Historic Ornament, Vol. 1 (of 2) / Treatise on decorative art and architectural ornament

Many things tended to bring about the art of the Renaissance. The great impulse given to learning by the study of the writings of the Greek and Roman poets, lawyers, and philosophers, and the keen study of the rich legacy of art and architecture left by Greece and Rome, may be reckoned among the chief causes which led to the development during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of the Re-Birth or Renaissance both of literature and art.

Dante, and his successors Petrarch and Boccaccio, were called “Humanists,” for the reason that they studied and advocated the knowledge that was needful to man in his progress and in relation to his life in this world, and did not confine themselves wholly to theology, which was the case with those who devoted themselves to learning in the Middle Ages. This led to a wider spread of knowledge among the people, which was greatly stimulated by the invention of printing. The rulers of the people also encouraged learning and promoted the arts to an extent unknown before. In Florence, especially, under the powerful and beneficent rule of the Medici family, art and literature received every attention, and made rapid progress in every department of cultured knowledge and skilful handicraft.

Great artists like Niccola Pisano, Brunellesco, Donatello, Giotto, Alberti, and others of the early period, whose individuality and great personality did more than anything else to bring about the epoch and the art of the Renaissance, studied with evident purpose the existing remains of the art of Ancient Rome. In this they only followed the movement of the day in every branch of art and learning: all classes in every walk of life were then directing their footsteps to Rome in the pursuit of knowledge. About the year 1414 the discovery was made in the Monastery of St. Gall of the celebrated codex of Vitruvius, a work wherein the learned writer had set forth the principles of Roman architecture of the Augustan era. This work was reprinted later at Rome, and was very much used by architects as a guide for the better understanding of the Roman temples and other buildings. As the Gothic style in France, Germany, and in England was approaching its climax, the art of the Renaissance in Italy was developing, and the period of decadence in the former was contemporaneous with the finest period of the latter—towards the end of the fifteenth century. The transition, or early beginnings of the Renaissance, has been called the Trecento (1300) style, which in its ornamental features is characterised by a free use of conventional foliage, mixed with Saracenic or with Byzantine ornament, interlacings, and scroll work; in sculpture and painting by a closer study of nature and of antique remains, with an endeavour to shake off the former stiff Byzantine traditions; and in architecture by the use of the round arch and a revival of some other features of the classic orders. Niccola Pisano, Arnolfo di Lapo, Orcagna, and Giotto were some of its exponents.

The next division is known as the Quattrocento (1400), which is more properly the early form of the Renaissance. To this period belong the real founders of the style: Filippo Brunellesco (1377-1446), Lorenzo Ghiberti (1381-1455), and Donatello (1386-1468); the former more particularly in architecture, and the latter two in sculpture. The ornament of the Quattrocento period—the fifteenth century—is distinguished by its prominence of elaborate natural forms in festoons, scroll work, and other compositions; all the ornament was decoratively arranged more or less geometrically, but the details and actual working out were closely copied from nature. The bronze gates of the Baptistery of San Giovanni (1425-52) are the finest examples of the Quattrocento style, both as regards ornament and figure work. The modelled work in high relief of fruit, flowers, and foliage on these gates, and similar work on great medallions and altar-pieces of Luca della Robbia (1355-1430) is characteristic of this style. These natural forms, mixed with tracery ornamentation, acanthus foliage, treated in symmetrical arrangements, and occasionally cartouche or strap-work, were used in the Italian ornament of this period. The panel forms were usually Byzantine, but the rest of the ornament had no symbolic meaning. Besides Luca della Robbia, the name of Jacopo dell’ Quercia (1374-1438), the Sienese sculptor, may be mentioned as one who executed some of the finest work in figure and ornament in the above style.

