How to Study Architecture

CHAPTER IV

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE

Italian Culture.—It produced a new era of intellectual activity and fostered a new refinement of taste and social conditions. Its earliest results are typified in the career of Francis I. No French king before his time had received so liberal an education. Under the enlightened care of his mother, Louise of Savoy, he was early trained in Latin, Italian, and Spanish, sharing the studies with his gifted sister, Margaret, afterward Queen of Navarre, a patroness of literature and herself the author of the “Heptameron,” a collection of stories, supposed to extend over seven days in the telling and modelled on the style of Boccaccio’s “Decameron.” Francis also played the rôle of patron, surrounding himself with men of letters and artists; but while he encouraged the visits of Italian artists he was no less eager to encourage native talent. His patronage of Clement Marot, the first great poet of the French Renaissance, is a case in point and, corresponding with this amour propre regarding native talent notwithstanding his love for things Italian, was his employment of French architects, the services of foreign artists being used chiefly in the way of sculptural and painted decorations.

By the middle of the fifteenth century the great era of church building had been exhausted. The needs of the population for places of worship were fully satisfied; the profession of architect passed from the clerics to laymen, who, so far as ecclesiastical work was concerned, were busy embellishing existing churches with altar-furnishings, screens, pulpits, fonts, tombs, and so forth, in which the novel skill of the Italian craftsman was freely used.

School of Tours.—Thus, in consequence of Italian influence, a new school of French sculpture grew up, which centered in Tours, a city at this period specially favoured by the kings of France. The genius of this “School of Tours” was Michel Colombe, whose art represented a blend of Italian refinement and Gothic vigour; and it was precisely this mingled quality that characterised the architecture of the Early French Renaissance. It, too, was centered in Tours, and blossomed forth throughout the Province of Touraine. For it was a distinction of the French Court life of the period that it avoided cramped conditions of city environment and spread itself luxuriantly in the pleasures of country life. Accordingly, the architectural memorials of the Early French Renaissance are mainly the royal and noble châteaux that stud Touraine, especially along the banks of the rivers Loire and Cher.

Châteaux.—The conditions being so local and essentially an expression of the French idea of living, the model of the Italian palace—a product primarily of the needs and conditions of city life—could not be directly applied, while the logic of the French genius, working at that time freely, eschewed the attempt to make a compromise with imitation. So the châteaux of the Early French Renaissance retain the structural character of the Gothic Feudal castle but modify it in the way of Italian refinements, passing from military offensive and defensive purpose to that of elegant and luxurious living. Hence a distinction of these French châteaux is their picturesqueness and the degree to which they participate in the natural picture.

Instead of the unity of effect presented by an Italian palace, completely enclosing its cortile, they retained the Gothic characteristic of variety in unity; their extensive and differing façades being grouped around a spacious courtyard, and composed so as to furnish a variety of effects from different view-points of the landscape.

One side of the court was occupied by a windowless screen wall along which, upon the inside, ran a colonnade, while the centre was pierced by a large covered gateway that afforded a porte-cochère. The sides of the courtyard were flanked by buildings, devoted to the servants’ quarters and the various offices connected with the home-life and the outdoor pastimes, while on the fourth side, facing the entrance, extended the main edifice, designed for the occupation of the family and the entertainment of guests. The chief architectural distinction of this main part was reserved for its outer façade, where it abutted on a terrace, which communicated with the alleys, parterres, and fish-ponds of the formally laid out gardens and commanded views of the surrounding park.

In this adaptation of the plan of a Gothic fortress to the conveniences and pleasures of a country palace, some of the old architectural features were preserved but modified to decorative purposes. Thus the gateway was square and massive, recalling distantly the appearance of a donjon keep; the more so that round towers, built, however, with squared walls in the interior, projected from the angles. The angles also of the outer façades were embellished with similar towers, that preserved a picturesque contrast to the straight lines of the intervening masonry as well as presenting from their windows a variety of views of the surroundings. The actual machicolations that previously overhung the walls were now reduced to a decorative motive of little arches upon corbels, and the battlements gave way to balustrades. Further, the great hall was replaced by state apartments which, as in an Italian palace, occupied the second floor or bel étage.

Meanwhile, the crowning distinction of the Early Renaissance palaces was the high-pitched roofs, surmounted in the case of the turrets with lanterns or louvers, and everywhere enlivened with tall decorated chimneys and recurring dormer windows, in frames of richly carved tracery. It was, in fact, in the treatment of the roofs that the French architects chiefly preserved the Gothic tendency to verticality; and, correspondingly, it was in the gradual lowering of the roofs and the emphasis of the horizontal features of the façades that they exhibited their gradual conversion to Italian influences.

To-day, these châteaux of Touraine, embosomed in the beauty of their natural surroundings, quietly mirrored in the river’s surface, still testify to the vigour and freshness of the Gallic genius in the dayspring of its acceptance of Italian refinements. A little effort of imagination, assisted, maybe, by pictures such as those of Eugène Isabey, can reconstruct in fancy the splendour and vivacity of the scene, when the terraces vied with the parterres in their blossoming of colours, as courtly men and women in the bravery of imported Italian velvets and brocades, lounged in elegant ease or gathered in a group to listen to a poet’s latest chanson, while the activity of the courtyard, with its constant coming and going of russet and green-clad serving men, was stirred to a gayer aspect by the arrival or departure of a brilliant cavalcade of hunters with hawk and hound.

Château de Gaillon.—One of the earliest of the castles that marked the transition from Gothic to Renaissance was the Château de Gaillon, which was built for a Tourainer, the Cardinal George of Amboise, not, however, in Touraine, but in the neighbourhood of Rouen. Only fragments of it remain which are now preserved in the École des Beaux Arts in Paris; but in its day it was a masterpiece of the Rouen School, which preceded that of Tours as a flourishing centre of art and letters. It much more nearly resembled in its lay-out the character of a fortified castle, having among other defensive details, a moat and drawbridge.

