitudes, interpenetrate in Flamboyant fashion, and
the canopies over the niches are made up of miniature entablatures on
curved plans ornamented with filigree, and each of them is surmounted
by a group of minute niches with statuettes, and crowned by a finial.
The windows have the depressed arches of the Flamboyant style, with
panelled dadoes beneath, as in Châteaudun; but their profilings are
pseudo-classic, and they have keystones at their crowns. The total
scheme is more mediæval than classic, notwithstanding the free use of
neo-classic orders. To produce a continuity of upright lines, and thus
emphasize the Gothic effect, the entablatures are broken into ressauts
over the pilasters, and are carried around the lateral columns, as
before remarked. The double portal is the only part of the composition
that is quite free from mediæval elements. The order and the arches are
here combined in the ancient Roman manner, as they are, indeed, in the
upper stories; but here the arches have the Roman semicircular form,
and the order is not overlaid with other ornaments. Classic proportions
are not at all observed. The pilasters are short, and are raised on
high pedestals, which are necessary to the composition in order to give
the effect of adequate foundation for the superstructure. The design
as a whole has no reason on structural grounds, nor has it any logic
of simulated structure. Such merit as it has is of a purely abstract
ornamental kind entirely extraneous to the building. Apart, however,
from its factitious general character, and its incongruous details, the
château of Azay le Rideau has a thoroughly French character, and is one
of the finest monuments of the early Renaissance in the country.
[Illustration: FIG. 114.--Part of the Portal of
Chenonceaux.]
Among other châteaux contemporaneous with Azay le Rideau, and of
similar character, are Chenonceaux and La Rochefoucauld. Of Chenonceaux
the portal (Fig. 114) is worthy of notice as an instance of a different
manifestation of the survival of Flamboyant ideas in the treatment of
neo-classic details. In this portal we have again the three-centred
form of arch, with a keystone and continuous imposts.[117] The jambs
and archivolt are in three planes, or orders, of shallow projection,
with simple mouldings of semi-Flamboyant effect. No entablature
surmounts this portal, but a corbelled cornice supporting a heavy
balcony passes over the arch. This balcony has a curved ressaut at
each end carried on a massive corbel in graduated rings of overhanging
masonry, with a compound support beneath consisting of a stout pilaster
and two small shafts. The Flamboyant idea running through this
nondescript scheme is shown in the depressed form of the arch, and by
the simulated interpenetrations at the imposts of the pilasters.
In La Rochefoucauld we have an instance of a mediæval fortified castle
transformed into a palatial residence. The most noticeable features
here are the superimposed arcades of the court. In these arcades we
have orders of pilasters used in the Roman way to frame in the arches,
but these arches have the Flamboyant three-centred form. In the top
story the number of arches is doubled, and the entablature over them
is crowned with an ornamental parapet and finials. The vertical lines
of the superimposed pilasters, made continuous by ressauts in the
entablatures and carried up through the parapet by the finials, give a
semi-Gothic expression to the ancient Roman scheme.
[Illustration: FIG. 115.--Part of the court façade of
Blois.]
In those parts of the vast châteaux of Blois and Chambord that were
built in the time of Francis I a richer phase of this early French
Renaissance architecture is found. The eastern wing of Blois, which
had been begun by Louis XII, illustrates this. On the side facing the
court the walls are panelled, not as they sometimes were in the earlier
buildings, as at La Rochefoucauld, by interpenetrating mouldings of
Flamboyant profiling, but by three superimposed orders of pilasters,
in which a continuity of upright lines is given by shallow ressauts
in the entablatures (Fig. 115). The pilasters are here irregularly
spaced in conformity with the window openings of the work that had
been begun, and considerably advanced, under the preceding reign;
and have the novel addition of ornamented bead mouldings set on the
edges of the pilasters, and along the under edges of the entablatures,
while in each of the panels thus framed the salamander and crown are
carved in relief. In the deep and elaborate cornice, dentils and
modillions and the egg and dart are worked in with Gothic gargoyles and
a corbel-table; while a rich parapet crowns the whole, and dormers of
picturesque form, with pseudo-classic orders surmounted by gables and
pinnacles, rise against the vast high-pitched roofs which are further
broken by ornamented chimney-stacks. A survival of the later Gothic
habit of design is further shown in the continuity of upright lines
obtained by the ressauts already remarked. But the most remarkable
feature of this façade is the great polygonal staircase tower that
rises through it. Four vast piers like buttresses, reaching from the
ground to the main cornice which is carried out so as to crown them,
are treated like colossal pilasters with rich Corinthianesque capitals,
and are banded above the middle with mouldings of classic profiling.
Yet on the face of each of these members is a corbelled niche, with a
rich canopy and statue in late Gothic style. These piers are connected
by three stages of ramps with panelled parapets elaborately ornamented
with small pilasters, carvings in relief, and gargoyles issuing from
their base mouldings. The whole composition is crowned with a dormer
having a square opening on each side, grouped pilasters on the angles,
an entablature with compound ressauts over the pilasters, and with
gargoyles reaching from the cornice, and a balustrade over all.
The reader should consider well the meaning of all this, and observe
how the persistence of the native French habits of design, without the
logic of the former time, was still giving a largely mediæval aspect
to works in which details from the Italian Renaissance, modified
and combined in strangely new ways, were being more and more freely
introduced.
On the garden side this wing of Blois has a different design, and shows
a survival of the Flamboyant depressed arch in the window openings
necessitated by the form of the earlier façade, which is incased
in that of Francis I.[118] The windows of this earlier façade were
spaced and proportioned so as to make wide and narrow voids and solids
alternate in a very irregular manner. In the work of the sixteenth
century, which overlays this, superimposed pilasters are set in pairs
on the wider solids, and single ones adorn the narrow piers. The
pilasters of the lower order rest on tall pedestals supported on spurs
rising out of the batter wall of the basement, while the upper order
is set on plinths resting on the entablature of the order beneath.
This upper order has a plain corbel-table in place of an entablature,
with a simple cornice, and gargoyles over the pilasters. Over this is
the novel feature of an open gallery covered by an extension of the
main roof which is held up by columns of no distinct order, with a
balustrade in each interval. Similar galleries were afterward in some
instances produced by extending the roofs over originally uncovered
terraces below the eaves, supporting the extension on wooden posts--as
at La Rochefoucauld.
The walls of Chambord, the next vast château of the early French
Renaissance, are adorned with pilasters as at Blois, though the design
below the cornice is much simpler. Above the cornice, however, it is
the richest of all the great French châteaux, and with its steep roofs
and manifold dormers, chimneys, and central lantern, it presents an
aspect which for multiplicity of soaring features resembles a late
Gothic building. It is not worth while to give an extended analysis
of its redundant details which, with its vast chimneys adorned with
free-standing orders, niches, panelled surfaces, and pinnacles; its
dormers with overlaid orders of pilasters, pediments, scrolls, and
endless filigree ornaments; and its great lantern with inverted
consoles on entablatures forming flying-buttresses (where there is
nothing to be buttressed), make up a bewildering complex without
structural meaning or artistic merit. Viollet le Duc has well remarked
that “Chambord est au château féodal des XIII^e et XIV^e siècles ce que
l’abbaye de Thélème est aux abbayes du XII^e siècle: c’est une parodie.”
The same general character, though in less florid development, marks
those parts of Fontainebleau which are contemporaneous with Blois and
Chambord. This is true also of Écouen, where the architectural scheme
is comparatively simple. Instead of superimposed orders the walls of
Écouen are adorned with continuous pilasters banded by the mouldings of
entablatures that crown each of the stories. These details are in very
shallow relief, the wall spaces enclosed by them are not panelled as at
Blois and Chambord, and the windows have no framing members. Even the
dormers have a marked sobriety of design, though they are framed with
small orders, and crowned with fantastic pediments made up of classic
elements and filigree ornaments.
The architect Bullant, who appears to have had a large part in the
design of Écouen, was among the first French architects of the
Renaissance to travel in Italy. In Rome, as he tells us in his
book,[119] he had measured some of the ancient monuments, and in
the great portico of the court he reproduced the order of a Roman
temple.[120] This portico embraces both stories of the building, and
is, I believe, the earliest example in France of the reproduction of
an ancient order without any admixture of mediæval details, or Italian
corruptions. In the main body of the building it was natural that the
architect should modify and adjust his neo-classic details in the
prevailing manner of his time; but this colossal portico gave him an
opportunity to carry out fully the classic Roman ideas which he appears
to have imbibed during his Roman sojourn. It was impossible, however,
to make any organic connection between this ancient scheme and the
building to which it is attached, and it stands against the façade as
an utterly foreign interpolation.
An exceptional building of the early French Renaissance is the château
of St. Germain en Laye. The top story of this building is vaulted, and
to meet the vault thrusts a series of deep buttresses is ranged along
each façade. These buttresses are connected by arches at the level of
the floor of the principal story[121] and beneath the main cornice,
and entablatures, which crown the basement and the principal floor,
break around them. They are adorned with pilaster-strips of Romanesque
proportions, connected by small blind arches, capped by ressauts of the
main cornice, and pierced with water-ducts ending in gargoyles. The
arched windows are in pairs (one pair in each story between each pair
of buttresses), and are framed with pilaster-strips and entablatures
surmounted with pediments. The balconies formed by the ledges over
the lower arches are enclosed with balustrades, and balustrades
connect the buttresses over the main cornice. The roof is very low and
invisible, thus there are no dormers, but large chimneys ornamented
with blind arcading break the sky line.
Such is the early Renaissance architecture of France. Notwithstanding
its factitiousness, and its ornamental incongruities, it still has,
as I have said, a distinctly French expression, though it has not
the reasonable character of the native art of the Middle Ages in its
integrity. But the departure from their own ideals and traditions
was destined to be carried further, and at length to reach results
which should still more profoundly contradict the true native spirit.
This further transformation was wrought during the second half of the
sixteenth century under the influence of several noted architects who
stand in relation to the French Renaissance very much as Vignola,
Palladio, and their followers stand in relation to that of Italy. The
art of these men will be considered in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XII
LESCOT AND DE L’ORME
Among the architects of the later French Renaissance Pierre Lescot and
Philibert De l’Orme were preëminent. The change which they effected
gave the French architecture a more marked neo-classic dress, yet
still without wholly eliminating its native character. This change was
of course analogous to that which had been wrought in Italy by the
later designers of that country, but the resulting forms in France
were different from those of the Italian art, and were to the last
peculiarly French, though, as before remarked (p. 179), not expressive
of the French genius in its integrity. This was entirely natural.
The architecture of a people inevitably retains much of its original
character while yielding to foreign influences. It had been so with
the Italian art of the Middle Ages when it was subjected to the Gothic
influence, and it could not be otherwise with the French art of the
sixteenth century when the later Renaissance wave swept over it.
Lescot and De l’Orme came strongly under the influence of Vignola
and Palladio, their Italian contemporaries, and they fully accepted
the Italian belief in the superiority of the neo-classic principles
of design to those which had given rise to what they considered the
architectural barbarisms of the Middle Ages. Lescot, says Berty,[122]
“was one of the first French architects to employ the ancient style in
its purity,” and De l’Orme, according to Milizia,[123] “exerted all his
industry to strip architecture of her Gothic dress and clothe her in
that of ancient Greece.”
[Illustration: FIG. 116.--Du Cerceau’s engraving of the
Fountain of the Nymphs.]
Lescot is said to have designed the Fountain of the Nymphs, now known
as the Fountain of the Innocents,[124] in Paris, in collaboration
with Goujon, the sculptor. In this work there is nothing whatever
of mediæval character. In its present condition it is, indeed, very
different from what it was originally. It first (1550) stood on the
corner of two streets with a façade of two bays on one street and a
return of one bay on the other. In 1788 it was taken down and reërected
in the square of the Innocents on a square plan, a fourth façade
being then added. Figure 116, from an engraving by Du Cerceau,[125]
illustrates the original design, each bay of which is nothing more
than a reproduction of the scheme of a Roman triumphal arch, with a
short pediment over the attic. The whole structure is raised on a
high basement of plain character with lions’ heads for water-spouts.
Such pure imitation of the antique does the architect little credit
as a designer, and it is hard to understand how such works could have
been regarded as monuments of a regenerating art. The sculptures by
Goujon which adorn this structure have, in my judgment, no monumental
qualities, nor any notable merits of design. Their movements are
awkward, and their lines ill composed. The influence of the decadent
Italian art is marked in them, without any new qualities that should
entitle them to distinction.
Little is known of the early training of Lescot beyond what is told
in a poem by Ronsard,[126] from which we learn that in his youth he
had occupied himself with painting and geometry, and that at the age
of twenty he began the study of architecture. He does not appear to
have visited Italy, and his knowledge of ancient art must, therefore,
have been acquired at second hand; very likely in great part through
Serlio’s book which had been published in 1537. A woodcut (Fig. 117) on
page 127 of this book,[127] giving the design of an ancient Roman arch
in Verona, might have served as a model for the Fountain of the Nymphs.
He must also have come in contact with Serlio himself, who in 1541 had
been called into the service of the French king.
The capital work of Lescot was the early part of the new Louvre, begun
about 1546 on the site of the old castle of Philippe Auguste which
Francis I had demolished in order to rebuild in the new style. The
new scheme was apparently intended to cover almost precisely the same
area that had been occupied by the mediæval structure, and the old
foundations were to be utilized in the new building. Thus in conformity
with the older castle Lescot’s design embraced a square court; but only
a part of this project was actually carried out, namely, the wings
on the south and west sides. And of these the south wing afterward
suffered a damaging alteration by the architect Lemercier who enlarged
the court to about four times the area that Lescot had intended. Thus
the only part of Lescot’s work which has survived substantially intact
is that part of the existing west side which extends from the southwest
angle to the great western pavilion. This portion is figured by Du
Cerceau,[128] and save for some alterations in the timber roof the
existing fabric agrees with his print.
[Illustration: FIG. 117.--Roman arch, Serlio.]
[Illustration: FIG. 118.--Part of Du Cerceau’s print of
Lescot’s Louvre.]
In this design (Fig. 118) there is no survival of the character of a
mediæval stronghold, though the rectangular pavilions, which break the
long façades, and the high pitched roofs are feeble echoes of the
mediæval French traditional forms. It is worthy of notice that Lescot’s
projecting bays have no meaning apart from their æsthetic effect in
the external architectural scheme. In the feudal castle the towers had
of necessity to stand out beyond the curtain walls in order from their
loopholes and battlements to defend them. But the salient pavilions of
the Louvre have no function; they do not even materially enlarge the
interior, but are purely ornamental features. The scheme includes two
stories and an attic, each of which is adorned with a classic order. In
the basement and in the principal story the orders consist of fluted
Corinthian pilasters on pedestals, while in the attic short pilasters,
with their surfaces panelled in the Lombard Renaissance manner, are
used. The principal orders only have complete entablatures, the order
of the attic having only a cornice with a frieze which takes in the
capitals, and this cornice is surmounted by a parapet with filigree
ornamentation. In the intercolumniations of the basement order arches
are sprung beneath the entablature in the Roman fashion, each arch
embracing a narrow window with a segmental head concentric with the
arch, while the window openings of the upper stories are rectangular,
those of the principal floor having alternately round and angular
pediments on consoles.
In the pavilions we have in each story a variation of the scheme of
the Fountain of the Nymphs. The imitation of Serlio’s cut (Fig. 117
above) is closer, Corinthian columns being used instead of pilasters
as in Serlio’s design. But in the basement the architect has made
marked changes in the central bay, omitting the arch, and cutting
out a portion of the entablature. This last device, of which, as
we have seen, the later Renaissance architecture of Italy affords
many instances, is not only a violation of the principles of classic
design which these architects were professing to restore, but it is
a barbarism, because it breaks the continuity of those lines which
in such a composition should have the expression of binding the
parts together. In the story above the entablature is not completely
broken; the architrave and frieze only are cut in order to insert a
tablet. In the attic, however, the cornice is cut out completely, and
a segmental arch is sprung over the opening to form a pediment as a
crowning feature of the pavilion. The traditional logic of French
design is thus completely ignored by Lescot, and he abandons himself
to capricious methods of composition as completely as the Italians
had done. It is surprising not only to find the French people thus
following the Italians in their irrational misuse of structural forms
in ornamentation, but also to find them, after having produced in the
Middle Ages the most living and beautiful forms of foliate sculpture
that the world has ever seen, resorting to the heavy and formal
festoons of decadent Roman art, as Lescot has done in these friezes of
the Louvre.
Another noticeable characteristic of this phase of Renaissance design
in France is its excessive profusion of ornament. The wall surfaces
are embossed with reliefs, or set with niches, disks, or tablets until
no broad plain surfaces remain. Such extravagance of ornament is
characteristic of later Roman, and debased Gothic, but it is foreign to
the finest classic, and the pure Gothic, art.
Of the architectural work of De l’Orme little is now extant, and the
most of that which has survived has suffered such alterations that we
can form from the monuments themselves but an imperfect idea of their
original aspect. We have, however, in the fragments that remain, in Du
Cerceau’s prints, and in the illustrations to his own writings, enough
to show that he was a man with little artistic genius, though he had an
ardent passion for architecture as he understood it.[129] He was among
those architects of his time who went to Rome to study the antique, and
he tells us in his book[130] that he dug about their foundations, and
made drawings and measurements. His most important work was the palace
of the Tuileries, begun in 1564. Of this gigantic scheme only a small
part, the central part on the garden side, was completed by De l’Orme,
and this was much altered by successive architects before the building
was destroyed in 1871. The plan, as given by Du Cerceau (Fig. 119), is
symmetrical, but it is broken by projecting bays and angle pavilions
more pronounced than those of the Louvre. These features, survivals of
the mediæval plan, distinguish the French Renaissance architecture from
that of Italy to the last.
[Illustration: FIG. 119.--Plan of the Tuileries, from Du
Cerceau.]
[Illustration: FIG. 120.--Tuileries, from Du Cerceau.]
The external façade (Fig. 120) has a single story with an attic of
broken outline, and in it the architect made use of a peculiar form of
Ionic column of which he speaks[131] as follows: “I make here a short
digression to speak of the Ionic columns which I have employed in the
above-mentioned palace of her Majesty the Queen Mother.[132] ... The
said columns are sixty-four in number on the side facing the garden,
and each one is two feet in diameter at the base. They are not all of
one piece, since I could not find so large a number of such height as
was necessary.... I have fashioned them as you see (Fig. 121), and
with suitable ornaments to hide the joints; which is an invention that
I have never yet seen in any edifice either ancient or modern, and
still less in our books of architecture. I remember to have made nearly
the same in the time of his late Majesty Henry II, in his château of
Villers Cotterets, in the doorway of a chapel which is in the park,
and it was very graceful, as you may judge from the figure which I
give.” Further on he proposes that this shall be called the French
order, saying: “If it was allowable for the architects of antiquity, in
different nations and countries, to invent new columns, as the Romans
invented the Tuscan and the Composite, the Athenians the Athenian,
and, long before the said Romans, those of Doris the Doric, of Ionia
the Ionic and Corinthian, who shall forbid us Frenchmen from inventing
some, and calling them French, as those might be called which I have
invented and used in the porch of the chapel of Villers Cotterets?” Of
this column De l’Orme, in his book, gives several variants, showing how
the salient drums, or rings, may be variously ornamented or left plain,
or may be varied in their proportions; and he gives also a design for a
doorway (Fig. 122)[133] in which he employs a Tuscan order treated in
this way.
It is hard to conclude what to think of De l’Orme’s claim to this
column as his own invention, and of his statement that he had never
seen one of its kind in any building, or in any book of architecture;
for such a column was not a new thing, though it may not before have
been used in France. Several examples of practically the same column
occur in Serlio’s book, which was published in 1537 when De l’Orme
was but twenty-two years of age,[134] one of which, in a design for a
doorway, is here (Fig. 123) reproduced.
[Illustration: FIG. 121.--De l’Orme’s column.]
Of this doorway Serlio says: “Although Doric doorways may be designed
in other ways, yet most men are pleased with novelty, and with that
which is not too common, and they have satisfaction especially from
that which, though being mixed, still retains its character, as in this
doorway where, although the column, the frieze, and other members are
broken, and covered with rustic work, nevertheless the form is seen
well defined in all its proportions.”[135] He does not affirm that this
novelty was his own invention, but he seems to imply that it was.
However this may be, he was writing long before De l’Orme could have
produced such a column as his design shows. The château of Villers
Cotterets built for Henry II, in which De l’Orme remembered to have
made columns somewhat like those of the Tuileries, could not have been
begun before 1547, the year of Henry’s accession, and ten years after
Serlio’s book was published.
[Illustration: FIG. 122.--De l’Orme’s doorway.]
[Illustration: FIG. 123.--Doorway, Serlio.]
An ancient adumbration of this form of column occurs in the Porta
Maggiore in Rome, where it has the appearance of an unfinished work,
the drums being roughly shaped to be finished after they were set
up, in the customary ancient manner. Such an example may well have
suggested to the architects of the Renaissance the idea embodied in
Serlio’s cut. Sansovino made use of this form of column in the façade
of the Zecca in Venice, which was commissioned by the Council of Ten
in 1535, and at Genoa, in the wall that was built to enlarge the
circuit of the city, there is a portal bearing the date 1553, in which
the scheme figured by Serlio is carried out. This peculiar column had
therefore undoubtedly been in existence, both in a book of architecture
and in actual monuments, before De l’Orme was writing. It is, of
course, quite possible that he may have devised his scheme in ignorance
of the Italian examples, but whether he did or not is for us a matter
of little importance. It is, I think, an architectural monstrosity, and
reflects little credit on its designer.
It may be further remarked concerning De l’Orme’s claim to this column
as his own invention, that it expresses an idea which was at the
bottom of most of the architectural misconceptions and mistakes of
the Renaissance, the idea that architectural excellence may result
from independent personal effort to be original. I think it may be
said that the artistic aberrations of the Renaissance arose largely
from this false notion. The conscious effort to be original in
architecture is inevitably disastrous. The personal contributions of
individuals in architectural development consist of little more than
small improvements on lines of endeavour common to large bodies of men.
The aggregate of such improvements finally become conspicuous, and
mark fundamental changes of architectural styles; but the part of any
individual in such changes is hardly noticeable. Noble architecture has
always been, and must, I think, always be, mainly a social, communal,
and national, not a personal product. De l’Orme failed to consider that
the ancient orders were not inventions of individual designers, but the
outcome of a process of evolution toward which the ingenuity of large
numbers of men through long periods of time had contributed. He thought
that he might himself invent a new order, and call it French. He ought
rather to have called it by his own name, for it was not French in the
sense of being a product of the collective French genius. Had he and
his contemporaries had more discernment, they might have realized that
a true French order was already in existence in that very Gothic art
which they vilified, that the shaft and its load of the twelfth-century
national style was such an order, a true evolution out of the ancient
orders superbly adapted to new conditions.[136]
As for De l’Orme’s façade for the Tuileries, as an architectural
composition, little in the way of praise can, I think, be said.
The basement arcade (Fig. 120, p. 202) is but an adaptation of the
wearisome Roman scheme of pier and arch overlaid with an order in
which the Roman form of column gives place to the peculiar one just
described and called his own invention. This deformed column has an
Ionic capital, and De l’Orme tells us that he employed the Ionic
order here because it had been as yet little used, and “because it
is feminine, having been invented after the proportions of women and
goddesses,”[137] and is therefore suitable for the palace of a queen.
In this façade the monotony of the long range of arches with their
orders is partly relieved by a ressaut in the entablature over every
fourth bay, and this ressaut only is supported by columns, pilasters
of similar character being used in the intervening bays. The attic
story reproduces with variations some of the architectural vagaries
of Vignola and his followers. Tall, rectangular dormers alternate
with oblong panels crowned with broken pediments, and flanked with
coupled hermæ. In this composition the native French characteristics
of design survive in hardly anything more than the broken outline of
the attic, and the steep roof behind it.[138] That such architecture is
shaped on mathematical proportions, and has an orderly and rhythmical
distribution of parts, does not make it good architecture. Proportion
and rhythm of this mechanical kind cannot, as I have before said, make
a fine work of art.[139]
[Illustration: FIG. 124.--Doorway of De l’Orme.]
What we know of other important works by De l’Orme, as the châteaux
of Anet and Saint Maur, shows the same lack of a fine artistic sense.