The Cinquecento style (1500) was the culminatory effort of the Renaissance. It is the art of Italy in the sixteenth century, and is entirely devoid of symbolism in its ornament. Although the difference is great in the matter of style between the classic ornament of the Greeks and that of the Italian Cinquecento, yet in their aim and expression they are identical, for in both there is the same striving to reach the highest possible æsthetic ideal, the same delight in the production of beautiful lines and forms for their own sakes, and a similar expression of appropriate fitness—the outcome of a correct conformity to architectural principles—pervades the ornament of both styles.

Returning to the art of the early Renaissance, we have to mention two great names, already referred to—Giotto in painting, and Niccola Pisano in sculpture, who may be justly called the harbingers of the new era of Italian art. The latter was the first to go to the antique for his inspiration and style in sculpture. It appears—according to Vasari—that in Pisa there had been accumulated a great collection of antique sculpture—the spoils of war—and among them a sarcophagus, on which the "Hunt of Meleager and the Calydonian boar "was wrought with great skill, which was placed for ornament on the façade of the Cathedral: this and other antique remains in the city were studied to great advantage by Niccola, to the great improvement of his style. One fine work of his, executed in the spirit of the antique, was the pulpit for the Church of San Giovanni in Pisa, on which are great numbers of figures, representing the Universal Judgment. For the Cathedral of Siena he also executed a similar work with subjects from various passages in the life of Christ. On this pulpit he had the assistance of Arnolfo and Lapo, his pupils, and probably also that of his son Giovanni. These works proved the great turning-point in sculpture, from the archaic productions of the Middle Ages to an era of better things, although in execution they left much to be desired. Giotto was not only the great painter who first invested his works with poetry, feeling, and expression, but was also a skilful architect, as his fine Campanile, or bell-tower, in his native city of Florence bears witness. Dante and Petrarch were his friends, the former especially so; the portrait of Dante by Giotto still exists in the Chapel of the Podesta at Florence.

Brunellesco, as we learn from Vasari, was one of the most interesting of men, and one of the most capable artists of his time, a man of acute genius and ready resource. In the early Renaissance period architecture was studied by nearly all sculptors and painters, and many, as we have seen, were apprenticed in their youth as goldsmiths. Brunellesco was no exception to this rule, for we find that he was a clever goldsmith and worker in niello.

The greatest work of his life was the building of the cupola or dome of the Cathedral of Florence—he was the only architect of his day that was found able to do it. The Cathedral was the work of the Florentine architect, Arnolfo di Lapo, the foundations of which were laid in the year 1298. Brunellesco also built the sacristy and dome on the Church of San Lorenzo, which was decorated with sculpture by Donatello, and was the architect of the Pitti Palace, besides many other works. He gained his knowledge of the construction of domes in Rome, more particularly from that of the Pantheon, having drawn from and made models of the domes of all that was worth copying of the ancient remains at Rome, in company with his friend Donatello, the sculptor.

The latter, with Brunellesco, Ghiberti, and a few other sculptors, competed with their designs for the work of making the celebrated bronze doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni at Florence, when Ghiberti’s design was adjudged the best, and of which Michelangelo at a later period said, when speaking of the gates, that they were “fit to be the gates of Paradise.” Brunellesco’s design was good, was more restrained in character, and was more consistent with correct architectural principles than Ghiberti’s; but the latter’s design was so fresh and so vigorous, that in spite of its being too picturesque for sculpture it won universal admiration.

The next great name in architecture is that of Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), who naturally follows Brunellesco. His most complete work is the Rucellai Palace at Florence; he built and restored many churches, tombs, and palaces; was a great mathematician, and very learned in Latin, in which language he wrote poems, plays, and treatises on painting and architecture.