Château de Blois.—Meanwhile, a surviving example of the transition and Early Renaissance, is the Château de Blois, the first of the Royal Palaces, begun by Charles XII and completed by Francis I. The earlier façade is still unmistakably Gothic; the arches of the colonnade are flat segments, characteristic of the latest period; the shafts of the columns are attached to piers that reinforce the upper walls and run into the cornice; the windows still have stone mullions and transoms, and the design and decorative detail of the dormer windows are purely Gothic.

On the other hand, in the façade of Francis I, the ornament of the dormer windows, as well as the decorative details elsewhere, are of Italian design. The cornice has been given a more pronounced decorative treatment; it has a bolder projection and, while the old machicolations are represented they are converted into a purely decorative motive. Further, although the square mullion windows still appear, they are framed with pilasters and cornice and the intervening spaces of solid wall are treated as panels and enriched with arabesques.

The finest feature of this wing is the staircase tower, which occupies the centre of the façade on the side facing the court. Polygonal in plan, it is constructed with four great piers, extending from the ground to the cornice, to which are fitted the rising balustrades. The whole is magnificently Gothic in its structural design as well as in the character of the canopied niches; but the actual ornament is Renaissance and was probably executed by Italian artists. In the pierced carving of the balustrades the decorative motive is the King’s monogram, “F,” intertwined with his emblem, the Salamander.

Château de Chambord.—Another famous staircase appears in the Château de Chambord, a palace which in other respects also presents most interesting features. It was erected by Francis I (1526), probably as a hunting box, and the architect, Pierre C. Nepveu, has adhered more closely than had been usual to the plan of a feudal fortress. For in place of the gateway in the centre of the screen wall, a square structure with corner towers, which are round outside but square in the interior, projects into the courtyard, in the manner of a donjon-keep. Yet its purpose was not for defence but for ceremonial entertainment, since the interior contains four halls carried up to a great height and covered with coffered barrel vaults, while the centre of the plan is occupied by the staircase.

The latter, constructed in a stone cage, consists of a double spiral stairway, respectively for ascent and descent. It communicates with small rooms in the angles of the square and in the turrets, and finally with the lantern, which commands a superb view of the surrounding country. This lantern, octagonal in plan, the crowning feature of the exterior design, rises above the surrounding roofs, dormer-windows, and chimneys in two tiers of arcades, noticeably Italian in their system of pilasters and entablatures. They are surmounted by a domed roof, which supports an elaborate cupola. While the sky line thus presents a richly picturesque confusion, the façades are comparatively severe and in the ordered repetition of their details reflect the Italian influence. This is especially perceptible in the orders of Corinthian pilasters, in the general emphasis of the horizontal features, and in the use of round arches in the arcades. Meanwhile, the uniformity of the façades are relieved by the projecting angle-turrets, and by the admirably disposed masses of solid masonry, which besides their decorative value serve the practical use of backings to the interior fireplaces.

Other famous châteaux of Touraine are those of Bury, Chenonceaux, Azay-le-Rideau, and Amboise. Then came the day when Francis moved his court to Paris, thus shifting the scene of architectural activity. A rural palace sprang into form at Fontainebleau, a royal château at St. Germain-en-Laye, and a start was made with the city palace of the Louvre.

Palace of Fontainebleau.—The Palace of Fontainebleau was begun in 1528 by the architect Gilles le Breton. It followed the plan of a convent which it replaced, so that a remarkable irregularity distinguishes its arrangement. The design of the façades was probably influenced by Vignola and Serlio, who were among the artists invited from Italy by Francis I. They included also the painters Niccolo dell’ Abbati, Il Rosso, and Primaticcio, and the sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini, who were employed upon the decoration of the interior. Indeed, it is for the magnificence of the interior decoration, especially in the Galerie de François I, and in the Salle des Fêtes, added by Henri II, and the Galerie de Diane and Galerie des Cerfs of Henri IV, rather than for architectural distinction, that Fontainebleau is celebrated.

Louvre.—The Louvre was commenced in 1546, the year preceding the death of Francis I. The design was entrusted to the French architect, Pierre Lescot, but is supposed to have been influenced by Serlio. It exhibits, in fact, a noticeably Italian character and marks the beginning of the advanced phase of the French Renaissance, associated with the reigns of Henri II, Charles IX, and Henri III (1547-1589), while subsequent additions, made during the reigns of Henri IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV, record the progress of the matured Renaissance toward the period of pronounced Classicalism. Accordingly the history of the Louvre is an epitome of what this development involved.

The Palace was originally designed to cover the comparatively small square plan which had been occupied by the Gothic, fortified palace of Philippe Augustus, and the parts, executed by Lescot, comprise the west and south façades. In the reign of Louis XIII the original square was doubled in size, so as to enclose the present court of the, so-called, “Old Louvre.” Meanwhile, under Charles IX, the adjacent palace of the Tuilleries was erected by the architect, Philibert de l’Orme, for Catherine de Medicis; and to connect it with the Louvre, a long gallery, subsequently completed by Henri IV, was built along the bank of the Seine. This was supplemented later by wings, forming three sides of the larger Court of the Place du Carrousel, which was finished by Napoleon I. Meanwhile, by Louis XIV a new front, bordering on the Seine, had been added to the Old Louvre, and finally, under Napoleon III, two wings were projected from the Old Louvre on the north and south of the Place du Carrousel, forming what is now known as the New Louvre. At present the only change from the plan thus gradually compiled, consists in the loss of the Tuilleries which was burnt by the Commune mob in 1871.

