churches of the middle ages at Venice, but I think none of them of very
high interest. One of the finest is the Santa Maria Gloriosa de’ Frari,
the first stone of which was laid in 1250, but it was more than a
century on hand. The design is said to be of Niccolò Pisano, a name
which seems to be applied with great readiness to edifices of this
period. The external appearance is very plain, with three circular
windows in front, opening into the church, and a little one into the
roof. The cornices are ornamented with simple pointed arches, and with
intersecting semicircular ones. The back of the choir, in some points of
view, forms a picturesque composition. Internally, it has a nave, with
side aisles and a transept. The disposition resembles that of Sta.
Anastasia at Verona, and the edifice belongs to the same class of
architecture; but the parts are smaller, and there are more of them. The
perspective is sadly cut up by iron ties, which however appear to be
very necessary. The clerestory windows have been renewed; the piers are
mostly round, they are seven in number on each side of the nave, and as
many in the choir. The stalls of the choir dated 1468, present some
beautifully carved foliage, of excellent design, and in entire relief.
Somewhere near the second altar on the right hand, were deposited the
remains of Titian, who you know, died of the plague, and in consequence
of the confusion of the time, the precise spot is not known. Some years
ago, a monk of the Conventualists put up a Latin rhiming inscription. It
is said that Canova has been employed to make a monument more worthy of
the artist, but it has never been erected.
Another large church of pointed architecture is that of the Santi
Giovanni e Paolo. This was begun in 1246, but not finished till 1390. It
is of the same sort of architecture, and like the Frari, spoilt by the
iron ties. There are five piers on each side of the nave, some
cylindrical, and some formed of three inosculating cylinders; but they
are all too small. There are no detached pillars in the choir. It is not
uncommon in this part of Italy to have little deep chapels open into the
transept on one side only, and in the same direction with the choir.
This is done apparently to preserve the smaller, as well as the larger
altar towards the east; for though not so superstitious as you are in
England on this head, yet they used in the darker ages to pay some
attention to it. The clerestory windows in this church are preserved;
those of the side aisles have been altered. Over the pointed arches of
the side aisles are little openings, which suggest the notion of a
triforium, but there is not, I believe, any passage in that part.
The church of S. Stefano was founded in 1325, and offers some rich
detail of external ornament. The inside is covered with a wooden roof,
over arches supported on columns, which are not very unlike Corinthian.
The effect of the lower part is by no means displeasing, but the upper
is not so well managed.
Santa Maria del Carmine was dedicated in 1348; twenty-four columns
support the arches which open from the nave, and form a very pleasing
perspective. Above the arches is a rich Corinthian entablature, but the
upper part appears to have been modernized, and one large arch of the
groined vaulting occupies the space of two of the arches of the nave.
This has a bad effect.
The latest Gothic church in Venice is that of S. Zaccaria, which was
founded in 1457, but not completed till 1547; the western front seems to
belong to the latter date, or perhaps has been added still later, but
the rest of the building is in a sort of pointed style. The cornices are
ornamented with simple, pointed arches, and there are many pointed
arches to the windows, and clustered columns about the choir; but we
have also little domes, and Corinthian columns (bad enough) supported on
high pedestals. These passages of one style into another are often
curious, but seldom beautiful. The side aisles are very lofty, and the
clerestory windows very minute, so that this mode of arrangement seems
to have been preserved to the last period of pointed architecture.
I will conclude my remarks on the Gothic edifices of Venice with the
Ducal Palace, which is said to have been founded in the ninth century;
but nothing of the architecture at present existing can claim a higher
date than the middle of the fourteenth, when it was erected by the doge,
Marino Faliero. The architect is said to have been one Filippo
Calendario, who was executed for taking part in the conspiracy of his
patron.