The Rucellai Palace is a very fine work of the Renaissance. It has the three orders of architecture in its pilasters, with their entablatures. The lower story has a small square window placed high from the ground between every two pilasters, and has two square-headed doorways. Between each pair of pilasters in the upper stories are round-headed windows, which have each a double light divided by a small column. The style of building is called “rusticated,” like so many of the Italian palaces (Fig. 408). This is a roughened form of stonework, and was copied from Roman buildings, which, together with the heavy cornices and symmetrical repetition of windows, gave these palaces a heavy and imposing look. Another palace of the Rucellai type is the Cancelleria at Rome, which was built by Bramante (1444-1514), a native of Castel-Durante, in Urbino, who also built St. Peter’s at Rome, and who was the greatest architect of the Renaissance, of whom Michelangelo testified “that Bramante was equal to any architect who has appeared from the time of the ancients to our own, can by no means be denied.” Michelangelo himself was the architect of the dome of St. Peter’s, and his sublime works in sculpture and fresco adorn the interior.

The Cancelleria Palace is a masterpiece of elegance and good proportion. It has two imposing doorways, and the plainness of its lower story contrasts agreeably with the upper two, which have rows of round-headed windows enclosed in flat or square-headed architraves, and are placed at agreeable distances above the entablatures of the lower stories. The two upper stories are divided alternately into wide and narrow divisions by pilasters, the windows being placed in the wide divisions. This building is a marked improvement in point of beauty on the Pitti and Rucellai palaces.

The Farnese Palace is another typical building of the Renaissance. The design of it is attributed to Antonio Picconi, who took the surname of San Gallo (148?-1546). It is built in three stories, without pilasters, with a widely projecting cornice, and has rather a monotonous look with its numerous windows of equal size. Michelangelo is said to have designed some of the windows and the cornice (Fig. 409), though some say that the architect Vignola was the designer of the cornice, The central doorway is “rusticated” and arched, and the angles of the building are of dressed stones.

The celebrated building known as the Certosa (Charter-house) of Pavia was begun by Borgognone in the year 1473, is an example of the most ornate phase of the Renaissance, and offers a widely-marked contrast to the almost bald simplicity of the palace just described (Fig. 410). As a whole, the façade of this building cannot be called a model of good architectural composition, but it is easier to criticise its faults in this respect than to suggest improvements. It contains, however, many striking elements of beauty, and is full of useful suggestions to the architect and decorative artist.

The plan and shell of Renaissance buildings were usually of the Romanesque or Gothic types; the dome, columns, and ornament generally were all borrowed from the Roman remains.

The column, round arch, and horizontal lintel or architrave feature were extensively used in the palaces and other buildings of Venice (Fig. 411), though the Renaissance style had a difficult task to make headway in Venice against the strong Byzantine and Gothic traditions that had hitherto prevailed.

The general type of the Venetian palaces is a solid panelled wall and pier arrangement or rusticated lower story, which supports a central loggia, or arcaded second story, that has circular-headed windows and heavy cornices and balconies. The whole façade is richly decorated with engaged columns and pilasters.

The Cornaro, now the Mocenigo Palace, the Grimani on the Grand Canal, now the Post Office, and the Spinelli Palace, are said to have originally been built from the designs of the great military architect, San Michele, of Verona (1484-15881484-1588), to whom the Signori of Venice owed so much as the designer of their fortifications.

Jacopo Sansovino, who built the Library of San Marco at Venice (Fig. 411); Palladio (1518-1580), the well-known writer on architecture; Scamozzi, and the Lombardi family, may be mentioned as other celebrated architects and ornamentists, who executed many works in Venice and in Verona, Florence, Padua, Vicenza, Rome and Milan, etc., during the sixteenth century. It was the tendency of the Renaissance period to build palaces and castles, and in the later times municipal and private dwellings, as learning and the arts were getting into the hands of the laymen, in contrast to the days of the Middle Ages, when the clergy and monks were the architects and master-builders: in those days hardly anything but churches had architectural pretensions; but the case was different in the Renaissance times, when the architects were not bound by the strict canonical laws of style; hence we find a greater variety and wider range of ideas expressed in the art of the period, due in a great measure to the individuality of the artists, which has given to the art of the Renaissance a different character in every country, district, or city to which it had spread.

