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BRICK AND MARBLE
IN
THE MIDDLE AGES.
_Uniform with the present Volume._
THE GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE OF SPAIN: FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS MADE
DURING SEVERAL JOURNEYS. By G. E. STREET, R.A. Second Edition, with
100 Illustrations. Medium 8vo, 30_s_
“Mr. Street has opened a new vein of architectural interest. Every
part of this work presents evidence of the labour and deep interest
with which he pursued his investigations, and the result is one of
the most curious and valuable architectural works which we have
received for some time.”--_Guardian._
“A valuable contribution to the history of Gothic architecture. It
will form a useful addition to the few books with which a traveller
may profitably equip himself for the Peninsula. With the exception
of the great work of Villa-Amil and Escosura, we have no
publication which throws so much light on the architectural
monuments of Spain--especially on those of the earlier Christian
period.”--_Edinburgh Review._
[Illustration: 1.--NORTH PORCH, STA. MARIA MAGGIORE, BERGAMO.
_Frontispiece._]
BRICK AND MARBLE
IN
THE MIDDLE AGES:
Notes of Tours in the North of Italy.
BY GEORGE EDMUND STREET, RA.,
MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL AND ROYAL ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS, VIENNA,
ETC. ETC.
_SECOND EDITION._
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1874.
[_The right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
To the Memory
OF
THE RIGHT REV. SAMUEL WILBERFORCE,
LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,
ETC. ETC.,
IN TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR’S MOST SINCERE AFFECTION,
AND
IN GRATITUDE FOR NUMBERLESS BENEFITS RECEIVED FROM HIM,
THIS VOLUME,
ORIGINALLY DEDICATED TO HIM IN 1855,
IS NOW INSCRIBED.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The First Edition of this volume has been so long out of print that I
had almost ceased to regard myself as responsible for all that it
contains. It was the rapid and fresh summary of a happy journey
undertaken in the early years of my artistic career. There were, I knew,
many details in which it could easily be improved, and many journeys
taken over the same ground might have enabled me to go far more into
detail than I was able to do when I published it. I find, however, on
reading again what I wrote so long ago, that age and greater knowledge
of the subject have generally confirmed my old ideas, and that, as far
as regards the principles of my book, I still believe them to be true
and just. In revising what I wrote, however, I have found myself obliged
to make many alterations and additions, sometimes in relation to towns
not visited on my first journey, sometimes in reference to buildings
either not described at all or at best insufficiently described before.
In doing this I have endeavoured not to increase too much the bulk of
the volume, and as far as possible not to interfere with the general
character or tone of its contents, though in the process of revision the
larger portion of the book has had to be re-written.
I hope, if other occupations admit of it, before long to add to this
volume a second, containing notes of tours in the centre and south of
Italy, undertaken with the same object of studying and describing the
too little appreciated art of Italy in the Middle Ages, which seems to
me to be almost equally full of interest in all parts of the Peninsula.
The materials which I have accumulated for this purpose are only too
considerable, and the very richness of the subject has made me shy of
approaching it; but the necessity of publishing another edition of this
volume has revived my resolution to complete as soon as possible the
work which I originally proposed to myself, and of which I have never
lost sight. But whether I accomplish this or not, the volume which I now
republish may, I hope, give a tolerably complete view of Italian Gothic
architecture north of the Apennines.
Those who wish for further archæological details as to the age and
history of buildings, will not find great difficulty in supplementing
what I have written. For myself I confess at once that I have not had
time or opportunity for examining the documentary history of the
buildings I have described, and that the dates where I have given them
are generally obtained at second-hand, though never given save where
they accord with the architectural character of the work. It was never
for merely archæological purposes that I made my many journeys in Italy.
Before I first travelled there I had made myself well acquainted with
all the best remains of the Middle Ages in England: I had travelled,
sketch-book in hand, through France and Germany, and I knew, therefore,
something of the art of our fathers in most districts north of the Alps.
But so far I had found no time or opportunity for the study of those
early Italian buildings which give the key to the history and style of
ours, or of those later works in which, with more or less distinctness,
the architects north of the Alps repaid the debt they had previously
incurred to the South.
I felt then, as I do now, that no study of architecture was complete
which did not proceed exhaustively with the study of all European
varieties, and above all of that of Italy. Moreover, there was something
in the practice and tendencies of our own day which gave special
interest and fascination to such a study. We had gone on in our old
paths, studying the works of our own country, which in some respects
were deficient in their teaching. We wished to combine the best
architecture, the best painting, and the best sculpture in our works.