I have already mentioned to you the external appearance, with which
indeed, from the number of prints, you must be pretty familiar. Between
this mass of building and the church of St. Mark is a gateway, by which
one enters the court. This was built under the doge, Francesco Foscari,
who was elected in 1423, and died in 1457; and from a comparison of
other circumstances, it appears certain that it was begun about 1448,
under the direction of a certain Bartholomeus de Cisternis. The name of
Bartolommeo Buono, as architect, appears on the architrave; but as this
artist did not die till 1529, it is hardly possible that he should have
superintended a building in 1448. Perhaps this Bartholomeus de Cisternis
was also named Buono; or perhaps the inscription was only in consequence
of some posterior alteration; you may take which opinion you please; I
incline to the first. The arches here, and indeed all the parts, are
very much broken and confused; the architect appearing to have great
horror of a continued line, whether straight or curved. The foliage
above the arch is very large; and this, and the figures rising among it,
are so exactly in the style of the upper finish of the church of St.
Mark, that there can be no doubt of their being nearly of the same
period. The court is surrounded on three sides by two stories of
arcades, supporting the upper apartments of the building; the lower
arches are semicircular, with a small round hole above each; the upper
are pointed. The upper part of two sides is somewhat in the style of the
front, but the windows are not regularly disposed; it is principally of
brick. One side is as richly ornamented as possible. The remaining side
towards the church is very irregular, but also much ornamented, and
without any plain surface, except in some receding parts, which are
covered with marble slabs. The whole is in bad taste, between Gothic,
and the revival of Roman architecture; but the latter style seems to
have been much less conspicuous at first, as considerable alterations
are sufficiently evident. A very fine flight of marble steps leads to
the first story, but you have another staircase to ascend before you
enter the principal apartments. The first of these was ornamented by
Palladio, after a fire which happened in 1574; particularly the four
doorways are of his design, yet they are not very good, and are besides
too solid and consequential for inside doorways. Each of them has a
portico of two columns, without pediments, and there are three statues
over each. The marble of the columns is very beautiful. The colour is a
dark green, with yellow veins and red markings. They are not all
precisely alike, yet perhaps are from the same bed; they are called
Greek. The cornices and swelled friezes are also of dark veined marble,
and this renders the mouldings confused.
I shall not conduct you step by step through all these numerous
apartments, splendid with gilding, and with all the glories of the
Venetian school of painting, which spreads over the walls, and covers
the ceilings, as if it had only cost a few shillings the square yard.
There is also a very fine collection of ancient sculpture. No expense
has been spared; Sansovino, Palladio, and Scamozzi, have united their
talents to those of Paul Veronese, Tintoret, Palma, and the Bassans, and
many other fine painters, to make them beautiful. Yet from the want of
repose and simplicity, the result is not satisfactory; the very
exuberance of art injures its effect.
S. Jacopo in Rivo Alto, was first built in 1194. It was entirely rebuilt
in 1531, precisely in the old form, as we are informed by an inscription
in the portico; we may doubt the perfect accuracy of the imitation, but
the six marble columns of the nave, with their capitals copied from the
Corinthian, are probably parts of the ancient building. The middle space
is about twice the width of the others, forming a transept, and a cupola
rises at the intersection. I suspect that this was an innovation, but on
the whole it is a pretty little thing.