The greatest Venetian architect of the seventeenth century, Longhena, flourished (1602-82) when the Renaissance had entered into its Baroque phase or period of decadence. He built many churches and palaces in Venice and in some other cities of Italy, but his greatest work is the celebrated Church of the Salutation—"Santa Maria della Salute"—in Venice, a picturesque building that has been painted and photographed more frequently than any other church in the world. With its domes and bell-towers, and its great buttresses decorated with figures that support the drum of the dome, it presents a striking object of picturesque beauty. This church and the Pesaro and Rezzonico palaces are exceedingly rich and ornate, but are overloaded with figures and decorative details—the Pesaro Palace especially—which is very characteristic of the florid work of the seventeenth century. Their magnificence of style reflects the palmy days of Venetian grandeur, and contrasts strongly with the simpler and better architecture of the early Renaissance period.

The influence of the Italian Renaissance spread to France in the days of Louis XII., and Francis I., the monarch who did so much for French art. Afterwards, in the reign of Henry II. and Catherine de’ Medici, who greatly favoured Italian art and artists, we find the Renaissance taking a deep root in France. Fra Giocondo was summoned to France from Italy by Louis XII., who reigned 1495 to 1515, and caused to be built the Château de Blois, and the Château de Gaillon in Normandy (1502-10) In these two buildings the native French Gothic received a grafting of the Italian forms. This was the case in France for a long time, as in that country the Gothic style was then in the full zenith of its Flamboyant period.

The Castle of Chambord is one of the finest examples, and a portion of the Château de Blois, by Viart, the architect of Francis I.

The early French Renaissance is quite different from the Italian, partly from the reasons we have stated, but it has a liveliness and exuberance that is full of inventive resource. The buildings are noted for their pointed roofs, and for their multitude of picturesque towers and pinnacles, and also rich carvings of a refined class of ornament.

The French Flamboyant Gothic and the Italian Decorative forms are happily blended in this style, to which the name of “François Premier” (I^er) has been given. This style was chiefly brought about by the employment of the Italian sculptors and architects, Serlio, Vignola, Primaticcio, Il Rosso, Cellini, and others who had been invited by Francis I. to build and decorate his châteaux and palaces. Primaticcio was also entrusted with the task of collecting a series of antique casts and copies of antiques from Rome for the gardens of the palace at Fontainebleau. This, no doubt, had the effect of helping to form the taste for classic art among French artists. Owing to all the above circumstances, French art began to show more of the influence of the Italian style. The Roman orders were henceforth invariably used, but still the new style was modified in a great measure to suit the French taste. What is known as the Henri Deux (Henry II.)(Henry II.) style is another French development of the Cinquecento, in which there is a preponderance of strap-work, with figures, masks, grotesques, cartouches of all kinds, and much of the conventional Saracenic ornament. The monogram of Henry II. and the arms of Catherine de’ Medici often appear in this ornament, as seen in the decorations of the Château d’Anet (1548) and on the Oiron or Henri Deux pottery.

Pierre Lescot (1510-1578) designed the western façade of the Louvre, in Paris, and Jean Buillant designed the oldest parts; these two architects and another, Philibert Delorme, brought the Renaissance to such a head in France that it became immediately the national style.

The great names in architectural sculpture of the early French Renaissance were Jean Goujon and Paul Ponce, who carved the principal figures of the façades of the Louvre. Towards the early part of the seventeenth century the architecture began to assume a more florid character, under the hands of Lepautre and Du Cerceau. It became richer, but less pure in style, an example of which is the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre, designed by Lepautre. By the time of the latter half of the seventeenth century the desire for show and the expression of magnificence, especially brought about by the “Grand Monarque,” Louis XIV., assisted by the efforts of his architects, Mansard, Perrault, Lemercier, and Blondel, who ministered to the whims of the powerful King, speedily laid the foundations for the loose and unrestrained Baroque or Rococo style which subsequently followed. The name of “Louis Quatorze” has been given to the style developed in the reign of this king. “Louis Quinze” and “Louis Seize” are names of subsequent French styles, which will be considered under the head of Renaissance Ornament.