The world seemed to respond to our aspirations, and it is south and not
north of the Alps that examples of such a combination have to be looked
for. So again it was desirable at any rate to meet the demand which was
naturally arising for colour in construction, and here again it was in
Italy only that numerous ancient examples of such a combination were to
be found. These were the special inducements to me in my earliest
journey to Italy, and their influence is as strong as ever upon me. I
feel, indeed, even more now than then, the importance of such study to
the English architect of to-day. The more men educate themselves by the
study of ancient examples, the more is their work likely to become
refined and scholarly, whilst at the same time there is no real risk of
its becoming less original.
It is quite possible, and one wishes above everything to see it usual,
for architects to design all their work without special reference to, or
really copying from, any old work. But before doing this they ought at
least to put themselves in the same position as to knowledge of what had
been done before as that in which their forefathers were. Unless they do
so, the desire for originality will only be satisfied by the production
of excesses and monstrosities, whose only claim is that they are
new--one which, in spite of those who demand a new style, I venture to
declare to be their sufficient condemnation.
It remains only to say, that since I first visited Italy two works have
been published which add infinitely to our knowledge of the sister arts
of painting and sculpture, and enable the artist to travel with a full
certainty that he will not lose anything by reason of the ignorance or
carelessness of his guide. I need hardly say that I refer to Messrs.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s ‘History of Painting in Northern Italy,’ and to
Mr. C. C. Perkins’s admirable volumes on ‘Italian’ and ‘Tuscan
Sculptors.’ To the latter, indeed, I owe I know not how many
acknowledgments for the information I have derived from him. He has done
that for the History of Mediæval and post-Mediæval sculpture in Italy
which had before hardly even so much as been attempted, and his facts
and conclusions are almost always so stated as to command the assent of
his readers.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
In these days of railways and rapid travelling there is scarcely any
excuse for ignorance of Continental art. The most busy man finds some
short holiday in the course of the year, and, if wise as well as busy,
spends it not in quiet sojourn at home, but in active search of the
picturesque, the beautiful, or the old, in nature or in art, either in
his own country or abroad.
And as the holidays of busy men are short, and therefore to be made as
much of as possible, I conceive that I shall be rendering some service,
and providing myself with a fair excuse for my presumption, if I venture
to shew, by a simple narrative of a tour undertaken in the course of the
year before last, how much it is possible to accomplish with pleasure,
and, when one has some definite object in view, with profit of no common
kind, even in a short holiday.
There are many classes of travellers, and each doubtless flatters itself
that its own is the very best of all modes of travelling; and sorry
should I be to attempt to disabuse any one of so pleasant a self-deceit.
But the more I think of it, the more certain it appears that the reasons
and objects which always take me away from home are precisely such as
make up the sum of happiness and pleasure to a traveller.
Indeed, without some definite object before him, beyond the mere desire
of relaxation and pleasure, few travellers know that thorough joy of
heart which an architect feels as he begins the journey which bears him
away from home on some ecclesiological or architectural ramble.
Such an one, hard-worked for more than five-sixths of the year, may, if
he will, press into the short remainder left to him for a holiday as
much both of profit and of pleasure as it is possible to conceive. He
goes, sketch-book in hand, with some ancient town or thrice noble
cathedral set before him as his goal; and, passing along smiling
valleys, or over noble mountains, drinks in all that he sees, not the
less gratefully or delightedly in that he views it as the preface only
to his more intense enjoyment in the study and pursuit of his own
well-beloved art.
If such be my case--and such it is--wonder not, gentle reader, that I
desire to shew how much enjoyment may be snatched from time in little
more than one short month, nor that I am anxious to put on paper the
thoughts that have been uppermost in my mind as I travelled, and looked
at and drew the old builders’ works in the north of Italy, the more as
they seem to bear with much force upon questions debated with more and
more eagerness and anxiety every day, by very many of those who take the
most lively interest in the progress of Christian art.
In past years I had travelled--rapidly, it is true, but not without
learning much, very much, of what was useful--by the noble cities of
Belgium, up the church-besprinkled banks of the fair Rhine, over the
plains of Bavaria, and through much that was most noble and interesting
in different parts of France and Germany; I had dreamt of old times and
old men in the antique streets of Bruges and Nuremberg, and under the
shade of the still more ancient walls of Regensburg, in the solemn naves
of Amiens, of Köln, of Freiburg, of Strasburg and Chartres, and of many
more most noble piles; I had paced the ruins of old abbeys, and
studied, so far as I could, in all of them the science and the art of my
forefathers; but so far all my time had been devoted to the study of
Northern art, and I had found no time and no opportunity for the study
of that modification of the pointed style which distinguishes the cities
and the churches of the north of Italy. No wonder then that, with a
prospect at last of a first sight of Italy and Italian architecture
before me, I looked forward long and anxiously for the end of summer,
for that happy autumn which brings ease and relaxation to so many a
wearied heart; and that when at last, at the latter end of August, I
found myself absolutely on my way, I was in no common degree disposed
for the thorough enjoyment of all that I met with.
