How to Study Architecture

The decline of taste may have been hastened by the fact that Renaissance architecture involved no new principles of construction. It was essentially a product of adaptation, and with less consideration for structural problems than for external appearances. There was a change in the status of the architect: he ceased to be pre-eminently the master-builder; he became a designer, specifically interested in what one may perhaps call, the pictorial aspects of his building. He was occupied with the composition of his façade, as a painter is with the composition of his picture. He designed it on paper, as an organised arrangement of lines, masses, details, and patterning of light and shade. The days of working out the structural problems in the course of construction and of employing the co-operation of skilled craftsmen, to create the details of decoration had ceased with the passing of the mason-gilds. In their place were workmen, who followed implicitly the drawings of the designer.

And the latter, as was characteristic of the time, had become an individualist, stamping his design with the impress of his own personality. It was revealed not only in the larger elements of the composition but also in the exquisiteness of detailed decorations. Nor was the actual creativeness, involved in this tireless pursuit of the refinements of beauty, confined to the externals of buildings; it was expended with prolific invention on the interior fittings. Thus, churches and palaces alike became museums, enshrining endless objects of beautiful craftsmanship in metal-work, marble, terra-cotta, ivory, and textiles, as well as the mural decorations of the painter.

Museums, however, it is to be noted, which were not, as in our own day, huge storehouses of objects, separated from their original environment and use, but treasure houses of beautiful things that formed part of the habitual life of the people, palaces for those of high degree, churches and town halls for all classes of the community. We cannot enter into the spirit of the Renaissance unless we realise that to all classes of the Italians of the period beauty was a familiar and living element in their lives.

Classic Influences.—The influence of the classic remains began to be apparent in the sculpture of Nicolas Pisano, who died in 1278. It continued in the work of his son and became more marked in that of the latter’s pupil, Andrea Pisano. There are distinct traces of it in Giotto’s painting, especially in the details of the buildings, which are evidently rude imitations of Roman antiquities. That they are rude is fortunate, a proof that imitation of the past was not Giotto’s chief concern. Indeed, the vital thing in Giotto, which made him the leader of a new school of painting, was his effort to bring the arts into closer touch with human nature. It was his pursuit of natural representation and expression which caused him to be a leader in an age that was rediscovering an enthusiasm for human nature; and in this respect he set the main course for the whole of the fifteenth century. The trend of Quattrocento painting and sculpture was to relearn the principles of correct drawing and perspective and to use the growing knowledge and skill for the expression of subjects that, while they were suggested both by the Christian religion and the classic mythology, were informed with the naïve freshness and independence of the expanding Italian spirit.

A corresponding freedom from subservience to antique forms and a truly creative adaptiveness characterised the architecture of the period. It was during the Quattrocento that what is most original in Renaissance architecture was achieved, and the old methods of construction and old details of decoration were successfully applied to the new problems imposed by changed conditions of living and habits of thought. It is by the actual creativeness with which the readjustment was accomplished, as well as by the discretion and refinement of taste, exhibited in the whole and every part of the design, that the architecture of this period is distinguished.

The qualities which it exhibits are a direct reflection of the influence of the classic literary revival. The latter encouraged mental qualities of logic and orderliness and an appreciation for beauty that was characterised by precise taste and exacting refinement. And, just as Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Ariosto on their foundation of classic learning built the beginnings of a literature in the native tongue—the first natural expression of the Italian genius, liberated by the study of antiquity to new ideals of their own modern life—so it was with the artists. Having graduated from the school of the past, they applied what they had learned to meeting the needs and conditions of their own day.

Perfection of Detail.—Again, just as Petrarch and Boccaccio and their followers in literature devoted themselves to perfection of expression, so the architects of the Renaissance were distinguished by the exquisiteness of the details they introduced into their designs. They were, in the first analysis, individualists, so that the great ones—and they were numerous—created individual styles. But, further, they brought the keenness of their Italian intellect and the consummate refinement of their taste to the disposition and actual execution of the details. It has been said—and one may believe the truth of it—that “the layman is not capable of appreciating the refinements and the clearness of their mouldings, and the vigour and strength their virile natures put into their silhouettes.”

Individualism being the characteristic of the Italian architects of the Renaissance, we will enumerate the most important personalities.

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECTS OF THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL

Brunelleschi.—Among the first of these deliberate students of antiquity was the architect Brunelleschi. He was born in Florence in 1379 and displayed early a talent for mechanical construction. Accordingly his father apprenticed him to the Gild of Goldsmiths. He quickly became a skilled workman and acquired a knowledge of sculpture, perspective, and geometry. During a visit of some five years to Rome, the chief repository of classic remains, he made a profound study of architectural construction, especially as illustrated in the dome of the Pantheon, the vaulted chambers of the baths, and the use of successive orders of columns in the exterior of the Colosseum.

Returning to Florence, he entered into deliberation with the city council to erect the Dome of the Cathedral. It crowns, like his Milan cathedral dome, an octagonal plan. A design for it, which is pictured in a fresco in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, had already been prepared by Arnolfo di Cambio, the first architect of the cathedral and the designer of the Palazzo Vecchio. Brunelleschi deviated from it by raising the dome upon an octagonal drum, pierced with circular windows, thereby securing the impressiveness of additional height, while preserving the lightness of effect. He undertook to erect the dome without the great expense of timber centerings, and accomplished the feat, it is said, by placing voussoirs one above another with horizontal joints.

The dome is composed of an inner and an outer shell of brickwork, reinforced by eight main and eight intermediate ribs. It is 138 feet wide, with a height from the spring of the drum to the eye of the dome of 135 feet. The lantern was added after Brunelleschi’s death, from the design he had prepared. This dome is not only a monument to the genius of its creator, but scarcely rivalled in beauty by any other work of the Renaissance. That of St. Peter’s may be a prouder and more imposing structure, but it is more sophisticated in its use of classic details lacking the grand simplicity of Brunelleschi’s—the natural nobility, if one may say so, of a thing that has grown to life. It may be less stately, but is more companionable; less imposing, but more intimately inspiring. The contrast between the two domes reveals in a remarkable way the difference between the dawn of the Renaissance and its high noon.