The tame and spiritless palace of Versailles was designed by François Mansard, who invented the Mansard roofs which have been used together with this style for nearly all the palatial buildings of Europe. The purity of the Italian Renaissance was forgotten or ignored by the nations of Europe, and the stiff and pompous buildings of Louis XIV. were accepted as the patterns that all civilization was eager to copy. Even old churches and mediæval castles were transformed in some portions of their interiors into Louis XIV. imitations. In Windsor Castle the great ballroom has been vilely treated with the meaningless incrustations of this period, by the way of decorations, endeavouring, however, to make amends for its tasteless poverty of invention by the arrogant display of its rich covering of gold leaf.

In the late seventeenth and during the eighteenth centuries, the Rococo or Baroque phase of the Renaissance was in vogue in Italy and France, and indeed everywhere in Europe. The main characteristic of the Baroque style is the undue prominence given to the ornament and decoration, which arose from a gradual forgetfulness of the Roman and Greek principles of construction, and a want of order in the arrangement of the principal forms in the architecture. By degrees these forms took a secondary position: columns supported nothing or only a few mouldings, cornices and pediments were broken, brackets and consoles were inverted, mouldings ended in scrolls, hanging curtains were represented on stone carving, also wreaths of roses; pediments and gables had weak outlines of carved forms, shells and rock-work (rococo) ending in weedy scrolls, which doubtless was a Chinese inspiration, grafted on the prevailing style; in fact, the utmost license and riot in decoration seemed to be allowed, as it aimlessly sprawled over architecture, furniture, and interiors, until art had almost evaporated from the decorative productions of the age.

In spite of this, however, something must be said in favour of the Rococo: at the least it was homogeneous in its way; some of the figure work that forms part of the ornament is very fine, the finish and perfection also of the carved, painted, and gilt surfaces, from a technical point of view, leave usually nothing to be desired. The curved and broken character of the ornament is excellent for showing the play of light and shade on the gilded surface, and the effect of some interiors is very rich and brilliant; but when decoration takes the place of construction, however well executed it may be, it becomes more of an incrustation than a requirement.

Lorenzo Bernini (1589-1680) and Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) were Italian architects who chiefly brought about the Rococo in Italy. They treated the classical forms with extraordinary freedom. The column especially was degraded in its use. It sometimes supported only a few mouldings, and at other times was carried through two or three stories, when its proper function is to represent one story. One kind of architectural style a little later than this period was called the “Jesuit Style” (Fig. 412), in which churches of the Jesuit Order were built. On the vaulted ceilings of these churches a florid type of painting of sacred subjects was used as decoration.

In Spain the Renaissance, mixed with some Saracenic features, produced some very good work; the typical example of Spanish Renaissance is the Escurial, the great palace of the Spanish kings.

In Germany the Italian Renaissance made but a tardy advance, and was never thoroughly at home in that country. German Renaissance is far less refined than that of other countries which were influenced by the Italian style. It is chiefly in painting, furniture, book illustration, and in goldsmiths’ work that it appears at its best, and not in architecture. This was owing to the art of Germany being at that time in the hands of the burghers when the advent of the Renaissance took place, and also that the mass of the people were more concerned in the study of ethics and philosophy than the arts. Another reason may be added, that the nation was unsettled, and occupied with the great religious upheaval of the Reformation. All these things proved to be sufficient to retard the advancement of the Renaissance in Germany for more than a hundred years. One of the best examples of the Renaissance we can point to in Germany is the Castle of Heidelberg, built by the Elector Otto Heinrich (1556-1559). The two façades of this castle, which are now in ruins, have engaged columns and pilasters; the windows have rather heavy-headed features, and are richly carved; statues are placed in the niches between the windows. The portico of the Town Hall at Cologne is another example, and the Cloth Hall at Brunswick is a very interesting specimen of German Renaissance. It is deficient in proportion, however, by the extreme horizontality of its eight series of low stories in the principal façade, but is otherwise very picturesque.