The lay-out of these vast pleasure-houses may be well adapted to the
requirements of the courtly life of the time. De l’Orme understood the
needs of this life, and was ingenious in providing for them, but such
ingenuity constitutes but a small part of an architect’s equipment,
and may exist without any artistic aptitude. It is only in so far
as such ingenuity is accompanied by a genuine artistic sense that a
fine work of art can be produced. De l’Orme undoubtedly worked with a
steady regard for what he considered artistic design, but his works
show, I think, that he was devoid of true artistic genius. If further
illustration of this be desired, it may be abundantly found in the
numerous architectural projects published in his book, of which the
doorway (Fig. 124) is a fair example.[140] Of this composition the
author remarks as follows: “I give you here following another form of
doorway being square and straight in its covering, and having pilasters
at the sides, in which one sees only the plinths of their bases under
the said pilasters, which are larger at the top than at the bottom;
which is the contrary of the columns and pilasters made according to
measure [_i.e._ according to neo-classic proportions?] which
are narrower at the top than at the bottom. But such an invention is
produced according to the suggestion and fancy that presents itself,
like many others; which, provided the proportions are well observed,
are always found to have a pleasing effect, which is an easy thing to
do by those who have experience and skill in architecture. You see how
in this design which I figure, in place of capitals mutules in the
form of consoles carry the soffit of a tympanum or frontispiece, which
is cut out, as is seen, and has its cornices above and ornaments on
acroteria, as may be seen in the figure with all the other ornaments,
and pieces cut out which make the covering of the doorway, and above
a tablet with another tympanum and other ornaments. To describe all
in detail would require too much time, but you can easily understand
from the drawing, which is of a Doric doorway having three steps which
are well shown, as in the other doorways, when they are raised above
the ground.” These remarks, like the drawing itself, show clearly
that design with De l’Orme was a matter of purely capricious fancy,
regulated only by a mechanical system of proportions. If the rules of
proportion be “well observed,” he thinks that such a crazy composition
as this, with its foolishly deformed members, may have a “pleasing
effect.”
[Illustration: FIG. 125.--Façade of Charleval, Du
Cerceau.]
It is not worth while to follow this phase of the French Renaissance
art much further, but Du Cerceau gives one other design that is worthy
of a moment’s attention for its freakish irrationality and, I will not
hesitate to say, ugliness, the project for the château of Charleval,
begun for Charles IX, but not far advanced in construction at the
time of his death, and never completed. The exterior façade of the
_basse-court_ is divided into a long series of bays (Fig. 125) by
colossal rusticated pilasters of two orders, embracing the two stories
into which the elevation, above the basement, is divided. Each pilaster
is crowned with a section of an architrave and frieze, in the form of a
ressaut of two orders, which interpenetrates the bed mouldings of the
continuous cornice. Since the architrave and frieze are not carried
along the intervening walls, the pilasters have no real entablature to
support even in appearance. Another unmeaning freak of design in this
façade is the kind of variation of the details of the several bays
which it exhibits. The rectangular windows are in one bay surmounted
with round archivolts, in the next with curved pediments, in another
with angular pediments above and curved ones below, in another with
curved pediments above and round archivolts below, in still another
with curved pediments above and a single one embracing both windows
below; and so on with continued change with no purpose but that of mere
change.[141] Viollet le Duc[142] commends the architect of this façade
for seeking what he calls a grand disposition without abandoning the
logical principles of his predecessors. But the great French master
appears to me to err in his reasoning here, as frequently elsewhere in
his discourse on the architecture of the Renaissance. The great order
of Doric pilasters used in this façade fills, he says, exactly the
function of buttresses, and he then proceeds to defend the whole scheme
by saying that, “Taking the order as a buttress it is possible, without
violence to reason, to cut it by a floor” (_i.e._ to divide the
space between the pilasters into two stories). But there is no sense
in taking the order as a buttressing system, for there is nothing in
the structure to require buttressing; and if there were, the pilasters
of an order, even though doubled, as in this case, would not form an
effective buttress system. It is in nothing but the general arrangement
of the main lines that such a composition can be said to bear any
resemblance to an organic mediæval system in which buttresses have a
function, and are shaped so as to express it.
[Illustration: FIG. 126.--Interior façade of Charleval,
Du Cerceau.]
The interior façade of the same building (Fig. 126) presents a
different scheme. The great order here has fluted pilasters, and
the division of the building into two stories is not expressed on
the outside. Viollet le Duc remarks on this façade as follows: “The
architect wished here not only to accent the great order more clearly,
but also to hide entirely the floor of the upper story;[143] and
in adopting this scheme, contrary to the logical principles of the
architects of the Middle Ages, he has carried it out with remarkable
skill. The line of the floor, naturally placed at the level _A_,
is cut by arched niches, so that the eye does not suspect its
existence, and is forced to embrace the whole front as if it were one
stage.” And he adds: “C’était là l’œuvre d’un artiste consommé.”[144]
Thus in one case the architect is lauded for employing the order like
a buttress system to justify its embracing two stories, while in the
other he is praised for giving a deceptive appearance of only one
story; so that this part of the design may, as the writer says in
another place, be in better scale with the order. But the distinguished
author betrays embarrassment in dealing further with these
architectural incongruities of Renaissance design, and after remarking
that the architects of this time have resorted to various devices
for overcoming the difficulties arising from the lack of harmony
between design and construction (“entre la mode d’architecture et les
convenances”), which, he says, have occasioned them much torment, he
exclaims (p. 376): “Voilà cependant où conduit l’oubli des principes
vrais.” It is indeed far into devious paths that the architect is led
by departure from the true principles of design.
A few remarks on the church architecture of the French Renaissance may
be added here. It was natural that in church architecture the mediæval
structural forms should largely survive. The French people could not
adopt those semi-classic basilican forms of building that were natural
to Italy. Thus, while now professing to despise their own noble Gothic
art, they still retained through the sixteenth century the later
Gothic structural system with no essential modification. This is well
illustrated in the church of St. Eustache in Paris, which was begun
as late as 1532. It is a very large cruciform Gothic structure, with
double aisles and a range of side chapels, overlaid with Renaissance
details. Pilasters and entablatures, variously distorted in order to
fit them to the Gothic proportions and functions, take the place of
vaulting shafts and string courses in the interior of the nave, while
on the outside similar members are used with less distortion because
of a different division of the stories giving proportions more nearly
agreeing with those of classic art. The chapels opening out of the
outer aisles have only half the height of these aisles, and thus the
exterior has two stories where there is but one inside. An entablature
crowns each of these stories, and the upper one has a pseudo-Doric
character. The buttresses above the chapels have two superimposed
orders of pilasters, and are crowned with urns on pedestals. Thus was
a frankly Gothic structure made agreeable to the French taste of the
sixteenth century by a barbarous misapplication of mixed and distorted
classic details.
The persistence of Gothic structural forms is shown further in the
church of St. Etienne du Mont, begun in 1517. In the parts belonging
to the original construction almost no classic details occur. It is
Flamboyant Gothic of a peculiar type in which vaulting of almost true
Gothic form is sustained by plain cylindrical columns of unusual
height. The church has no triforium, but the columns are connected
by arches at the usual triforium level, and these arches carry a
balustraded passageway. The archivolts of this arcade have classic
profiles and keystones, and the balustrade is of neo-classic form.
In the west front, begun in 1620, neo-classic features are adjusted
to Gothic outlines, and the central portal, in the form of a Roman
triumphal arch, is furnished with columns modelled after those of De
l’Orme which he claimed as his own invention.
The church of SS. Gervais and Protais at Gisors has a Flamboyant west
front in parts of which Renaissance features have been inserted in
different degrees of compromise with Gothic forms and adjustments. The
north tower below the cornice has no such features, but the south tower
has been completely masked by a late Renaissance covering in three
stories of pseudo-classic orders of which the uppermost is incomplete.
The main portal is flanked by pilasters, and has splayed jambs and
a splayed archivolt, with an entablature at the impost. A segmental
arch over this supports a ledge on which is set a tabernacle of three
arches, faced by a Corinthian order having no continuous entablature
but only entablature blocks, and an attic over the central arch crowned
with a curved pediment. It is unnecessary to analyze this west front
further; it presents one of the most confused jumbles of incongruous
elements anywhere to be met with.
A different manifestation of Renaissance caprice is found in the florid
exterior of the apse of St. Pierre of Caen, which is made up of details
of a sixteenth-century Lombard character applied to a Flamboyant
structural scheme. The round arch and the complete circle take here the
place of the pointed forms, and pilasters against the angles have short
Flamboyant buttresses set against them, the faces of these buttresses
being treated like Lombard Renaissance pilasters.
One of the most remarkable designs to be found in the Renaissance
church architecture of France is that of the portal of the north
transept of St. Maclou of Pontoise. It belongs to the early period, and
is much like what we have seen in the portal of the château of Azay le
Rideau (p. 182). The opening is round-arched and has a narrow splay. It
is flanked by pilasters and crowned with an entablature surmounted with
a fanciful pediment of broken outline, ornamented with a tablet and
death’s-head, and flanked by finials of nondescript design. This portal
is again flanked by colossal pilasters, rising from pedestals almost as
high as the arch impost, and reaching to the cornice at the level of
the aisle roof. Against each of these pilasters a short, fluted column,
with a capital of pseudo-composite form, rises from a pedestal engaged
with the pilaster pedestal. The portion of the pilaster that rises
above this column is treated like a niche, with a base resting on the
capital of the column, and with an ornamental canopy above that rises
through the capital of the pilaster.
It is unnecessary to extend further these tiresome descriptions. The
foregoing examples are enough to show how irrational was the use
made of neo-classic details in the church architecture of the French
Renaissance, and how they were engrafted on a Gothic structural scheme.
It was in this manner that the French architects of the time sought to
“reform the Gothic and bastard styles.”
CHAPTER XIII
ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND
I. _Elizabethan Art_
When the need for feudal strongholds had passed, and the conditions
of life in the open country had become peaceful, a type of domestic
architecture arose in England which assumed its most characteristic
form in the early Elizabethan Age. The best features of this
architecture were of native growth out of the humbler forms of
mediæval domestic building, the feudal castle, and the latest phase
of Perpendicular Gothic. These features are mainly the rectangular
plan, with plain enclosing walls in long blocks broken by projecting
bays, and with large mullioned windows, high-pitched roofs, and tall
chimney-stacks. The better form of early Elizabethan dwelling on a
large scale had the plain, external character of the traditional
yeoman’s house. It was planned with some regard for convenience, was
admirably suited to the climate, and was expressive of that pleasant
and dignified home life which is peculiar to England. It is picturesque
and cheerful in aspect, but has little other architectural character
than such as results from adaptation to needs, straightforward logic
of construction, and generally good proportions. It embodies the
essentially English idea, as expressed by Lord Bacon, that, “Houses
are built to live in, and not to look on.”[145] And while this remark
may seem to ignore architecture as such, _i.e._ the fine art of
beautiful building, it expresses a fundamental principle; for to build
a house to live in, shaped for the needs of civilized human life, is
to secure the primary condition of good architectural effect. And no
domestic architecture in Europe has had more genuine charm for the
eye than that of England of the Elizabethan time in its integrity,
as it may be seen, for instance, in the greater parts of Haddon
Hall; St. Johns, Warwick; Hambleton Old Hall, Rutland; North Mymms,
Hertfordshire, and others.[146]
[Illustration: FIG. 127.--Burghley House.]
But, unhappily, English life among the upper classes in the sixteenth
century was not without sophistication. Many of the great houses were
built, not for convenience and propriety, but to gratify a spirit of
ostentation and pedantry. False notions of symmetry were allowed to
control design at the expense of fitness, and classic details, even
more grotesquely disfigured than in Italy and France, and combined
with elements of nameless character, began to overlay the walls, and
break the sky-lines. The formal regularity and awkward composition of
Hardwick, and the ludicrous pseudo-classicism of Burghley House, with
its chimneys (Fig. 127) in the form of Doric orders, are among the
numerous instances of this. All that offends the eye in the English
palatial architecture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is
due to these sophistications, which largely subverted the native
good sense and sound craftsmanship. “This was,” says Cunningham,
“a style of architecture strangely compounded, and neither in the
weak wildness of its combinations, nor in the flimsy variety of its
materials, was it made to endure. Plaster, terra-cotta, paint, tiles,
wood, iron, and brick, even when united with all the skill of the most
exquisite art, cannot long resist the rapid wear and tear of such a
humid climate as ours. Those unsubstantial structures, with all their
dazzling incrustations, are passed or passing from the earth: nothing
is lasting but hard massive stone, impenetrable cement, and scientific
combinations.”[147] It ought to be said, however, that whatever
flimsiness of material entered into the composition of these buildings
was confined to ornamental details, and chiefly to the interiors. The
main body of the Elizabethan structure was of solid and well-executed
masonry. Mr. Bloomfield points out that these houses were built by
Englishmen and ornamented by foreigners.[148] And it is certainly true
that in plan and outline they have little foreign character. Most of
the plans of the native architect, John Thorpe,[149] appear, indeed, to
show a French influence, but in the larger features of the elevation
they are English. It is thus in the ornamental details chiefly, which
seem to have been wrought in part by foreigners and in part by native
craftsmen striving to conform to foreign ideas, that we find the
strangest aberrations of design. A few examples will serve to show the
character of this art.
The façade of the north side of the court of Kirby Hall, for instance,
is divided into bays by colossal pilasters of hybrid style, which have
not even a semblance of structural meaning, since they carry only
ressauts of an entablature, the total height of which is less than the
diameters of the pilasters. From each of these ressauts rises a slender
pedestal, against a low attic wall, surmounted by finials resting upon
the cornice (Fig. 128). The central bay, enclosing the entrance to the
court, is wider than the others, and the pilasters here are panelled,
and have arabesques in relief, while the others are fluted. The façade
is in two stories, their division being marked by an entablature; the
lower story has an open arcade, while the upper one has a rectangular
window in each bay crowned with a pediment.[150]
[Illustration: FIG. 128.--North side of court, Kirby
Hall.]
The general scheme has no English character, and it so nearly resembles
that of the court of Charleval, in France, (cf. p. 212) as to suggest
that its designer may have been influenced by the French composition.
The effect of the scheme, as a whole, from the point of view of
structure, is curious with its great pilasters of unusual projection,
which have the function of supporting nothing but miniature pedestals
and finials. In a general view the low attic wall has somewhat the
effect of an entablature, though it is behind, and not over, the
pilasters; but considered as an entablature its frieze is encumbered
with the pediments of the windows which rise against it. The windows
are, however, an alteration, and the original scheme may be better
judged of from the opposite, or south, side of the court. Here the
attic has distinctly the appearance of an entablature of somewhat
suitable proportions for the order; though, here too, it is behind the
pilasters, and does not rest upon them. The façade on this side is in
one story, with a tall mullioned and transomed window in each bay. With
a proper entablature the scheme would not be a bad one. The wall being
almost wholly eliminated by the great window voids, the order would
have the true function of upholding the roof if a true entablature and
the roof were where they ought to be. But not only is the attic wall,
substituted for an entablature, in retreat of the pilasters, but the
roof rises from behind the attic, so that this last becomes a parapet.
At the centre of this façade of one story is a porch of two stories
with a tall attic and a gable of ogee outline flanked by finials. This
porch has an order of fluted Ionic pilasters in the ground story, an
order of Corinthian columns above, and a small order of Corinthian
columns in the attic. The pilasters and columns of the first and
second stories respectively, are in pairs on each side of an opening,
and the entablature in each of these stories has a ressaut over each
pair. The pilasters of the ground story are raised on a panelled
podium, while the columns of the upper story, and of the attic, are
carried on consoles. The attic has no openings, and the columns of the
small order here are equally spaced, with narrow intercolumniations,
and an entablature block over each column in place of a continuous
entablature. The ground story opening has a plain, round arch, while
that of the upper story which is arched also, is framed with a stilted
order, and crowned with a broken pediment of curved outline. The scheme
is a variation of Lescot’s Louvre pavilions, and thus appears to show
further that its designer had either studied in France, or had borrowed
ideas from the plates of Du Cerceau’s book.
[Illustration: FIG. 129.--Gable of Kirby Hall.]
The southwest angle, with its curved bays, in two stories and attic,
is more English in character. No neo-classic elements occur here,
except the entablature bands which crown the stories. The gables (Fig.
129) of fantastic outline with strap-work scrolls, are, I suppose,
of Flemish, or Dutch, origin; but they became common features of the
more showy Elizabethan architecture. Longford Castle,[151] another
design by John Thorpe, is triangular on plan with a round tower at each
angle. Though the building has been more or less altered in some of its
details, the main features tally with Thorpe’s elevation, preserved in
the Soane collection, and reproduced by Gotch (vol. 1, p. 20). French
influence is marked here in the general disposition of the principal
façade, and in some of the more conspicuous details. This façade, in
the relation of the central block to the angle towers, bears a striking
resemblance to the east front of Chambord. The towers have nearly the
same form and proportions, but the central block is longer in Longford
than in Chambord. The architectural scheme of this block, though not
a reproduction of that of Chambord, has enough similarity to provoke
comparison. Both are divided into three stories, and both have open
arcades framed with orders. But in Longford the arcades are confined
to the centre of the block, and to the first two stories, while in
Chambord, above the ground story, they are differently disposed,
and occur in all three stories. The long block of Longford has two
projecting pavilions which are connected by the arcades, while the
front of Chambord is all in one plane; but in a general front view the
effect is not greatly different. In the orders of his pavilions Thorpe
has employed De l’Orme’s pilaster of the Tuileries, and in the attics
which he has set at intervals over his main cornice, other features, as
the hermæ supporting the pediments of the Tuileries, are reproduced in
modified form.[152]
The caprice of design shown in the Elizabethan neo-classic
ornamentation assumes an astonishing variety of forms, of which it may
be well to give a few further examples. A window in the entrance front
of Lower Walterstone Hall has a lintel in the form of an architrave
supported on short sections of pilasters carried on brackets, while
over this a pediment is inserted in the wall with an interval between
it and the lintel, the whole forming the semblance of an entablature
beneath the pediment, with its frieze in the wall plane (Fig. 130).
In the porch of Cranborne Manor-House an entablature over an arcade
is broken into ressauts resting on corbels in the shape of lions’
heads projecting from the arch spandrels (Fig. 131), and over this
entablature is a blind attic adorned with strap-work. The angles of
the façade in which this porch occurs are furnished with buttresses
in three stages with deep offsets, like those of Gothic art. The
outer face of each stage is ornamented with a pair of pilasters on
tall pedestals, with an entablature in ressauts, and over the topmost
pair are two obelisks as finials. The pilasters are each broken in
the middle by a larger block of stone after the manner of De l’Orme’s
columns.
[Illustration: FIG. 130.--Window of Walterstone Hall.]
[Illustration: FIG. 131.--Cranborne Manor-House.]
The gatehouse at Tixall[153] has a plain front of three stories with a
projecting bay over the portal, and angle towers. The window openings
are all of the broad mullioned Elizabethan type, and the façade as a
whole would be admirable if it had nothing more. But the Renaissance
ideas led the designer to crown each story with an entablature, and to
set a pair of classic columns on either side of the central bay, and
in each tower angle. To cover these useless columns the entablature
has to be broken into deep ressauts, and the three superimposed pairs
carry nothing but a pedestal block above the main cornice, the several
pedestal blocks being connected by a balustrade.
The gatehouse of Stanway[154] has a portal with a four-centred
arch framed with a shallow Doric order, having a pilaster with a
free-standing column in front of it on either side. The entablature
has a double ressaut over each of these compound members, and a curved
pediment over the entablature is likewise broken into ressauts.
A rectangular tablet with an escutcheon, surmounted by a smaller
pediment, breaks through the middle of the larger pediment, and
acroteria are set on its sides, while a keystone in the arch carries a
shallow ressaut in the entablature. The front of Westwood Park[155] is
for the most part free from foreign elements, but it has a porch in the
form of a Roman triumphal arch with three openings, and a Corinthian
order of almost correct ancient proportions.
A remarkable illustration of the architectural taste of this time is
afforded by the well-known Gate of Honour at Caius College, Cambridge.
A triumphal arch scheme with an Ionic order, a Tudor arch, no openings
in the lateral bays, and no attic, is surmounted with a Greek temple
front of an engaged Corinthian order raised on tall pedestals connected
by an engaged balustrade. This embraces in width only the central bay
of the substructure, and solid abutments of concave outline are carried
up over the side bays. A plain attic over the pediment of the temple
forms the base for a square pyramid intersected by a tall hexagon,
surmounted with a hexagonal dome. No voids, except the central opening
under the Tudor arch, break the solid mass, but the wall surfaces are
ornamented with disks, niches, entablatures, and small pediments in
relief; and the pedestals of the temple order are carried on corbels
and ressauts in the lower entablature.
Of the many English houses built at the close of the sixteenth century,
few are more tasteless and pretentious than Wollaton Hall,[156] built
by Sir Francis Willoughby “at great expense, it was said, for a foolish
display of his wealth.” An order of coupled pilasters, broken in the
middle by salient blocks, adorn each story, while vacant niches in the
upper stories break the narrow wall surfaces between the pilasters on
either side of the large mullioned windows. The chimney-stacks are, as
in Longford Castle, shaped in the semblance of pseudo-Doric columns,
and the square angle pavilions have their cornices adorned with false
pediments of capricious outline and strap-work ornamentation, flanked
by obelisks on tall pedestals. One other feature of this remarkable
design is perhaps worthy of notice, namely, the portal of the north
front. This portal has a low arch, and is sheltered by a porch in
the form of a massive free-standing Doric order, the shafts of which
are broken in the middle by a salient drum, and the middle of the
entablature is supported by a heavy console which forms, at the same
time, a monstrous keystone to the arch (Fig. 132).
It is unnecessary further to multiply examples. While one great
house of the period differs from another in unimportant ways, those
in which ornaments are extensively applied are without exception
disfigured by them. The Elizabethan architectural ornamentation is at
once pretentious and grotesquely ugly. It was only in so far as they
held to a straightforward provision for domestic needs, and avoided
architectural pretensions, that the English people of the Elizabethan
Age produced really good domestic architecture.
[Illustration: FIG. 132.--Portal of Wollaton Hall.]
Toward the close of the sixteenth century many Flemish and Dutch
ornamental workers had come into England, and had brought in the
tasteless forms of design that had been current with them. The
ungrammatical and inelegant misuse of the orders, and the meaningless
barocco scrollwork, with which the Elizabethan houses were overloaded,
may be largely due to them. But these modes of design were readily
assimilated by the native English workmen, and approved by the
aristocratic English taste. The architect, in the more modern sense,
did not yet exist. The design and execution of these buildings were in
the hands of the master builders. No complete drawings were prepared
in advance. Only the general scheme in rough sketches of plans and
elevations was furnished, and these were freely modified, and the
details developed, as the work proceeded under the direction of the
master mason. It was a survival of the mediæval system, and no better
system could be devised so long as the workmen were suitably trained to
their craft, worked together on traditional lines, and were governed by
a common understanding, common aims, and a strong feeling of artistic
fellowship. But the Elizabethan workmen were not thus associated and
governed. The older traditions of design had been largely lost, and
the builders were attempting to use architectural forms which they
did not understand. The aberrations that resulted from the efforts of
these craftsmen to use the classic orders were ludicrous, as we have
abundantly seen. The orders were entirely foreign to the genius and
to the requirements of the English people, and were altogether out of
place in English house building. Their departure from their own proper
traditions and architectural habits at length weakened the building
craftsmen, so that they finally lost their occupation with the rise of
the modern professional architect, who first appeared in England in the
person of Inigo Jones, whose work we may consider in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XIV
ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND
II. _Jones and Wren_
It is only by extension of the term that the architecture of England
in the seventeenth century may be properly called Renaissance. But
if, in architecture, we understand by Renaissance a revival of the
use of classic details, such extension is justifiable, for in this
architecture the use of classic details is becoming established,
and the art of Jones and Wren stands in relation to the Elizabethan
architecture as the art of Vignola and Palladio does to that of the
early Renaissance in Italy, and that of Lescot and De l’Orme to the
early French Renaissance.
Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren were the only English architects
of great importance at this epoch. It was their genius that determined
the character of modern English architecture, and we may therefore
confine our attention to their works.
Of Jones, Horace Walpole thus speaks in his _Anecdotes of
Painting_:[157] “Inigo Jones, ... if a table of fame like that in
the _Tatler_ were to be framed for men of indisputable genius
in every country, would save England from the disgrace of not having
her representative among the arts.... Vitruvius drew up his grammar,
Palladio showed him the practice, Rome displayed a theatre worthy of
his emulation, and King Charles was ready to encourage, employ, and
reward his talents.” This famous architect began his artistic career
in the early part of the seventeenth century. Nothing is known of
his early education, but in youth he appears to have manifested an
inclination for drawing, and to have acquired some skill in landscape
painting.[158] He does not seem to have had any systematic training in
architecture, but in early life he travelled in Italy,[159] where he
studied the ancient monuments and read the works of Palladio and other
Italian authors. In a book entitled _Stonehenge Restored_,[160]
he says: “Being naturally inclined in my younger years to study the
arts of design, I passed into foreign parts to converse with the great
masters thereof in Italy, where I applied myself to search out the
ruins of those ancient buildings which, in despite of time itself, and
violence of barbarians, are yet remaining. Having satisfied myself
in these, and returning to my native country, I applied my mind more
particularly to the study of architecture.” For a quick-witted man with
architectural aptitudes no training could be better, except that of
growing up in an atmosphere of building activity, as the craftsmen of
the Middle Ages did.