It is well here to observe, by the way, that there is much in the
present position of architects and the world which may give to these few
remarks upon the pointed architecture of the north of Italy--slight and
sketchy though they may be--a degree of value beyond what they would
have had only a short time since.
It is impossible not to feel that the great and general interest in art,
created by the revival of true principles within the last few years, is
a subject of the greatest congratulation to all true artists. It is not
only in architecture, but happily in painting also, that first
principles are now studied with some determination by men who command
the respect of a world educated hitherto to admire and believe in the
falsest and weakest schools of art. It was, therefore, with the desire
to see how far these first principles were worked out by the architects
of the Middle Ages in Italy, how far moreover they were developed in
directions unattempted by their brethren in the North, and how far they
have succeeded in leaving us really noble works for our study and
admiration, that I undertook my journey.
Let me say, too, at the same time, that I started without either the
intention or the desire to examine at all carefully the works of the
Renaissance architects. For this there were many reasons--among others
my own unfitness by predilection and education for the task, the
shortness of my time, and the fact that, as it appears to me, their
works have already received as much both in the way of illustration and
of description as they deserve.
I should wish also, I must confess, in all my studies of foreign
architecture, to confine myself to those buildings in which there appear
to me to be the germs at least of an art true and beautiful in itself,
and of service to us in our attempts to improve our own work. It does
not appear to me that the works of the Italian Renaissance architects
really contain this. I see no reason whatever for doubting that if we
wish for a purer school of art we must either entirely forget their
works, or remember them so far only as to take warning by their faults
and failures. I see no reason for allowing that they have succeeded in
carrying out true principles, either of construction or ornamentation,
to any greater extent than their imitators in England. The same
falseness of construction, and heaviness, coarseness, and bad
grotesqueness of ornamentation, seem ever to attend their works,
together with the same contempt of simplicity, repose, and delicacy
which we are so accustomed to connect with them. In short, I see but
little reason to differ from the estimate which Mr. Ruskin has given of
their merits in the ‘Stones of Venice,’ and what he has so well said I
need not attempt to enlarge upon.
My own feeling is, that as in the pointed arch we have not only the most
beautiful, but at the same time incomparably the most convenient feature
in construction which has ever been, or which, I firmly believe, ever
can be invented, we should not be true artists if we neglected to use
it.
I hold firmly the doctrine that no architect can properly neglect to
avail himself of every improvement in construction which the growing
intelligence of this mechanical age can afford him; but this doctrine in
no way hinders the constant employment of the pointed arch; on the
contrary, it makes it necessary, because it is at once the most
beautiful and the most economical way of doing the work that has to be
done.
There are, I well know, advocates for the round arch, whose theory
appears to be that we ought to go back for some ages, to throw ourselves
as it were into the position of men who knew only the round arch, and
from this to attempt to develope in some new direction: this is Mr.
Petit’s theory, and it is, as appears to me, one which it is not
difficult to meet.
Its supporters assert that pointed architecture is so essentially the
effort of a particular age, and marked by certain peculiarities so
decided, as to be filled, even in its most noble works, with a kind of
spirit which in this age it is vain to attempt again to evoke. The old
Gothic spirit is, they say, dead; and, glorious as it was, its flight
was but meteor-like, and, having passed across the horizon of the world
in its rapid course, it has sunk beyond all possibility of revival.
It appears to me that those who so argue confound the accidents with the
elements of the true Gothic architecture of the Middle Ages, and mistake
altogether the object which, I trust, most architects would propose to
themselves in striving for its revival. The elements are the adoption of
the best principles of construction, and the ornamentation naturally and
properly, and without concealment, of the construction; the accidents
are, as it appears to me, the particular character which individual
minds may have given to their work, the savageness, or the grotesqueness
as it has been called, which is mainly to be discovered in the
elaboration of particular features by some particular sculptor or
architect, and which in the noblest works--and, indeed, I might say, in
most works--one sees no trace of. The true Gothic architects of the
Middle Ages had, in short, an intense love of nature grafted on an
equally intense love of reality and truth, and to this it is that we owe
the true nobility and abiding beauty of their works; nor need we in this
age despond, for if we be really earnest in our work, there is nothing
in this which we need fear to miss, nothing which we may not ourselves
possess if we will, and nothing therefore to prevent our working in the
same spirit, and with the same results, as our forefathers.