The German Renaissance towards the later periods was characterised by its elaborate carving of ornament, figures, and animals in wood and stone; armorial bearings, escutcheons, shields, and cartouches or ornamental labels were very common in German work, and in most other forms of Renaissance ornament in Europe, except in the purest form of the Italian Cinquecento, when highly decorative vase forms and labels took the place of the shield and cartouche work of the Quattrocento period.

The Renaissance in England made its earliest appearance in the reign of Henry VIII. John of Padua was an Italian architect employed by that king. Hampton Court Palace in its earlier portions, built by Cardinal Wolsey in 1515, is Gothic, but it has been considerably added to since, and partly rebuilt in the time of William III. in a kind of Renaissance.

In the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I., the Elizabethan or English Renaissance and the Jacobean respectively were predominant. The latter style was developed by Dutch architects working in England on the Elizabethan models, and is distinguished by shield work and carvings in high relief, in opposition to the lower relief cartouche and strap-work of the Elizabethan style.

The Elizabethan Renaissance is more like German work than the French, but, of course, has its native peculiarities, developed from its mixture with the Tudor Gothic of the time. This mixture is seen in many of the old halls and mansions built about this time in England.England. Wollaton Hall is a fine example of the Elizabethan (Fig. 413), and Holland House, Kensington, is another fine mansion of the same style (Fig. 414).

These castellated buildings of the Elizabethan style, in red brick and stone dressings, are in singular and pleasant harmony with the grand parks and richly wooded English landscape with which they are usually surrounded.

Inigo Jones, in the early part of the seventeenth century, and Sir Christopher Wren, his successor, were the greatest names in architecture of the English Renaissance period. The former was a close follower of the Italian architect Palladio, and designed, usually, his buildings after the Roman models. The palace at Whitehall, the church and piazza in Covent Garden, and Crewe Hall in Cheshire were built from his designs.

The Cathedral of St. Paul’s is too well known to need description. It may be mentioned as the most important example of the late Renaissance in England. It was thirty-five years in building (1675-1710), and although some details and the ornament generally incline to the Baroque, the building as a whole is one of the finest and most impressive works ever produced in any country. Wren built a great many churches in London during the time that was occupied in the building of St. Paul’s, St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, being one of his finest. Chelsea Hospital, the Royal Exchange, together with some City Halls and twenty-five churches, were built from his designs or under his directions.

The architecture of the present day in France leans mostly to Renaissance traditions.

In Germany, Greek and Roman styles find favour, but Gothic and Renaissance, and sometimes Romanesque style of buildings are now erected.

In England about one hundred years ago there was a Greek revival, due in a great measure to the publication of Stuart and Revett’s works in connection with their close study of Grecian architectural remains. St. Pancras Church, in London, is one of the outcomes of this revival. Sir William Chambers was the architect of the beautiful riverside building—Somerset House, on the Thames Embankment (1725-1796); he also designed a great deal of furniture and the State carriage. He published important works on architecture and furniture, which had considerable influence on the design of the latter in England. In the first half of this century a Gothic revival took place, which was greatly brought about and assisted by the writings and architectural work of A. W. Pugin. The Houses of Parliament, built by Barry, are the finest examples of the Gothic revival in England. They are built in the Perpendicular or Tudor style. Sir Gilbert Scott was a late exponent of the modern Gothic style (1811-78), and was the architect of the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, St. Pancras Railway Station and Hotel, London, besides building and restoring many churches in the Gothic style.

The architecture of the present day in England tends to the Renaissance, with a slight mixture of Gothic and much that is original in the ornamental details, but Gothic is still a favourite style for churches.

Ornament of the Renaissance.

The ornament of the Renaissance period was founded on thethe Roman. Before describing the former it will be necessary to say a few words concerning its prototype, the Roman. More than anything else the great use of the acanthus foliage characterizes the ornamental art of the Romans. The treatment of the acanthus in Roman architecture has already been noticed in the first part of this work. A fine boldness and freedom was everywhere apparent in the Roman treatment of this foliage (Figs. 28 and 29).