Brunelleschi’s churches in Florence include S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito, both of which are on a basilican plan, with elevations that involve modifications of Roman construction. The former is barrel vaulted in the Roman manner, but the nave ceiling of S. Spirito is of wood and flat. The dome of the latter is erected upon pendentives which henceforth were employed on all Renaissance domes. Brunelleschi’s choicest ecclesiastical design, however, is the Pazzi Chapel in S. Croce—a dome over a square compartment, entered through a colonnade. He introduced columned arcades into cloisters and palace courts and used them also as features of the arcade in the Loggia S. Paolo and the Ospedale degli Innocente or Foundling Hospital.

The two lower stories of the main front of the Pitti Palace were designed by Brunelleschi, who also carved the fine crucifix in the Santa Maria Novella. He died in 1446 and was buried in the Cathedral of Florence.

Michelozzo.—Michelozzo, born in Florence in 1391, was the son of a tailor and became a pupil of Donatello. He worked in marble, bronze, and silver, one of the examples of his sculpture being the young S. John over the door of the cathedral. As an architect he enjoyed the friendship and patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, for whom he built the Riccardi Palace, which was the earliest example of stately domestic architecture in Florence and proved a model for subsequent Tuscan palaces. During a temporary exile of his patron he accompanied him to Venice, where he designed the Library of San Giorgio. When in 1437 Cosimo bestowed the Monastery of San Marco on the Dominican monks of Fiesole, Michelozzo was employed to remodel it, erecting, among other features, the beautiful arcaded cloisters, which no doubt inspired the architectural details in Fra Angelico’s picture of “The Annunciation.” At his death, which appears to have occurred in 1472, he was buried in San Marco.

Alberti.—Even in a higher degree than the two already mentioned, Alberti represented the versatility of the Renaissance, for besides being an architect he was also a painter, poet, philosopher, and musician. He was born in Venice in 1404 and at the age of twenty wrote a comedy in Latin verse, which in later years the publisher, Aldus Manutius II, printed under the impression that it was a genuine classic work. Alberti was appointed to a canonry in the Cathedral of Florence and there established a reputation for being the finest organist of his time. He wrote works on sculpture and painting but is most celebrated for his treatise on architecture, “De Re Ædificatoria,” which has been translated from the Latin into Italian, French, Spanish, and English. He was employed in Rome by Pope Nicholas V to restore the papal palace. At Rimini he was commissioned by Sigismondo Malatesta to remodel the Church of S. Francisco.

Its design, of which only the lower part of the façade was erected, was based on the Roman arch in Rimini, and along the south side Alberti constructed vaults to receive the bodies of his patron’s friends. Both these elements of design were introduced into his church of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua. Here the place of the side aisles is taken by successive chapels, separated by massive piers, which sustain the barrel vault of the nave. The piers are faced by coupled Corinthian pilasters, mounted upon pedestals. The intersection of nave and transepts is crowned by a dome, which was replaced by the present one in the eighteenth century. The façade of this church also is based upon the character of a triumphal arch, and Sant’ Andrea became a type that was followed in many subsequent churches. In Florence Alberti designed the marble-encrusted façade of S. Maria Novella, in which he connected the side aisles to the nave by means of flaring consoles, a device that was unfortunately imitated in later churches. He died in Rome in 1472.

Cronaca.—Cronaca is to be mentioned as the architect of the Strozzi and Guardagni Palaces.

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECTS OF THE ROMAN SCHOOL

The Renaissance of the Fine Arts in Rome may be dated from the pontficate of Nicholas V (1447-1455), who vied with the Medici as a patron of scholars and artists. Alberti—we have noted—was employed by him, for as yet there was no Roman architect approaching the talent of the Florentine. And the dearth continued until the accession of Julius II in 1503, by which time Bramante had arrived in Rome and there began the golden period of Roman architecture, identified particularly with him and Raphael and Michelangelo.

Bramante.—Bramante was born in Urbino about 1444 and as a young man studied painting as well as architecture, the latter presumably under Alberti. He travelled through Umbria and Lombardy, studying Roman antiquities and obtaining various commissions, and passed some years in Milan, where his work included the enlargement of the abbey church of S. Maria della Grazie, to which he added a choir, transepts, and dome, in a style that represents the transition between the Gothic and Classic. Then, settling in Rome, he was commissioned by Pope Alexander VI to erect the Cancellaria Palace, and shortly afterwards prepared designs for the Palazzo Giraud. In both of these the Classic tendency is developed. It is even more pronounced in the beautiful little church of S. Pietro in Montorio. Founded on the design of a small Roman circular temple, it consists of a circle the interior diameter of which is only fifteen feet, crowned by a dome and surrounded with a peristyle of columns of the Doric order.

By the advice of Michelangelo Julius II entrusted Bramante with the design of the new S. Peter’s, which the Pope intended as a mausoleum for his own tomb. The work, which will be discussed later, was interrupted by Bramante’s death, which occurred in 1514.

Raphael.—The continuation of S. Peter’s was officially assigned to Bramante’s nephew and pupil, Raphael (1483-1520), who, however, under the pressure of other engagements, did little to advance the work. Raphael’s architectural designs in Rome include the Façade of S. Lorenzo in Miranda, the Villa Madama with stucco decorations by his pupil Giulio Romano, and the Pandolfini Palace, which was erected ten years after his death.

Giulio Romano.—Giulio Romano (1492-1546) was the architect of buildings in Mantua, his masterpiece being the Palazzo del Te’, at Mantua.

Meanwhile, Bramante’s other pupils were Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536), and Antonio da Sangallo (1485-1546).