In his first practice Jones appears to have worked in a mixed style.
The mongrel Elizabethan art was still in full vogue, and with this
style, says Cunningham, “Inigo compounded, and for some time persevered
in what the wits of the succeeding age nicknamed King James’s Gothic.”
The well-known porch of St. Mary’s church, Oxford, if it be by Jones,
may furnish an example of this earlier style. But he soon sought to
free himself from the vagaries of the Elizabethan craftsman, and strove
to introduce a rigorous use of Palladian forms. He had learned the
grammar of the orders as formulated by the architects of the later
Renaissance, and had apparently conceived a sincere belief that the
Palladian canons embodied all that was most excellent in architectural
design. He saw in the Elizabethan art only its manifold infractions
of the rules of order and proportion, and its grotesque distortions
of classic forms. To reëstablish these rules and restore these forms
appeared to him the way to regenerate English art.
First among his extant works that can be certainly identified is the
well-known Banqueting Hall built in 1619, for King James I, as a part
of the projected palace of Whitehall, for which he had prepared the
plans on a vast scale. The first remark prompted by this design is that
it is not at all English. Every form and feature of the native art
is eliminated. The Elizabethan house, however overlaid with foreign
elements, was English in its primary forms and expression. But here
Inigo Jones swept away everything English, and substituted a Palladian
scheme that is foreign to England in every particular. The low-pitched
roof, the plain rectangular outline, and the narrow undivided
window openings are as Italian as the orders with which the façade
is overlaid. But such was the state of taste among the influential
classes that these features were approved, and the design was applauded
with acclamation. “It spread,” says Cunningham, “the love of classic
architecture far and wide, and there was soon a growing demand for
works which recalled Athens to the learned, and presented something
new to the admiration of the vulgar.”[161] The learned had then small
knowledge of Athenian architecture, and even now many learned people
fail to consider that there was never in Athens anything at all like
Palladian design.
The façade of the Banqueting Hall (Plate X) is in two stories on a
low basement, and has a rusticated wall of smooth-faced masonry,
with an engaged order in each story, and a parapet with a balustrade
over the main cornice. The central part of this façade has its wall
slightly advanced, and in each story the orders, Ionic and Corinthian
respectively, have engaged columns against the projecting middle part,
and pilasters on either side, a pair of them being set together at
each end. These pilasters taper and have strong entasis, so that parts
of those on the angles overreach the end walls. The entablatures are
carried by the walls, and thus have to be broken into ressauts to
cover the columns and pilasters. The structural function of all these
superimposed columns and pilasters is therefore only that of carrying
the ressauts of the parapet. The rectangular windows, of severely
classic design, have pediments, alternately curved and angular, in the
lower story, and flat cornices only in the story above, while a frieze
below the main entablature is adorned in Roman fashion with masks and
festoons.
[Illustration:
Plate X
BANQUETING HALL, WHITEHALL
London]
It is surprising that such a mechanical reproduction of a foreign
style should ever have called forth high praise from Englishmen.
The design exhibits no invention, no creative adaptation of foreign
elements to new conditions, and therefore no reason for the use of
such elements. The low-pitched roof (wholly invisible from any near
point of view) is unsuited to the English climate, and the parapet
and balustrade are equally inappropriate. Yet of this design Walpole
remarks[162] that “it stands as a model of the most pure and beautiful
taste.” And an earlier expression of the feeling which prevailed among
the dilettanti of the time is found in the text which accompanies
Kent’s well-known book of Jones’s designs[163] as follows: “If the
reputation of this great man doth not rise in proportion to his merits
in his own country, ’tis certain, in Italy, which was his school, and
other Parts of Europe, he was in great esteem; in which places, as well
as in England, his own works are his monument and best Panegyrick;
which, together with those of Palladio, remain equal Proofs of the
Superiority of those two great Masters to all others.”
The whole scheme for the palace of Whitehall is fully illustrated
by Kent.[164] The plan is a vast rectangle measuring 874 by 1151
feet, and comprising seven courts, of which the central one toward
the park encloses a circular gallery. The long blocks are broken by
rectangular pavilions, one on the axis of each of the four sides, one
at each angle, and others at intervals between. It is thus French in
character, rather than Italian, and suggests a derivation from De
l’Orme’s plan of the Tuileries. It is not worth while to examine the
architectural character of the elevation fully in detail; but, in
addition to the Banqueting Hall already noticed, it may be well to
examine several other parts which further illustrate the art of Inigo
Jones. The axial pavilions are flanked with rectangular towers in
three stages, each stage adorned with an order, and surmounted with an
octagonal cupola. On the Westminster front the basement has a Doric
order with a modification of De l’Orme’s column, in which the larger
stones are square. This basement (Fig. 133) has a mezzanine marked by
an entablature which is cut in the middle by the keystones of a flat
arch over a window beneath. The great entablature in this case is
borne by the columns, and the order has thus a structural character
(though it has no structural reason for being) which the orders of
the Banqueting Hall do not have. The only other feature of Whitehall
that need be mentioned is the façade of the circular court enclosed by
the king’s apartments. This is a _bizarre_ design in two stages,
with a so-called Persian order below and an order of caryatids above.
The bearing members of these orders stand out beyond the entablatures,
and thus support nothing but ressauts, while a balustrade with statues
crowns the whole.
[Illustration: FIG. 133.--Basement of a part of
Whitehall.]
[Illustration: FIG. 134.--Front of old St. Paul’s by
Inigo Jones.]
With all his zeal for reform by a stricter conformity to classic
models, the designs of Inigo Jones were never truly classical, and they
often exhibit ludicrous aberrations. He had no true conception of the
principles of classic art, as no architects of the Renaissance ever
had. The Palladian architecture, which he mainly strove to follow, was
itself, as we have seen, far from true to classic design. Some of these
aberrations are strikingly shown in the west front which he built to
the nave of old St. Paul’s cathedral. In attempting to apply classic
details to such a building he was obliged to depart widely from
classic principles. His scheme, as shown in Kent’s print (Fig. 134)
is as incongruous a mixture as was ever produced by the Elizabethan
craftsmen. This front, in its main outline, has to follow the form of
the Mediæval structure, with its high nave and low aisles. To this
mediæval form the architect has affixed a variety of features derived
from Roman, Renaissance, and even Egyptian sources. He has crowned the
wall with a pseudo-classic cornice surmounted by a steep gable, he has
set obelisks on Roman pedestals over the buttresses, affixed reversed
consoles to the clerestory walls, and built a Corinthian portico with a
balustrade upon its entablature, and completed the scheme with flanking
towers crowned with lanterns. It is a thoroughly barbarous composition,
which even Walpole complains of as follows: “In the restoration of
that cathedral he made two capital faults. He first renewed the sides
with very bad Gothic, and then added a Roman portico, magnificent and
beautiful indeed, but which has no affinity with the ancient parts that
remained, and made his own Gothic appear ten times heavier.”[165]
The art of Inigo Jones has been thoughtlessly lauded in more recent
times. “His special strength,” says Mr. Bloomfield, his latest
panegyrist, “lay in his thorough mastery of proportion, his contempt
for mere prettiness, and the rare distinction of his style. His own
theory of architecture was that, in his own words, ‘it should be solid,
proportional according to the rules, masculine and unaffected.’[166]
Was Inigo Jones a master of proportion? Does he not in this declaration
betray a fundamental misconception of the true meaning of proportion?
Is any genuine work of art “proportional according to the rules,”
_i.e._ the mechanical formulas of Vitruvius or Palladio on which
he professed to base his practice? And did Jones ever carry out in
practice his avowed theory that architecture should be unaffected? Can
an art be unaffected which is so frankly copied from a foreign style?
I have characterized the spirit of much of the architecture of the
Renaissance as theatrical; that of Inigo Jones is preëminently so,
and it is significant that he was extensively employed, in his early
career, in designing architectural backgrounds for the stage.
The artistic career of Sir Christopher Wren, the most justly
famous architect of the belated English Renaissance, began
after the Civil War. Inigo Jones had prepared the way for him,
and a body of aristocratic dilettanti, ardently devoted to the
neo-classic propaganda, had arisen. The artistic notions of these
people are instructively set forth in the following passage from
_Parentalia_:[167] “Towards the end of King James I’s Reign, and
in the Beginning of his Son’s, Taste in Architecture made a bold step
from Italy to England at once, and scarce staid a moment to visit
France by the way. From the most profound Ignorance in Architecture,
the most consummate Night of Knowledge, Inigo Jones started up, a
Prodigy of Art, and vied even with his Master Palladio himself. From
so glorious an Out-set, there was not any Excellency that we might not
have hoped to obtain; Britain had a reasonable Prospect to rival Italy,
and foil every Nation in Europe beside. But in the midst of these
sanguine Expectations, the fatal Civil War commenced, and all the Arts
and Sciences were immediately laid aside.”
Before turning his attention to architecture Wren had been a
distinguished scholar at Oxford, where he was appointed Professor of
Astronomy in the year 1657. It was not until mature manhood that he
began the practice of architecture, and thus, like so many others who
have achieved distinction in this art, he never had a special and
systematic preliminary training for it. His father, Dr. Christopher
Wren, Dean of Windsor, is said to have been skilled in all branches of
mathematics and in architecture,[168] and this, together with his own
native aptitudes, appears to have made it easy for him, by observation
and practice, to acquire the necessary preparation for such work as he
was to do. His opportunities for study of the architectural monuments
of the Continent were small. He never visited Italy, but he spent some
months in Paris, and while there wrote, in a letter to a friend, as
follows: “I have busied myself surveying the most esteem’d Fabricks
of Paris, and the Country round; the Louvre for a while was my daily
Object, where no less than a thousand Hands are constantly employ’d
in the Works; some in laying mighty foundations, some in raising the
stories, columns, entablements, &c., with vast stones, by great and
useful Engines; others in Carving, Inlaying of Marbles, Plastering,
Painting, Gilding, &c., which altogether make a school of Architecture,
the best probably, at this Day in Europe.” The Italian architect
Bernini was working on the Louvre at the time, and in the same letter
Wren writes: “Mons. Abbé Charles introduc’d me to the acquaintance of
Bernini, who shew’d me his Designs of the Louvre, and of the King’s
Statue.... Bernini’s Design of the Louvre I would have given my skin
for, but the reserv’d Italian gave me but a few Minutes View; it was
five little Designs on paper, for which he hath receiv’d as many
thousand Pistoles; I had only time to copy it in my Fancy and Memory.
I shall be able by Discourse, and Crayon, to give you a tolerable
Account of it.”[169]
He appears to have made the most of his time while in France, but he
naturally confined his attention to the modern works of that country,
which alone were then thought worthy of notice. The great châteaux
of Fontainebleau, St. Germain, Chantilly, and many others, he speaks
of in the same letter as having “surveyed that I might not lose the
impressions of them.”
Wren’s first architectural work appears to have been the Sheldonian
Theatre in Oxford, which is thus referred to in _Parentalia_:
“This Theatre, a work of admirable Contrivance and Magnificence, was
the first publick Performance of the Surveyor,[170] in Architecture;
which, however, had been executed in a greater and better style, with
a view to the ancient Roman Grandeur discernable in the Theatre of
Marcellus at Rome, but that he was obliged to put a Stop to the bolder
strokes of his Pencil, and confine the Expense within the Limits of a
private Purse.”[171] But his great opportunity occurred after the fire
of London, when he was commissioned to prepare plans for the rebuilding
of the city, including the cathedral of St. Paul and all the city
churches. Before the great fire he had been ordered to submit designs
for the restoration of the old cathedral of St. Paul, the grand old
Norman structure, with additions in the early English style, which,
notwithstanding the repairs and additions of Inigo Jones, was still
thought to be in a dangerous condition. Wren made a careful survey,
and worked out a plan, elevation, and section of the old structure,
and expressed surprise at what he considered the negligence of the old
builders. “They valued not exactness: some Inter-columns were one inch
and a half too large, others as much, or more, too little. Nor were
they true in their levels.”[172] He thought that the whole fabric was
alarmingly insecure, except the portico built by Jones, which, he said,
“being an entire and excellent piece, gave great reputation to the work
in the first repairs.”[173]
He prepared plans for a thorough restoration, but these were not
approved, and he set off for France. Then came the great fire and put
an end to all thought of repairs on his part, though the commissioners
appear still to have clung to the idea of restoration until they were
satisfied, by fruitless effort to utilize what remained of the old
work, that such a course was impracticable.[174]
An entirely new structure was now decided on, and Wren was directed
to “contrive a Fabrick of moderate Bulk, but of good Proportions;
a convenient Quire, with a Vestibule and Porticoes, and a Dome
conspicuous above the Houses. A long Body with aisles was thought
impertinent, our Religion not using Processions.”[175]
It is difficult from the statements in _Parentalia_ clearly to
identify Wren’s different drawings which have been preserved, and to
reconcile either the statements or the drawings with what is said by
more recent writers, who do not always agree among themselves. The
drawings embody widely different schemes which were the results of so
many attempts to meet the wishes of the king and court on the one hand,
and those of the citizens on the other. Of these there are two sets
which may be considered as the principal ones.
The first of these has a novel plan based on that of the Greek cross,
but having the reëntrant external angles filled out to segmental curves
struck from the corners of a square enclosing the whole. A great dome
on a circular drum supported by eight piers rises over the crossing, a
small dome on pendentives covers each of the spaces between the great
circle and the curved enclosing walls; while the northern, southern,
and western arms of the cross have each a square groined vault. The
form of the vaulting over the eastern arm is not indicated on the plan,
but the choir enclosure is shown in the form of a circle cut out on the
east to open into the sanctuary, and on the west to communicate with
the nave. The dome (Fig. 135) is in two shells of masonry, the inner
one being hemispherical with a circular opening in its crown, and the
outer one a pointed oval supporting a lantern. The drum is thick, and
although the vault springs from very near the top, a strong continuous
abutment in the form of a solid ring of masonry, with concave outline,
is built up against it. The dome is kept solid up to the haunch of the
inner shell, so that this inner shell is abundantly secured, while the
outline of the outer shell, from the point where it clears the solid
mass below, has a form that would exert a minimum of thrust, though it
would hardly be secure without a binding chain. It is noticeable that
the inner face of the drum is not vertical, but inclined inward in the
form of a truncated cone, which considerably strengthens it against any
tendency to yield to the force of thrust in the dome.
[Illustration: FIG. 135.--Section of Wren’s rejected
scheme for St. Paul’s.]
The scheme was clearly based on the model of St. Peter’s in Rome,
to which frequent reference is made in _Parentalia_ as having
been in the mind of the architect as he developed his idea. The dome
partakes of the character of Bramante’s design on the one hand, and
of that of Michael Angelo, as finally constructed, on the other. The
likeness to Bramante’s scheme (Fig. 23, p. 48) is in the form of the
inner shell, and its adjustment to the supporting drum. The likeness
as to adjustment is not, indeed, very close; for Wren has raised the
springing so that it is almost at the top of the drum, but he has
fortified it with a continuous abutment which, though of different
outline, has substantially the same structural effect. The likeness
to St. Peter’s is further shown in the encircling order of the inner
face of the drum, which occurs in both Bramante’s scheme and in that
of Michael Angelo. There can be little doubt that Wren had studied
Bramante’s design in Serlio’s book, and had appreciated its structural
merits. But he wished, in emulation of Michael Angelo, to make his
dome externally more imposing, and he therefore raised its springing
level as we see, and adopted from Michael Angelo’s scheme the idea of
a double dome. The external outline from the top of the drum to the
haunch of the vault is too nearly the same as the corresponding part of
Michael Angelo’s design to be considered as an accidental coincidence.
The structural difference between the two is indeed great, since the
concave portion in Wren’s design is a continuous ring, while in that
of Michael Angelo it is an isolated and insignificant abutment. Wren’s
scheme is thus superior in point of constructive merit, since it
provides continuous resistance to continuous thrust. It will be seen
that the two shells of Wren’s projected dome correspond to the inner
and outer shells of Michael Angelo’s model (Fig. 26, p. 54), and thus
in reproducing the main idea of this model Wren merely omitted the
middle shell. He thus gave a wider divergence to the two vaults as they
rise than occurs in the actual dome of St. Peter’s. He also omitted the
well which in St. Peter’s connects the two shells at the crown.
A single order of pilasters adorns both the interior and the exterior
of the church itself, the one on the outside being raised on a high
basement and crowned with a plain attic; and a portico in the form of a
temple front, with its order raised on high pedestals, gives emphasis
to the west façade.
This design appears to have been rejected, to Wren’s great chagrin, as
we learn from the following passage in _Parentalia_: “The surveyor
in private conversation, always seem’d to set a higher value on this
design, than any he had made before or since; as what was labour’d with
more study and success; and, (had he not been over-rul’d by those,
whom it was his duty to obey), what he would have put in execution
with more Cheerfulness, and Satisfaction to himself.... But the
Chapter, and some others of the Clergy thought the Model not enough of
a Cathedral-fashion; to instance particularly, in that, the Quire was
design’d circular, &c.... The Surveyor then turn’d his Thoughts to a
Cathedral-form, (as they call’d it) but so rectified, as to reconcile,
as near as possible, the Gothick to a better Manner of Architecture;
with a Cupola, and above that, instead of a Lantern, a lofty Spire, and
large Porticoes.”
I think that had the first design been accepted Wren would not have
carried it out without material modifications. For he was too good an
engineer not to have seen that the form and adjustment of the dome were
seriously defective from a structural point of view. However this may
be, the dome which he actually built is, as we shall see, fundamentally
different in character (though it is not very different in either
internal or external shape), and it is different in a way that no
outside influences could have compelled.
The most noticeable feature of the second design is that part which
rises over the crossing, and consists of a vast frustum of a dome
supporting a tall buttressed drum, which in turn is surmounted by
a smaller dome of oval outline, from the crown of which rises a
telescopic spire of six stages with a strongly marked cornice to each.
It was in this design that he is said to have sought to “reconcile the
Gothic to a better Manner.” What he meant by this I do not know. Wren
can hardly have supposed that he was effecting such a reconciliation
by this remarkable combination of dome and spire. But in the actual
cathedral of St. Paul we shall find some features that may, in part,
explain his meaning.
It is noticeable that the west façade of this design is a close copy,
with modifications of proportions and minor details, of the façade
by Inigo Jones (Fig. 134, p. 231), which the fire had weakened or
destroyed, and which Wren had much admired. This design was approved,
and the king’s warrant for its execution was issued May 1st, 1675. But
it is said that “the king was pleased to allow him the liberty in the
prosecution of his work, to make some variations, rather ornamental
than essential, as from time to time he should see proper.”[176] The
actual building shows how largely Wren availed himself of this liberty.
[Illustration:
Plate XI
DOME OF ST. PAUL’S
London]
The cathedral of St. Paul as it now stands was never embodied in any
set of drawings. Starting with a few rough sketches the scheme was
developed as the work proceeded, the master being always present to
direct the work. Wren was at the start what would now be called an
amateur, but by degrees he learned his art in the best possible way,
not in the office or drawing-room, but on the scaffold in close contact
with the works. It was thus that Brunelleschi had worked on the dome of
Florence, and Michael Angelo on St. Peter’s.
The plan of the existing St. Paul’s has no beauty comparable to that of
St. Peter’s (Fig. 31, p. 67). It has a long nave with a short transept
near the middle, a semicircular apse, and two western towers. Both
nave and transept have side aisles, and in the angles formed by the
towers, which project beyond the aisles in the manner that is common
in the mediæval churches of England, are a consistory court and a
morning chapel, while in the angles of the crossing three vestries and
a stair-turret are set. Thus the Greek cross plan which Wren appears
to have first intended, “a long body with aisles” having been “thought
impertinent, our religion not using processions,” was widely departed
from in conformity with the popular feeling that the first plan
“deviated too much from the old Gothick form of Cathedral Churches,
which they (the people) had been used to see and admire in this
country.”
In the elevation a great dome, in outline not very unlike the one first
intended, rises over the crossing; the nave and aisles are vaulted
with small domes on pendentives of peculiar form, and the piers of the
interior are faced with a great Corinthian order of pilasters. That
Wren worked with constant reference to St. Peter’s as the main source
of his inspiration, is clearly enough manifested in the general scheme,
though there are many points of difference between the two monuments,
apart from the great difference of scale. Other sources of influence
are, however, also apparent.
The most interesting feature of St. Paul’s cathedral is, of course,
the great dome (Plate XI), which is one of the most remarkable of the
series of modern domes that began with the dome of Brunelleschi. In
general external form it recalls Bramante’s diminutive circular temple
of San Pietro in Montorio, and it is not unlikely that Wren derived
the idea from the woodcut of that design in Serlio’s book, or in that
of Palladio. Wren has, of course, altered and amplified the scheme in
adaptation to his vast scale and lofty proportions, but the general
composition of the two is substantially the same, though the internal
structure is entirely different. The leading features of the exterior,
the encircling order crowned with the balustrade, and the dome rising
over it surmounted by the lantern, are those of Bramante’s design.
[Illustration: FIG. 136.--Section of the dome of St.
Paul’s.]
The structural system of this dome (Fig. 136) is peculiar. From eight
piers arches and pendentives are turned, forming the circular bed
from which the drum rises to a great height, and from a level far
below the top of this drum a dome of masonry, of slightly oval form is
sprung. The drum is double, and the inner wall, which carries the dome,
inclines inward, as in the rejected design, up to the springing level,
and above this it rises vertically against the haunch of the dome. From
the haunch a hollow cone of masonry is carried up far above the crown
of the dome, where it is cut off and covered with a small segmental
dome surmounted by a tall lantern of stone. The system is devised
with a view to stability. The cone shape of the inner drum gives it
resistance to the dome thrusts, and these thrusts are further fortified
by a solid filling of masonry between the smaller cone above and the
vault reaching more than halfway from the springing to the crown.
The outer drum is a solid wall up to a level but little higher than
the apex of the timber roof of the nave, where it forms a stylobate
for the encircling Corinthian order. But the two drums are connected
by heavy abutments across the interval between them, one behind each
column of the encircling order, with a heavier buttress filling every
fourth intercolumniation (Plate XI). The inner drum rises in diminished
thickness above the entablature of the outer one in the form of an
attic with an order of pilasters and square openings between. From this
attic rises a false dome of timber, surrounding and concealing the
great cone which is the real support of the lantern.
This remarkable scheme embodies the last notable attempt to solve
the great dome problem with which the architects of the Renaissance
had struggled from the time of Brunelleschi. But the problem is
incapable of a satisfactory solution. It is impossible to make a large
unbuttressed dome stand securely except by the extraneous means of
binding chains. Wren has not attempted to do such a thing. He was too
good an engineer to follow in the footsteps of Brunelleschi and Michael
Angelo. His dome is well buttressed, but it is therefore necessarily
hidden from view. To raise another dome of masonry from the cornice
of the drum for external effect, and to crown such a dome with a
stone lantern fifty feet high, he saw to be impossible with safety.
A semblance of such a dome was, however, necessary to his scheme. He
had been charged to make a dome “conspicuous above the houses,” and he
therefore surrounded the cone, the true support of the lantern, with a
wooden counterfeit of a dome upon which he makes the beholder believe
that the lantern rests. The system is thus a monstrous architectural
deceit. We have criticised Michael Angelo for springing a great dome
from the top of a drum, but he cannot be reproached for deception.
His dome is a real dome of masonry, and does carry the lantern as it
appears to, though, as we have seen, insecurely, except for so long
as the binding chains can be made to save it from collapse. Wren would
not build a dome in this inherently weak manner. He preferred to design
his masonry construction on sound principles, which would not allow
an external dome, and to enclose this within the wooden counterfeit.
And it may here be remarked that most modern domes, modelled after St.
Peter’s and St. Paul’s, are wooden constructions and carry lanterns of
wood. They are thus entirely safe, but they have not the monumental
character of great architectural works.
In general external effect the dome of St. Paul’s has much merit, if it
does not justify the extravagant remark of Mr. Loftie that it is the
“noblest dome in Christendom.”[177]
[Illustration: FIG. 137.--Vaulting of St. Paul’s.]