Large scrolls of acanthus (see Fig. 319) in which birds, reptiles, and insects are arranged to fill the unoccupied spaces are used in pilasters, friezes, and panels.

Chimeras as whole or half figures with foliage endings, griffins, and large vases well decorated, were used as symmetrical arrangements in friezes.

The well-known acanthus scroll frieze from Trajan’s Forum is a very typical example of the soft-leaved acanthus. The rosette of the scroll, as in nearly all classic ornament, is made up from acanthus-leaves arranged in a radiating manner, like a flower (Fig. 415).

Some of the ornament on the antique Roman bronze and silver work is particularly beautiful and delicate, as may be seen on the silver wine crater found at Hildesheim in Hanover, which is one object of a collection found at that place in the year 1869. These and the treasures found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, together with the wall paintings at the same places, give us a good idea of Roman art in domestic decoration and the minor arts and crafts.

The Pompeian objects, chiefly in bronze (Fig. 417) and the wall paintings (Figs. 418-20) are as much Greek as Roman in style, as they are chiefly the work of Greek artists executed for the Romans.

The Baths of Titus and Diocletian and the palace of the Cæsars on the Palatine Hill, Rome, were decorated with grotesques similar to those of Pompeii, and were studied to great advantage by Raphael and his pupils and assistants when decorating the Loggia of the Vatican. Thin tendrils, festoons of fruit, animals, masks, all kinds of grotesque forms and birds flying and playing in and out of light scrolls, architectural constructions of a light and fantastic character, and panels of landscapes formed the subjects that were painted on the walls, which were often divided into friezes, panels, and dados. These decorations were executed in tempera colours of bright reds, greens, yellows, blues, and black. The antique grotesques, so called from being found on the walls of underground chambers, or “grottos,” together with the figure subjects taken from Greek gems, furnished Raphael and his celebrated pupils Giovanni da Udine (1487-1561) and Perino del Vaga (1500-47) with fanciful ideas for the decoration of the Loggia of the Vatican, and the Villa Madama, at Rome. These grottesches were painted in a kind of fresco or tempera on a white ground with a fairly bright variety of colouring. Some portions of the decorations were executed in stucco relief made of a composition of lime and marble dust, and were sometimes gilded. Giovanni da Udine, or Ricamatore, as he is also called, was especially celebrated at this stucco-work, and in the drawing of animals and birds. He, and another celebrated artist, Primaticco, assisted Raphael’s great pupil Giulio Romano (1492-1546) in a similar kind of decoration at the ducal palace of Mantua. The latter artist executed the principal figure work at Mantua, and also at the Villa Madama.

There is no lack of good examples of Italian ornament, especially in carved marble and wood, in the churches and palaces of Italy and France.

The Museum at South Kensington is rich in casts and in real examples of Italian ornament, has excellent copies of the Raphael pilasters and other examples of painted decorations. In addition to this the maiolica plates and vases furnish good examples of painted decoration of the Renaissance period.

It is only necessary here to illustrate and describe a few examples of the style, as they appear in architectural decoration, for under the heads of the various historic industrial arts many examples of Renaissance ornament will come under our notice in a succeeding volume.

Belonging to the ornament of the fifteenth century, or as it is called the “Quattrocento” (1400), we have a beautiful little pilaster (Fig. 421), designed by Donatello (1386-1438). The portion of the ornament of the architecture from Ghiberti’s bronze gates of the Baptistery of Florence (Fig. 422) shows the use of natural forms ornamentally arranged, which was one of the characteristics of the Quattrocento style; and the tabernacle (Fig. 423) shows the transition between the use of the natural forms and the more severe conventional ornament of the Cinquecento period. Luca della Robbia (1400-81) was one of the ablest masters of the Quattrocento, and Riccio, called Briosco, was also an artist of this period who was engaged on the decorative work of the ducal palace at Venice.