Old Louvre—Blois.—Returning to the original façade by Pierre Lescot, one may compare it profitably with both the earlier and the later façades of Blois. The Louvre design, like the earlier Blois, consists of three parts, but has become more unified. The arcade is replaced by deeply set windows, under round arches; the bel étage now presents a regular recurrence of windows at closer intervals, and the dormer windows have given way to a continuous attic with a consequent lowering of the pitch of the roof. Again, when compared with the later façade of Blois, one notes in that of the Louvre the disappearance of the mullion divisions in the windows, their narrower and higher shape, and the Italian detail of their pedimental tops. Particularly noticeable is the more simplified and organic effect produced by compressing the four stories of the older design into an appearance of three divisions, very carefully balanced. Under this appearance, however, lies an actual fourth story, introduced as a mezzanine floor between the first and second. It is betrayed by the bull’s-eye window or œil de bœuf, a characteristically French shape of window, and by a range of semi-circular windows which at first sight may seem to be a part of the windows below them. This exterior blending of the mezzanine with the first story results in strengthening the character of the lower part, so that it affords a resolute foundation for the bel étage, which in itself is effectively emphasised by the special treatment of the windows.

And this unity of design is further increased by the bold projection of the entablatures and cornice. The suggestion of verticality has been abandoned in the frank acceptance of the horizontal motive. Lest, however, this should produce monotony, the Gallic preference for variety relieved the flatness of the façades by doubling the width of the window-bays at the ends and in the centre, and by giving them a slight projection. Around this the entablatures are broken, while double pilasters are employed and the summit terminates in segmental pediments, which break into and relieve the continuous line of the cornice. When further we note that in addition to the Corinthian and Composite pilasters and other carved details of purely Italian design, there are statues and much other enrichment, characterised by the free, vigorous feeling of French sculpture, the work it is said of Jean Goujon, we realise than even the advanced phase of French Renaissance, at least in its early stage, reflects still a temperament noticeably Gallic.

When it was decided, in the reign of Louis XIII, to double the size of the court of the Louvre, Jacques Lemercier, who was entrusted with the work, erected as a central feature of the prolonged façade, the “Pavilion de l’Horloge.” This was supplemented on the side facing west by another pavilion called after the famous minister of Henri IV and Louis XIII, the Pavilion Sully. The former occupies a width twice that of the double, projecting bays, and, while it continues the sequence of windows in the bel étage and attic, introduces in the former a large round-topped window. Further, the attic is surmounted by a clerestory of three windows, framed with twin-figured caryatids by Jacques Sarrazin. They support a pediment, above which rises a domical roof, divided by four well-defined ribs and terminating in a balustraded crown—a treatment of pavilions essentially French in character.

It is akin to that type of roof construction, which was called after the architect, François Mansart or Mansard, who popularised its use. The principle is the replacement of the continuous slope by a “hip” or “curb”—namely, the meeting of an upper and a lower slope at an obtuse angel; a form of construction which reduces the outward thrust on the walls by directing much of the strain to the post that supports the angle. When used upon pavilions, it gives them something of the effect of towers.

East Façade.—Under Louis XIV the Old Louvre was completed by the addition of the east façade. The work had been entrusted to Bernini, who was a visitor at the court, but his project was rejected in favour of one designed by the King’s physician, Dr. Perrault. This involved again doubling the size of the plan by the continuation of the north and south façades. In these the style of Lescot’s was fortunately preserved, though another story was added to accommodate the extra height of the east façade.

The latter represents the full acceptance of the classical style, which reflects the taste of the time; and is such a design as an intelligent student of the writings of Vignola might compile. Its main feature is a colossal order of coupled Corinthian columns, forming a colonnade, behind which the walls of the edifice are set back. The uniformity of this front of six hundred feet is interrupted by projections at the ends and in the centre, the predominance of the latter being asserted by a pediment. The character of this façade is echoed on the south one, overlooking the Seine, by an order of colossal pilasters.

Luxembourg Palace.—Before enumerating other examples of the Classicism of Louis XIV, we must revert to a notable example of the advanced Renaissance; namely, the Luxembourg Palace, which was erected in 1611 by Salomon de Brosse for Marie de Médicis, the wife of Henri IV. In conformity with her Florentine tastes the design was based upon that of the garden front of the Pitti Palace, which is distinguished by its orders of rusticated pilasters. But the French character prevails in the plan, which presents a central main building or corp de logis, flanked by wings that extend back and form the sides of a courtyard, which is separated from the street by a screen-wall with porte-cochère. Moreover, the garden front is distinguishably French in the picturesque variety obtained by the projecting portions that form terminal and central pavilions, crowned with characteristic roofs. It is a design of quietly elegant refinement.

A corresponding choiceness of quality was prolonged into the classical régime in the Château de Maisons, near St. Germain-en-Laye, by François Mansart and in the same architect’s domical church of Val de Grace, Paris, in which he was assisted by Lemercier. Meanwhile, Mansart’s nephew, Jules Hardouin Mansart, was associated with Levau in Louis XIV’s special pride, Versailles.

Versailles.—This immense palace is representative at once of the monarchical spirit of the time and of the sterility of classicism. Colossally pretentious, for the total length of the garden façade is one thousand three hundred and twenty feet, the design in its monotonous repetition of orders, scarcely relieved by the tame projections, is also monumentally dull. It fronts upon formal gardens, laid out with terraces and fountains, that in their magnificence are a memorial to the genius of Le Nôtre. The decorations of the interior of the palace exhibit the unfortunate taste for prodigal display, represented in exuberant and oppressively heavy relief work, executed in gilded papier maché, and set off with prodigious canvases by Lebrun and his assistants.

J. H. Mansart also designed the Place Vendome, around the four sides of which all the houses are treated with a uniform order of colossal pilasters, out of scale with the size of the square and pretentiously inappropriate. His, too, was the Veterans’ home, the Hôtel des Invalides.