The school of S. Rocco (I shall say nothing of the church) has been
attributed to Sansovino, but it is now usually given to Bartolommeo
Buono, Sante Lombardo, and Antonio Scarpagnino. The first began it in
1516 and continued it till 1524, when he was dismissed, because he
wished to make some alteration in the doorways on the staircase, and in
the portico towards the canal. It was then given to Sante Lombardo, who
was only twenty years old, but with the condition that his father,
Giulio Lombardo, should assist him. These artists also wished to
introduce some novelties of their own, and therefore, in 1527, the
direction was given to Antonio Scarpagnino. Sansovino was called in, we
know not why, in 1532, but in 1536, we find Scarpagnino offering a new
design for the principal front; and more indulgent to him than to his
predecessors, the confraternity adopted it. I dare say there was plenty
of intriguing among all these changes, but one hardly knows for what,
unless there was a large salary and little to do, for the building is
not a large one, and it is not easy to imagine what they could be doing
for the twenty years which elapsed from the foundation, before they
began the front; which expression is, however, I apprehend, not to be
understood of the solid masonry, but of a mere facing. This front is of
two orders, each of six entire columns, round which the entablature
breaks. The windows are arched, and in pairs; each pair is placed in an
arched recess in the lower story, and crowned with a pediment in the
upper. It is more singular than beautiful. Buono’s style is more simple,
and that of the Lombardi would probably be better than the one adopted,
for they had some taste and feeling in their way, though it too often
happens that their houses are monuments, and their monuments
gingerbread.
Bartolommeo Buono was the architect of the Procuratie Vecchie, forming
the north side of the Place of St. Mark. The design is not without
taste, and is certainly completely different from that of the gateway of
the Ducal Palace. There are two series of small arches over the larger
arches below, each of which supports two of the range above it. So far
the appearance is light and not inelegant, but the piers below are too
weak. There is hardly as much breadth between the lower order and that
above it, as the change of design requires; the circular windows in the
widened frieze are bad, and the finishings against the roof execrable.
The opposite side of the Place of St. Mark is occupied by the Procuratie
Nuove, built partly by Sansovino, and partly by Scamozzi. Sansovino
first built the Zecca in the Piazzetta; the lower order of which is
Doric, with an entablature of considerably more than one fourth of the
height of the column; a proportion displeasingly large, especially in
this ornamental style; the intercolumniations have three triglyphs, and
include an arch rising on imposts. The triglyphs are tall and narrow,
with only two femora. The second order is Ionic, with an entablature
still more overcharged; the frieze is immense, with round windows, which
are very much masked by the profusion of sculpture. It seems to me that
in this, the architect wished to preserve some degree of correspondence
with the Procuratie Vecchie, with which he has made the height coincide.
The three first arches of the Procuratie Nuove, are the same as those of
the Zecca; the ten following were executed under the direction of
Scamozzi. He followed the Doric order of the Zecca, and the Ionic, to
the top of the columns, but he corrected the extravagance of its
cornice, and added a third order with Corinthian columns, which is
perhaps rather meagre, but altogether the composition is pleasing. The
same design was followed in the remainder of the building, but not, as
it appears, under the direction of any architect, and the workmanship is
very indifferent. One great defect of the arrangement, arises from its
height being so much greater than that of the opposite side; a defect
become more sensible by the destruction of the church of San Geminiani.
This church was also the design of Sansovino, and the Venetian
dilettanti regret its destruction. Yet to judge from indifferent
engravings, it seems to have been a poor thing in itself, and must
certainly have been injurious to the effect of the Place, by interfering
with that unity of object which at present is its great charm.
That I may finish all I have to say of the Place of St. Mark, I will
tell you that the foundations of the great Campanile date as far back as
888, but the present walls were not begun till the year 1148. What the
foundations were doing for two hundred and sixty years I cannot tell.
The arches in the upper part, with the attic above them, and the spire,
are said to have been commenced in 1150, but not completed till 1517,
under the direction of Bartolommeo Buono. At the foot of this towering
mass is a loggia, now a lottery office, erected by Sansovino. The style
would not do well for a larger building, and is rather what might be
called monumental, than _palatial_, but it is good in its way, and for
its object.
Sansovino was a sculptor as well as an architect, and very much employed
at Venice in both arts; he died in 1570, at the advanced age of ninety.
Buono abandoned Gothic details, but preserved much of the ancient
disposition: Sansovino and Sanmicheli were the first who fairly
introduced modern Italian architecture into this part of Italy, and both
of them brought it from Florence.