[Illustration:
Plate XII
INTERIOR OF ST. PAUL’S
London]
The proportions of the interior of the church (Plate XII) are
admirable, and give a better effect of scale than the larger scheme of
St. Peter’s. But the details exhibit more of those aberrations that are
inherent in the architecture of the Renaissance. The vaulting of the
nave (Fig. 137) is in oblong compartments with their long axes running
transversely, and the small domes, which are low spherical segments
instead of hemispheres, therefore leave considerable intervals at
each end of each compartment, over which segments of barrel vaulting,
of a form generated by the elliptical lunettes of the clerestory, are
turned. The pendentives thus have a peculiar shape, and are segments
of a hemisphere cut by four vertical planes coinciding with the sides
of the vault compartment, by a horizontal plane at the base of the
dome, and by the interpenetrating barrel vaults. The compartments are
separated by transverse ribs, and these, together with the groins
formed by the meeting of the pendentives and the interpenetrating
lunette vaults, give a somewhat mediæval effect to the vaulting conoid.
In other words the lines of the groins and the lunette arches form a
combination not unlike that of Gothic vaulting. This may have been one
of the points in which Wren fancied that he could “reconcile the Gothic
to a better manner.”
In the great order Wren has departed from the scheme of St. Peter’s
in giving only one pilaster to each pier of the nave, though in the
larger piers under the great dome he has set them in pairs. Under
the archivolts of the great arcade and under the aisle vaulting the
smaller pilasters are coupled, while in St. Peter’s they are single.
With the details of these orders the architect took great liberties
in utter disregard of the canons of Vitruvius and the neo-classic
authorities. The crowns of the great arches reach high above the
capitals of the pilasters, so that a complete entablature cannot pass
over them. It would not, of course, do to allow the archivolts to cut
into an entablature, and Wren has therefore omitted the architrave
and frieze in the intervals of the order, and has included them only
in a ressaut over each pilaster, the cornice alone being carried over
the arch. To give the vaulting its admirable elevation without unduly
magnifying the great order, as Michael Angelo did in St. Peter’s, an
attic is interposed, but to spring a vault from an attic wall is an
architectural barbarism; though it is perhaps no greater one than to
spring it from an entablature, as the architects of the Renaissance
had done from Brunelleschi down. In the small order of the aisles the
entablature is simplified, and has only an architrave and cornice;
while a member, like a diminutive attic, in retreat of the cornice, is
interposed at the impost. It looks as if this had been done in order to
raise the springing of the arches so that no part of them would be cut
off from view by the salience of the cornice; and it was apparently in
part for the same reason that the attic was interposed in the nave.
The motive is commendable. The effect of vaulting rising directly
from a salient cornice Wren may justly have felt to be a bad one, but
to avoid it while using classic details necessitates these strange
inconsistencies.
[Illustration: FIG. 138.--Crossing pier and impost, St.
Paul’s.]
Among numerous other aberrations of this pseudo-classic scheme is the
treatment of the segmental archivolts of the small half domes that
open out of the oblique sides of the great octagon at the crossing.
The orders of the crossing piers have complete entablatures (Fig.
138), and the archivolts in question are in two parts answering to the
frieze and cornice of these entablatures, which they intersect in the
awkward manner shown in the figure. To have mitred the cornice of the
archivolt to that of the order would have left the pilaster beneath
with an incomplete entablature, and the architect preferred to run the
cornice through the archivolt in this unsightly way. Such were some
of the further makeshifts to which the designers of the Renaissance
had to resort in their efforts to apply the classic orders to uses for
which they were not adapted. But all such aberrations in the use of
classic elements are superficial and open. A more radical violation of
architectural veracity is found in the manner in which the buttress
system is concealed. The thrusts of the nave vaulting are met by a
series of flying buttresses carried over the aisle roof in Gothic
fashion (Fig. 139). But it would not do to have flying buttresses
appear in an ostensibly classic system, and Wren accordingly hid them
from sight by a screen wall made to look like an upper story in the
general view of the exterior. It is not until one mounts to the terrace
of the drum, and looking down finds the space between the clerestory
and outer wall open to the sky, that he discovers the buttresses
there, and realizes the deceitful character of the architectural
scheme. Perhaps this illustrates another point in which Wren “sought to
reconcile the Gothic to a better manner.” A similar treatment occurs
in that part of the nave of St. Peter’s which was built by Maderno.
Michael Angelo’s great external order had obliged him, as we saw (p.
68), to carry up the aisle wall to the height of the clerestory, but
he filled up the space over the aisle with his small embedded dome
(Fig. 32, p. 69). In Maderno’s part the dome is omitted, and the space
over the aisle vaulting is left open to the sky as in St. Paul’s. But
the buttresses of St. Peter’s are solid cross walls with no suggestion
of Gothic form. In the vaulting of the apse Wren has followed the
quasi-mediæval form adopted by Michael Angelo in the apse of St.
Peter’s, dividing it into three shallow cells on converging ribs rising
from the stumpy pilasters of the attic.
[Illustration: FIG. 139.--Half section of the nave of
St. Paul’s.]
Of the architectural treatment of the exterior as a whole little need
be said further than that it has no relation to the real form of the
building. The masking of the buttress system by the false wall, and
the application of orders without any structural use or expression
in harmony with the real structure, are entirely in keeping with the
spirit the Renaissance.
Wren’s other churches exhibit a medley of elements from spurious Gothic
to pseudo-classic in manifold irrational combinations, such as can
be found in the works of few other architects. These churches with
their vaultings of wood and plaster--whether in the form of domes on
pendentives, sprung from the entablatures of classic orders, as at St.
Stephen’s, Walbrook, or with Welsh vaulting on simulated cross ribs
of plaster, as at St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, or with barrel vaulting
on an attic, as at St. Peter’s, Cornhill,--it would be superfluous,
as well as tiresome, to examine in detail. Nor is it worth while to
analyze the spires of these churches. Spires made up of superimposed
stories with classic entablatures in telescopic adjustment, like St.
Bride’s, or temples of Vesta crowned with flying buttresses holding up
neo-classic tabernacles surmounted by obelisks, like St. Mary-le-Bow,
are hybrid compositions of utterly barbaric character, notwithstanding
the excellent portions for which they have been justly admired.
CHAPTER XV
CONCLUSION
I think it must be clear, in the light of the foregoing considerations,
that the architecture of the Renaissance is an art without consistent
principles. We have seen that it assumed a great variety of phases at
different times and in different localities; but that it was never
either really classic or structurally truthful. While professing to
aim at restoring the “good ancient manner,” the neo-classic designers
rarely conformed to any ancient standards save, at most, in some
details of their compositions. They designed for the most part, as we
have seen, on a basis of mediæval forms, and overlaid their structures
with a facing of details derived, indeed, from classic sources, but
altered, mixed, and misapplied in all manner of unclassic ways. Of true
classic art, _i.e._ Greek art of the best time of Greek culture,
they had, as before remarked (p. 4), no knowledge. By the “good ancient
manner” they meant the imperial Roman manner. But even this they
did not faithfully follow. The wide departure from ancient modes of
design so constantly manifested in the neo-classic architecture has
not escaped notice by modern writers, who are wont to speak of it as
showing that the revivalists were not servile copyists, but inventive
designers adapting the ancient elements to new conditions. But there is
no justification for this view. As to essential forms of building there
were no new conditions to be met. In seeking to change architecture
superficially by an application of classic details the neo-classicists
erred. They ought to have seen that classic details do not lend
themselves to new uses. Their very perfection for classic use unfits
them for any other. To distort and misadjust them, as the architects of
the Renaissance did, is not to adapt them. There was no true adaptation
of classic elements in Renaissance design. Such adaptation involves
creative modifications which so transform original elements that to a
superficial view they are not recognizable in the resulting forms. The
mediæval architects, through a long series of logical changes, growing
out of their remarkable structural evolution, magnificently transformed
the classic orders in a creative way. This the neo-classicists failed
to perceive, and because the mediæval details and adjustments did
not conform with those of Roman antiquity, they felt justified in
calling them barbaric, while it was they themselves who were guilty of
architectural barbarism.
The architects of the Renaissance were strangely inconsistent. While in
practice constantly violating the principles of classic design, they
were in theory ardently advocating these principles; and finding strict
canons of proportion laid down in the writings of Vitruvius, they
attached, as theorists, great importance to such canons. Thus arose the
elaborate systems of rules for the orders embodied in the writings of
Vignola, Palladio, and many others.
The influence of these short-sighted and mechanical Italian rules
has been great in modern times. The formidable body of architectural
dogma, contained in the literature of the Renaissance on this subject,
has been so widely accepted as authoritative that modern art has
been largely shaped by it. The so-called Palladian style of the
seventeenth century was derived mainly from the Italian books, and
the more recent teaching has been so implicitly based on the writings
of Vignola and Palladio that few architects of academic training have
thought of questioning the belief that the formulas of these writers
constitute the only true basis of correct design. Yet the fact that
these rules are arbitrary, and not in accord with the true principles
of ancient art, has occasionally been recognized. Thus in a book of
the eighteenth century, devoted in the main to the inculcation of the
Palladian doctrines,[178] the following remarks occur: “As it was
from the works of the antient architects that the several orders were
deduced, those who had studied and found their different characters
then became desirous of establishing from the same source their
proportions.... Perceiving consummate beauty in what they saw, they
sought to build upon that perfection certain fixed and invariable
rules, by the observing of which others might be sure of attaining the
same excellence.... But when they came to examine more of those works,
they found the antients had not confined themselves to any such laws;
and therefore that it was impossible to build such rules upon their
works.... The young student is confused by reading a variety of authors
on the subject. Among a number of the best of these each delivers what
he esteems to be the most true and perfect proportion, but in each this
differs. All have founded their maxims upon something in the antique,
but, some having taken in the same order one piece, and some another,
these proportions vary extremely; for the antients so varied in their
works. Palladio is understood to be the best and greatest of these
authors, we shall therefore deliver his as the general and received
proportion in each order; but upon a general review of the several
remains in which that order is preserved, we shall add what is the
mean or middle proportion of the several parts, calculating from them
all. The modern architects too strictly and scrupulously follow these
antients; they did not so closely or servilely copy one another.”[179]
Such recognition of the difference between the theorists’ rules of
the orders and the ancient orders themselves is rare in the modern
literature of architecture. But the remedy proposed to relieve the
student from the confusion arising from the perusal of different
authors each of whom “delivers what he esteems to be the most true and
perfect proportion” is of little efficacy in practice; for the mean or
middle proportion would still impose a fixed rule, and the true artist
does not work by rules of any sort. The proportions of a genuine work
of art are determined by a sense of proportion that is governed by laws
too fine to be formulated, and which no rules can reach. It is his
natural sense of proportion, developed by observation and exercise,
that more than anything else makes an artist. Prescription may serve
in mechanical processes, but not in the production of works of art.
We may get Palladian formalism by rules, but no architecture of vital
character. A system of proportions that may be good in one case cannot
be good in any other, and therefore it is that “the antients” so varied
in their works. That rules are useless to an artist the Italian writer
Baldinucci, in his book on the proportions of the human figure,[180]
has well remarked. He says on this point: “It is true that all these
proportions, whether in painting or in sculpture, must be subject to
the correction of the eye, so that proportions ought to be adopted
always with its approval, notwithstanding all fixed rules, seeing that
this has been the custom of all the best artists, confirmed by the
memorable saying of the great Buonarroti that it is necessary for the
master to have the compass in his eye.”[181]
In the light of what we have seen I think it must appear that the
claims which have been advanced for the architecture of the Renaissance
as the only architecture of correct principles since that of classic
antiquity, and as an architecture in comparison with which the Gothic
art of the Middle Ages should be considered as the barbarous product
of an unenlightened age, are without justification. The mistaken
notions of the Italian writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries (labouring under strange misapprehension of the principles
of classic art on the one hand, and ignorance of the true Gothic on
the other) have been too much inculcated in our own time; and the
belief that classic art offers suitable models for modern uses, and
that the architecture of the Renaissance embodies classic principles,
has been accepted with too little examination of its grounds. A few
of the most competent modern authors, while in the main disposed,
by force of custom, to take a favourable view of the architecture
of the Renaissance, have occasionally shown a juster sense of its
real character. Thus the recent Italian writer Melani says:[182] “We
always admire the beautiful productions of the art of the Renaissance,
because we are accustomed to value the good wherever it is found; but
when we think of the absurdity of this art, and still worse, of the
consequences to which it has given rise, we cannot but deplore so much
ill-directed energy.”
APPENDIX
CONDITION OF THE DOME OF ST. PETER’S
The mathematicians, after describing the dome and its supports, make
the following statement of the condition in which they found it:[183]--
* * * * *
1. La base esteriore A del tamburo si vede piena di spaccature, molte
delle quali corrono unite in sù per tutto il tamburo medesimo, e per
tutto l’attico, fino a nascondersi in _nd_ sotto i piombi non
ancora scoperti. Da dette spaccature si diramano continui peli, che
infrangono una quantità grandissima di travertini.
2. Esse spaccature al fondo son piccolissime, e in sù van sempre
crescendo. Piegano dagli arconi in giù verso i piloni.
3. Nel Corridore CB, che gira dentro tutta la base si vedono sul muro
esteriore BE molte aperture, che parimente venendo in giù piegano verso
i piloni.
4. Nello stesso muro esteriore pure dentro il corridore si vedono
raddoppiate aperture orizontali verso il fondo B, che nell’alzarsi
il pavimento sopra gli arconi, si seppelliscono sotto al medesimo,
vedendosi ivi più che altrove lo stesso pavimento separato dal muro
esteriore; qual disunione è generale per tutto il corridore.
5. Dette aperture orizontali passano tutta la grossezza BA del muro
esteriore della base, come si vede nelle porte, che metton fuora,
rialzandosi tutto il muro dalla parte interiore verso B, e rimanendo l’
appoggio solamente verso A; anzi verso B tra una spaccatura orizontale
e l’ altra in qualche luogo si levano colle mani senza sforzo
considerabile i mattoni non più premuti.
6. Delle spaccature verticali se ne vede una sola nel muro interiore C.
7. La volta E del medesimo corridore è tutta spaccata in mezzo con una
generale apertura, che gira attorno da per tutto.
8. Essa apertura passa tutta la grossezza EF della volta, vedendosi
generalmente nel mattonato F sotto gli archetti de’ contraforti, e
per tutto attorno il ripiano, per cui si gira il tamburo; e perche vi
pioveva giù nel corridore, detto mattonato fu rassettato non è un’ anno.
9. Nel luogo di tal rassetto si vedono nuovi distacchi de’ mattoni
rimessi; anzi in qualche sito si vedono rotti i mattoni nuovi sopra l’
apertura antica, e in qualche luogo di nuovo piove giù nel corridore.
10. I sedici contraforti FG si vadon rotti con moltissime aperture, che
nel salire piegano in dentro; le medesime rompono per mezzo gran numero
di travertini di essi contraforti e quelli del cornicione _m_.
11. Sopra l’archetto F sono assai più tenui, e nell’andare in sù
crescono notabilmente.
12. Molte di queste aperture, si vede, che sono state stuccate,
essendosi poi riaperte le stuccature, e dilatate, e molte altre vi
sono, dove non vi è vestigio di stuccatura.
13. In due archetti verso la cima de’ muri dritti F, che li sostengono,
si vede la parte superiore venuta in fuora notabilmente, e in un di
essi in modo particolare il muro FG distaccato nella cantonata più
sensibilmente dal tamburo. Simil moto orizontale di alcuna parte venuta
un poco più in fuora, si vede anche nel muro esteriore A della base.
14. Gli architravi _r_ delle sedici finestre son rotti tutti a
riserva di uno, o due, ma dove è intero l’architrave, è rotto uno
stipite. In tutte poi son rotte le cornici sopra l’architrave, e i
travertini de’ muri sopra, e sotto le finestre, e a lato verso i
contraforti hanno moltissime aperture, e peli, che li infrangono.
15. In uno stipite di finestra _a_ è degna di considerazione
un’apertura verticale, che cominciando al basso nella faccia voltata
all’altro stipite, piega un poco in dentro.
16. Tutte le scale a lumaca, per cui si sale dentro al tamburo, sono
affatto dissetate, vedendosi rotti e distaccati gli scalini. In una di
queste, per cui si sale ordinariamente ben rassettata, si vedono molti
stangoni di ferro, e paletti, che reggono gli scalini rotti.
17. Entrando fra le due Cupole per il corridoretto K, si vedono delle
aperture verticale negli spicchi fra’ muri T de’ costoloni, e si
seppelliscono sotto K, dove le due Cupole son unite; le medesime anche
rompono gli architravi e soglie delle porte e finestre. Lo spicchio che
corrisponde sopra il pilone della Veronica, principalmente verso il
mezzo delle scale T, è dissestato molto. Di tali aperture ci vien detto
da chi le ha contate tutte con diligenza, trovarsene 37 nella Cupola
esteriore, 39 nell’interiore.
18. Sotto il Cupolino nel corridoretto O si vedono rotte le faccie de’
muri de’ costoloni, seguitando per essi muri le spaccature orizontali
OP, dove più alte, dove più basse, e continuando in alcun luogo fra lo
spicchio della Cupola esteriore e il muro del costolone.
19. Pure nella volticella di esso corridore si vedono delle aperture,
che passano verso _u_ sotto gli archetti de’ contraforti del
Cupolino, e in alcune delle finestre del collo della Cupola si vedono
rotti gli architravi, con degli altri movimenti nel muro interiore.
20. I medesimi contraforti in Q hanno molte aperture, che terminano
verso il mezzo delle finestre.
21. Tutti i pilastrini di dentro tra le finestre in R a mezza altezza
in circa si vedono rotti, e alcuni in due luoghi orizontalmente,
restando con detta generale apertura tutto il Cupolino diviso
orizontalmente per mezzo.
22. Passando ora alla parte interiore della Cupola, in tutti i sedici
spicchi si vedono de’ peli, o delle aperture verso S nelle cornici
tonde de’ Serafini di mosaico e nelle bislunghe degli Angeli, molte
delle quali aprono considerabilmente i mosaici stessi.
23. Nello spicchio sopra il pilone della Veronica si vede una
grandissima apertura S_q_YZ. Essa passa sotto il cornicione Z nel
fregio, dove è assai tenue; và sempre dilatandosi fino all’impostatura
della Cupola in q, indi di nuovo si ristringe morendo in cima sotto il
Cupolino stesso. Sopra il pilone del Longino, che resta in faccia, vi
è un’altra simile spaccatura assai sensibile, anche a guardarla giù
dalla Chiesa. Sopra gli altri due piloni pure, benche alquanto minore
è tale, che dalla Chiesa vi passa un vento assai gagliardo, e in varj
altri spicchi pur sene vedono. Dette aperture dividono, e distaccano le
figure de’ mosaici, fino a farne cader qualche pezzo.
24. Gli architravi di quasi tutte le finestre in X sono rotti.
25. Ne’ Pilastri del tamburo si vedono delle aperture orizontali, in
_b_, per cui s’aprono le commessure de’ travertini de’ quali sono
incrostati.
26. Ne’ mosaici sopra il cornicione Z si vedono alcuni leggieri peli
orizontali, benche non troppo sensibili.
27. I due arconi attorno al pilone della Veronica anno sulla cima in
mezzo un leggier pelo, senza però che si discosti una parte dall’altra,
o l’una scenda sotto l’altra; e sotto il cornicione tra l’arco de’
SS. Simone e Giuda, e il pilone della Veronica scende un pelo, che
muore assai prima di giungere all’arco. Detto pelo si vede dalla parte
di fuori sopra la volta della Chiesa nel muro del tamburo inalzato
sull’arco stesso, e parimente i peli de’ due arconi nella parte
superiore de’ medesimi si riscontrano, ma tenuissimi.
28. In varj luoghi tanto di fuora, quanto fra le due Cupole si vedon
rotti, o distaccati alcuni pezzi di marmo a coda di rondine messi in
questi ultimi anni attroverso alle spaccature per vedere se la fabrica
faceva moto.
29. I paletti de’ cerchi L che cingono la Cupola interiore, si vedono
in alcuni luoghi rimossi dal sito verticale per più once.
30. Di fuora nell’ordin’ Attico da _m_ fino ad _n_ si vedono
in più siti delle aperture orizontali nelle commessure de’ travertini
rialzati un tantino, e un simil moto si riscontra in alcuni stipiti
delle finestre esteriori nel corridoretto K, che gira tra le due Cupole.
31. Questo è ciò, che abbiamo veduto cogli occhi nostri. Di più
fatti esaminare i pilastri _b_ col piombino si è trovato, che
sbilanciano in fuora, altri tre once, altri due e mezza, ed altri
meno, e altrettanto in circa sbilanciano pur’ in fuora i pilastri
de’ contraforti G, che stanno attaccati al tamburo. Ma de’ pilastri
esteriori de’ medesimi contraforti alcuni sbilanciano un tantino in
dentro, altri stanno a un di presso a piombo.
32. La gran spaccatura sopra il pilone della Veronica sul cornicioncino
dell’Attico in _h_ è di quattro once, e vene sono due vicinissime,
in cui essa diramasi di un’oncia e mezza fra tutte due. Quella in
faccia sopra il Longino è di due once e mezza. Ivi le spaccature in
giro sono in numero 27, e tanto grosse, che messe insieme si trovano di
22 once, e poco più sù di 24.
INDEX
Aachen, dome, 11 (cut).
Abutments, lack of, in the dome of Florence cathedral, 22, 23;
of dome of St. Peter’s, 50 (cut), 53.
Agnolo, Baccio d’, his work on the Palazzo Bartolini, Florence,
109;
his innovation in framing window openings, 109, 116.
Aisles, treatment of façade over the, in ch. of Santa Maria
Novella, Florence, 37;
in ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, 74.
Alberti, Leon Batista, said by Milizia to be regarded as one of the
principal restorers of the architecture of antiquity, 35;
his use of the Roman triumphal-arch design as a model for his
façades, 38, 39–43 (cuts);
applied himself to writing on, rather than practising
architecture, 107, 108;
his influence seen in Bramante’s works, 112;
ch. of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 35, 41, 42;
ch. of Sant’Andrea of Mantua, 38–42 (cut and plate), 53;
Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, 107, 108 (cut).
Angelo, Michael, 90;
design for the tomb of Pope Julius II., 46;
his work on St. Peter’s, 53–65 (cuts), 237;
date of his appointment as architect of St. Peter’s, 53;
his alterations of Bramante’s plan, 53, 70;
his admiration for the dome of Florence cathedral, 55;
quoted on the Pantheon dome, 55;
defects in his scheme, 63, 64;
his makeshifts, 66;
windows of Palazzo Farnese, Rome, 116, 117 (cut).
Angle, Roman treatment of the, 79 (cut);
pilasters on the, 78–81 (cut).
Arabesque, Renaissance in imitation of Roman, 167 (cuts).
Arcades, of the court of Palazzo Farnese, use of Roman combination
of arch and entablature, 118;
cloister of Santa Maria della Pace, Rome, 119;
château of La Rochefoucauld, France, Flamboyant arches framed
with pilasters, 188.
Arch, the radical nature of the change wrought in architecture by
the introduction of, was never grasped by the imperial Roman
designers, 37;
the Roman triumphal, used as a model of Renaissance façades, 38,
39–43 (cuts);
the Roman arch and entablature scheme applied to a continuous
arcade, 118, 119;
of Flamboyant depressed or three-centred form, 184, 188.
Architectural carving of the Renaissance, 167–178 (cuts).
_See_ Carving, Architectural.
Architectural shams, use of, in the Renaissance, 32, 121, 132.
Architecture, the communal and individual spirit in, 4, 5;
its division into three distinctive styles and two classes, 6, 7;
proper meaning of the term, 15^2;
structural integrity a fundamental prerequisite of good, 24;
use of structural members without structural meaning violates the
true principles of architectural design, 68;
mechanical rules cannot reach the law of the proportions of a
genuine work of art, 133, 207, 249;
conscious effort to be original in, is inevitably disastrous,
206;
the noblest, has always been mainly a social, communal, and
national, not a personal product, 206.
Arezzo, church of Santissima Annunziatta, 83;
nave, 83 (cut).
Arnolfo, his design for the dome of Florence cathedral, 13 (cut),
16.
Artificial elements in architectural ornamentation, use of, 172.
Assisi, church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, 89;
date, 89;
general plan, 89;
chapels, 90;
orders, 90 (cut);
piers, 90 (cut);
ressauts, 90;
influence of St. Peter’s in, 90;
façade, 90.
Athens, the Propylæa, spacing of the columns of the order, 113;
National Museum, leafage of capital from Epidaurus, 174 (cut).
Attic wall, use in an interior as a support for vaulting, 151, 243;
of the façade of the chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, 31;
of Michael Angelo’s dome of St. Peter’s, Rome, 54.
Baalbek, Pantheon of, 29^2;
entablature, 29^2;
breaking of the pediment, 94, 95 (cut), 117;
ressauts, 95.
Baccio d’Agnolo, architect of tower of Santo Spirito, Florence, 82.