Hôtel des Invalides.—The latter is vast but truly barrack-like, with tedious repetition of the orders; but is celebrated for the stately grace of the dome. This surmounts the church that is in the form of a Greek cross, the angles being filled with chapels, so as to make the complete plan a square. The exterior design of the dome includes a high drum, pierced with windows, between which project eight coupled columns that form buttresses. These terminate in carved corbels, which reinforce a smaller drum, with round topped lights. From this springs the dome; the grace of its curve being echoed in the airy cupola whose roof diminishes in concave curves to a soaring point.

The somewhat excessive height of the exterior needed on the inside very considerable reduction, in order to bring it into proportion with the rest of the interior. This the architect accomplished by erecting beneath the wooden shell of the outer dome two interior ones, a middle and a lower one, independently constructed. The lower, which rises immediately above the lower drum, has a large circular opening, through which is visible the decorations painted on the middle dome, which rests upon the upper drum and is lighted by its windows. The whole structure is supported upon four large piers, which, as in S. Paul’s, London, are pierced by arched openings, leading, in the case of the Invalides, into the four angle chapels.

Another instance of a triple dome occurs in the Church of S. Geneviève, better known as the Pantheon, which we shall refer to later in connection with the Classic revival, although its construction, extending from 1755 to 1781, occupied a considerable part of the Rococo period.

Rococo.—The Rococo is marked by a further decline into dry and pedantic formality in the use of the orders, which, however, in time produced a reaction toward a more intelligent, if uninspired, observance of the principles of classic design. It appears in the façade added to the Church of S. Sulpice in 1755 by the Italian, Servandoni. This comprises a Doric portico, supporting an Ionic arcade, above which, at the extremities, rise turrets in two tiers of orders. Other examples which mark the end of the reign of Louis XV will be referred to in the subsequent chapter on Classic Revival.

Meanwhile the style that is recognised as Rococo is characteristically exhibited in the interior decorations. These reflect the change of spirit that came over court life with the death of Louis XIV and the succession of the Duke of Orleans as regent during the minority of Louis XV. The old King under the control of Madame de Maintenon and his confessor had become gloomily religious; the court spirit, punctilious as ever, was ponderously dull. With the Regency it rebounded into lightsomeness. Versailles was abandoned for the Luxembourg; the peruke and stiff fashions gave way to powdered hair and elegance of costume; rigid etiquette was replaced with gay wit and gallantry; all that was lightest in the Gallic temperament bubbled sparkling to the surface. To the call of this new spirit the decorators responded. The papier-maché ornament was discarded for stucco; profusion still abounded, but it was no longer heavy and oppressive; it wandered in light luxuriance over walls, doors, and ceilings; exhibiting a fertility of decorative invention in its combinations of curly-cues, scrolls, shells, foliage, flowers, and rockwork. The last named motive (rocca in Italian) is the doubtful origin attributed to the term Rococo.

It was a style that characteristically avoided straight lines and, in general, the formality of arrangement which distinguishes classic ornament. Accordingly it fell under the ban of the Classical Revival and is always condemned by those whose preferences are classical. And, undoubtedly, its freedom often degenerated into license and its profusion became excess, especially in the hands of German or Spanish imitators. Yet, at its best, when considered as a setting to the costumes and manners of the period and as an expression of the social spirit, it represented something so vitally appropriate to the time and place of its creation that it commands the consideration of the student. Under an impulse infinitely inferior to that which inspired the decorators of the Gothic and Early Renaissance, it yet represents the same fecundity of Gallic creativeness.

CHAPTER V

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS, AND SPAIN

Architecture depends largely upon conditions of social stability, making for wealth and ease, and these had been disturbed by Charles V’s long struggle to crush the nobility that upheld the Protestant faith. It was, therefore, not until security had been established by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, that a widespread activity of architecture was resumed. It lasted until the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618. This covers the period of the Early and Later German Renaissance; the remainder of the seventeenth century being marked by a gradual decline into the extravagance of Rococo.

Characteristics.—Moreover, the German architects, after borrowing the Gothic style, had so fitted it, especially in the way of decorative details, to their own taste, that when at length they borrowed from the Renaissance, they preserved, except in rare instances, much of the Gothic feeling. The new style was employed chiefly in castles, domestic buildings, city halls, gild and corporation houses. In these the German love of irregularity, profusion, fantasticalness, and general picturesqueness still prevailed. It was displayed in the continued partiality for towers and turrets (octagonal, not circular, as in France), often containing spiral staircases; high-pitched roofs and decorated gables, carried up in steps; dormer windows, prolonged through several stories up to the height of the roof and emulating the effect of gables; oriel windows, curved or polygonal, projecting from the face of the façade or from the angles upon corbel-supports.

The German taste also showed itself in the character and distribution of the ornament. While this was apt to be spread freely over the façades and was used profusely in the decoration of the windows and doors, it was lavished especially on the gables and dormer gables, so that they are the distinctive feature of the design. To some extent the details of Italian ornament were introduced, but more generally the German carver followed his own taste for bold and deeply cut designs, showing a preference for rusticated masonry, including rusticated pilasters, and drawing on his fancy for grotesques, caryatids and the half-length figures, terminating in a pedestal, known as gaines. And the wood carver vied with the sculptor, especially in the interior decoration of ceilings and wall panelling, while the exteriors as well as the interiors afforded scope for the fancy of the painter.

The ornamental tendency increased until the purpose seemed to be to cover every available space with decoration; while as the latter grew less and less organic, it became less original. The carver ceased to invent his designs and was satisfied to copy them with tedious repetitions from the pattern books which, compiled apparently in the Netherlands—one of them by Cornelius de Vriendt—circulated through Germany and, as we shall see, found their way to England. They comprised a heterogeneous assortment of motives, for title pages and frontispieces of books as well as for doorheads and other architectural details, and introduced a variety of designs in bands and straps, borrowed from the work of locksmiths and leather-workers. The degradation reached its climax in the Rococo ornament of the early eighteenth century, especially in the Zwinger Palace, Dresden, “the most terrible Rococo work ever conceived, if we except some of the Churrigueresque work in Spain.”