The mediæval architecture of Italy presents, however, one further
practical argument against this theory of the lovers of the round arch
which they cannot, I think, meet.
It will be found in the following pages that in Italy there did not
exist that distinction between the use of round and pointed arches which
did exist for three centuries north of the Alps. They were content there
to use whichever was most convenient, and whichever appeared to them to
be most effective in its intended position. We therefore find, in most
Italian mediæval buildings, round and pointed arches used in the same
work, the former generally for ornament, the latter for construction;
and the effect of this is in some degree to make us lessen the rigidity
with which a study of Northern art might otherwise affect our views on
this point. But I think no argument can be used by the lovers of the
round arch which would ever go farther than to leave us open to the
choice of both round and pointed arches, just as in these old Italian
buildings: they have no right to say, “You may not use the pointed arch
at all,” but they perhaps may be allowed to ask, “Why exclude for ever
the round arch?” and then I should refer them to Italy for a proof that
as a rule the mixture of the two is neither harmonious nor satisfactory;
whilst at the same time I should go on to shew them that, when they talk
of the virtues of Roman and Romanesque architecture, of the repose and
the simplicity which distinguish them, of their grandeur and their
general breadth and nobility of effect--in all these things they do but
sing the praises of the best Italian architecture of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, and that in studying the style we may well be
guided by it in what we do, not to the forgetfulness of the glories of
our own land, but to the development in a forward direction of what we
inherit from our forefathers of that architecture which, after a lapse
of three centuries, we now see on all sides reviving with fresh vigour
from its temporary grave, and which requires only prudence and skill on
the part of its professors to make even more perfect than before.
My object therefore in the following pages will be mainly to shew the
peculiarities of the development of pointed architecture in Italy, and
specially to shew in what way the materials so commonly used
there--brick and marble--were introduced both in decoration and in
construction. All these points are of the very greatest importance to
us, for I am persuaded that not only will some reference to Italian
models do somewhat towards the improvement of our art, but that in no
matter is information more needed, and improvement more easy, than in
the use of brick in architecture; whilst working in marble has been as
yet so little practised among us, that we may almost regard it as at
present unattempted, though, as I hope to shew, there is no longer any
reason why this should be the case.
It is impossible to conclude this Preface without mention of the
obligations which not only all who travel in Italy, but all who are
interested in good architecture, owe to Mr. Ruskin. No man need or can
profess his acquiescence in every one of the opinions which he has
propounded, but as an architect I feel strongly that a great debt of
gratitude is owing to him for his brilliant advocacy of many laws and
truths in which every honest architect ought gladly to acquiesce. He may
be well content to bear the opposition which he has evoked, satisfied
that all that he has written is in the main most certainly for the
benefit and exaltation of art of all kinds.
Nor less is a debt of gratitude to be acknowledged by every traveller to
my friend Mr. Webb for his most excellent and trusty work on
‘Continental Ecclesiology:’ it is certainly the most absolutely correct
guide-book ever drawn up for ecclesiologists anywhere; and in travelling
over the same ground, as I have done in this tour, my excuse for giving
what I have in the way of descriptions of the same buildings is, that
what I have written has been all with a view, beyond that of merely
describing the churches, of shewing the principles upon which their
builders worked, and giving, so far as the limits of such a work will
allow, drawings of the buildings I have described.
It will depend on circumstances whether I am able at some future day to
continue my inquiries among the churches and domestic buildings of
Central Italy, a tract at least as rich as that over which the tour
described in the following pages took me.
It remains only to say that all the illustrations which I have given are
engraved from my own drawings on the wood from my sketches made on the
spot, and that I have endeavoured as much as possible to avoid giving
subjects which have been before published. It would have been easy to
add largely to them, especially from my sketches in Venice, but it
seemed to me that, as this could only be accomplished by adding also to
the cost of the book, it was much better to omit them. I have avoided
therefore giving drawings of any buildings already drawn by Mr. Gally
Knight, to whose work I must refer my readers for representations of
several of the buildings described, and for illustrations of Venice I
must refer to Mr. Ruskin’s engravings and to the photographs which have
rendered her features so well known to almost all students of
architecture.
In conclusion, I cannot speak too highly of the assistance afforded to
the architectural student by Murray’s Handbook of Northern Italy: it is
almost invariably correct, and gives just what one wants to know of
nearly all buildings of any interest or importance.