Peruzzi.—Peruzzi passed his early life in Siena, but while quite young moved to Rome and studied architecture and painting. His reputation was established when he built for the Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi, a villa on the banks of the Tiber, which is now known as the Farnesina, a design remarkable for its grace and the delicacy of its details. The interior is famous for the frescoes, representing the myths of Psyche and Galatea, executed by Raphael and his pupils, while Peruzzi himself decorated a loggia with frescoes of the story of Medusa.

He was appointed architect of S. Peter’s, though his design for its completion was never carried out. During the sack of Rome in 1527 by the troops of the Constable Bourbon, Peruzzi fled to Siena, where he was elected city architect, and, as the city was preparing to resist attack, planned the fortifications which still in part exist. Returning to Rome, he designed several villas, of which the most important is the Massimi Palace. It is significant of the esteem in which Peruzzi was held by his contemporaries that at his death in 1536 he was buried by the side of Raphael in the Pantheon.

Ant. da Sangallo.—Antonio da Sangallo the Younger was one of the five members of a Florentine family, distinguished variously in architecture, engineering, sculpture, and painting. Coming to Rome when very young he became a pupil of Bramante, whose style he closely followed. Among his most notable works are the church of S. Maria di Loreto, near Trajan’s Column, and the Farnese Palace. The latter, completed by Michelangelo by the addition of a grand cornice, is regarded by some experts as the finest example of a Roman palace.

Vignola.—Distinguished among the upholders of the purity of the Classic style was Giacomo Barocchio or Barozzi, better known as Vignola, from the name of the place in which he was born, in 1507. After practising for some time in Bologna, Piacenza, Assisi, and Perugia, he was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius III, and built the villa Pope Julius, which is now the Etruscan Museum. But the principal example of his style is the Palace of Caprarola, erected some thirty miles from Rome for the Pope’s nephew, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. It has a pentagonal plan enclosing a circular court. Above the ground story the façades consist of two stories, which have rusticated quoins at the angles and are composed of an order of Ionic, superimposed upon Doric. Situated on a craggy projection, overlooking the little town of Caprarola and commanding wide vistas that reach to the Volscian Hills and the Apennines, with the dome of St. Peter’s in the middle distance, this palace is embellished with beautiful gardens, the whole representing one of the most magnificent palace-villas of the Renaissance.

Vignola was one of the artists invited to Fontainebleau by Francis I. After the death of Michelangelo he was appointed architect of S. Peter’s and erected the cupolas. He also furnished the design of Il Gesu, the Jesuit church in Rome, which was one of many erected along the lines of S. Peter’s. His fame further rests on his writings, which include “The Five Orders of Architecture” and a work on perspective. He died in 1573.

Michelangelo.—At this date Michelangelo had been dead nine years, but it is convenient to consider him as the last great architect of the Roman School, for he introduced new elements of design, which in the hands of smaller men contributed to the decadence of the Renaissance style. Architecture played a relatively small part in his titanic and tempestuous career, which through the political confusion of the times and changes of popes, oscillated between Florence and Rome. In the former city he designed, as additions to Brunelleschi’s Medici church of S. Lorenzo, the Laurentian Library and the New Sacristy or Mausoleum which contains the tombs of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino.

In Rome, as early as 1505, Julius II had entrusted Michelangelo with the commission of erecting his tomb. The ambition of the patron and the imagination of the artist united in a project so colossal that S. Peter’s was to be rebuilt to serve as a mausoleum for it. Unfortunately for Michelangelo and perhaps for art, the death of Julius interfered with the project. His heirs desired a less expensive monument and succeeding popes were interested only in the rebuilding of S. Peter’s. After forty years all that had been accomplished of the tomb were the statues of Moses and the “Bound Captives.” “My youth has been lost,” cried the sore-afflicted artist, “bound hand and foot to this tomb.”

Even in the lifetime of Julius the planning of S. Peter’s had been taken from Michelangelo and given to Bramante, and it was not until his seventy-second year that Michelangelo was called in to supervise the work. He adhered to Bramante’s plan and added the supreme feature of the dome, which was completed after his death. Meanwhile, he finished, as we have noted, the Farnese Palace and remodelled the Palaces of the Capitol, the latter being his most characteristic work in architecture.

For in the novel design of these he introduced the so-called “one-order” treatment, abandoning the horizontal lines that mark the stories and carrying up through them a colossal order of pilasters. The effect lends grandeur and unity to the design, but at the expense of a violation of the principle of fitting the character of the exterior to the constructive character of the interior. It was a sacrifice of parts to the whole such as Michelangelo employed in sculpture and by his genius justified. When, however, his example was followed by others who had not his genius, it led to the degradation of style of the Baroque that alike in sculpture and architecture resulted in pretentiousness and extravagance.

The gradual decline from the purity of the Classic style to the showy and meretricious magnificence of the so-called “Baroque” period, was encouraged by the wealthy order of the Jesuits. It was characterised by a growing lack of architectural propriety, an increasing use of heavy and ill-applied ornament, and a general tendency to profusion of details for the sake of display—seen in broken and distorted pediments, huge scrolls, sham marble, excessive gilding, and a general riot of sculpture, often hysterical in its excess of emotional expression. The chief promoters of this decadence were Carlo Maderna (1556-1629), and Borromini (1599-1667), although the latter was an architect, capable also of finer achievement, as is proved by his colonnade enclosing the Piazza of S. Peter’s.

Palladio.—In some degree a contributor to this decadence, through the misuse of his example by others, was Andrea Palladio (1518-1580), a native of Vicenza, where his most characteristic work is to be seen. In youth he studied the writings of the Roman author, Vitruvius, and of Alberti, and familiarised himself with the classic style by study in Rome. His own work, “The Four Books of Architecture,” which contains measured drawings of antique buildings many of which have since disappeared, had a wide and great influence upon architectural development throughout Europe. In England, for example, it was translated and furnished with notes by Inigo Jones, whose own style was largely based on Palladio’s.