Balconies, with balustrades, 160.
Baldinucci, _Lettera di Filippo Baldinucci Intorno al modo di dar
Proporzione alle Figure_, etc., 249^2;
quoted on rules of proportion in art, 250.
Barley, ear of, in Renaissance and in Greek carving compared, 169
(plate and cut).
Barrozzi, Giacomo. _See_ Vignola.
Beltrami, Luca, _Il Pantheon_, 89^1.
Benedict XIV, Pope, his inquiries as to the safety of the dome of
St. Peter’s, 60.
Bernini, Wren’s meeting with him at Paris, 233.
Berty, Adolphe, _Les Grands Architectes Français de la
Renaissance_, 194^1, 200^1;
quoted on Lescot, 194, 196^1;
quoted on De l’Orme, 200^1.
Bettini, Giovanni, his work on the church of Santa Maria Novella,
Florence, 35.
Blind arcade, forms proper decoration for mediæval interiors, 29.
Bloomfield, Reginald, _A History of Renaissance Architecture in
England_, 218, 232^2;
quoted on Inigo Jones, 232.
Bologna, Palazzo Bevilacqua, 165;
window openings of mediæval form without central shaft, 165.
Bourges, house of Jacques Cœur, a forerunner of the Renaissance
châteaux, 180.
Bramante, his birth and early work, 44;
the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, 44–46 (cut), 239;
his work on St. Peter’s, Rome, 47–53 (cuts), 63, 64, 70, 236;
his use of the Pantheon and Basilica of Maxentius as models,
49–52 (cuts);
alteration of his scheme by others, 49^3, 53–55, 64, 70;
weakness of his scheme, 52;
accused of poor workmanship, 64;
ch. of Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi, 74–77 (cuts);
his work on the cathedral of Como, 144;
ch. of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, 140, 142;
ch. of San Satiro, Milan, 138 (cut);
cloister of Santa Maria della Pace, Rome, 119;
Palazzo Cancelleria, Rome, 112–114 (cut).
Brescia, Palazzo Comunale, 163,
of the broletto type, 163,
window openings, 164;
Palazzo Martinengo, peculiar and meaningless style of window
opening, 166 (cut);
Palazzo Municipale, leafage of capitals, 176 (cut).
Brunelleschi, the dome of Florence cathedral, 10–25, 22, 48, 50,
54, 55;
his own account of the dome quoted, 18^1, 22^1;
his great ability, 21;
his scaffolding, 21^3;
why he led the way in a wrong direction, 22, 25, 63;
character of his work in general, 26;
his use of the orders, 26;
the chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, 26–32 (cuts), 175;
ch. of San Lorenzo, Florence, 33;
ch. of Santo Spirito, Florence, 33;
the Pitti palace, Florence, 106;
Palazzo Pazzi or the Quaratesi, Florence, 106;
leafage of capital, 175 (cut).
Bullant, _Reigle Géneralle de Architecture_, 192^1;
his reproduction of the order of a Roman temple in the portico
of the château of Écouen, 192.
Buttresses, in support of domes, 10, 53;
of St. Peter’s, Rome, 53 (cut), 55, 56, 59;
of a circular Gothic vault, 57^1;
concealing of, in St. Paul’s, London, 244, 245 (cut).
Byzantine architecture, 6, 7;
term loosely applied, 29^1;
the dome on pendentives is the distinguishing structural feature
of, 29^1;
their domes were properly constructed, 63;
scheme prevails in Renaissance architecture, 74.
Caen, church of St. Pierre, exterior of apse with Lombard
Renaissance details applied to a Flamboyant structural scheme,
214.
Cambridge, England, Caius College, gate of honor, neo-classic
features, 223.
Carving, architectural, of the Renaissance, 167–178 (cuts):
Sculpture of the human figure on Renaissance buildings has little
proper architectural character, 167;
Relief carving, 167–178 (cuts);
pictorial treatment of, 158;
a great deal is in close imitation of Roman models, 167 (cut),
171, 172;
the best is superior to that of ancient Rome, 168, 170, 176;
conventionalization of forms, 169 (plate and cut);
formal convolutions of, 170, 171;
the finish, in many cases, mere surface smoothing, 170, 171;
two schemes which are used with wearisome repetition, 171;
arrangement of composition and treatment of details often
artificial and inorganic, 172 (cut), 173 (cuts);
the finest forms those of foliation, 170, 174;
leafage of capitals, 175–178 (cuts);
artificial convention of the ridges which mark the subdivisions
of the leaf surface, 176 (cuts);
the grotesque is uniformly weak and characterless, 176–178
(cuts);
_Putti_ are without particular merit as design, 178.
Casati, _I Capi d’Arte di Bramante da Urbino nel Milanese_, 138^1,
142^1.
Cecchini, _Opinione Intorno lo Stato della gran Cupola del Duomo di
Firenze_, 24^1;
cited on the stability of the dome of Florence cathedral, 23^3,
24^1.
Celled vault, a Gothic circular, 20, 21;
nature of its construction, 56–59 (cuts).
Chains, binding, 12, 22, 74;
of the dome of Florence cathedral, 19, 24^1;
of St. Peter’s, Rome, 59, 60.
Chambers, Sir William, _Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil
Architecture_, 134^1.
Chimney-stacks in shape of Doric columns in Elizabethan houses, 217
(cut), 223.
Church, the, in Middle Ages and Renaissance period, 1–3.
Church architecture, of the Florentine Renaissance, 26–43 (cuts);
of the Roman Renaissance, 66–101 (cuts);
of the Renaissance in North Italy, 135–153.
Clamps, metal, used in masonry, 22^2;
of St. Peter’s dome, 60.
Classic inspiration in the Renaissance, 4, 97, 119.
Classic models, the classic style which was followed in the
Renaissance was that of the decadent Greek schools as
represented in Roman copies, 4, 247;
misuse of, 33, 84.
Claudian aqueduct, 106.
Coffering, Roman, in interior of church of Sant’Andrea of Mantua,
39.
Colonnade of Bramante’s scheme for St. Peter’s dome, 51, 56.
Columns, small, free-standing, placed by Sansovino on each side of
the pier to bear the archivolt, 123, 130;
often spoken of as an innovation of Sansovino and Palladio, but
instances of it occur in Græco-Roman architecture of Syria,
131 (cut);
peculiar form of, claimed by De l’Orme as his own invention,
201–206 (cut);
practically the same column occurs in Serlio’s book, 203 (cut);
an ancient adumbration of this form occurs in the Porta Maggiore,
Rome, 205;
other Italian examples of the same column, 205, 206;
mention of its use in England, 221, 222, 229;
notion that the Ionic order was designed after female
proportions, 207.
Communal spirit of the Middle Ages, 4, 5.
Como, cathedral, 144–149 (cuts);
description of exterior, 144;
details are mediæval Lombard modified by neo-classic elements,
144;
portals, illogical use of arch and entablature in, 144, 145
(cuts), 149;
window openings, variety of illogical forms in, 148 (cut);
tapering jamb shafts, 149.
Consoles, reversed over the aisle compartments of an exterior, 37,
74, 95.
Constantinople, Hagia Theotokos, dome, 10 (cut);
church of St. Sophia, dome mentioned, 10.
Conventionalization of forms in relief carving of the Renaissance,
168 (cut).
Corinthian capitals, 84.
Corner pilasters, 78–81 (cut).
Cornice, of St. Peter’s, Rome, dwarfs the effect of altitude, 68,
92;
breaking of, 93–95 (cut).
Cosimo de’ Medici, 103, 110.
Court, circular, of Vignola, influences De l’Orme and Jones in
building the courts of the Tuileries and Whitehall, 130, 131.
Cunningham, _The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects_, 217^2, 226 ff.;
quoted on the unsubstantial structures of the Renaissance in
England, 217.
De l’Orme, Philibert, _Le Premier Tome de l’Architecture_, 200^2
ff., 209;
a man with little artistic genius, 200, 209;
overestimated by Viollet le Duc, 200^1, 207^3;
Adolphe Berty on, 200^1;
studied the antique in Rome, 200;
his work on the Tuileries, 200–207 (cut);
peculiar form of column claimed by him as his own invention,
201–206 (cut);
his doorway, with use of the peculiar column, 203 (cut);
description of doorway quoted from his book, 209 (cut).
Delaborde, Viscount, quoted, 7^3.
Della Porta, 73;
façade of ch. of the Gesù, Rome, 95 (cut).
Dolcebono, architect, Church of Monastero Maggiore, Milan, 142,
143.
Domes, construction of early, 10–15;
hidden externally by drum and timber roof, 10, 11 (cut);
Byzantine, on pendentives, 10 (cut), 29^1;
polygonal, 12, 24^3;
pointed in outline, 12, 14, 16, 52;
octagonal, 13, 14, 16;
hemispherical, 24^3, 52;
Arabian, 12^1;
binding chains, 12, 241;
the thrust, 15^1, 24, 52;
why a dome cannot have the character of a Gothic vault, 20, 21,
56–59 (cuts);
proper mode of constructing, settled by the ancient Romans and
Byzantines, 63;
attempt of the architects of the Renaissance to solve the great
dome problem, 241, 242;
most modern domes modelled after St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s are
wooden constructions, 242;
of Hagia Theotokos, Constantinople, 10 (cut);
of Florence cathedral, 10–25, 65,
design of Arnolfo, 13,
modelled on dome of Baptistery, 16,
details of construction, 16–20,
magnitude of the work, 21,
stability of, 23;
of Florence Baptistery, details of construction, 14 (cut),
dome of Florence cathedral derived from, 16, 20;
vault of the chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, not a dome, 27 (cut),
28, 56;
ch. of San Lorenzo, Florence, 34;
vault of ch. of Santo Spirito, Florence, 34;
St. Paul’s, London, rejected scheme, 235 (cut),
likeness to Bramante’s scheme for St. Peter’s, Rome, 236 (cut),
likeness to Michael Angelo’s scheme, 237,
present structure, 239 (plate),
recalls Bramante’s San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, 239,
structural system of, 239–242 (cut);
ch. of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, 140 (cut);
vault of the chapel of St. Peter Martyr, ch. of Sant’Eustorgio,
Milan, like vault of chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, 142;
ch. of San Biagio at Montepulciano, 81 (cut);
Pisa cathedral, 12 (cut);
ch. of Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle, Rome, 86;
Antonio San Gallo’s design for St. Peter’s, Rome, 71;
Tempietto, Rome, 44 (cut);
cath. of Salamanca approaches the nature of a Gothic vault, 57–59
(cut);
Todi, 74 (cut), 77.
Domestic architecture. _See_ Palace architecture.
Doorway, of De l’Orme, 203 (cut);
of Serlio, 203 (cut).
Drum, of a dome, raised above the springing of the dome, 10–14, 23;
dome set on the top of, 12;
of the dome of Florence cathedral, 16;
the central vault of the chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, 27 (cut);
the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, 44;
St. Peter’s, Rome, 50 (cut), 53.
Du Cerceau, engraving of the Fountain of the Innocents, Paris, 195
(cut);
work of Lescot on the Louvre, 197 (cut);
work of De l’Orme on the Tuileries, 201 (cut), 221^2;
project for the château of Charleval, 209.
Durm, _Die Dom Kuppel in Florenz_, 19^1;
_Die Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien_, 20^1;
cited on domes, 20^1.
East end of the Redentore, Venice, 100, 101.
Elizabethan Art, 216–225 (cuts).
_See_ Renaissance in England.
England, Renaissance in, Architecture of the, 216–246 (cuts).
_See_ Renaissance in England.
Burghley House, chimneys in the form of a Doric order, 217 (cut);
Cranborne Manor-House, porch and façade illustrate Elizabethan
neo-classic ornamentation, 221, 222 (cut);
Hardwick Castle, mention of, 217;
Kirby Hall, façades of the court, 218–220 (cut),
pilasters supporting nothing but miniature pedestals, 219,
window openings said to have been inserted by Inigo Jones,
218,
porch, description of, 220,
its scheme a variation of Lescot’s Louvre pavilions, 220,
gables of Flemish or Dutch origin, 220 (cut);
Longford Castle, 221;
French influence in, 221;
resemblance to château of Chambord, France, 221;
Lower Walterstone Hall, window illustrating Elizabethan
neo-classic ornamentation, 221 (cut);
Stanway House, gatehouse portal, neo-classic features, 223;
Tixall Castle, gatehouse, neo-classic ornamentation, 222;
Westwood Park, porch in the form of a Roman triumphal arch, 223;
Wollaton Hall, neo-classic ornamentation, 223,
chimney-stacks in the semblance of Doric columns, 223,
portal, 224.
Entablature, passing through the arch impost, 29, 30 (cut);
in Roman art, 29, 30, 37;
springing of a vault from, 29, 68;
Vignola’s, 85 (cut);
removing of, between the ressauts, 117 (cut);
Roman arch and entablature scheme applied to a continuous arcade,
118, 119;
breaking of, 134 (cut), 199 (cut);
used with the arch illogically in the portals of north Italy,
144, 145 (cuts);
ch. of Santissima Annunziatta, Arezzo, 83 (cut);
the chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, running through the impost, 29
(cut);
façade of ch. of Sant’Andrea of Mantua, 40 (cut);
ch. of Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle, Rome, the two parts which have
no _raison d’être_ under a vault have been omitted, 89 (cut);
ch. of San Biagio, Montepulciano, Rome, 78 (cut);
the Gesù, Rome, has no ressauts except at the crossing, 92;
ch. of St. Paul outside the wall, Rome, 30^1;
St. Peter’s, Rome, interior, dwarfs the effect of its altitude,
68;
façade of ch. of San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, 100;
of ch. of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, placed above small
pilasters of the archivolts, 98;
The Redentore, Venice, 101;
Todi, 75, 76 (cut).
Entablature block, in Roman art, 30, 37;
in ch. of San Lorenzo, Florence, 33 (cut);
in façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 36 (cut);
in nave of ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, 72 (cut).
Entasis of columns in church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 98.
Façades, of the Badia of Fiesole, 32 (cut);
chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, 30 (cut);
ch. of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 35 (cut);
old St. Paul’s cathedral, London, incongruous mixture of, 230–232
(cut);
Whitehall, London, banqueting hall, 227 (plate),
Westminster front, 229 (cut),
circular court, 230;
ch. of Sant’Andrea of Mantua, 39–42 (cut);
ch. of the Gesù, Rome, Vignola’s, 92–95 (cuts),
Della Porta’s, 95 (cut);
ch. of Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle, Rome, 86–88 (cut), 92;
ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, 74 (cut);
Palazzo Cancelleria, Rome, description of, 112–114 (cut),
projecting bays at each end, 113,
portal of almost Greek purity of design, 114;
Palazzo Massimi, Rome, 114–116 (cut);
ch. of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 99 (cut);
Scuola di San Marco (Venice), 156–158 (cut);
ch. of Santa Maria dei Miracole, Venice, a marvel of excellence
in mechanical execution, 151, 152 (cut).
Fiesole, church of the Badia, façade, 32 (cut);
likeness to chapel of the Pazzi, 32.
Filarete, Antonio, Ospedale Maggiore, Milan, 164 (cut);
window openings, 165 (cut);
arabesque on door-valves of St. Peter’s, Rome, 170 (cut).
Fine Arts, of an epoch, the expression of its conditions, 1, 3;
of the Renaissance, spirit of, 3, 4, 6;
of the Middle Ages, spirit of, 2, 5.
Flamboyant Gothic style of Castle Châteaudun, 184 (cut).
Florence, condition in Middle Ages and in Renaissance, 2, 3;
Board of Works of Florence cathedral, 21, 22^1.
Badia, façade, 32 (cut).
Baptistery, dome, details of construction, 14 (cut);
forms inspiration for dome of the Florence cathedral, 16, 20;
entablature, 30^1;
attic wall, 31;
Ghiberti gates, inorganic composition with over-naturalism in
details, 173 (cut).
Cathedral of, dome, 10–25;
design of Arnolfo, 13 (cut);
modelled on the dome of the Baptistery, 16, 20, 50;
details of construction, 16–20;
its rib system gives it nothing of Gothic character, 20;
shell, 16, 54;
rib system, 16 (cuts), 55;
binding chains, 19, 22;
magnitude of the work, 21, 22;
deliberations of the Board of Works, 21^1, 22^1;
scaffolding, 21^3;
is fundamentally false in principle, 22, 23, 24;
stability of, 23;
lantern, 25;
has nothing of classic Roman character, 25;
its octagonal form, 55^1;
its fine features, 65.
Chapel of the Pazzi, 26–32 (cuts);
its central vault, 27 (cut), 56;
interior, 28–30 (cut);
Byzantine in form, 29;
orders of, 29, 31, 32;
entablature, 29, 30 (cut);
portico, 30 (cut), 134;
panelled attic wall, 31, 81;
false use of the orders, 109;
leafage of capitals, 175.
Church of Santa Croce, pulpit, carving of, 171, 172 (cut);
leafage of capitals, 176;
_see_ Chapel of the Pazzi.
Church of Sant’ Jacopo Soprarno, 32.
Church of San Lorenzo, 33;
celled vault, 33;
mediæval features, 34;
piers, 34 (cut).
Church of Santa Maria del Fiore, false front of wood mentioned,
120.
Church of Santa Maria Novella, 35;
façade, 35–38 (cut), 42;
orders, 35 (cut), 112;
mediæval features, 35, 38;
portal, 36 (cut), 41;
tower, 82.
Church of Santo Spirito, 33;
spire-like tower of, 81 (cut);
pseudo-classic details, 82;
lantern, 83.
Museum, Roman arabesque used as model for Renaissance, 167 (cut);
pilaster with carving of a meaningless and artificial
composition, 173 (cut).
Palazzo Bartolini, 109,
window openings, 109 (cut), 116;
Palazzo Gondi, 107,
arcades of the court, 107,
leafage of capitals, 176 (cut);
Palazzo Guardagni, 107;
Palazzo Mozzi, 102;
the Pitti palace, its façade as monotonous as the Claudian
aqueduct, which it resembles, 106;
the Quaratesi, 106;
Palazzo Riccardi, 103 (cut and plate),
moderation shown in, 103, 110,
façade, 103,
window openings, 103,
arcades of interior court, 104;
Palazzo Rucellai, 107, 108 (cut),
application of classic orders, 108, 112,
window openings, 109,
rustication of the masonry, 109,
resemblance between Palazzo Cancelleria and, 112, 114;
Palazzo Strozzi, 106,
cornice, 106,
fortress-like character, 106;
the Strozzino, 106;
Palazzo Vecchio, 102.
Florentine Renaissance, church architecture of the, 26–43 (cuts and
plate);
palace architecture, 102–111 (cuts and plate);
_see_ Renaissance architecture.
Foliation, the finest feature of Renaissance architectural carving,
174.
Fontana, Carlo, cited on dome of Pisa, 13^1;
cited on stability of Florence dome, 23^3;
quoted on Michael Angelo, 55^1, 24^1;
cited on safety of St. Peter’s dome, 59;
_Il Tempio Vaticano e sua Origine_, etc., Discritto dal Cav.
Carlo Fontana, etc., 71^2;
cited on short-sighted admiration of St. Peter’s, 71;
cited on binding chains, 74.
France, Châteaux of, _see_ Renaissance in France.
Castle Châteaudun, portal and bay in the Flamboyant Gothic style,
184 (cut).
Château of Azay le Rideau, 182–187 (cuts);
general description, 182–184;
portal and bay of characteristic French Renaissance design in
which neo-classic details are worked into a pseudo-Gothic
scheme, 184–187 (cut);
window openings, 186;
one of the finest monuments of the early Renaissance in the
country, 187;
portal, 214.
Château of Blois, cornice with neo-classic and mediæval elements
combined, 182, (cut);
court façade, 188–190 (cut);
superimposed orders of pilasters of the court façade ornamented
with bead mouldings, 188 (cut);
polygonal staircase tower, 190 (cut);
garden façade, 190;
open gallery of, 191.
Château of Chambord, its multiplicity of soaring features
resembles a late Gothic building, 191;
resemblance of Longford Castle, England, to, 221.
Château of Charleval, 209–213 (cuts);
exterior façade, pilasters which have no entablature to
support, 210;
unmeaning variation of the detail of the several bays, 210;
interior façade, the division of the building into two stories
not expressed on the outside, 211;
court of Kirby Hall, England, resembles, 218.
Château of Chenonceaux, portal where Flamboyant idea is treated
in neo-classic details, 188 (cut).
Château of Écouen, architectural scheme is comparatively simple,
191;
in the portico of the court is reproduced the order of a Roman
temple without admixture of mediæval details or Italian
corruptions, 192.
Château of Fontainebleau follows the general character of early
French Renaissance, 191.
Château of La Rochefoucauld, arcades of the court where
Flamboyant arches are framed with pilasters, 188;
open gallery, 191.
Château of St. Germain en Laye, 192, 193;
buttresses, 192;
window openings, 192.
Villers Cotterets, column claimed by De l’Orme as his own
invention, 202 (cut).
French architecture, Renaissance influence upon, 179.
French Renaissance. _See_ Renaissance in France.
Frieze, problem of the arrangement of metope and triglyph at the
end of, 121, 122 (cuts);
of library of St. Mark, Venice, 123 (cut).
Galleries, open, covered by extension of the main roof in French
châteaux, 191.
Genoa, portal containing columns claimed by De l’Orme as his own
invention, 206.
Geymüller, Baron H. von, _Die ursprünglichen Entwürf für Sanct
Peter in Rom_, 47^2, 49^2.
Gisors, Church of SS. Gervais and Protais, the west front
Flamboyant Gothic with incongruous Renaissance details, 214.
Gotch, _Architecture of the Renaissance in England_, 217^1;
cited on Kirby Hall, England, 218^3;
on Longford Castle, England, 221;
on Tixall Castle, 222;
on Stanway, Westwood Park, Wollaton Hall, 223.
Gothic, King James’s, 227.
Gothic architectural carving, has at once an appropriate
architectural character and a high degree of excellence in the
development of form, 167, 172;
foliation, 176;
the grotesque, 177.
_Gothic architecture, development and character of_ cited, 7^1;
cited on dome of Salamanca, 57^2, 59^2;
cited on early stage of apsidal vault development, 59^1.
Gothic architecture, one of the three distinctive styles of
architecture, 6;
beauty and structural logic of, 7;
use of wooden ties, 22^2;
why a dome cannot have the character of a Gothic vault, 20, 21,
56–59 (cuts);
variety which arises through some new constructive idea, 211^1;
French Renaissance châteaux in which distorted neo-classic
details are worked into a pseudo-Gothic scheme, 184;
Wren’s scheme to reconcile the Gothic to a better manner, 238,
243, 245.
Gothic art forms a new French order, a true evolution out of the
ancient orders superbly adapted to new conditions, 206.
Goujon, sculptures of the fountain of the Innocents, Paris, 196.
Greek architectural carving, vitality of, 169 (cut), 171, 174
(cut);
beauty of leafage, 174, 176 (cuts).
Greek architecture, the classic style which was followed in
Renaissance architecture was that of the decadent Greek schools
as represented in Roman copies, 4, 247;
the only proper use of the classic order made in, 43.
Greek coin (of Metapontum), conventionalized ear of barley on,
compared with Renaissance carving, 169, 170 (cut).
Greek sculpture on buildings is in a measure independent of the
building on which it is placed, 167.
Grotesque, the, in architectural carving, the northern races only
capable of conceiving it in an imaginative way, 177;
in Renaissance architecture uniformly weak and characterless,
176, 177 (cuts).
Guasti, _Santa Maria del Fiore_, 13^2;
quoted on Brunelleschi’s account of the dome of Florence, 18^1.
Gubbio, his work on the ducal palace, Venice, arabesque after Roman
model, 167 (cut).
Hermæ, of façade of the Gesù, Rome, 93;
of the Tuileries, Paris, 207.
Human figure, in sculpture, on buildings, 167;
has little proper architectural character in the Renaissance,
167.
Impost, continuous, 188^1.
Individuality, element of, in Renaissance architecture, 4;
as developed by Middle Ages and by Renaissance, 5.
Innocent XI, Pope, his inquiries as to the safety of the dome of
St. Peter’s, 59.
Intellectual movement in the Renaissance, 2, 8.
Ionic volutes, 84.
Italian domestic architecture, 102;
unwise admixture of classic elements in, 107, 109;
spirit of display in, 105, 110.
Italian genius for painting, 6, 7.
Jamb shafts, tapering, 137 (cut), 142, 149, 150.
Jones, Inigo, his work on Kirby Hall, England, 218^3;
influence of Vitruvius and Palladio on, 226, 227;
travel and study in Italy, 227;
_Stonehenge Restored_, 227;
Whitehall, 227–230 (plate and cut);
Banqueting Hall, London, 227 (plate);
had no true conception of the principles of classic art, 230;
old St. Paul’s west front, 230–232 (cut);
the spirit of his architecture theatrical, 232.