I shall not pretend to give you observations on all Sansovino’s works,
but I will mention two of his churches. That of San Martino is a square
room with three recesses on each side, one of which, rather deeper than
the others, forms the choir. The details are rather poor, but the
distribution does not seem ill-chosen. The outside of S. Giorgio de’
Greci is altogether bad. The inside is an oblong room, not I think, very
well proportioned or well decorated. Yet Moschini appeals to the
judgment of his predecessors in confirmation of his own, that it is the
finest of Sansovino’s works, full of “majesty and magnificence, and as,
on the score of elegance, the artist has here touched perfection, so, in
point of solidity, he seems to have erected a richly adorned castle.” It
was thirty years in building, and the expense was defrayed entirely by
subscription among the Greek inhabitants of Venice, and those who
frequented that city. On the division which separates the sanctuary from
the body of the church, are some paintings coated with silver, and
having crowns, and other ornaments of gold attached to them, and leaving
hardly any thing visible but the heads. I was assured that the painting
was complete beneath this covering, and that the parts which were
figured in low relief on the silver plate, corresponded exactly with the
drawings behind it.
Besides these, and many other things, Sansovino gave the plan of the
church of San Francesco della Vigna. A representation of the façade is
given in a medal struck in 1534, but the patriarch of Aquileia, at whose
expense it was to be built, not thinking it sufficiently magnificent,
employed Palladio, in 1562, to make the design, which was afterwards
executed. It appears that Sansovino’s plan, (already begun) was, in
1533, submitted to Francesco Georgi, a brother of the convent, who
proposed to rectify the proportions according to what he calls Platonic
principles, “I would,” said he, “that the width should be of nine paces,
nine being the square of three, a prime and a divine number; and that it
should have a triple proportion to the length, which should be of
twenty-seven paces, forming a diapason and a diapente;” and then he goes
on to say, that this relation and harmony was appointed by God himself,
who thus fashioned the world, and directed Moses to observe it in the
tabernacle, which was to be made according to the model shown to him on
the mountain; which model, according to the opinion of the wise, was the
world itself. The author proceeds through all the parts of the church in
the same style. I do not wonder that men should have such dreams, nor
indeed, that they should write them; but that they should think such
dreaming to be reason, that they should publish them as such, and that
the world should ever have received them as such, does seem to be a
little marvellous.
With all these harmonious proportions, however, or without them, for I
do not know if they were adopted, the inside is not beautiful; the
outside does not at all correspond with it, and nobody need doubt that
the building was the work of two architects. Palladio’s churches have
all one general disposition in front, a pediment in the centre supported
on half columns, and a sloping roof on each side, resting on a smaller
order, whose horizontal cornice is continued, more or less perfectly, in
the intervals between the larger columns. The effect is always in some
degree as if a great pediment over the smaller order had been cut away
for the purpose of introducing the larger; and on this account, I doubt
if it would not be better, entirely to omit all trace of the smaller
order in the intervals of the larger. However, though not absolutely
perfect, these buildings are very graceful; and hitherto, no better mode
seems to have been adopted, for accommodating the Roman architecture to
the usual disposition of a Christian church. In the present example, the
lower cornice is only continued in two or three flat members in the
intercolumns, and there is a small projection in the wings, on which the
cornice returns, so that these flat mouldings alone, are interrupted by
the columns. Both orders are on a high continued pedestal, which breaks
round the principal columns, and is cut through to admit the door. Over
the door is a large semicircular window.
The church of the Redentore is altogether a design of Palladio, begun by
him in 1578, two years before his death. Here the pedestal is not so
high as in the preceding example; and instead of being cut through,
there is a flight of steps up to the entrance. This does not leave room
for a large window over the door. So far the design is superior to that
of the before-mentioned edifice, and the composition is not the worse
for taking a squarer form; but then, in order to obtain height, the
architect has introduced a sort of attic above the pediment of both
orders, and a roof rising above the attic; in which it is at least as
much inferior. Internally, it has a fine, wide, single nave; and this
simple disposition might well be imitated in our Protestant churches.