The latter’s work is chiefly associated with Vicenza, where his most important example, considered also his best, is seen in the double-storied arcades, added to the Mediæval Basilica. In the lower story he introduced the Doric order; in the upper, the Ionic; and, in both instances, supported the arches on small columns, while large engaged columns, acting as buttresses, occupy the centre of the spaces between the arches. This treatment has been known since as the Palladian motive. These imposing and beautiful arcades were executed in fine stone, whereas through no fault, it is believed, of the architect, his palaces in Vicenza are mostly of brick, with stucco front that has suffered from decay. They include the Palazzo Capitania and the Palazzo Barbarano, and the Villa Rotonda which was freely imitated by the English amateur architect, Lord Burlington (1695-1753) in his villa at Chiswick on the Thames. Palladio’s design of the Villa Rotonda is a square building fronted on all four sides by a portico, surmounted by a pediment, the roofing of the square sloping up to a low dome which crowns the central rotunda. At the end of his life he designed the Teatro Olympico of Vicenza, which was completed after his death by Scamozzi. In this he followed the directions of Vitruvius, but introduced features of his own, among which is the interesting one of an architectural background to the stage, built in perspective. Palladio executed work also in Venice, the churches of Il Redentore and S. Giorgio Maggiore being from his design, though the façade of the latter was by Scamozzi.

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECTS OF THE VENETIAN RENAISSANCE.

The Venetians had developed a beautiful type of Gothic, touched, through their relations with the East, by Byzantine influence. It was admirably suited to the social requirements and taste of a community of merchant princes and wealthy middle-class, comparatively removed by geographical position from the confusion of the times. For the wars of Venice, conducted on foreign soil, left her unscathed, and during the fifteenth century she reached the zenith of her commercial glory. But the decline set in, when her trade with the Levant was blocked by the Turkish occupation of Constantinople in 1453, and it was confirmed by the passing of her Eastern commerce to the Portuguese, following Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the Cape of Good Hope route to India (1497-1503). But during the sixteenth century, though menaced both by the Emperor Charles V and the French king, Francis I, and engaged in almost perpetual struggle with the Turks, Venice maintained a splendid isolation and reached the height of her artistic development.

The gradual modification of the Gothic style was effected by the introduction of Classic features, especially at first of a decorative character. One of the earliest examples of this transition is the fine Portal of the Doge’s Palace, adjoining S. Marco, which was erected by Giovanni and Bartolommeo Buon, who share with the Lombardi the chief place in the early Venetian Renaissance.

The Lombardi.—This celebrated family of architects became known in the person of a certain Martino who had two sons, Moro and Pietro (1435-1515), and two grandsons by the latter, Antonio and Tullio. To Martino belongs the façade of S. Zaccaria, the design of which was developed in Pietro’s treatment of the beautiful little church of S. Maria dei Miracoli. Its plan is an oblong, terminating in a square chancel which is elevated considerably above the nave and is crowned by a dome. The façade is decorated with two stories of engaged columns, dividing the surface into panels which are encrusted with coloured marbles, while the whole is surmounted by a semicircular pediment. The carved details are of exquisite refinement. This choiceness of decorative treatment reappears in the façade of the Scuolo de S. Marco, which was also by Pietro, who further proved himself to be the most accomplished member of the Lombardi by his façade of the Vendramini Palace.

Sansovino.—The full development of the Renaissance style in Venice is chiefly associated with Jacopo Sansovino (1477-1570). A pupil of the Florentine sculptor, Andrea Sansovino, from whom he took his name, he was at first employed by Julius II to restore antique statues and also to make the bronze reproduction of the Laocoön group, which is now in the Uffizi. After working in Florence and again in Rome, from which city he fled when it was sacked by the Germans, Sansovino reached Venice in 1527 and was welcomed by Titian and Pietro Aretino. Here from time to time he still produced indifferent sculpture, but became distinguished as an architect, his most important works being the Library of S. Marco, the Zecca or Mint, the Cornaro Palace, and the Church of S. Giorgio del Greci—the last-named, erected by the Greek residents, being a remarkable evidence of the tolerant spirit of the Venetians in the matter of religion. In 1545 the roof of Sansovino’s library collapsed and he was fined, imprisoned, and deprived of his office of chief architect of S. Marco. He was, however, reinstated through the intercession of Titian, Aretino, and other powerful friends and in the course of his duties reinforced the domes with bands of iron.

The free invention with which Sansovino used the Classic orders and the vigour and richness of his façades set the fashion for a sumptuousness of style that in his hands had an imposing magnificence, but in his followers degenerated into excess.

Sammichele.—Since Michele Sammichele (1484-1559) designed the Gvimane Palace in Venice, considered his masterpiece, and was also employed by the Signoria to construct the fortifications of the Lido, he may be mentioned here, but his chief work is associated with Verona. Born near the latter city, in the village of San Michele, the son of an architect, he was sent as a youth to Rome to study Classic sculpture and architecture. Among his earliest works is the uncompleted Cathedral of Montefiascone. His fame as a military architect was established when he remodelled the fortifications of Verona, introducing the new system of corner bastions and giving grandeur to the gateways by the use of rusticated masonry—a feature which he used effectively in his palace designs. The finest of these in his native city are the Canossa, Bevilacqua, and Pompeii Palaces. He wrote a work on “The Five Orders of Architecture.”

Scamozzi.—Scamozzi has already been mentioned as adding the façade to Palladio’s Church of S. Giorgio Maggiore. That his name disappears from Venetian architecture is due to the fact that he was one of the Italian artists who carried the Renaissance into Bohemia, and designed parts of the Hradschin palace in Prague.

Longhena.—One exception to the excessive mannerism of the Baroque, which characterised the Venetian style of the seventeenth century, is found in the designs of Baldassare Longhena. These include the palaces Pesaro and Rezzonico and the church of S. Maria della Salute. The palaces are overcharged with ornament, especially with sculptured figures, yet as a whole they are dignified, with the imposing character due to bold, rich contrasts of light and shade that recall the example of Sansovino. S. Maria is built on the plan of a Greek cross, with a central dome, rising above an octagonal drum that is supported by curving buttresses. A secondary dome surmounts the chancel, while adjoining it is a campanile. Situated at the entrance to the Grand Canal, the whole mass, especially when viewed from a distance that reduces the disturbance of the statue-ornaments, presents a mingling of picturesqueness and stateliness that makes it one of the most beautiful features of the city.