In the neighbourhood of the Hartz Mountains, where forests abounded, timber was used with handsome effect in the design of the structure; beams, doors and window frames, corbels, and so forth being richly carved and often coloured. In the alluvial plain of the North, bounded roughly by a line drawn east and west through Berlin, the absence of stone and the abundance of clay encouraged the use of brick both for the structure and its decoration, and developed a skill in the handling of this material that could scarcely be surpassed. Elsewhere stone was plentiful and the main walls were constructed either of masonry or rubble covered with stucco.

Castle of Heidelberg.—Among the highest achievements of the German Renaissance is reckoned the Castle of Heidelberg, which affords a comparison of the early and later styles. For to the old Gothic fortress was added, in 1556, the wing known as the Heinrichsbau, which was supplemented in 1601 by the wing called Friedrichsbau. The latter is in good repair and used as a museum, but the earlier is a roofless shell, devastated, as was the Gothic part, by a fire which originated in a stroke of lightning in 1764. Consequently, to-day we view the façade of the Heinrichsbau without the dormer gables which are so marked a feature of the later design. And the loss, no doubt, helps to emphasise the horizontal character of the older façade. The design, in fact, throughout suggests a struggle to apply Italian principles and adjust them to German Gothic characteristics. Thus, orders of pilasters are employed in all three stories, but these are rusticated and alternately broken in upon by niches embellished with gaines. The windows have double lights separated by sculptured mullions and, although they are surmounted by pediments and cornices, the constructive simplicity of these details is interfered with by ornamental accessories.

The general conflict of effects becomes more perceptible when one compares this façade with that of the Friedrichsbau. Here the pilasters and entablatures are of bolder projection; the windows are well set back, their repetition is pleasantly varied by the traceried windows of the first story; the pediments are undisturbed by accessory carving. The walls present an agreeable balance between the horizontal and the perpendicular features; and then, above the cornice, the perpendicular asserts a final quiet predominance in the dormer gables. The whole façade, indeed, suggests that the architect had thoroughly mastered the principles of Italian design and could apply them freely; neither yielding to them unduly nor muddling them with the Gothic motive, but blending them flexibly in an ensemble that, while it has derived a certain orderliness from the Italian, preserves the essential spirit of German picturesqueness.

City Halls.—Out of the variety of City Halls space permits only a comparison of two famous ones—those of Cologne and Bremen. Both are Gothic buildings modified by Renaissance additions. In the case of Cologne the two-storied porch was added in 1571. In style and detail, it is more purely Italian than usual. So much so, that it presents a somewhat incongruous addition. On the other hand, the Renaissance façade of the Bremen Hall, is more in harmony with the original Gothic edifice. It is true the arches of the arcades are pointed instead of round; but the spacing, proportions, and treatment of the upper masonry are very Italian in feeling. Again, while the windows are capped with pediments, they retain the mullions and, which is more significant, the height of the older, purely Gothic lights. Finally, the façade is crowned by a cornice, markedly Italian in the depth of its projection, above which appears the characteristically German roof and dormer gables. This façade, in fact, erected in 1611, presents another example of intelligent combination of the two styles.

Domestic.—As an example of domestic architecture we may study the famous Pellershaus, of Nüremburg. The masonry of the wall is rusticated throughout. The treatment of the first story with its arched doorway and windows is as massively reposeful as that of a Florentine palace; while, except for the corbels alternating with the pilasters in the support of the entablature and the corbel-supported bay windows, the upper stories present a quite Italian orderliness. It is only in the huge dormer gable that the German feeling is allowed full play. The architect has utilised Italian principles of design; but he has emphasised the projection of the pilasters and of the entablatures that break around them; has exercised his German taste in the details of the pilasters; retained the German steps to the gable and embellished them with the characteristic ornament of obelisks, but has also filled in the angles with curving buttresses and, when he reached the summit, let himself go in the way of enrichments, using German gaines, the French bull’s-eye, and Italian pediment, on which, with a fine flourish of German independence, he props a statue! Note also the pilasters and curved pediments of the small dormer windows.

Here, as in most examples of the German Renaissance, the decorative emphasis is lavished above the cornice in the treatment of the roof. And the Pellershaus combines the two principles of German roof treatment. For in some cases the roof ridge is parallel to the street and the several stories into which the interior is divided are marked by tiers of dormers, while elsewhere the roof runs at right angles to the street and the gable-end is the imposing feature. In this instance, however, while the ridge is parallel and two small dormers are introduced, the main dormer feature is magnified to the importance of an actual gable, and thus the picturesqueness of the two methods are united in one effective design.

Fountains.—Among the smaller memorials of the Renaissance are the fountains which abound in German cities: some of the finest examples being those of Tübingen, Hildesheim, Mainz, Rothenburg, Ulm, and Nüremburg.

SPANISH RENAISSANCE

The election in 1492, of the Spaniard, Roderigo Borgia, to the Papacy under the title of Alexander VI, drew Spain into close relations with Rome, while the absorption of the Kingdom of Naples into the Spanish monarchy by Charles V in 1522 involved the country more and more in the political intrigues of Italy. At the same time the immense wealth that was flowing into Spain from her possessions in the New World gave an impetus to her trade with Italy and fostered the enrichment of such families as the Mendoza, Fonseca, Miranda, Ribera, and Velasco, who rivalled the merchant princes of Genoa and Milan. Thus a new era of splendour and of lavish expenditure was promoted in which the influence of Italian art began to penetrate Spain. The date of this Spanish Renaissance may be reckoned from the beginning of the sixteenth century.