The Cinquecento (1500) is the name given to the style of the sixteenth century. So many brilliant names belong to this period that it becomes a difficulty to give in our space an adequate selection of this work. It was towards the end of the fifteenth century that many of the ancient monuments had been excavated; and the Italian artists from Michelangelo and his great contemporaries down to the artists of lesser powers, followed the strong inclination of the times in their deep study of the antique, and sought more and more to invest their creations with the spirit of ancient art. The lingering traditions of Byzantine forms that were in some degree a part of the Quattrocento style were now entirely excluded from the purer art of the Cinquecento, and anything that had a precedent for existence in the antique was copied or imitated in a modified manner, and improved upon in point of delicacy in the treatment.

Though the arabesques of Raphael and his pupils in the Loggia of the Vatican (1515) have been severely criticised as being full of coarse absurdities and designed with questionable taste, still, taking them as a whole, they were a decided improvement on the grosser absurdities of the Pompeian school of grotesque decoration, and they are certainly distinguished by good drawing and clever execution. Doubtless the later achievements in painted decoration at the Villa Madama and the ducal palace of Mantua had less incongruities of design and were more refined than the Vatican pilasters, but they lack the freshness, the boldness, and virility of the latter. It is not always a good argument, for instance, to say—which has often been said of the decoration in question—that a thick stem should be used to support heavy masses, for it can be said with equal truth that a thick stem may be painted to look like a weak vegetable flabby stalk—like that of a cabbage—and so have really a weaker appearance than one painted to represent the fibrous stem of a woody tree; and besides, if a thin stem supporting a heavy mass is vigorously drawn, it will look strong enough, and be useful also in giving the necessary amount of contrast that is wanted in decoration. Such a thing may be quite admissible in painted ornament that would be out of place in sculptured work or in architectural forms.

The Cinquecento artists were better craftsmen than the Romans. The design and delicacy of finish on some of the sculptured ornament of the sixteenth century have never been excelled in any period of the world’s art history. It is strange that many of our would-be teachers in design of the present day are not in sympathy with it; perhaps however, it is not to be wondered at, for they may have tried, and found how difficult it really is to get within measurable distance of its excellence. It is cheap and plausible to say that a style is dead with the people who created it; but this is not what the artists of the sixteenth century said, and we know what they produced out of a dead style. By all means let us have originality, if it is good art, but let us have the good art first.

In the Cinquecento ornament we find that a greater variety of plants, animals, and designed objects, such as vases, candelabra, and armour, were made use of than is generally found in antique ornament. The acanthus, vine, oak, and poppy foliage have all been simplified to a general type of acanthoid leafage (Fig. 425). Such animals as the lion, goat, and the dolphin fish form occur frequently, sometimes almost naturally, but more often with foliated endings (Figs. 425 and 426). Some compositions are made up entirely with well-chosen vase and candelabra forms (Fig. 427).

In the Cinquecento, the Greek guilloche pattern with rosettes is used, and an Italian rendering of the anthemion, and also of the Greek honeysuckle band pattern (Fig. 428).

The Lombardi family of Venice were celebrated as sculptors in ornament. Pietro the elder (1481) was the architect of Dante’s tomb in San Francesco at Ravenna, but his greatest work was the Church of Santa Maria de’ Miracoli at Venice, in which he was assisted by his sons Tullio and Antonio in the sculptured decorations. Tullio was the most gifted as a sculptor, and his ornament is the best of the Cinquecento period at Venice (Fig. 429).

Martino Lombardo was the architect of the Scuda di San Marco at Venice, in the decorations of which he was aided by Tullio. Some of the best specimens of the ornament of this period are to be found on the Martinengo tomb, in the Church of the Corpo di Cristo (1530). The ornament bears a strong resemblance to the Lombardi, but the sculptor is not known (Fig. 426).

The ceilings from Serlio’s book of architecture, and from San Spirito, by Sansovino, are good examples of the Renaissance panelling and decorative filling (Figs. 431 and 432).