To the latter part of the sixteenth century belong a number of imposing palaces, erected in Genoa by the commercial princes, many of which were designed by Galeazzo Alessi (1502-1572). They include the Balbi, Brignole, Durazzo, Doria-Tursi, and Pallavacini.

CHAPTER III

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY—CONTINUED

This being the case, they should be judged accordingly. To estimate their work by the test of constructive logic is arbitrary and unfair. They should be judged by what they started out to accomplish; by the character and quality of their designs.

In a word, as it may appear, these advocates would have us apply a pictorial test; such a one, for example, as may serve in the case of the great picture, “Marriage in Cana of Galilee,” by Paolo Veronese. We do not trouble to consider the appropriateness of the architectural setting, still less to explain the functions of its several parts; we accept it without qualification as contributing to a monumental design.

Very possibly this actually represents the main attitude of the Italian Renaissance artists toward architecture. They thought of it in its pictorial aspect and practised it primarily as an art of design. With them began the modern habit of conceiving a building primarily as a design on paper. It is an effect of what we have already mentioned—the separation of builder and designer that characterised the Italian Renaissance.

Accordingly, while the following comparisons are based upon the principles that we have been adopting throughout this book, the reader should bear in mind the exception that has been taken to this method of judgment.

Palazzo Vecchio—Riccardi Palace.—A good idea of the transition from the Gothic to the Early Renaissance in Florentine Architecture may be gained from a comparison of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Riccardi Palace. The former was built by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1298, as the Municipal Palace of the Podesta and Signoria. The Riccardi was erected in 1430 by Michelozzo for Cosimo I de’ Medici. While the Republic still survived as a name, he had usurped the actual power and occupied the Palazzo Vecchio until the completion of his own mansion, which was thenceforth to be the centre not only of the Medicean domination but also of its courtly splendour and liberal patronage of literature and art.

Each edifice presents to the outside world a cubical mass, while the interior includes a cortile or open court. But the Vecchio is the severer in design, as befits Republican simplicity; it still has something of the character of a mediæval fortress, due largely to the heavy battlemented cornice that projects on massive corbels, with machicolations or openings in the floor of the gallery, from which defenders might drop missiles on an attacking force. A similar feature surmounted the original tower (for the present superstructure was added later)—a tower that was an additional source of defence as well as a lookout for the detection of fires or other local disturbances. It still served these purposes under the despotism of Cosimo; so that no tower was needed for his house. Meanwhile, he and his successors had ever to be on the watch against sudden alarms, so that it was admissible to preserve somewhat of the fortress character—massive masonry, with door and window openings, that might not be difficult to defend. On the other hand, it would be impolitic either to make the purpose of protection too apparent or to excite hostility by too lavish an appearance of grandeur on the exterior. Moderation must be the keynote of the design, and the facilities of luxurious living should be confined to the interior.

The result is a modification of the Palazzo Vecchio design by the introduction of classic details. A classic cornice replaces the machicolated; round arches supplant the pointed arches, the windows of the upper stories, in place of trefoils, have round-top lights, separated by a circular column. They are technically known as of the arcade type, while the windows of the ground floor are changed to rectangular shapes and are of the architrave type, that is to say set in moulded frames, which are supported on consoles and surmounted by classic pediments. Moreover in all these details, attention has been paid to refinements of modelling; there is a choicer feeling of proportion in the adjustment of the openings to the solid wall spaces while the divisions of the stories have been distinguished by projecting string courses and in such a way as to mark the importance of the second story or piano nobile. A superior refinement and logic of arrangement have regulated the whole design. The building, in fact, reflects the changed social conditions and the new mental and æsthetic attitude toward life produced by the study of classic literature and works of art.

Ca d’Oro—Vendramini.—Now if we shift our glance to Venice and compare the façades of the Ca d’Oro and Vendramini Palaces, we discover a great difference between them and the Florentine examples. The Ca d’Oro was erected by the Brothers Buon in the fifteenth century, a reminder of how late the Gothic style was continued in Venice. The Vendramini, Pietro Lombardo’s great achievement in domestic architecture, was completed in 1481. What a contrast both present to the Riccardi! It is an expression of different habits of life. There is in both Venetian buildings the suggestion of greater social security and a freer intercourse with the outside world and less obstructed enjoyment of out of doors. The ample windows of the Vendramini spread a welcome broadcast. And while the arcaded loggia which distinguished the Ca d’Oro have been replaced in the Vendramini by a balcony in the principal story and have disappeared above, the change means a brighter lighting of the interior.

It is to be noted that the design of the Ca d’Oro is incomplete. One has to imagine on the left a wing similar to that on the right. The massing of the openings in the centre of the façade, instead of their even distribution along the whole front, was peculiar to Venetian palaces. It is apparent, although in a less pronounced manner, in the spacing of the façade of the Vendramini. Another Venetian peculiarity is the limiting of the beauty of the design to the main façade. Even when a side abutted on another canal or a garden, the walls were finished in stucco instead of marble; embellishments were omitted and, worst of all, not even was the cornice continued. These limitations impair the integrity of the design and seriously diminish its dignity. The fact is even more apparent in the case of the Vendramini, for by this time the horizontal members of the façade had acquired a definite constructive meaning, and the failure to continue them around the sides betrays an indifference to the logic of design.