In Spanish painting the example of the Flemish School was abandoned for that of the Italian; especially for the Milanese School of Leonardo da Vinci and the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. The sculptors absorbed the Italian influence either through the example of Italian craftsmen invited to Spain or by direct study in Italy, while architecture became affected by the example first of Bramante and later of Michelangelo. But the reaction to Italian influence of these three arts was different.

Painting needed reinforcement; it went to school with the Italians to master principles of drawing, foreshortening, perspective, and composition, as well as the art of fuller and more refined expression. It had to serve an apprenticeship of imitation before it could develope its own individually native strength in the seventeenth century. But it was otherwise with architecture. The fundamentals of the art were thoroughly understood by the Spaniards through Gothic tradition and, when they came under the spell of the Italian, it was in the way only of modifying the design, especially the character of the decorative elements, in which they were assisted by their sculptors. In place of the flamboyant decoration of the late Gothic there grew up a new style of more refined ornament. And it was also a new style, both in its character and in the use made of it; a style created by Spanish architects and sculptors and confined to Spanish art, and known as estilo plateresco or silversmith’s style.

Plateresque Style.—The Spaniards had inherited from the Moors a consummate skill in metal-craftsmanship; and now the inflow of silver from the New World gave a stimulus to the craft of the silversmith. It reached extraordinary development in the making of church plate, particularly in the custodias or tabernacles, designed to hold the “Host,” which reached the magnitude of lofty structures, simulating towers and decorated with a wealth of intricate ornament of the most exuberant and yet delicate fancy. Foremost among these artists in silver was the family of Arphe, consisting of Enrique de Arphe, his son Antonio, and grandson Juan. Their work, which extended throughout the sixteenth century, began by being Gothic in character, but gradually reflected the Italian influence. It was so remarkable in its exuberant creativeness and so widely spread throughout the country—in Toledo, Cordova, Santiago, Seville, Valladolid—that its enormous effect upon architectural decoration is quite comprehensible.

The plateresque style is a combination of several elements: the freedom of the Gothic, the delicate profusion of Moorish ornament, and the ordered refinement of Raphael’s arabesques, mingled into a new and living medium of decorative expression by the vitality and fecundity of the Spanish fancy. And a corresponding originality was displayed in the manner of using it. It was massed chiefly around the doors and windows. Its earliest appearance is in the decorated portals, added to the Gothic cathedrals or to the newly erected secular buildings, of which a famous example is the doorway of the west façade of the University of Salamanca, in the province of Castile.

The earliest architect to apply this sculptural embellishment to the façades of buildings is said to have been Enrique de Egas, a native of Brussels, trained in the Gothic style, who was supervising architect of the Cathedral of Toledo. Among the gems which he contributed to the Early Spanish Renaissance are the College of Santa Cruz in Valladolid, built for Bishop Mendoza, and the Hospital of the same name, erected by Cardinal Pedro Mendoza in Toledo, which served as a model for the University of Salamanca. All three of these edifices are celebrated for the magnificent decoration of their principal portal: the one in Salamanca being specially notable for the device adopted to offset the effect of foreshortening in the ornament remote from the eye. For the depth of the cutting is graduated from flat relief in the lowest panels up to a bold enrichment of light and shade at the top. Another feature of these buildings, particularly fine in the two earlier ones, is the interior court or patio.

Patio.—The importance of the patio is a distinctive characteristic of Spanish architecture, deriving, not from the cortile of the Italian palace, but from the atrium of the Roman villa, preserved in the courts of Moorish buildings. The patio is surrounded on all four sides by colonnades of two stories into which all the rooms open, while approach to the second floor is given by a handsome staircase. A characteristic feature is the use of bracket columns, a well-known example being in the patio of the House of Miranda in Burgos. Sometimes, in the second story, an arcade is substituted for columns and entablature, as in the Casa de Zaporta, also known as the Infantado Palace, in Guadalajara.

Frequently the columns and surfaces of the patio are richly decorated with plateresque ornament, for the patio was the centre of the life and ceremony of the family. And this habit of domestic seclusion, inherited apparently from Moorish times, reacted on the exterior of the buildings; and, while the patio was luxuriantly decorated, a singular barrenness characterised the façades.

Thus the chief feature of the latter was the entrance doorway; the windows were few, small in size, and raised high above the level of the street, while occasionally a portico was added under the roof, where the inmates could take the air and view the outside life without themselves being seen. A famous example of this is seen in the college erected for Cardinal Ximenes in Alcala de Henares by the Castilian architect, Alonzo de Covarrubias, son-in-law of Enrique de Egas. He also designed the Archbishop’s Palace in the same city and the celebrated Chapel of the New Kings in the Toledo Cathedral.

Cathedrals.—Another northern centre of the Early Spanish Renaissance was Burgos. Here the master of the plateresque style was Diego de Siloe, sculptor and architect, who built the celebrated Golden Staircase in the Cathedral, to connect the higher levels of the old, thirteenth century Puerta de la Coroneria, with the floor of the north transept by a flight of 39 steps, which has a gilded balustrade, richly embellished and bearing the arms of Bishop Fonseca.

In 1520 Siloe was summoned to Granada to superintend the building of the Cathedral which had been designed in the Gothic style by Enrique de Egas. This, the earliest and most remarkable of the Renaissance cathedrals of Spain, represents an application of the Classic orders to the piers which support the vaulting. But its most distinctive feature is that the sanctuary or capilla mayor, instead of terminating in an apse, is fully circular in plan and crowned by a lofty dome, under which, in a flood of light, stands the high altar.

Two other important examples of Renaissance Cathedrals are those of Jaen and Valladolid, while amongst the Gothic edifices that were embellished with magnificent Renaissance portals may be mentioned the Cathedrals of Malaga and Salamanca and the Church of Santo Domingo in the latter city and of Santa Engracia in Saragossa. Also of the Early Renaissance period are the octagonal lantern of Burgos Cathedral, designed by Vigarni, called de Borgoña, because he was born in Burgundy, famous as a sculptor even more than as an architect; and the towers of the Cathedral del Pilar and of La Seo in Saragossa. The last named, octagonal in plan and consisting of four stories, diminishing in size and crowned with a lantern, bears some resemblance to the English steeples of Wren.