Julius II, Pope, the building of St. Peter’s, 44, 46.
Kent, William, _The Designs of Inigo Jones, consisting of Plans and
Elevations for Publick and Private Buildings_, 229^2;
scheme for the palace of Whitehall, London, 229;
old St. Paul’s cathedral, west front, 231 (cut).
Lantern of Florence dome, 25;
St. Peter’s, Rome, Bramante’s plan, 52 (cut);
ch. of Santo Spirito, Florence, 83.
Leafage, Greek and Roman compared, 174–176 (cuts);
Renaissance, 175.
Lescot, Pierre, 194;
Fountain of the Innocents, Paris, 194–196 (cut);
influence of Serlio, 196;
west wing of the Louvre, 196–200 (cut).
Letarouilly, _Edifices de Rome Moderne_, 72^1;
cited on ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, 72.
Loftie, W. J., _Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren_, 242^1.
Lombard blind arcade recalled in the ch. of Santa Maria dei
Miracole, Venice, 151 (cut).
Lombard Romanesque architecture, towers, 82.
Lombard Romanesque, style modified by neo-classic elements mark the
Renaissance architecture of northern Italy, 144;
a porch which forms a model from which an illogical Renaissance
portal is derived, 145 (cuts).
Lombardi, the, 149;
architectural carving of, 169 (plate).
Lombardo, Martino, Scuola di San Marco, Venice, façade, 156.
Lombardo, Pietro, 149;
ch. of Santa Maria dei Miracole, Venice, 151 (cut);
Palazzo Corner-Spinelli, Venice, 160 (plate).
Lombardo, Tullio, 149;
ch of San Salvatore, Venice, 150.
London, St. Paul’s cathedral, west front of old structure by Inigo
Jones, 230, 232 (cut);
Wren ordered to submit designs for the restoration of, 234;
his drawings for the new structure, 235–238 (cuts);
rejected scheme with details of its dome, 235, 236 (cut);
likeness of dome to Bramante’s scheme for St. Peter’s, 236;
likeness to Michael Angelo’s scheme, 237;
façade of the second design a close copy of Inigo Jones’s, 238;
present structure never embodied in any set of drawings, 239;
plan has no beauty comparable to that of St. Peter’s, 239
(cut);
comparison of, with St. Peter’s, 236, 239, 241, 243, 245;
plan and elevation, 239;
dome, 239–242 (plate);
recalls Bramante’s San Pietro in Montorio, 239;
structural system of, 240 (cut);
vaulting of the nave has somewhat the effect of Gothic
vaulting, 243;
use of attic wall in support of vaulting, 243;
neo-classic orders of the interior, 244, 245 (cut);
intersecting of archivolt and entablature, 244;
concealing of the buttresses, 244, 245 (cut);
vaulting of the apse, 245.
Whitehall, Banqueting Hall, 227 (plate);
of Palladian design, 228;
orders of the façade, 228;
scheme for the palace illustrated by Kent, 229;
plan is French in character rather than Italian, 229;
order of the basement has a structural character, 229 (cut);
façade of circular court, orders of, 230.
Church of St. Stephen’s, 246;
ch. of St. Bride’s, 246;
ch. of St. Mary-le-Bow, 246;
ch. of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, 246.
Longhena, architect, Palazzo Pesaro, Venice, 163.
Maderna, the western bays of St. Peter’s, Rome, 68.
Majano, Benedetto da, the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 106.
Mantua, church of Sant’ Andrea, 38–42 (cut and plate);
erected and ornamented on Roman models, 38;
nave, 38 (plate);
piers, 38, 39, 53;
its interior one of the finest of the Renaissance, 39;
its scheme foreshadows that of St. Peter’s, 39, 53;
façade, 39–42 (cut);
early use of so-called colossal order, 40 (cut), 53, 66;
resemblance of central arch to that of ch. of Santa Maria
Novella, Florence, 41;
panelled pilasters, 41, 160;
reflection of, seen in Bramante’s church of San Satiro of Milan,
138.
Martin, _Hist. de France_, 180^1.
_Mathematici, Parere di tre, sopra i danni che si sono trovato
nella cupola di S. Pietro, etc._, 60^1.
Mathematicians’ report on the condition of St. Peter’s dome in
1742, 60.
Mediæval art, structural forms of, formed, for the most part, the
basis of Renaissance design, 43, 247;
considered false and barbaric by the neo-classicists, 97, 248;
its architects transformed the classic orders in a creative way,
248.
Melani, _Architettura Italiana_, 150^1, 154^1, 250^2;
quoted on architecture of the Renaissance, 250.
Metope, problem of making half a metope fall at the end of the
frieze, 121, 122 (cuts).
Michelozzi, The Riccardi, Florence, 103;
praised by Vasari, 105;
the Strozzino, Florence, 106;
chapel of St. Peter Martyr, ch. of Sant’Eustorgio, Milan, 142;
his work in Venice, 149.
Middle Ages, conditions of the, 1;
spirit of, and that of the Renaissance, 2, 5–6;
individuality of, 5.
Middleton, _Ancient Rome_, 52^1;
cited on the dome of the Pantheon, 52^1.
Milan, church of Sant’Eustorgio, chapel of St. Peter Martyr, 142;
circular celled vault, 142.
Church of San Lorenzo mentioned, 140.
Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, 140 (cut);
description of exterior, 140;
dome, 140;
its encircling arcade suggests the encircling colonnade of the
dome of St. Peter’s, 142.
Church of Monasterio Maggiore, 142;
compound window openings, 143.
Church and sacristy of San Satiro, 138–140 (cut);
reflects ch. of St. Andrea of Mantua, 138;
orders of the interior of the sacristy, 139 (cut).
Ospedale Maggiore, 164;
larger features are of mixed and debased mediæval character
with no application of classic orders, 164;
window openings, 165 (cut).
Palazzo Brera, arches sprung from pairs of columns connected by
short entablatures, 166.
Milanesi, cited, 34^1, 35.
Milizia, _Memorie degli Architetti_, etc., quoted, 23^2, 84^1;
cited on Alberti, 35, 44;
cited on use of entablature block, 36;
cited on safety of the dome of St. Peter’s, 58^4;
cited on the strengthening of the dome of St. Peter’s, 62;
on ch. of Consolazione at Todi, 74;
on spire-like tower of ch. of Santo Spirito, Florence, 81;
cited on Vignola, 84;
on dome of Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle, Rome, 86;
on window openings framed with orders, crowned with pediments,
109;
quoted on Sansovino, 119, 121;
quoted on Vignola, 128;
quoted on De l’Orme, 194.
Montalembert, cited, 5^1.
Montepulciano, church of San Biagio, 77–83 (cuts);
interior, 78–80 (cut);
ressauts, 78, 90;
Doric order, 78;
use of pilasters on the angles, 78, 81;
exterior, 81–83 (cut);
dome, 81;
façade, 81;
panels of upper story, 81;
orders, 81, 83;
towers, 81.
Naples museum, composite capital showing Roman leafage, 175.
Nave of ch. of Santissima Annunziatta, Arezzo, 83 (cut);
Sant’Andrea of Mantua, 38 (plate);
ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, 72;
ch. of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 97, 98.
Nelli, _Discorsi di Architettura_, 21^3;
quoted on Brunelleschi’s scaffolding, 21^3;
cited on stability of Florence dome, 23^3, 24^1.
Neo-classicists, their confidence in the art of Roman antiquity as
the embodiment of all true principles of architectural design,
97.
Neo-pagan spirit of the Renaissance, 2, 4, 8.
Nicholas V, Pope, rebuilding of basilica of St. Peter, 47.
Norton, C. E., _Church Building in the Middle Ages_, 21^1;
cited on building of the dome of the Florence cathedral, 21^1.
Openings, mediæval Florentine form, 102 (cut);
of domestic architecture in Perugia, 102;
reveals are shallow in earlier buildings, 104;
cathedral of Como, variety of illogical forms in, 148 (cut).
_See_ Window openings.
Order and symmetry of a mechanical kind seen in Renaissance
architecture, 133.
Order, colossal, so-called, early use of, 40.
Order, classic, use of without structural meaning in Renaissance
architecture, 6, 29, 43, 244;
Brunelleschi’s use of, 26;
unsuitable for a building of mediæval character, 29, 43;
disposition of, in various Renaissance façades, 42;
misapplication and distortion of by Italians of the Renaissance,
43;
used with propriety by the Greeks alone, 43;
the usual size of, compared with that of St. Peter’s, Rome, 67;
Vignola’s treatise on the Five Orders, 84;
the proportions of the, altered by Vignola, 85;
Vitruvius quoted on maintaining the purity of, 86;
inappropriate in a church interior, 98;
application of, in palace architecture, 107, 109;
Renaissance innovation in spacing the columns of, 112, 114;
podium introduced beneath, 112;
where the columns of, act somewhat as buttresses, 131;
aberrations and makeshifts made necessary by efforts to apply the
classic orders to uses for which they were not adapted, 244;
transformed by the mediæval architects in a creative way, 248;
De l’Orme’s claim of having invented a new order, which he called
the French order, 202 (cut), 206.
Of the Parthenon, Athens, 67;
the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek, 67^1;
chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, 29, 30 (cut);
ch. of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 35, 42 (cut);
Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, 108, 109 (cut);
St. Paul’s, London, interior, difficulties of combining
neo-classic style of, with the high vaulting, 243, 244;
Whitehall, banqueting hall, London, 228 (plate), 229 (cut),
230;
ch. of Sant’Andrea of Mantua, 40 (cut), 42;
ch. of San Biagio at Montepulciano, 78, 81 (cuts);
Duomo of Pienza, 42;
St. Peter’s, Rome, interior, 53, 66,
dwarfs the effect of magnitude in the interior, 67,
size compared with that of the Parthenon and Pantheon, 67,
diminishes the effect of altitude of the vaulting, 68;
Palazzo Cancelleria, Rome, podium introduced beneath, 112,
innovation in spacing the columns of, 113;
court of Palazzo Farnese, Rome, treatment of the capital, 118;
ch. of San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, 100;
ch. of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, raised on pedestals, 98,
101,
placed under the archivolts, 98;
library of St. Mark, Venice, 122, 123 (cuts);
Palazzo Contarini, Venice, 161;
Palazzo Vendramini, Venice, full orders in all three stories of
façade, 161, 162,
arrangement in lateral bay of façade, 162;
town hall portico of Vicenza, the columns of, act somewhat as
buttresses, 130, 131.
_See_ Columns.
Ornamentation, architectural, use of artificial elements in,
172–174 (cuts);
use of forms drawn from organic nature, 174.
_See_ Carving, architectural.
Oxford, St. Mary’s Church, porch, mentioned, 227;
Sheldonian theatre, Wren quoted on, 234.
Padua, town hall, Palladio’s scheme for town hall of Vicenza
derived from, 130, 131.
Painting, Italian genius for, 6, 7;
most Renaissance architects were painters and sculptors, 6, 7,
84, 96.
Palace architecture of the Renaissance, Florentine, 102–111 (cuts
and plate);
Roman, 112–134 (cuts);
of North Italy, 154–166 (cuts);
Venetian, 154–163 (cuts).
_See_ Renaissance architecture.
Palladian architecture, 95;
introduced into England by Jones, 227;
far from true to classic design, 228, 230;
rules are arbitrary and not in accord with the true principles of
ancient art, 248.
Palladio, _Quattro libri dell’Architettura di Andrea Palladio_,
96^4;
his influence greater than that of any other architect of the
Renaissance, 95, 248;
quoted on his study of architecture, 96, 97;
quoted on his admiration of his own work, 131^1;
his compositions based on order and symmetry of a mechanical
kind, 133;
concerned with the superficial appearance in architecture, 133;
ch. of San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, 100;
ch. of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 97–100 (cuts);
ch. of the Redentore, Venice, 100 (cut);
Palazzo Valmarana, Venice, 133;
Loggia Bernarda, Vicenza, 133 (cut);
Palazzo Colleone-Porta, Vicenza, 133;
Palazzo Porta-Barbarano, Vicenza, 133;
the portico of the town hall, Vicenza, 130–132 (cut).
Pallaiuolo, Simone, Palazzo Guardagni, Florence, 107.
Palustre, Leon, _L’Architecture de la Renaissance_, 89^2;
quoted on the entablature of St. Andrea di Ponte Molle, Rome, 89.
Paris, Church of St. Etienne du Mont, of Flamboyant Gothic form,
with neo-classic west front and central portal, 213, 214;
portal with columns modelled after those claimed by De l’Orme as
his own invention, 214.
Church of St. Eustache, a Gothic structure overlaid with
Renaissance details, 213.
Fountain of the Innocents, 194–196 (cut);
a reproduction of the scheme of a Roman triumphal arch, 196.
Hotel Cluny, a forerunner of the Renaissance châteaux, 180.
Louvre, Lescot’s work on the west wing, 196–200 (cut);
orders, 198, 199;
the salient pavilions, have no function, 198;
breaking of the entablature in, 199;
sculptured festoons heavy and formal, 199.
Palace of the Tuileries, work of De l’Orme, 200–207 (cuts);
peculiar form of column claimed by De l’Orme as his invention,
201–206 (cut);
basement arcade, 207;
attic story, 207.
Parthenon, metal clamps in masonry, 22^2;
effect of a dome erected on, 89.
Pavia, Church of the Certosa, general description of façade,
136–137;
Lombard Romanesque forms with pseudo-classic elements engrafted
on them, 137;
window openings, 137 (cut).
Church of San Pietro in Cielo d’Oro, portal framed by structural
members without structural meaning, 148 (cut).
Pazzi, Chapel of the. _See_ Florence.
Pediment, breaking of the, 93–95 (cut), 117 (cut);
one placed within another, 95 (cut);
of Baalbek, 95 (cut).
Pellegrini, Palazzo Brera, Milan, 166.
Perugia, domestic architecture, 102.
Church of S. Bernardino, general description of façade, 135
(plate);
affords a rare instance of the use of colour in Renaissance
architecture, 135.
Peruzzi, Baldassare, his plan for St. Peter’s, Rome, 47^2;
Palazzo Massimi, Rome, 114–116 (cut).
Piers, pierced transversely and longitudinally, 38, 39, 150 (cuts);
ch. of Santissima Annunziatta, Arezzo, 83 (cut);
ch. of San Lorenzo, Florence, 34 (cut);
château of Blois, France, polygonal staircase tower, 190 (cut);
ch. of Sant’Andrea of Mantua, 38, 39 (plate);
ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, alternate system, 72;
St. Peter’s, Rome, 53, 66, 68;
Todi, 75, 76 (cut);
ch. of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 97, 98 (cut);
ch. of St. Mark, Venice, 150 (cut);
ch. of San Salvatore, Venice, 151 (cut).
Pietra Santa, Giacomo da, said to have built the ch. of
Sant’Agostino, Rome, 72.
Pilaster strips, form proper decoration for mediæval structures,
29, 82.
Pilasters, coupling of, 31;
use of, in the treatment of the angles of buildings, 78–81 (cut);
the panelling of, 160;
of Kirby Hall, England, support nothing but miniature pedestals,
219;
portico of the chapel of the Pazzi, 31 (cut);
façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 37, 38;
National Museum, Florence, meaningless and artificial design in
carving, 173 (cut);
château of Azay le Rideau, France, combination of pseudo-Gothic
and neo-classic forms, 186 (cut);
façade of ch. of Sant’Andrea of Mantua, 41 (cut);
San Biagio, Montepulciano, use of, on the angles in interior, 78
(cut);
Palazzo Contarini, Venice, grouping of those of three different
proportions and magnitudes, 161 (cut).
Pisa cathedral, dome, 12.
Pisan Romanesque architecture, of façade of Santa Maria Novella,
Florence, 37.
Poleni, _Memorie Istoriche delle Gran Cupola del Tempio Vaticano_,
59^3;
his strengthening of the dome of St. Peter’s, 62, 63;
quoted on poor work of Bramante, 64.
Pollaiuolo, Simione, called Il Cronaca, court and cornice of
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 106.
Pontoise, church of St. Maclou, remarkable Renaissance north
portal, 214.
Porches, church of San Zeno of Verona, a model from which an
illogical form of Renaissance portal is derived, 146 (cut);
Cranborn Manor-House, England, illustrates Elizabethan
neo-classic ornamentation, 221, 222 (cut);
Kirby Hall, England, 220;
resemble Louvre pavilions, 220.
Portals, from Serlio, in which the entablature is removed between
the ressauts, 117, 118 (cut);
illogical use of arch and entablature in the portals of north
Italy, 144, 145 (cuts);
illogical Renaissance portal derived from the porch of San Zeno
of Verona, 146 (cut);
unreason of Renaissance portals compared with those of Greek or
Gothic art, 156;
of cath. of Como, illogical use of arch and entablature, 144, 145
(cut), 149;
Stanway House (England) gatehouse, neo-classic features, 223;
Wollaton Hall, England, illustrates Elizabethan neo-classic
ornamentation, 224 (cut);
ch. of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 36 (cut), 41;
château of Azay le Rideau, France, neo-classic details worked
into a pseudo-Gothic scheme, 184;
château of Chenonceaux, France, Flamboyant and neo-classic forms
combined, 188 (cut);
ch. of San Pietro in Cielo d’Oro, Pavia, 148 (cut);
Palazzo Cancelleria, Rome, of almost Greek purity of design, 114;
Scuola di San Marco, Venice, 156 (cut);
Porta del Palio, Verona, 125 (cut).
Portico, château of Écouen, the order of a Roman temple is produced
without admixture of mediæval details or Italian corruptions,
192.
Raphael, plans for St. Peter’s, Rome, 47^2.
Ravenna, ch. of San Vitale mentioned, 140.
Relief carving of the Renaissance, _see_ Carving, Architectural, of
the Renaissance.
Renaissance, conditions of, 1;
intellectual movement in, 2, 8;
neo-pagan revival in, 2, 8;
its spirit as manifested in its fine arts, 3, 4, 6, 8;
its architects were sculptors and painters, 6;
art of painting in, 7.
Renaissance architecture, element of individuality in, 4, 6;
the classic style which was followed was that of the decadent
Greek schools as represented in Roman copies, 4, 247;
architects were generally also painters and sculptors, 6, 96;
a surface architecture, 6;
little heed given to structural propriety, 23, 64, 66, 116;
use of the classic order, 29;
passing of the entablature through the arch imposts, 29;
use of stucco, 32;
alternation of wide and narrow intervals, 38;
misapplication of the classic orders, 43, 247;
the designers worked on a foundation of mediæval ideas from which
they could not free themselves, 43, 247;
use of Roman models, 43, 117, 119, 247;
breaking of the pediment, 93 (cut), 117;
use of structural members without structural meaning, 116, 133,
135, 156, 165;
entablature removed between the ressauts, 117;
later architecture the work of men of little genuine artistic
inspiration, 119, 133;
architectural shams extensively produced by later architects,
121, 132;
attempt to make half a metope fall at the end of the frieze,
121–122 (cut);
barbaric compositions of frequent occurrence in later, 124;
based on order and symmetry of a mechanical kind, 133;
independent personal effort to be original at the bottom of most
of the mistakes of, 206;
no architects of, had a true conception of the principles of
classic art, 230;
theatrical in its spirit, 232;
no true adaptation of classic elements in Renaissance design,
247;
great influence of short-sighted and mechanical Italian rules in
modern times, 248, 250;
claims advanced for it as the only architecture of correct
principles since that of classic antiquity are without
justification, 250;
sculpture of, _see_ Carving, architectural, of the Renaissance.
Renaissance architecture, in England, 216–246 (cuts);
Elizabethan art, 216–225 (cuts);
its best features were of native growth out of the mediæval
feudal castle and the latest phase of perpendicular Gothic,
216, 225;
use of classic details, 217, 218–225 (cuts);
flimsiness of material in interiors and ornamental details,
217, 218;
buildings have little foreign character in plan and outline,
but neo-classic forms are confined to ornamentation, 218,
221;
strange aberrations of design wrought by foreigners and native
craftsmen, 218–225 (cuts);
fantastic gables features of the more showy architecture, 220;
Flemish and Dutch ornamental workers, 220, 224;
the design and execution of the buildings were performed by
building craftsmen, 224, 225.
Work of Jones and Wren, 226–246 (plate and cuts);
use of classic details becoming established, 226, 228;
acceptance of neo-classic style by the people, 228, 232, 233.
Renaissance architecture, Florentine; church architecture, 26–43
(cuts);
palace architecture, 102–111 (cuts and plate).
_See_ also Renaissance architecture and Florence.
Renaissance architecture, in France, early, 179–193 (cuts);
the French Renaissance château, conditions which gave rise to,
180;
evolved from the feudal castle of the Middle Ages, 180, 201;
factitious in composition, 179, 181, 211^3;
distorted neo-classic details worked into a pseudo-Gothic scheme,
184, 190;
a survival of later Gothic habit of design is shown where the
continuity of upright lines is obtained in the use of
superimposed pilasters with ressauts in the entablatures,
188, 190;
has a distinctly French expression, 179, 193, 194;
later French Renaissance given a more marked neo-classic dress by
Lescot and De l’Orme, 194–215;
misuse of structural forms in ornamentation, 199;
excessive profusion of ornament, 200;
church architecture, Gothic structural forms largely entwined
with a misapplication of classic details, 213–215.
Renaissance architecture, Lombard, 135, 136–149;
neo-classic influences confined largely to ornamental details,
136;
illogical scheme of openings which became characteristic of,
144–149 (cuts).
Renaissance architecture, North Italian, profusion of ornament a
marked characteristic of, 136;
Lombard Romanesque forms modified by neo-classic features mark
the character of, 144;
church architecture of the, 135–153 (cuts);
mixture of mediæval and pseudo-classic forms, 149;
palace architecture of the, 154–166 (cuts);
later architecture of the, based on the art of Palladio and
Vignola, 165.
_See_ Renaissance architecture.
Renaissance architecture, Venetian, 135;
church architecture, 149–153;
palace architecture, 154–163 (cuts);
its most characteristic architecture is that of the palaces of
the grand canal, 159;
the usual scheme of the front that of a wide central bay wholly
occupied by openings flanked by lateral bays with a solid
wall on either side of an opening, 162, 163;
neo-classic influences confined largely to ornamental details,
136;
illogical scheme of openings which became characteristic of,
144–149 (cuts);
drew some of its material from Florentine and Lombard sources,
149;
later architecture follows the measurably uniform style of
Vignola and Palladio, 153, 162;
overlaying with heavy orders the typical unequal main divisions
of the palace fronts, 162, 163.
Ressauts, irrational use of, 38;
of façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 37;
of San Francesco of Rimini, 38;
of ch. of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Assisi, 89.
Rhenish Romanesque style of ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, 72.
Ribs, system of, in Florence dome, 16–19, 55 (cuts);
in Gothic vaulting have nothing of the character of dome ribs,
20, 21, 56;
of St. Peter’s dome, Rome, 55, 56, 59;
of cath. of Salamanca, 57, 58.
Riccio, Antonio, his work on east side of the court of the Ducal
Palace, Venice, 154 (plate).
Rimini, San Francesco of, church of, 35;
façade, 38, 42;
modelled on the arch of Septimius Severus, 38, 42;
ressauts, 38.
Roman arch and entablature scheme applied to a continuous arcade,
118, 119.
Roman architecture, furnished models for Renaissance architecture,
38, 40, 43, 97;
use of entablature block in, 37;
use of the arch in, 37;
the ressaut, 38;
triumphal arch design a model for Renaissance façades, 38, 39–43
(cut);
treatment of the angle, 79 (cut).
Roman architectural carving, furnished models for Renaissance work,
167;
tasteless and meaningless designs, 170^1;
leafage of, compared with Greek leafage, 174 (cuts).
Roman Renaissance, church architecture of the, 66–101 (cuts);
palatial architecture, 112–134.
_See_ Renaissance architecture and Rome.
Romanesque architecture, 7;
Rhenish Romanesque style of ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, 72.
Rome, its monuments the inspiration of Renaissance architecture, 3,
43, 247.
St. Peter’s, rebuilding and demolishing of the old basilica, 47;
work of Rossellino, 47;
work of Bramante, 47–53 (cuts), 63, 64, 70;
date of the beginning of building, 47;
general plan, 47, 53, 66 (cut);
the plans of Raphael and Peruzzi, 47^2;
work of Michael Angelo, 54–65 (cuts), 66;
work of Maderna, 66, 245;
short-sighted admiration of, 71;
design of Antonio San Gallo, 71;
influence of, seen in other churches, 90, 92;
arabesque on door-valves, 170 (cut);
Wren’s scheme for St. Paul’s based on the model of, 236, 237;
comparison of, with St. Paul’s, 236, 239, 241, 243, 245.