The façade of the Vendramini is no longer astylar (columnless), as, with the exception of the window columns, is that of the Riccardi. The adaptation of classic details has proceeded so far that pilasters are introduced as decorative features in the ground story, and engaged columns in the upper ones; an excuse for their appearance being suggested by attaching their capitals to the string courses and cornice. This device was drawn from the example of the Roman buildings, in which the Greek relation of upright and horizontal members was diverted from an element of construction into an element purely of design. Further, while the windows of the Vendramini recall the character of the arcade type, they have advanced to the order type, the openings being framed by pilasters or columns. Thus, this design embodies more or less all the changes which the Early Renaissance brought about in secular buildings.

Vendramini—Cancellaria.—Comparing the Vendramini, however, with Bramante’s adaptation of classic details as illustrated, for example, in the Palazzo della Cancellaria, we can see how far removed it is in feeling from the productions of the fully developed Renaissance. By the latter time (1505) the nutriment derived from the antique had been digested and assimilated. The antique not only contributed to, but, in its revived form, was becoming a part of the spirit of the time. Architecture was becoming identified with a culture that was fast losing its fresh, Italian inspiration in an unqualified admiration and imitation of what was antique and pagan.

Compared with the Vendramini or even the severer Riccardi, the Cancellaria exhibits a precision of style that is rather close to formalism. The design is less a product of inspired invention than of scholarly adaptation. It may well strike one, especially at first sight, as cold, lifeless, even pedantic; and it is not until one has studied the design in some detail and become conscious of the refinement of feeling and finesse of taste, involved in the relation of the parts to the whole, that one is in a mood to recognise its claim to admiration.

The façade is constructed of blocks of travertine, taken from the Colosseum—for notwithstanding their reverence for antiquity the Italians of the Renaissance were prone to the vandalism of robbing Peter to pay Paul. An order of Corinthian pilasters with strongly marked cornices and string courses, embellishes the upper stories, in which also is introduced the novel arrangement of alternately narrow and wide spacings, the contrast being subtly balanced by the window openings. Noticeable is the variety attained by the alternating of square and round topped windows, and also their distribution to mark the relative importance of the several stories. In the windows of the piano nobile the effect of the round-top lights is heightened by a rectangular frame, formed of pilasters, decorated with arabesques, while the upper part includes spandrels relieved by a single large rosette and surmounted by a delicately proportioned cornice.

Cancellaria—Farnese.—It is interesting to compare the official Cancellaria with the famous domestic example, the Palazzo Farnese. The latter dates from 1530 to 1546, when the façade designed by Sangallo, some say with Vignola’s co-operation, was completed by Michelangelo. His contribution was the cornice, which by its boldness of projection and richness of detail redeems the comparative monotony of evenly spaced windows and repeated framings. However, it is the court of this palace, said to be the most imposing in Italy, that presents its finest claim to distinction, and here the two lower stories, erected by Sangallo, are superior in freedom of design, as well as dignity, to the more cramped and crowded upper one that was added by Michelangelo.

Capitol Palaces.—The latter, a few years earlier, namely in 1540, had begun the erection of the Capitol Palaces, a design that flanks three sides of a square, the right and left of which are occupied respectively, by the Palazzo dei Conservatori and the Capitoline Museum, both completed in 1542, while the centre, finished in 1563, a year before Michelangelo’s death, holds the Palazzo dei Senatori.

In these façades appears the innovation of pilasters, carried through the two upper stories. This emphasis of the vertical lines contradicts the internal division of the structure into stories and is at the sacrifice of the horizontal lines of the façade. The latter are broken up into balconies, while the interior division is only hinted at by the windows. But Michelangelo with the audacity of genius rejected proprieties of detail and even logic of structure, as he was prone to do also in his sculpture—witness the recumbent figures on the Medici tombs—for the sake, as we should say to-day, of a grander and more impressive synthesis. In a word, he sacrificed the parts to the whole; and to secure the impressiveness of the whole, ties the pilasters together at the top with an entablature that comprises a boldly projecting cornice and is additionally emphasised by the crowning feature of a balustrade. Except that the cornice takes the place of pediments the principle of design is virtually that of a Roman temple, diverted from its purpose and brusquely made to accommodate itself to novel conditions. In the hands of Michelangelo the end may be said to justify the means, but this device of ignoring the interior necessities of construction in favour of an arbitrary exterior design became a precedent that contributed largely to the decadence of the Renaissance style. Yet, after all, it was only carrying to a destructively logical conclusion the use of the classic orders as elements not of constructive but of purely decorative design.

We have already noted in the case of Gothic architecture that its decadence was exhibited in a superabundance of decorative detail, and a similar course appears in the Renaissance. Much of the responsibility of the change is attributed to Sansovino. While Michelangelo magnified the decorative, the Venetian architect elaborated it. His façade of the Library of San Marco may be cited as an example.

Capitol Palaces—Library of S. Mark.—If we compare the Library with the Capitol Palaces we discover several important differences. In the Venetian building the divisions of the interior are indicated by the emphatic horizontal features; and the latter, as well as the deep openings of the arcade and of the windows, produce a depth of shadow effects, which in combination with the lighted surfaces results in great variety and richness. It is precisely these qualities, which are also elements in the design of Hellenic and Roman temples, that Michelangelo lost or discarded in his adaptation. Contrasted either with a temple or with Sansovino’s Library, the Capitol Palaces, grandiose although they are, seem tame and tight, lacking in structural vitality. Sansovino introduced vigour into his design by increasing the projection of his large and small columns and by using the latter in couples; also by giving a corresponding projection to all the decorative details and by introducing sculptured figures into the spandrels of the arches and the frieze.

The principle of his design, stated in ordinary terms, was: If such and such things are good, more of them will be better. It was a principle that might well commend itself to the Venetians’ love of pageantry and display. Sansovino had sufficient taste to know how far to carry the elaboration; but in the hands of succeeding architects his restraint was exchanged for license, variety degenerated into fussiness, and elaboration became extravagance.