Casa Lonja.—The most splendid Municipal building of Spain is the Casa Lonja, or Exchange for merchants, in Seville, which was built in 1583-1598 by Diego de Riano from a design, not closely adhered to, by Juan de Herrera. The most highly decorated façade, which is on the side removed from the Square, shows a more than usual following of the Italian style in its system of pilasters and entablatures and the repetition and treatment of the windows. Yet the style is used with a decorative freedom, characteristically Spanish.

Thus the pilasters of the second story are of the baluster type, emulating, that is to say, the forms which can be obtained in wood by turning on a lathe; the ornament is lavishly expended over the whole front in a rich encrustation, and, as in the case of Salamanca, already alluded to, increases in boldness of relief toward the top. Moreover, the vivacity is enhanced by the intricate mitreing of the courses of the entablatures, broken round the projection of the pilasters. The handsome patio is double-storied, respectively in the Doric and Corinthian orders. The sumptuous marble staircase was added in the eighteenth century, during the reign of Charles III.

Classical Style.—Even while the plateresque style was flourishing a more direct invasion of Italian influence was in progress.

Palace of Charles V.—The earliest example of this is in the Palace which Charles V began to build on the hill of the Alhambra. The work was entrusted to Pedro Machucha, who, like Berruguete, his assistant in the design, had studied in Rome. The plan is a square, enclosing a circular court, and the style is Palladian. Each façade, measuring 207 feet in length and 53 in height, is composed of rusticated masonry and pilasters in the first story and, in the second, of an order of Ionic pilasters, supporting a Doric cornice. In both stories occurs a mezzanine floor lighted by circular windows. The circular court, nearly one hundred feet in diameter, is surrounded by a lower and an upper open colonnade, respectively of the Doric and the Ionic order. A tribute exacted from the Moriscoes or survivors of the Moors, who were permitted to remain after the expulsion of the majority, defrayed the cost; but their insurrection in 1568 interfered with the work, which dragged on during Philip II’s reign, until it was abandoned before completion. The roof was never built; nor the octagonal chapel, crowned with a dome which, at the northeast angle, was to dominate all the buildings of the Alhambra. The unfinished building further suffers from the competition of the Alhambra, which is the chief attraction to every visitor, so that insufficient justice has been done to the grandeur and dignity of the design.

The Escoriál.—Philip II’s cessation of work upon his father’s palace may have been largely due to his preoccupation with the memorial to his own memory—the Escoriál. By the terms of his inheritance he was bound to erect a mausoleum for his father. He enlarged the scheme to be a burial place also for himself and succeeding Catholic Kings and added a church, a monastery, and palace.

Situated thirty-one miles from Madrid and overlooking the intermediate landscape, this prodigious congeries of buildings occupies a rocky plateau that juts out from the precipitous side of the Guadarrama Sierra and is extended by immense foundations. Its plan, which tradition says was to reproduce the gridiron on which St. Lawrence suffered martyrdom, is a gigantic rectangle, 675 feet by 530, from which projects the handle, a small rectangle. One enters on the mountain side, the Patio of the Kings. Along the right extends the monastery, terminating in the cloistered Patio of the Evangelists; while along the left is the College, terminating in the Palace. But the chief feature is in front of us, the vestibule of the church.

The latter is built over the mausoleum-crypt, in the form of a Greek cross, after the original plan of S. Peter’s, Rome. Its Capilla Mayor adjoins the small projecting annex, which contained the private apartments of the royal family: the King’s small, cell-like bedroom, commanding a view of the High Altar, so that, unseen, he could participate in the service of the Mass.

The work was begun by Juan de Bautista and continued by Juan de Herrera. But Philip himself perpetually supervised the design, which reflects his character not only in the ambitiousness of its dimensions but also in the grim plainness of the façades. Constructed of grey granite, cut in large blocks, they are composed of five stories, the windows of which are square headed, without dressing of any kind, and ranged in rows, without any attempt at grouping, so that the façades present a bare and barrack-like appearance. Meanwhile an effect of grandeur is produced by the immense scale of the whole mass, while the sky-line is rendered imposing by the towers, crowned with lanterns, which flank the façade of the church, and by the noble dome and lantern, built entirely of stone, on which rises in sequence a pyramid, a hollow ball, and a cross. The interior of the church, designed in the Doric order with flattish vaulting, is again of majestic scale and of extreme simplicity, which, however, is contradicted by the extravagant paintings on the ceilings. A feature of the church is the removal of the coro from the floor to a gallery so that there is less interference than usual in a Spanish church with the impressiveness of space.

The severely classical style of the Escoriál was a reaction from the luxuriousness of the plateresque and the extravagance of the so-called “Grotesque Style,” which Berruguete, a pupil of Michelangelo, introduced into his sculptural decorations. The absence of embellishment and reliance upon a strict use of the orders caused the classic style to be known as Griego-Romano, though, as a matter of fact, it was in nowise Greek.

Churrigueresque Style.—By the seventeenth century Spain, denuded of her foreign possessions by Holland and England and impoverished with war and corrupt government, had reached a condition of national exhaustion. In consequence no new buildings of importance were created, and such additions as were made to existing ones were chiefly in the nature of sculptural embellishments, which reflected the prevailing taste for the baroque. This, toward the end of the century, passed into the glaringly ostentatious and vulgarly meretricious Churrigueresque style, called after its principal perpetrator, the sculptor Churriguera.