Dome, 44–65 (cuts);
use of the Pantheon and the Basilica of Maxentius as models,
49–52 (cuts);
drum, 50 (cut), 53;
abutments, 50 (cut), 53;
colonnade, 51, 56, 142;
lantern, 52;
piers, 53, 66, 68;
buttresses, 53 (cut), 55, 56, 59;
design of Michael Angelo, 53–65 (cuts);
his alterations of Bramante’s scheme, 53–55, 64;
attic, 54 (cut);
vault shells, 54 (cut), 55;
ribs, 55, 56, 59;
binding chains, 59, 60, 62;
ruptures in, 59, 60–63 (cut), 64;
mathematicians’ report of the condition of the structure in
1742, 60 (cut);
violation of laws of stability in, 64, 65;
strengthening of Bramante’s work, 64^1;
its beauty exaggerated, 65;
likeness of Wren’s scheme of St. Paul’s to, 236.
Exterior, 68–70 (cut);
makeshifts necessitated by the use of the colossal order,
68–70 (cut);
aisle walls carried to the height of the clerestory, 68, 245;
domes over the aisles, 68–70 (cut), 245.
Interior, Bramante’s scheme, 53, 66;
Michael Angelo’s work, 53, 66–70;
piers, 53, 66, 68;
effect of magnitude dwarfed by the colossal order, 53, 67,
68;
great size of the structural parts, 68;
part of the vault hidden by the cornice, 68, 92;
its ornamentation a cheap deception, 71;
ressauts, 90, 92.
Church of the Gesù, 91–95 (cuts);
Vignola’s plan given in his book on the Five Orders, 92;
interior, general scheme, 92;
orders, 92;
entablature, 92;
façade, 92–95 (cuts);
broken pediments of, 93, 95;
scroll work and hermæ, 93;
reversed consoles, 95;
tablets, 95 (cut).
Church of Sant’Agostino, 72–74 (cuts);
its architects, 72;
date, 72;
the general style is Rhenish Romanesque, 72;
nave, 72;
Renaissance ornamental details, 72 (cut);
façade, 73, 74 (cut);
truncated pediment, 74;
tablets in wall surface, 74;
dome, 74.
Church of Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle, 86–89 (cuts);
dome, 86;
façade, 86–88 (cut), 92, 101;
likeness to the Pantheon, 87;
entablature, 89 (cut).
Church of San Biagio, entablature, 78 (cut).
Church of Santa Maria della Pace, cloister arcade, 119.
Church of St. Paul outside the wall, entablature, 30^1.
The Tempietto, 44–46 (cut);
the dome and its drum, 44, 74;
resemblance to the temple of Vesta, 44, 45;
orders, 45, 83;
dome of St. Paul’s, London, recalls, 239.
Arch of Septimius Severus used as model of façades by Alberti,
38, 39–43 (cut);
treatment of angle in, 79.
Arch of the Silversmiths, 39.
Arch of Titus, scheme of, used by Sansovino in the Loggetta of
the Campanile, Venice, 123.
Basilica of Maxentius, columns and arches, 37;
as model for St. Peter’s, 49.
Baths of Caracalla, entablature, 29.
Pantheon, 10, 15^1, 87;
said to be taken as model for dome of Florence cathedral, 16;
grandeur of, 23;
as model for Bramante’s dome of St. Peter’s, 49, 52 (cuts);
its internal character, 52^1;
abutments, 49 (cut), 52;
not a homogeneous structure, 89.
Porta Maggiore, form of column similar to that claimed by De
l’Orme as his own invention, 205.
Temple of Peace. _See_ Basilica of Maxentius.
Theatre of Marcellus, its façade followed by Sansovino for the
library of St. Mark’s, 122.
Palazzo Cancelleria, façade, 112–114 (cut);
window openings, north Italian, 112, 149;
podium introduced beneath each order, 112;
spacing of the columns of the order, 112, 114;
projecting bays at each end, 113;
portal of almost Greek purity of design, 114;
court, 114.
Palazzo Farnese, 116–118;
window openings framed by structural members without structural
meaning, 116, 117 (cut);
removal of entablature between ressauts over window openings,
117 (cut);
court, treatment of columns, 118.
Palazzo Girand Torlonia, 112;
window opening, north Italian, 112, 149.
Palazzo Massimi, façade described, 114–116 (cut);
wall above basement unbroken by pilasters or string courses,
114;
portico, 114, 115;
spacing of columns and pilasters of basement, 114;
window openings, 115.
Ronsard, his poem on Lescot cited, 196.
Roof, timber, built over early domes, 10, 11.
Rossellino, his use of the orders in the Duomo of Pienza, 42, 43;
his work on the basilica of St. Peter, Rome, 47.
Ruptures, in the dome of Florence cathedral, 23, 24;
in the dome of St. Peter’s, Rome, 59, 60–63 (cut);
not necessarily alarming in a properly constructed vault, 62^2.
Rustication of masonry, 109.
Salamanca, cathedral of, dome, how it approaches and differs in
nature from a Gothic vault, 57–59 (cuts).
San Gallo, Antonio, the elder, 90;
his work on ch. of San Biagio, Montepulciano, Rome, 78–83;
ch. of Santissima Annunziatta, Arezzo, 83.
San Gallo, Antonio, the younger, his design for St. Peter’s, Rome,
71;
Palazzo Farnese, Rome, 116.
San Gallo, Giuliano da, designed Palazzo Gondi, Florence, 107, 176;
leafage of capital, 176 (cut).
San Giovanni, Florence Baptistery, 14, 16.
Sanmichele, Porta del Palio, Verona, 125 (cut);
Palazzo Canalla, Verona, 126;
Palazzo Pompei alla Vittoria, Verona, 126;
Palazzo Bevilacqua, Verona, 126, 127 (cut).
Sansovino (Jacopo Tatti), his predilection for classic forms, 119,
120;
library of St. Mark, Venice, 121 (cut), 130;
his attempt to make half the metope fall at the end of the
frieze, 121, 122;
small free-standing column placed on each side of the pier to
bear the archivolt, often spoken of as an invention of, 123,
130, 131 (cut);
Loggetta of the Campanile, Venice, 123;
his use of a form of column claimed by De l’Orme as his own
invention, 205.
Scaffolding said to have been employed by Brunelleschi, 21^3.
Scamozzi, 133, 134;
peculiar form of compound window, sometimes called his invention,
134 (cut).
Scrollwork, of façade of the ch. of the Gesù, Rome, 93.
Sculpture, on buildings, has in Gothic art only an appropriate
architectural character, and a high degree of excellence in the
development of form, 167;
Greek, is in a measure independent of the building on which it is
placed, 167;
of the human figure in Renaissance art, has little proper
architectural character, 167;
relief carving of the Renaissance, 167–178 (cuts).
_See_ Carving, architectural, of the Renaissance.
Sebastiano, architect of ch. of Sant’Agostino, Rome, 72.
Serlio, _Regole Generali di Architettura di Sebastiano Serlio_,
44^2, 196^2;
cited on the work of Bramante on St. Peter’s, Rome, 47^2, 49;
quoted on corner pilasters, 79;
cited on the removal of the entablature between the ressauts, 117
(cut);
influence on Lescot, 196;
his column practically the same as that claimed by De l’Orme as
his own invention, 203 (cut).
Sgrilli, _Descrizione e Studj dell’Insigne Fabbrica di S. Maria del
Fiore_, quoted, 23.
Siena, Palazzo Pubblico, 102.
Soane Museum, John Thorpe’s drawings, 218^2, 221.
Spavento, church of San Salvatore, Venice, 150.
Spire, Gothic, far removed from anything proper to classic
composition, 83.
Steeples, Wren’s, 246;
are the outcome of the Renaissance spire-like towers, 82.
Strozzi, Filippo, 110.
Stucco, use in Renaissance architecture, 32, 132, 133.
Syria, St. Simeon Stylites, use of the free-standing column under
the archivolts, 131 (cut);
Basilica of Shakka, form of window opening reproduced in
architecture of the Renaissance, 134.
Tablets, rectangular in façade surface, 74;
ugly shapes of, in the façade of The Gesù, Rome, 95 (cut);
of Vignola, 95 (cut).
Tatti, Jacopo. _See_ Sansovino.
Thorpe, John, his plans show a French influence, 218, 220;
little is known of him, 218^2;
Kirby Hall, England, 218–220 (cuts);
Longford Castle, 221.
Thrust, the, of a dome, 15^1, 24, 52.
Ties, wooden used in Gothic buildings, 22^2.
Tivoli, temple of Vesta, resemblance of the Tempietto, Rome, to,
44, 45 (cut).
Todi, church of Santa Maria della Consolazione, 74–77 (cuts);
the scheme is Byzantine, 74, 77;
dome, 74, 75, 77;
interior, 75 (cut);
orders, 75–77 (cut);
piers, 75, 76;
exterior, 77 (cut);
similarity between the sacristy of San Satiro, of Milan, and,
140;
between cath. of Como and, 144.
Towers, spire-like, of the Renaissance, 81;
scheme based on the Lombard Romanesque tower and the mediæval
campanile, 82;
of ch. of San Biagio at Montepulciano, 78, 81 (cuts);
of ch. of Santo Spirito, Florence, 81, 82 (cut);
Giotto’s, 82.
Triglyph, problem of the arrangement of, at the end of the frieze,
121, 122 (cuts).
Triumphal arch used as a model of Renaissance façades, 38, 39–43
(cuts).
Vanvitelli, his placing of binding chains around the dome of St.
Peter’s, Rome, 62.
Variety, unmeaning, different from that which results from an
active inventive spirit, 211^1.
Vasari, _Le Opere di Giorgio Vasari_ quoted, 16;
cited on Brunelleschi’s account of the dome of Florence, 18^1,
22^1;
cited, 33^1, 110;
cited on Alberti’s work, 35, 44, 107;
cited on rebuilding St. Peter’s, Rome, 47;
his short-sighted admiration of St. Peter’s, 71;
quoted on Michelozzi, 105, 149;
cited on the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 106.
Vault, Gothic, why a dome cannot have the character of a, 20, 21,
56–59 (cuts).
Vaults, the nature of the construction of a circular-celled vault
on Gothic principles, 56–59 (cuts);
of the chapel of the Pazzi, Florence, 27, 28, 56;
ch. of San Spirito, Florence, 34;
chapel of St. Peter Martyr, ch. of Sant’Eustorgio, Milan, 142.
Venetian Renaissance. _See_ Renaissance, Venetian.
Venice, church of The Redentore, general scheme, 100 (cut);
east end, 100, 101;
orders, 101;
façade, 101.
Church of S. Fantino, 151.
Church of San Francesco della Vigna façade, 100.
Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, 97;
nave, 97, 98;
piers, 97, 98 (cut);
orders raised on pedestals, 98, 99;
placed under the archivolts, 98;
entablature, 98, 99, 101;
façade, 99 (cut), 101.
Church of Santa Maria Formosa reproduces features of St. Andrea
of Mantua with details of the character of the Lombardi, 153.
Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, 151 (cut), 156;
refinement in details, 151;
façade a marvel of excellence in mechanical execution, 151, 152
(cut);
Lombard blind arcade recalled in decoration of the façade, 151;
carving of ear of barley and flower stalks, 169 (plate);
carved mask from a pilaster, 178 (cut).
Church of St. Mark, piers pierced longitudinally and
transversely, 150 (cut).
Church of San Salvatore, 150, 151;
peculiar pier supports of the barrel vaulting, 150 (cut);
use of an attic as support for vaulting, 151;
its system is that of the ch. of St. Mark, 151.
Church of San Zaccaria, general description of interior, 149,
150;
singular column of nondescript character, 150 (cut).
Palaces of the grand canal, finest are those of the later
mediæval period, 159.
Palazzo Contarini, 161;
details of façade, 161;
window openings, 161 (cut);
grouping of pilasters of three different proportions and
magnitudes, 161 (cut).
Palazzo Corner-Spinelli, 160 (plate);
window openings, mediæval features, incompleted circle in the
tympanum space, 160;
pilasters, panelling of, 160.
Palazzo Cornaro, description of the front, 124;
unequal main divisions of the front overladen with heavy
orders, 162.
Ducal Palace, east side of the court, 154 (plate);
façade described in detail, 154, 155;
window openings described, 154, 155;
north side of court, window openings, 155 (cut);
giant’s stair, fine execution of, 156;
arabesque after Roman model, 167 (cut);
grotesque creatures in the relief of the Scala d’Oro, 177
(cut).
Palazzo Grimani, façade, 163.
Palazzo Pesaro, 163.
Palazzo Valmarano, 133.
Palazzo Vendramini, 161;
full orders in all three stories, 161, 162;
grouping of mediæval window openings, 162;
balconies, 162;
disproportion of topmost entablature, 162.
Library of St. Mark, 121 (cut);
arrangement of the metope in the frieze, 121, 122 (cuts);
orders, 122;
frieze and balustraded balconies, 123;
free-standing column under the archivolt in the order of the
upper story, 123, 130.
Loggetta of the Campanile, 123.
Scuola di San Marco, description of façade, 156–158 (cut);
portal, described, unreason of its composition, 156 (cut);
carvings, 157.
Scuola di San Rocco, façade described, 158 (cut);
portal, 159;
window openings with mediæval features and others with
pseudo-Corinthian colonnettes, 159 (cut), 160.
The Zecca, form of column claimed by De l’Orme as his own
invention, 205.
Verona, church of San Zeno, porch and portal, 146 (cut).
Palazzo Bevilacqua, description of façade, 126, 127 (cut).
Palazzo Canalla, 126.
Palazzo del Consiglio, 163 (plate);
presents a mediæval broletto scheme dressed out in Renaissance
details, 163;
in respect to its finest qualities it belongs to the Middle
Ages, 163.
Palazzo Pompei alla Vittoria, 126.
Porta del Palio, description of façades, 125 (cut), 126.
Vicenza, Town hall portico by Palladio, 130–132 (cut);
use of free-standing columns under the archivolts, 130;
columns of the great orders act somewhat as buttresses, 131.
Palazzo Colleone-Porta, 133.
Palazzo Porta-Barbarano, 133.
Palazzo Valmarano, 133.
Loggia Bernarda, 133 (cut).
Vignola, _I Cinque Ordini d’Architettura_, 84, 85, 92;
entablature which he calls his own invention, 85 (cut);
his unclassic and incongruous combinations, 86, 95;
eliminates mediæval forms, 92;
tablet from, 95 (cut);
great influence of his writings, 248;
ch. of Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle, Rome, 86–89 (cuts), 92;
ch. of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Assisi, 89;
ch. of the Gesù, Rome, 91–95 (cuts);
Palazzo Caprarola, near Viterbo, 128.
Violette-le-Duc, _S. V. Château_, 171^1, 181^1;
_Entretiens sur l’Architecture_, 207^3;
quoted on French architects of the Renaissance, 179^1;
quoted on château of Chambord, 191;
quoted on De l’Orme, 200^1;
his genius more scientific than artistic, 200^1;
quoted on the château of Charleval, 211, 212;
errs in his reasoning in his discourse on Renaissance
architecture, 211–213.
Villani, quoted, 2.
Villari, cited, 3^1.
Viterbo, Palazzo Caprarola, near Viterbo, general description of,
128–130;
a source of inspiration to later architects of trans-alpine
Renaissance, 130.
Vitruvius, 85;
quoted on the orders, 86;
taken by Palladio as his master, 96, 97;
later Renaissance architects based their practice on the writings
of, 119;
cited on meaningless Roman ornamental designs, 170^1;
notion that the Ionic order was designed after female
proportions, derived from, 207^1.
Walpole, Horace, _Anecdotes of Painting_, 226;
quoted on Inigo Jones, 226, 229;
quoted on faults of Jones’s façade of old St. Paul’s, London,
231, 232.
Ware, Isaac, _A Complete Body of Architecture_, 248^1, 249^1;
quoted on the rules of ancient architects, 248, 249.
Wenz, Paul, _Die Kuppel des Domes Santa Maria del Fiore zu
Florenz_, 20^1.
Willis, his term “continuous impost” used, 188^1.
Window openings, framed by structural members without structural
meaning, 116;
a peculiar form of compound, sometimes called an invention of
Scamozzi, 134 (cut), 143;
the same form occurs in the basilica of Shakka, 134 (cut);
tapering jamb shafts, 137 (cut), 142, 149;
illogical scheme of, which became characteristic of Lombard and
Venetian Renaissance architecture, 148 (cut);
mediæval form of those in Venetian palaces, 159 (cut), 160, 162;
Lower Walterstone Hall, England, illustrates Elizabethan
neo-classic ornamentation, 221 (cut);
château of Azay le Rideau, France, Flamboyant Gothic and
neo-classic forms combined, 186 (cut);
château of Charleval, France, unmeaning variation of details,
210, 211 (cut);
Palazzo Bartolini, Florence, 109 (cut);
Palazzo Guardagni, Florence, 107;
the Quaratesi, Florence, 106;
the Riccardi, Florence, mediæval in their larger features, but
with tapering jamb shafts, 103;
Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, 109 (cut);
Ospedale Maggiore, Milan, 165 (cut);
of the Certosa of Pavia, tapering jamb shafts, 137 (cut);
Palazzo Cancelleria, 112 (cut);
of Palazzo Farnese, Rome, framed by structural members without
structural meaning, 116 (cut);
Ducal Palace, Venice, east side of court, 154;
north side, pseudo-Corinthian order of, 155 (cut);
Palazzo Contarini, Venice, grouping of the pilasters, 161 (cut);
Palazzo Corner-Spinelli, Venice, mediæval features, incomplete
circle in the tympanum space, 160;
Palazzo Corneri, Venice, 124 (cut);
Palazzo Vendramini, Venice, grouping of, in the bays of the
façade, 162;
Scuola di San Rocco, Venice, with mediæval features and with
pseudo-Corinthian colonnettes, 159 (cut);
Palazzo Bevilacqua, Verona, 126, 127;
Palazzo Branzo, Vicenza, a peculiar form of compound window,
sometimes called an invention of Scamozzi, 134.
Wren, Sir Christopher, _Parentalia, or Memoir of the Family of the
Wrens_, 232^3 ff.;
professor of astronomy at Oxford, 233;
quotations from a letter written during his visit to Paris, 233;
quoted on his Sheldonian theatre, Oxford, 234;
ordered to submit designs for the restoration of old St. Paul’s
cathedral, London, 234;
his drawings of plans for the new structure, 235–238 (cuts);
building of the present structure, 239–245 (cuts);
his scheme to “reconcile the Gothic to a better manner,” 238,
243, 245;
he learned his art on the scaffold in close contact with the
works, 239;
his churches other than St. Paul’s exhibit a medley of elements
from spurious Gothic to pseudo-classic in irrational
combinations, 245, 246;
his spires are hybrid compositions of barbaric character, 246.
Development and Character of Gothic Architecture
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cronica di Giovanni Villani_, bk. 6, chap. 69.
[2] Cf. Introduction to Villari’s _Niccolo Machiavelli and his
Times_, London, 1878.
[3] Cf. Montalembert, _Les Moines d’Occident_, vol. 2, p. 488
_et seq._
[4] Cf. my _Development and Character of Gothic Architecture_, pp.
304–306.
[5] The Gothic of northern France of the twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries, the only true Gothic art, is here meant.
[6] The Viscount Delaborde, in his book _La Gravure en Italie avant
Marc-Antoine_, Paris, 1883, p. 32, remarks on this with admirable
discrimination as follows: “Certes, sous le pinceau de Botticelli,
de pareils sujets [subjects drawn from Classical Mythology] gardent
un caractère d’élégance tendre et de mélancolie presque analogue à
la physionomie des scènes où figurent l’Enfant-Dieu et la Madone. Il
y a loin de cette manière d’interpréter la Fable aux panégyriques
violemment ou galamment licencieux que les hôtes les plus mal famés
de l’Olympe obtiendront dans les siècles suivants; il y a loin des
gracieuses inventions de Botticelli aux _lascivie_ brutales de
Jules Romain et d’Augustin Carrache ou aux gamineries mythologiques
de Boucher et de ses pareils, et l’on a quelque peine aujourd’hui, en
face d’aussi chastes tableaux, à comprendre la véhémence des reproches
fulminés jadis par Savonarole.”
[7] The elevated domes of Arabian architecture are in many cases
constructed of wood and stucco. When of masonry they are, I believe,
either weighted within where the thrusts fall, or are bound with chains.
[8] I have not examined the dome of Pisa closely on the spot, but I
suppose it is bound with a chain, as we know was the custom at a later
time. Cf. Fontana, vol. 2, P. 363.
[9] There can be little doubt that the dome represented in this
fresco embodies the original project of Arnolfo, though this has been
questioned. Cf. Guasti, _Santa Maria del Fiore_, etc., Florence,
1887, pp. lx-lxi.
[10] This needs to be qualified. The thrusts of the dome being
continuous logically call for continuous abutment, as in the Pantheon,
but the intervals between the abutting members are so small that the
resistance is practically continuous.
[11] By its architectural character, I mean its character as a work of
art. By the term “architecture” we properly mean not building merely,
but the fine art of beautiful building.
[12] This has been based on the affirmations of Vasari, who states
that it was Brunelleschi’s purpose to “restore to light the good
[_i.e._ the ancient Roman] manner in architecture,” and that he
had “pondered on the difficulties” involved in vaulting the Pantheon.
Cf. _Le Opere di Giorgio Vasari_, Milanesi edition, Florence,
1880, vol. 2, p. 337.
[13] A copy of this document is said to have been preserved for some
time in the archives of the Board of Works, but it seems to have
disappeared subsequently. It is given, however, by several writers,
Vasari and Guasti among them. There are slight differences of wording
and of measurements between the transcripts of these two authors. That
of Guasti is the most intelligible, and seems to agree best with the
monument. It reads as follows: “In prima: la cupola, dallo lato di
dentro lunga a misura di quinto acuto, negli angoli sia grossa nella
mossa da piè braccia 3¾, e piramidalmente si muri; sicchè nella fine,
congiunta con l’occhio di sopra, che ha a essere fondamento e basa
della lanterna, rimanga grossa braccia 2½. Facciasi un’altra cupola di
fuori sopra questa, per conservarla dallo umido, e perchè la torni più
magnifica e gonfiata; e sia grossa nella sua mossa da piè braccia 1¼, e
piramidalmente segua, che insino all’occhio rimanga braccia ⅔.
“El vano che rimarrà da l’una cupola all’altra, sia da piè braccia 2:
nel quale vano si metta le scale per potere cercare tutto tra l’una
cupola e l’altra; e finisca ’l detto vano a l’occhio di sopra braccia
2⅓.
“Sieno fatti ventiquattro sproni, che otto ne sieno negli angoli e
sedici nelle faccie: ciascuno sprone negli angoli grosso dappiè braccia
sette. Dalla parte di dentro, e di fuori, nel mezzo di detti angoli,
in ciascuna faccia, sia due sproni; ciascuno grosso dappiè braccia
quattro; e lunghe insieme le dette due volte, piramidalmente murate
insieme insino alla sommità dell’occhio inchiuso dalla lanterna, per
iguale proporzione.
“I detti ventiquattro sproni con le dette cupole sieno cinti intorno
di sei cerchi di forti macigni, e lunghi, e bene sprangati di ferro
stagnato; e di sopra a detti macigni, catene di ferro che cingano
d’intorno la detta volta, co’ loro sproni. Hassi a murare di sodo, nel
principio braccia 5¼ per altezza; e poi seguano gli sproni, e dividansi
le volte.
“El primo e secondo cerchio, alto braccia 2; e ’l terzo e quarto, alto
braccia 1⅓; e ’l quinto e sesto cerchio, alto braccia 1: ma ’l primo
circhio dappiè sia, oltre a ciò, afforzato con macigni lunghi per lo
traverso, si che l’una volta e l’altra della cupola si posi in su detti
macigni.
“E nell’altezza d’ogni braccia 12, o circa, delle dette volte, sieno
volticciuole a botte tra l’uno sprone e l’altro, per andito alla detta
cupola; e sotto le dette volticciuole, tra l’uno sprone e l’altro,
sieno catene di quercia grosse, che leghino i detti sproni e cingano la
volta dentro; e in su detti quercie una catena di ferro.
“Gli sproni murati tutti di pietra di macigno e pietra forte, e le
facce della cupola tutte di pietra forte, legate con sprone insino
all’altezza di braccia 24: e da indi in su si muri di mattoni o di
spugna, secondo che si delibererà per chi allora l’avrà a fare, più
leggieri che pietra.
“ ... Murinsi la cupola nel modo di sopra, senz’ alcuna armadura,
massime insino a braccia 30; ma da indi in su, in quel modo che
sarà consigliato e deliberato per quei maestri che l’avranno a
murare: perchè nel murare la pratica insegna quello che si ha da
seguire.”--Guasti, _La Cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore_, Florence,
1857, pp. 28–30.