Pesaro Palace.—These faults are discernible in the Pesaro Palace (1650-1680) by Longhena, a product of the Venetian Rococo spirit, and by no means an extreme example. For it preserves a certain dignity of mass notwithstanding that it is overcharged with ornament that gives it an effect of trickiness and restlessness. And the latter, it is to be noted, is partly due to the device, which for a long time had been prevalent, of carrying the horizontal moulding around the projecting capital of an engaged column or pilaster. Borrowed from Roman usage, it represents an element of decoration that tends to convert the contrasting quietness of the horizontal lines into a jiggety disturbance. This palace, however, can lay claim to the distinction that the superimposed orders are continued, with pilasters instead of columns, along the façade that abuts on the side canal.

ECCLESIASTICAL BUILDINGS

We have now to trace the progress of the Renaissance style as it affected Ecclesiastical architecture. It is maintained by enthusiastic advocates of Gothic architecture, such as Ralph Adams Cram in his inspired little book, “The Gothic Quest,” that whereas Gothic architecture was evolved by the Church and laity through the impulse of a common Faith, and was determined in all its essential particulars by the symbolism of the Christian religion and the requirements of Christian worship, the change effected by the Renaissance was a reversion to the architectural types of Paganism. Renaissance ecclesiastical architecture did not grow; it was formulated out of precedents that were the direct antithesis of Christianity and Christian worship; derived either from temples that were built after the belief even in the Pagan religion had languished or died out, or from types of secular architecture, such as baths, basilicas, and triumphal arches. Therefore it was false in principle and illogical and insincere in fact.

It is difficult not to agree with this criticism; the more so, that it is a matter of knowledge that the Renaissance style was developed by ecclesiastics and laity who, while they tolerated the traditional religion—“If we are not ourselves pious,” as Pope Julius II said, “why should we prevent the people from being so?”—were in their own tastes, convictions, and habits of life notoriously pagan. Accordingly, it is not the aspiration of the soul, the ascending confidence of faith, the yearning of the spirit beyond the confines of the flesh that are embodied in Renaissance church architecture; but, increasingly, the pride of intellect, the pride of life, and the satisfaction of the senses in ceremonial display.

S. Spirito—S. Andrea.—We will compare first Brunelleschi’s Church of S. Spirito in Florence (1476) with Alberti’s S. Andrea in Mantua (1512). Professor Fletcher points out the close analogy between the former and the Romanesque church of the Apostles, erected in Florence during the ninth century. It represents, in effect, a reversion to the features of the Tuscan Romanesque—vaulted aisles, a flat ceiling over the nave, surmounting a high clerestory and aisles. For the support, however, of the low dome over the crossing, Brunelleschi revived the Byzantine system of pendentives, which henceforth were used in all the Renaissance domes. Classic influence is chiefly apparent in the details of the columns, which present probably the first example of fragments of entablature placed upon the capitals to sustain the spring of the arches.

Alberti’s design, on the other hand, is unqualifiably an adaptation of Roman style, except in the case of the dome, which is supported by pendentives and raised on a drum. But the latter assumes the classical form of a peristyle of columns surmounted by an entablature. The roof of the nave is barrel vaulted and coffered in the Roman manner and springs directly from the entablature, which rests on piers that are decorated with engaged pilasters of the Corinthian order. The façade of the porch supplies the motive of the whole design, being an adaptation of the Roman triumphal arch in Mantua. Accordingly, it is composed of four Corinthian engaged columns, mounted on pedestals in the Roman manner, supporting an entablature and pediment. The three intervening spaces are occupied by doors, over each of the side ones being a window above a window, while the central door is flanked by two columns, which support a cornice and arch that frame a lunette. If the student will compare it with the main portal of some Gothic or Romanesque church, he will discover an instructive difference.

Il Gesu—S. Giorgio Maggiore.—Here is a further comparison of Renaissance church-façades:—the Jesuit Church in Rome, Il Gesu (1568) and S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (1560). The former is by Vignola; the latter was erected by Scamozzi, the pupil of Palladio. But Palladio designed the rest of the church and, since the façade was built during his lifetime, may have had more or less to do with its design. It is at any rate in the Palladian manner.

Both Palladio and Vignola were pronounced classicalists, and yet they contributed to the decadence of the Renaissance style. It is true that Palladio’s own style was characterised by a marked severity; note the present façade which presents a severely formal application of columns, entablatures, and pediments. But it involves a feature that readily lent itself to extravagant exploitation; namely, the emphasis upon colossal columns. Vignola’s design, on the other hand, is characterised by a multiplication and elaboration of features, which his sense of classic propriety has kept within ordered bounds but which a less refined taste might easily degrade into exuberant pretentiousness.

And indeed a certain pretentiousness marks both these façades. They make claim to being imposed by methods that are actually a pretence. For neither design has grown out of the necessities and circumstances of the building. Each represents the arbitrary importation of alien ingredients, pieced together to conform to the principles of a style that was evolved for other purposes and conditions. Each design is false in motive and specious in its application of principles; and, since lies breed lies, it must share responsibility for the flagrancy of specious and pretentious shams that in time ensued from it.

And, already, in both these designs the imitation of the antique results in cold and rigid formalism. Compare, for example, Vignola’s façade with one of the Tuscan Romanesque, for instance, Pisa cathedral. The architects of the latter borrowed from the Romans the use of applied arcades of arches and columns; but used the device frankly as a decorative sheathing, subordinated in scale to the constructive mass, and maintained the rich simplicity of effect by repetition of the same decorative motive.

Vignola, however, treated his sheathing as if it had actual constructive meaning; and, moreover, multiplied the motives. Big, coupled columns, mounted on pedestals, supported an entablature, the cornice of which becomes the support of another series of big, coupled columns, which make a great display of supporting a little pediment. Comparing this Renaissance example with the Pisan, one may be reminded of a circus incident. At first there enters a performer who with delightful agility and grace keeps a number of balls moving lightly in the air. He is followed by another, who, assuming the attitudes of an Atlas supporting the world, labours with a cannon ball, which, when it is finally tossed aside, proves to be no heavier than a football.