FLEMISH AND HOLLAND RENAISSANCE TYPES

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Netherlands, especially the southern provinces now comprised in Belgium, entered upon a period of enhanced commercial prosperity. Through their textile industries, their overland trade with Italy and the East, and their sea traffic with Cadiz and Lisbon, which tapped the trade routes to India and the New World, they had become the richest country in Europe. They were the favourite dominions of Charles V, who was born in Brussels, and, while he allowed his “dear Netherlander” municipal self-government, taxed them roundly for the privilege. It was inevitable that Netherlandish art should become affected by the Italian influence.

It showed itself first in painting: Mabuse, Floris, Van Orley being among those who sought inspiration in Rome, where Raphael’s and Michelangelo’s fame was supreme. One can picture the sensation in Brussels, in 1515 and 1516, while the former’s cartoons for the Sistine Chapel were being executed in tapestry by Flemish weavers. Brussels shared the glory of the achievement and her artists and decorators may well have aspired to emulate the Italian manner. At any rate, it shortly began to appear in the decorative treatment of certain buildings: the superb chimney piece in the Council-Chamber of the Palais de Justice, in Bruges (1529); the façade of the gild-house of the Fishmongers in Malines, known as the Salm or Salmon House (1534), and the two courts of the Archbishop’s Palace, now the Palais de Justice, in Liège (1533). These courts, attributed to François Borset, are surrounded by vaulted arcades, in which occur baluster columns, and capitals carved with grotesque masks and fantastic figurines and foliage—features that suggest a Spanish influence.

Then, about 1565, was built the City Hall of Antwerp, which represents the most imposing example of the Renaissance in Belgium. It corresponds to the importance which the city had now attained as the chief commercial emporium of the Netherlands. For the supremacy of Bruges was past: her harbours had been allowed to fill up with silt and in 1505 the Fuggers, merchant princes of Augsburg, removed their affairs to Antwerp, whither the “factories” of the Hanseatic League soon followed. By the middle of the century a thousand foreign commercial firms were represented there; her great fairs attracted merchants from all parts of the world; the Scheldt was filled with shipping and over a hundred vessels are said to have passed in and out of her harbour daily. She surpassed in wealth and prosperity even Venice and Genoa.

The design is by the sculptor and architect, Cornelius de Vriendt, also known as Cornelius Floris. The principal façade, over three hundred feet long, consists of four stories; the first being of rusticated masonry, forming an open arcade; the second and third embellished with pilasters and entablatures, framing a regular repetition of mullioned windows, while the fourth comprises, as occasionally in Spain, an arcaded loggia, the shadowed effects of which correspond to those of an Italian cornice. The roof has a slight curb inward and is studded with two tiers of small dormers. The monotony of the façade is somewhat relieved by the projection in the centre. But, though this involves a change in the shape of the windows, there is a new kind of repetition, while above the third story the place of a dormer-gable is taken by an erection that has no structural significance and is merely a piling up of ornamental details to produce a colossal embellishment. It is instructive to compare this pavilion with the Pavillon de l’Horloge of the Louvre, which represents a logical as well as flexible and original application of the Palladian style. Compared with it De Vriendt’s design exhibits a formality which suggests that it had been copied from some work in the Orders of Architecture, while the top part proclaims him a sculptor of florid taste, rather than an architect.

The best examples, however, of Flemish Renaissance are to be found in the gild houses and domestic buildings. Magnificent examples of the former are the Houses of the Brewers, Tanners, Archers, and Cordeliers or rope-makers, in Antwerp, and in Brussels those of the Archers, Butchers, Carpenters, and Skippers; the gable-end of the last-named representing the stern of a vessel with four protruding cannons.

Musée Plantin.—The most interesting example of domestic architecture is the Musée Plantin-Moretus, originally the home, office, and printing house of the great publisher, Charles Plantin, who obtained from Philip II a monopoly in the printing of breviaries and missals for the Netherlands and Spain. After his death the business was continued in the family of his son-in-law, Moretus; and the building which had been erected in 1549, received various additions down to the middle of the seventeenth century. Meanwhile the interior presents a complete picture of the combined residence and place of business of the period, since there are still preserved the wainscots, Spanish wall-leather, panelled ceilings, chimney-pieces, stained glass, and other furnishings, as well as the fittings of the various departments of the shop, devoted to composing, printing, proof-reading, binding, and display of goods.

Carillons.—An incidental feature of the Flemish Renaissance is the Carillon, or set of bells, tuned to the chromatic scale and connected with a manual keyboard, so that they can be played by hand. The most famous of these is in the Cathedral Tower of Malines (Mechlin). It comprises 45 bells, most of which were cast in the seventeenth century by the great bell-founder, Hemong, of Amsterdam. They surpass in volume and tone even the famous chimes of the Belfry of Bruges, which were set up in 1743.

HOLLAND

The earliest Renaissance City Hall in Holland is that of The Hague. Erected in 1564, it exhibits the picturesque features of stepped gables and octagonal turrets that became characteristic of later examples, such as the City Hall at Leyden (1597) and the Renaissance addition made to that of Haarlem between 1620 and 1630. While the decorative details of the façade are of stone, the walls are constructed of red brick. This material is the distinctive feature of Holland domestic architecture, and the combination of its red, blue, or buff tints, weathered by time, with the green of foliage, reflected in the sleepy waters of the canals, gives a colourful picturesqueness to the quaint street fronts that is peculiarly fascinating.

Weighing Houses.—The best preserved buildings of the seventeenth century are to be found in the South at Dordrecht and Delft, and in the North in Leyden, Haarlem, Alkmaar, Hoorn, Enkhuisen, and, across the Zuyder Zee, in Leuwarden, Bolsward, Zwolle, and Kampen. Of particular interest are the Waaghuisen, or Weighing Houses for cheese, which are often of imposing size and richly decorated.

During the latter part of the seventeenth and the following century Holland architecture emulated the styles of Louis XIV and XV, though without the refinement of the French models.