[14] Durm, _Die Dom Kuppel in Florenz_, etc., Berlin, 1887, Plate
I, gives an admirable illustration of the internal system of this
remarkable dome, and shows the masonry of the solid base with its
clamps and chains, as described in the document quoted by Guasti (note,
p. 18).
[15] This idea finds expression in the latest work that I have seen
on the subject: _Die Kuppel des Domes Santa Maria del Fiore zu
Florence_. Von Paul Wenz, Berlin, 1901, p. 52; also in Durm, _Die
Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien_, p. 406.
[16] For a full account of the deliberations held, as well as for much
else of importance relating to the building of this dome, see Professor
C. E. Norton’s _Church Building in the Middle Ages_, New York,
Harper & Brothers, 1880.
[17] But while Brunelleschi appears to have had great natural
constructive aptitude, he had not had a sound training or experience
in construction. Such training would have taught him that it would not
do, under any circumstances, to spring a vault from the top of a wall,
and he ought to have learned this from his study of the ancient Roman
monuments.
[18] Nelli, _Discorsi di Architettura_, Florence, 1753, p.
74, reproduces an old drawing which purports to show the form of
the scaffolding that Brunelleschi employed. This drawing bears the
following inscription: “Questa Dimostrazione è di Filippo Brunelleschi
Architetto fatta per e Ponti della Cupola di S. M’ra. del Fiore di
Firenze nell’Anno M.CCCCXIX e fu quella che mostrò quando fu lasciato
in libertà di dover esser solo nell’operazione di d.^a cupola senza il
Ghiberti suo compagno non avendola voluta dar fuori prima di non essere
libero Architetto di d^a Opera; come sentiranno nella sua Vita scritta
da Diversi.” Brunelleschi, in his account of his intentions before the
Board of Works (note, p. 19), would not explain his scheme for the
scaffolding. He said merely that the vault was to be raised, without
centring, to the height of 30 braccia, and from that level upwards, in
the manner that should be advised by those who might then have the work
in charge.
[19] In his explanation of his scheme before the Board of Works, as
given by Vasari, Brunelleschi begins as follows: “Considerato le
difficultà di questa fabbrica, magnifici Signori Operaj, trovo che non
si può per nessun modo volgerla tonda perfetta, atteso che sarebbe
tanto grande il piano di sopra, dove va la lanterna, che mettendovi
peso rovinerebbe presto.” _Op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 347.
[20] It may be thought that this would condemn the use of metal clamps
in masonry, such as were inserted in the walls of the Parthenon, or
the wooden ties that were, in some cases, used in parts of Gothic
buildings. But there is a wide difference between such use of clamps
and ties, and the binding chains of the great domes of the Renaissance.
In the Greek and Gothic work the masonry forms are favourable to
stability independently of the clamps and ties. These were inserted
either for security against unusual dangers, as from earthquakes,
or for temporary security against rupture while the work was in
progress, before the interaction of the parts of the system was
fully established; but a dome without abutment violates the constant
conditions of stability.
[21] _Discrizione e Studj dell’Insigne Fabbrica di S. Maria del
Fiore_, Florence, 1733, p. xxi.
[22] _Memorie degli Architette_, etc., Florence, 1785, vol. 1, p.
190.
[23] Fontana, Nelli, Cecchini, and others.
[24] These ruptures were first observed in the year 1693 (Nelli, _op.
cit._, p. 13), and it was then advised by the architect Carlo
Fontana to add a new chain of iron. Nelli, however, argued that the
fissures had not arisen from thrust, but were due to a slight yielding
of the foundations, and he urged that no chain be added, but that a bit
of marble be dove-tailed into the vault across the opening, in order
that any further movement might be detected by the breaking of this
marble. For three years no further sign of disturbance was noticed,
but a slight earthquake in 1697 broke a portion of the masonry of the
outer face of the dome opposite the fissure across which the marble
had been placed. It appears, however, to have been concluded that
there was still no danger from thrust, and no new chain was inserted.
Cecchini (_Opinione intorno lo Stato della gran Cupola del Duomo di
Firenze_, published together with Nelli’s _Discorsi_, etc., p.
82) speaks of several cracks in both the inner and the outer shells of
the vault, and also in the supporting piers, even down to the ground.
But he agrees with Nelli in attributing these to movements of the
foundations from which he concludes that no further danger is to be
apprehended, and he affirms that the structure is entirely safe.
[25] Cf. Nelli, _op. cit._, p. 73.
[26] The thrusts of a hemispherical dome are, in some degree,
restrained by the binding of its continuous courses of masonry under
compression, but this is not enough for security, as experience has
shown; and in a polygonal dome, like Brunelleschi’s, there is no such
binding force, because there are no continuous circles of masonry.
[27] The term “Byzantine” is often applied loosely to buildings in
which only the ornamental details have a Byzantine character. But the
primary and distinguishing structural feature of Byzantine architecture
is the dome on pendentives. The Byzantine features of the Pazzi are
involved with others derived from different systems, but they are very
distinct. The central vault, though of Gothic form, is supported on
pendentives, and the true dome on pendentives occurs, as we have seen,
in the sanctuary and the porch.
[28] The entablature does, however, occur under vaulting in some
provincial Roman buildings, as in the Pantheon of Baalbek, where it
forms the wall cornice from which the vaulting springs. But this,
though not defensible, is less objectionable than the Renaissance
scheme of an entablature passing through the imposts of archivolts.
[29] As in the arch of the apse of St. Paul outside the wall at Rome,
and in the Baptistery of Florence.
[30] The character of these details will be discussed in the chapter on
the carved ornament of the Renaissance.
[31] Cf. Vasari, _Opere_, vol. 2, p. 368 _et seq._, and Milanesi’s
foot-note, p. 370.
[32] _Op. cit._, vol. 1, p. 200.
[33] _Op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 541.
[34] _Op. cit._, vol. 1, p. 201.
[35] _Op. cit._, vol. 1, p. 201.
[36] Vasari, _op. cit._, vol. 4, p. 152, and Milizia, vol. 1, p.
214.
[37] Figures 21 and 22 are taken from Serlio, _D’Architettura_,
book 3, Venice, 1560, pp. 25 and 40.
[38] _Op. cit._, vol. 7, p. 163.
[39] Serlio, the architect (a younger contemporary of Bramante),
_op. cit._, p. 33, tells us that Bramante, at his death, left no
perfect model of the whole edifice, and that several ingenious persons
endeavoured to carry out the design, among whom were Raphael and
Peruzzi, whose plans he reproduces. That ascribed to Raphael has a long
nave, while that said to be by Peruzzi has the form of the Greek cross
with round apses and a square tower in each external angle. The whole
question of Bramante’s scheme, and of the successive transformations
to which the design for the edifice was subjected before its final
completion, is fully discussed in the work of Baron H. von Geymüller,
_Die ursprünglichen Entwürfe für Sanct Peter in Rom_, Wien and
Paris, 1875–1880.
[40] _Op. cit._, bk. 3, p. 37.
[41] Serlio does not state on what authority this illustration is
based, but there appears no reason to question its correctness. Its
authenticity is discussed by Baron von Geymüller (_op. cit._, p.
240 _et seq._), who accepts it as genuine.
[42] The alterations that have been made at different times since
the original completion of this interior are of no concern here. The
arrangement was practically the same in Bramante’s time as it is now.
[43] Some writers have supposed (cf. Middleton, _Ancient Rome_,
Edinburgh, 1885, pp. 338–339) that the dome of the Pantheon is entirely
of concrete, and without thrusts. We have no means of knowing its
exact internal character, but there is reason to believe that it has
some sort of an embedded skeleton of ribs and arches, with concrete
filling the intervals. But if it were wholly of concrete, as Middleton
affirms, it would not be safe without abutment; for, even supposing
that a concrete vault may be entirely free from thrust in a state of
integrity, there is always a chance of ruptures arising from unequal
settlement, which might at once create powerful thrusts. However this
may be, the fact is that the builders of the Pantheon took care to
fortify it with enormous abutment, which would seem to show that they
did not consider it free from thrust.
[44] Michael Angelo’s model, on a large scale and finished in every
detail, is preserved in an apartment of St. Peter’s.
[45] Michael Angelo’s remark, quoted by Fontana (_Tempio
Vaticano_, vol. 2, p. 315): “Imitando l’antico del Pantheon, e
la moderna di Santa Maria del Fiore, corresse i difetti dell’uno, e
dell’altro,” shows that he regarded as a defect the lowness of the
Pantheon dome, which in point of construction is its capital merit,
and that what he proposed to correct in the dome of Florence was its
octagonal form, which is essential to its peculiar structural system.
[46] A consistent exterior for such a vault would not, of course, be
an unbroken drum, though a perfectly Gothic circular vault might be
thus enclosed within a drum. A consistent external form would require
salient buttresses against the lines of thrust, and the intervals
between these buttresses would be open, as in a Gothic apse.
[47] The outside of this vault is figured in my _Development and
Character of Gothic Architecture_, 2d edition. New York and London.
The Macmillan Co., 1900, p. 287.
[48] Cf. my _Development and Character of Gothic Architecture_, p.
70 _et seq._
[49] The turrets, built upon the supporting piers of the interior, give
the outside of the drum the aspect of a massive lantern.
[50] Cf. Poleni, _Memorie Istoriche delle Gran Cupola del Tempio
Vaticano, e de’ Danni di essa, e de’ Ristoramenti loro_ (Padua,
1768), p. 29.
[51] Milizia, _op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 325.
[52] _Parere di tre Mathematici sopra i danni che si sono trovato
nella cupola di S. Pietro sul fine dell’Anno MDCCXLII. Dato per Ordine
di nostro Signore Papa Benedetto XIV_, Rome, 1742.
[53] See Appendix.
[54] “Cominciato forsi poco dopo terminata la fabrica.” _Op.
cit._, p. 13.
[55] _Ibid._, p. 14.
[56] _Ibid._, p. 15.
[57] _Ibid._, p. 19.
[58] _Op. cit._, vol. 2, pp. 327–328.
[59] It is true that fissures in a properly constructed vault are not
necessarily alarming. Any vault may crack from unequal settlement of
the supports. Gothic vaults are sometimes slightly ruptured in this
way, but they are not thus endangered, because they are effectively
buttressed. But fissures in a dome without abutments may be a sign of
impending collapse.
[60] _Ibid._, pp. 328–329.
[61] _Ibid._, p. 388.
[62] _Op. cit._, p. 399.
[63] The principal work of Bramante’s immediate successors on the
fabric itself appears to have been to strengthen the great piers, which
seem to have been built too hastily, and on insecure foundations.
Poleni tells that in order to strengthen these foundations, well-holes
were dug under them and filled with solid masonry, and that arches were
sprung between these sunken piers, consolidating the whole. _Op.
cit._, p. 19.
[64] _Ibid._, p. 19.
[65] I call the end of the sanctuary “the east end” according to the
nomenclature of the usual orientation. St. Peter’s, as is well known,
does not conform to the general rule which has prevailed since the
fifth century.
[66] These vaults may have been begun by some of his predecessors.
It is impossible to make out how far the building had been actually
advanced by them.
[67] The colossal order of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek is so
unique in scale, and so little known, that it does not influence our
general notions of the size of a large classic order.
[68] As it actually does in the western part of the nave built by
Maderna.
[69] _Le Vite_, etc., vol. 7, p. 249.
[70] _Il Tempio Vaticano e sua Origine_, etc. Discritto dal Cav.
Carlo Fontana, Rome, 1694, vol. 2, p. 406.
[71] Letarouilly, _Edifices de Rome Moderne_, Paris, 1860, p. 350.
[72] Milizia, _op. cit._, vol. 1, p. 144, affirms that it is by
Bramante.
[73] Cf. Fontana, _op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 363.
[74] Bk. 3, p. 54.
[75] _Op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 240.
[76] _Op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 239.
[77] _Memorie_, etc., vol. 2, p. 36.
[78] _I Cinque Ordini d’Architettura._
[79] _Op. cit._, plate 32.
[80] Bk. 1, chap. 1.
[81] _Op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 30.
[82] The drawings are found in the addendum to the edition of 1617,
plates 7 and 8.
[83] Recent investigations, the results of which are set forth by
Signor Beltrami (_Il Pantheon_, Luca Beltrami, Milan, 1898),
have shown that the existing portico is of later date than either the
rotunda or the rectangular front against which it is set.
[84] “A l’intérieur, pourtourné de pilastres également Corinthiens,
deux parties de l’entablement qui n’ont pas leur raison d’être sous une
voute, c’est-à-dire la frise et la corniche, par un raffinement peu
habituel aux Italiens, ont été supprimées.” _L’Architecture de la
Renaissance_, par Leon Palustre, Paris, Quantin, p. 72.
[85] _Quatro libri dell’Architettura di Andrea Palladio_, Venice,
1581.
[86] _Le Vite_, etc., vol. 2, pp. 432–433.
[87] _Op. cit._, vol. 4, p. 444.
[88] _Op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 537.
[89] I believe I am correct in this. Photographs seem to show it
clearly, but I have not verified this point in the monuments themselves.
[90] _Op. cit_., vol. 1, p. 240.
[91] _Le Vite_, etc., vol. 2, p. 433.
[92] Cf. p. 144.
[93] These ornamental features usually have, however, in Gothic art
some real structural function.
[94] _Op. cit._, bk. 3, p. 53.
[95] _Milizia_, vol. 1, p. 346.
[96] _Milizia_, vol. 1, pp. 346–347.
[97] _Ibid_., p. 351.
[98] “Sansovino lo sciolse con allungar il fregio quanto bastasse per
supplire al difetto di quella porzione di metopa: ed il problema, e ’l
ripiego sono un’inezia.”
[99] _Memorie_, etc., vol. 2, p. 34.
[100] _I Quattro Libri dell’ Architettura_, bk. 3, p. 41.
[101] “Non dubito che questa fabrica non possa esser comparata à gli
edifici antichi e annoverata tra le maggiori, e le più belle fabriche
che siano state fatte da gli antichi in quà, si per la grandezza, e per
gli ornamenti suoi, come anco per la materia, che è tutta di pietra
viva durisima, e sono state tutte le pietre commesse e legate insieme
con somma diligenza.” _Op. cit._, bk. 3, p. 41.
[102] They were grammatical, not in the sense of using the classic
orders with correctness,--this, as we have seen, they did not do,--but
in the sense of arranging their architectural details, such as they
were, on a basis of grammatical order.
[103] Sir William Chambers, in his _Treatise on the Decorative Part
of Civil Architecture_, London, 1791, p. 121, referring to this form
of opening, says, “It is an invention of Scamozzi’s.”
[104] Cf. Casati, _I Capi d’Arte di Bramante da Urbino nel
Milanese_, Milan, 1870, p. 24 _et seq._ That the design of San
Satiro was made by Bramante, Casati gives the evidence of a document
printed in the year 1500 by the deputies of the church in which it
is said, “ ... _Come vi si diede principio dopo l’anno 1470 con
disegno del celebre Bramante_.” And he finds further confirmation of
Bramante’s authorship in a commentary on Vitruvius by Cesare Cesariano,
printed in Como in 1521, where this author states that the church
and sacristy of San Satiro were designed by his preceptor, Donato of
Urbino, called Bramante.
[105] Salient ribs of stucco are carried up in the angles of the dome
of the sacristy as they are in the vaulting of the apses of Todi.
[106] Cf. Casati, _op. cit._, p. 44.
[107] Cf., p. 134, the window sometimes called that of Scamozzi.
[108] _Op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 434.
[109] Melani, _Architettura Italiana_, vol. 2, p. 154.
[110] Cf. _Architettura Italiana_, by Alfredo Melani, Milan, 1887,
vol. 2, p. 157.
[111] Coin of Metapontum.
[112] Vitruvius, bk. 7, chap. 5, refers with disapproval to the
tasteless and meaningless monstrosities embodied in the ornamental art
of his time, and the remains of Roman reliefs offer many examples of
such design.
[113] The theory respecting the use of artificial elements in
architectural ornamentation developed by Ruskin in his well-known
chapter entitled, “The Lamp of Beauty,” in the _Seven Lamps of
Architecture_, is, I believe, entirely right in principle, though
the author is arbitrary in some of his conclusions and overemphatic in
some of his statements.
[114] The most authoritative French writers are misleading in affirming
that no radical departure from their best building traditions was
made by the French architects of the Renaissance. Thus Viollet le Duc
(Dict., vol. 3, _s. v._ _Château_, p. 174) says of these architects,
“Toujours fidèles a leurs anciens principes, ils ne sacrifièrent pas la
raison et le bon sens.” But while affirming this, these same writers
sometimes make admissions which so materially qualify the affirmation
as to deprive it of its truth; thus the same author, remarking on
the changes that were making in the character of the château, adds
(p. 185), “Nous accordons que la tentative était absurde; mais la
renaissance française est, à son début, dans les lettres, les sciences
ou les arts, pleine de ces hésitations.”
[115] Martin, _Hist. de France_, vol. 7, pp. 378–382.
[116] Cf. Viollet le Duc, _s. v._ _Château_, p. 190.
[117] I use Willis’s term, “continuous impost,” for an impost in which
the jambs pass into the arch without the interposition of a capital,
and without change of profiling.
[118] Du Cerceau’s plate (_Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de
France_, vol. 2, plate 4) is incorrect, like most of his other
plates, in giving the semicircular form to the openings of this façade.
[119] _Reigle Géneralle de Architecture_, etc., Paris, 1568.
[120] Said by Palustre, _L’Architecture de la Renaissance_, p.
176, to have been “servilement imité du temple de Jupiter Stator.”
[121] These lower arches are concealed from view on the external
façades by a basement wall.
[122] Adolphe Berty, _Les Grands Architectes Français de la
Renaissance_, Paris, 1860, p. 70.
[123] Milizia, _Memorie_, vol. 1, p. 404.
[124] Berty, _op. cit._, p. 71.
[125] _Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France_, plate 69.
[126] The lines of this poem which relate to Lescot are quoted by M.
Berty in _op. cit._, pp. 66–68.
[127] _Regole Generale di Architettura di Sebastiano Serlio._
[128] _Op. cit._, plate 2.
[129] Viollet le Duc, in his _Entretiens sur l’Architecture_, p.
362, says, “Philibert De l’Orme était peut-être l’artiste dont le goût
était le plus sûr, le sentiment le plus vrai, les principes les plus
sévères.” This estimate appears to me singularly short-sighted, but
it is in keeping with the artistic limitations of its gifted author,
whose great abilities did not, I think, include the finest powers of
artistic judgment. Viollet le Duc’s own architectural projects, as
illustrated in the _Entretiens_, are enough to show this. A truer
estimate is given by M. Berty, in his _Life of De l’Orme_, as
follows: “Ayant absolument rompu avec la tradition Gothique, toujours
plein du souvenir des monuments romains qu’il avait étudiés en Italie,
et qui constituaient pour lui la vraie architecture, De l’Orme, visant
sans cesse à la majesté, n’atteignit souvent que la lourdeur. D’un
autre côté, trop préoccupé de la recherche d’une beauté rationnelle
qu’il demandait plutôt au calcul qu’au sentiment, procédé pernicieux
qui égare à coup sûr, il ne peut éviter les bizarreries et même les
gaucheries dans ses conceptions.... C’est sur le terrain de la science
qu’il a vraiment dominé tous ses rivaux, en acquérant des droits
incontestables à la reconnaissance de la postérité.” (_Les Grands
Architectes Français_, etc., p. 36.) It was the scientific ability
of De l’Orme that Viollet le Duc could best appreciate, his own genius
being more scientific than artistic.
[130] _Le Premier Tome de l’Architecture_, etc., Paris, 1567.
[131] _Op. cit._, p. 156.
[132] The Tuileries was designed by De l’Orme for Catherine de Médicis.
[133] _Op. cit._, facing p. 240.
[134] Assuming that De l’Orme was born in the year 1515. Cf. Berty,
_op. cit._, p. 1.
[135] _Op. cit._, bk. 4, p. 26.
[136] Cf. my _Development and Character of Gothic Architecture_,
p. 304 _et seq._
[137] _Op. cit._, p. 155. The fanciful notion that the Ionic order
was designed after female proportions is derived from Vitruvius, bk. 3.
[138] The roof is not shown in Du Cerceau’s print.
[139] Viollet le Duc, I may say again, appears to me greatly to
overestimate De l’Orme’s artistic powers when he says, “Dans les
œuvres de Philibert De l’Orme on constate une étude attentive et
soigneuse des proportions, des rapports harmonieux qui semblent les
plus simples, mais qui cependent sont le résultat d’une connaissance
parfaite de son art et des moyens mis à sa disposition,” and when he
speaks of the Tuileries as follows: “C’était bien là une architecture
de palais grande et noble par ses masses, précieuse par ses détails.”
_Entretiens sur l’Architecture_, vol. 1, p. 363.
[140] _Op. cit._, bk. 8, chap. 9. The pages here are not numbered.
[141] It need hardly he said that such variety is very different
from that which results from an active inventive spirit, as where in
Gothic art some new constructive idea gives rise to change, or where
in sculptured ornamentation a teeming fancy finds expression in varied
forms.
[142] _Entretiens_, vol. 1, p. 374.
[143] But why should an architect wish to do any such thing? The fact
that he did so shows again the factitious and unreasonable character of
this Renaissance design.
[144] _Op. cit._, p. 375.
[145] _Essay on Building._
[146] These houses are figured by Mr. Gotch in his _Architecture of
the Renaissance in England_, plates 7, 12, 20, and 66.
[147] _The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and
Architects_, London, 1831, vol. 4, p. 85.
[148] _A History of Renaissance Architecture in England_, by
Reginald Bloomfield, M.A., London, 1897, vol. 1, p. 3.
[149] Almost nothing is known of John Thorpe beyond what may be
gathered from his numerous drawings preserved in the Soane Museum.
He was working during the latter part of the sixteenth century, and
appears to have been the original designer of some of the larger houses
of that time, the plans of which are contained in the Soane collection.
[150] These windows are said by Gotch, _op. cit._, vol. 1, p. 34,
to have been inserted by Inigo Jones. An attic over the central bay is
said to be also by him.
[151] Gotch, plate 33.
[152] Du Cerceau’s book was published in 1576, and Longford’s was begun
in 1580. It is not unlikely, therefore, that Thorpe had studied the
designs of Chambord and the Tuileries in the prints of this book.
[153] Gotch, plate 92.
[154] Gotch, plate 82.
[155] _Ibid._, plate 86.
[156] _Ibid._, plate 143.
[157] Vol. 2, p. 260.
[158] Cunningham’s _Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects_, vol. 4, p. 71.
[159] Cunningham, _op. cit._, p. 76.
[160] A work undertaken at the request of the king, in which Jones
reaches the astonishing conclusion that in Stonehenge we have the
remains of a Roman temple of the Tuscan order. Cf. Cunningham, p. 106
_et seq._
[161] Cunningham, _op. cit._, p. 115.
[162] Cunningham, _op. cit._, vol. 2, p. 266.
[163] _The Designs of Inigo Jones, consisting of Plans and Elevation
for Publick and Private Buildings_, by William Kent, London, 1727.
[164] Plates 1 to 52 inclusive.
[165] _Op. cit._, p. 265.
[166] _A History of Renaissance Architecture in England_, by
Reginald Bloomfield, London, 1897, vol. 1, p. 122.
[167] _Parentalia, or Memoir of the Family of the Wrens_, by
Christopher Wren, London, 1750, pp. 269–270.
[168] _Parentalia_, p. 142.
[169] _Parentalia_, pp. 261–262.
[170] Wren had been appointed surveyor-general and principal architect
of the city of London after the great fire.
[171] _Parentalia_, p. 335.
[172] _Ibid._, p. 273.
[173] _Ibid._, p. 277.
[174] _Parentalia_, p. 278.
[175] _Ibid._, p. 281.
[176] _Parentalia_, p. 283.
[177] W. J. Loftie, _Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren_,
London, Macmillan & Co., 1893, p. 196.
[178] _A Complete Body of Architecture_, by Isaac Ware, Esq.,
London, 1768.
[179] _Op. cit._, p. 131.
[180] _Lettera di Filippo Baldinucci intorno al modo di dar
Proporzione alle Figure in Pittura e Scultura_, Leghorn, first
published in 1802.
[181] _Op. cit._, p. 10.
[182] _Architettura Italiana_, Milan, 1887, vol. 2, p. 140.
[183] The letters in this description refer to those of the
illustration (Fig. 30) in the text.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Hyphenation has been rationalised. Inconsistent spelling (including
accents) has been retained.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
4. Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r. or
X^{xx}.
5. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
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