Scarcely less incongruous is the Palladian design, with its colossal framework of columns, entablature and pediment, and the paltry scale of its doorway and windows. And then the enormity of the broken pediment, the two parts of which form the front of the series of side-chapels that flank the interior of the nave. Of course there is a sort of callous logic represented. The pediment is the end of a sloping roof; therefore, if the roof be separated into two parts, why not separate the pediment? But what about the taste which, as we have seen, always tempered the logic of the Greeks? Could the Greek taste have tolerated the cleavage in half of a little temple design and the swaggering intrusion between them of a giant design and persuaded itself that the domination of the latter produced a harmony of relations?

S. PETER’S

The culminating achievement of the Italian Renaissance was the new Church of S. Peter’s, the erection of which, dating from 1506 to about 1626, covers the whole period of the rise and decline of the Classic movement in Rome.

The original plan, as laid out by Bramante, was a Greek cross, comprising, that is to say, four equal parts. On this he proposed to design a building that should combine the three great barrel-vaulted halls of the Basilica of Constantine with the dome of the Pantheon. In 1514, the year preceding Bramante’s death, Sangallo the Elder, Raphael, and Fra Gioconda da Verona were associated with the work; but the advanced age of the first and third and Raphael’s preoccupation with painting and his early death caused little to be accomplished.

Meanwhile a difference of opinion had arisen as to whether the plan should be a Greek or Latin cross. The construction was continued under the directorship of Sangallo the Younger and Peruzzi, until in 1546 Michelangelo was appealed to. He rescued the ground plan of Bramante, reinforced the piers which the latter had begun at the crossing, and made drawings and a wooden model of the dome as far up as the lantern and actually completed the erection of the drum.

He was succeeded by Vignola, who added the four cupolas around the dome. The dome itself was completed from Michelangelo’s model, and finished (1585-1590) with a lantern, by Giacomo della Porta and Fontana.

During 1605-1612, at the instance of Paul V, the nave was lengthened by Carlo Maderna to form a Latin instead of a Greek cross and the façade was erected.

Finally, between 1629 and 1667, Bernini constructed the brazen baldachino and lavished sculpture on the interior, while completing the exterior effect by the colonnades which enclose the Piazza.

Easily the largest church in the world, S. Peter’s compares with other large churches as follows, the figures representing square yards of area in round numbers: S. Peter’s, 18,000; Seville, 13,000; Milan, 10,000; S. Paul’s, London, 9000; S. Sophia, 8000; Cologne, 7000. The interior measurement of S. Peter’s is approximately 205 yards long; the nave being 150 feet high and 87 feet wide (the same dimensions as those of the great hall of the Constantine basilica). The dome from the pavement to the summit of the lantern is 403 feet, the cross adding another 30; while the diameter is 138 feet, about five feet less than the dome of the Pantheon.

The prolongation of the nave by three bays has destroyed the symmetry of mass, conceived by Bramante and Michelangelo, besides interfering with the exterior view of the dome, which is visible only from a distance. The east façade (for S. Peter’s reverses the usual orientation from west to east) is, for all its magnitude, unimpressive. Its extension beyond the actual edifice at each end still further accentuates the comparatively mean scale of the portal. But scale is very generally sacrificed both on the exterior and in the interior of S. Peter’s. This is attributed by experts to the change of design introduced by Michelangelo.

As arranged by Sangallo the Younger, the façades were to comprise the superimposed orders; for which Michelangelo substituted his scheme of the Capitol Palaces—a single colossal order, surmounted by an attic. He thus gained dignity at the expense of scale; for although the huge pilasters are eighty-seven feet high, they look much smaller, while the windows between them, each twenty feet in height, give an impression to the eye of about half that size. There is a similar apparent dwarfing of size in the piers and engaged columns of the nave, which actually measure to the top of the entablature one hundred feet. And this necessitated a corresponding increase of the dimensions of the sculptured figures in the spandrels, which are twenty feet high, thus further overpowering the sense of height.

The noblest feature of the interior is the magnificent barrel vault of the nave, while the surpassing grandeur of the whole edifice consists in Michelangelo’s dome.

Like Brunelleschi’s it has an inner and an outer shell, and is constructed on sixteen ribs, which, however, are all visible internally. The chief difference is the elevation of the dome and drum upon a second and loftier drum, composed of coupled Corinthian columns and intervening windows. This design was an adaptation of those which had been made by Bramante and Sangallo the Younger. The former had suggested a peristyle of columns; the latter, two drums; and Michelangelo virtually combined the two. But, in doing so he conceived new proportions between the vertical parts of the drum and the curve of the dome, that give his design not only a superior majesty but also a superior lightness and airiness.

S. Peter’s indeed, notwithstanding much extravagant, tasteless, and meretricious sumptuousness, due to Bernini and others, remains a stupendous monument to the genius of Michelangelo and Bramante and to the genius of the Italian Renaissance. It is the fit symbol of an age that gradually lost touch of the finer things of the spirit and grew to worship greatness, power, and pomp; that had all but discarded Christianity for Paganism.

Meanwhile the noblest trait of the Italian genius was its worship of beauty as well as power. The creativeness of the Italians was revealed in their extraordinary sensitiveness to all forms of beauty in the visible world; and in the world of intellectual conception, and in their marvellous aptitude for translating their impressions of beauty into forms of equivalent refinement. Accordingly, the student of to-day visits churches to enjoy the treasures of pictured altar-pieces, sculptured tombs, pulpits, wonders of metal-work in screens and sacred vessels, marvels of exquisite craftsmanship in objects too numerous to mention. The Sistine Chapel draws him because of Michelangelo’s frescoes, the Stanze apartments for Raphael’s, and the adjoining Loggia for his pictured Bible. Again, it is Raphael’s frescoes that lead him to the Villa Farnesina, while many another villa charms to-day by the beauty of its gardens and terraces, fountains, cascades, and fish-ponds, shaded alleys and grottos. In innumerable ways it is the accompaniments of Italian Renaissance architecture, as well as the architecture itself, that excite admiration and have their message for ourselves.