The arrangement and colour of the lower part are beautiful, and if the
vault were a semi, instead of a segment, and panelled instead of
whitewashed, it might be cited as a perfect model of this mode of
architecture. The termination of the choir wants consequence, and the
plain whitewashed wall, behind the semicircular screen of columns, is
absolutely disagreeable. The supports of the dome are good, and have no
appearance of insufficiency.
The church of St. George was also designed by Palladio, and begun in
1556, though the front was not erected till 1610. This front, or at
least, its central and principal division, is narrower, in proportion to
its height, than in any other of Palladio’s churches. The larger order,
as usual, is Composite, and the little order Corinthian. The general
proportions are pleasing, yet the columns appear upon stilts, as each
stands on its own lofty pedestal, between which the doorway is
introduced, while the smaller order reaching to the ground, has its
pilasters almost as long as the principal columns. There is no pediment
over the door, the existence of which is rather a defect at the
Redentore, but there is a great space not well occupied, above the
secondary cornice. Internally, the church has a nave and two side
aisles; but the piers are very solid, and admit no oblique view between
them on entering the great door. The nave itself is much inferior to
that of the Redentore. It is too short, and the pedestals are too high.
The transept cuts the lines disagreeably; and the want of some
projection, or alteration of plan, at the intersection, produces an
effect of feebleness. The altars are all similar, simple, and good.
S. Niccola de’ Tolentini is perhaps one of the best works of Scamozzi.
The front is a handsome portico of six Corinthian columns, but the
leaves of the capitals are uncut; perhaps they have never been finished:
and an opening in the middle of the pediment is disagreeable. The inside
consists of a nave, with three chapels on each side; a transept with a
dome at the intersection; and a choir somewhat narrower than the nave;
which is perhaps, better than keeping it the full width: the proportions
are good, but there is too much ornament.
The rest of Venetian architecture will be soon despatched. S. Pietro in
Castello was built by Francesco Smeraldi. I mention the name of the
architect, not that of the person who paid for the building; but it is
astonishing to an Englishman to find how large a portion of these fine
churches were built at the expense of individuals. It is an imitation of
Palladio, with the pedestal cut through to admit the door, and the
pediment surmounted by a ponderous attic: how different is the same
composition when managed by different people! Internally, the nave is
too short, and its lines are sadly interrupted by the large transept; it
would have been handsome had this been omitted.
S. Simeon Piccolo is a rotunda, with a portico attached to one side, and
an opposite recess for the altar. The outside is not well proportioned,
and the tall, tile-covered dome is very ugly. Internally, the
distribution of the smaller parts is not well managed, but it shows
something of the beautiful effect of so simple a plan.
Santa Maria del Rosario, called the Gesuati, boasts one of the
handsomest fronts in Venice. The inside is not so good; the architect
was Giorgio Massari. S. Barnaba is inferior on the outside, but better
within. They are both imitations of Palladio. Santa Maria della Salute
is a great octagonal church, or oratorio, erected on the cessation of
the plague, in 1630, under the direction of Baldissera Longhena. The
outside is overloaded in all parts with ornament, and this defect is not
redeemed by any peculiar delicacy of sentiment in the distribution.
Internally, the dome is supported on eight pillars, the aisle continues
all round it, and there are eight recesses, seven of which are chapels,
and the eighth forms the entrance. The disposition produces a degree of
intricacy without confusion; that is, without rendering it at all
difficult to understand the design, which is very favourable to the
expression of richness and splendour, and presents some very
picturesque, and even beautiful combinations; but the windows, disposed
two on each side over the arches of the central octagon, have a bad
effect, and it is at present much injured by the abominable whitewash,
with which the Venetians daub almost all their churches. Luca Giordano
has here exhibited some curious specimens of the versatility of his
powers in imitating the styles of other artists.