_Oxford, 1855._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
.....PAGE
Routes to Italy--Paris--Strasburg--Rouffach--Basel.....1
CHAPTER II.
Churches of Basel--Storks--Rheinfelden--Frick--Baden--Zürich:
the Cathedral--Fondness of the Swiss for bright colours--Lake of
Zürich--Rapperswyl--Linth Canal--A Wayside Inn--Wesen.....14
CHAPTER III.
Wallenstadt--Sargans--Gorge of the
Tamina--Ragatz--Chur--Ems--Reichenau--Thusis--Zillis--Andeer--Splügen--The
Splügen Pass--The Custom-house--Cascade of the Medessimo--Campo
Dolcino.....28
CHAPTER IV.
Chiavenna--Lake of Riva--Colico--Gravidona--Lake
of Como--Varenna--Stelvio Pass--Lecco--Bergamo:
Broletto--Churches--Castle of Malpaga.....44
CHAPTER V.
Palazzuolo--Coccaglio--Brescia: new and old
Cathedrals--Broletto--Churches--Donato--Desenzano--Lago di
Garda--Riva--Trent--Verona.....63
CHAPTER VI.
Verona: Campanile of the Palazzo dei Signori--Sta.
Anastasia--Monuments--Piazza dell’ Erbe--The Duomo--The
Baptistery--Sta. Maria l’Antica--Cemetery and Palace of the
Scaligers--Domestic Architecture--Piazza di Brà--The Austrians--Ponte
di Castel-Vecchio--San Zenone--San Fermo Maggiore--Chapel near the
Duomo--Romeo and Juliet--Dwarfs--Wells.....84
CHAPTER VII.
Neighbourhood of Verona--Vicenza: Cathedral--San Lorenzo--Santa
Corona--Palazzo della Ragione--Gothic Palaces--Palladio’s
Works--Teatro Olympico--Padua: Giotto’s Chapel--The
Eremitani--Sant’Antonio--The Duomo.....126
CHAPTER VIII.
Padua and Venice Railway--Venice: Piazza and Church of
S. Mark--Torcello--The Lagoon--Murano--Sta. Maria dei
Frari--SS. Giovanni e Paolo--Sta. Maria dell’ Orto--Other
Churches--Domestic Architecture--Fondaco de’ Turchi--Other
Byzantine Palaces--The Ducal Palace--Foscari Palace--Ca’
d’Oro--Other Gothic Palaces--Balconies--Venetian Architecture--A
Festival--Paintings.....149
CHAPTER IX.
New Roads to Venice--The Pusterthal--Innichen--Dolomite
Mountains--Heiligenblut--Kötschach--Kirchbach--Gail
Thal--Hermagor--Ober Tarvis--Predil
Pass--Gorizia--Aquileja--Grado--Udine--Pordenone.....238
Chapter X.
Venice to Verona--Verona to Mantua--Villa
Franca--Mantua: its Churches and Palaces--The
Theatre--Montenara--Campitello--Casalmaggiore--Longadore--Cremona:
the Cathedral--Churches and Public Buildings--Lodi--Pavia: its
Churches--Castle of the Visconti--The Certosa--Drive to Milan.....253
CHAPTER XI.
Drive from Padua to Ferrara--Monselice--Rovigo--Ferrara:
Cathedral--Castle--Gallery--Road to Bologna--Altedo--Bologna:
Cathedral--San Petronio--San Domenico--San Giacomo--Sta. Maria
Maggiore--San Francesco--San Stefano--Leaning Towers--Casa dei
Mercanti--Domestic Remains--Academy--Modena: Cathedral--Parma:
Cathedral--Correggio--The Baptistery--Piacenza: The Palazzo
Publico--Cathedral--San Francesco--Sant’ Antonino--San Giovanni in
Canale--Asti: Cathedral--San Secondo--Campanili.....286
CHAPTER XII.
Milan: the Cathedral--Sant’Ambrogio--Sant’Eustorgio--Sta. Maria
delle Grazie--Certosa of Chiaravalle--Novara--Vercelli--Monza: the
Cathedral--The Broletto--Sta. Maria in Strada--Como: the Broletto--The
Cathedral.....315
CHAPTER XIII.
Departure from Como--Varese--Lake of Varese--Italian
Boatmen--Intra--Laveno--Lago Maggiore--Magadino--Road to
Hospenthal--The Dazio Grande--Airolo--Hospenthal--Ascent of the
Furca--Valley of the Reuss--Lake of Luzern--Luzern--The Unter
Hauenstein--Strasburg.....344
CHAPTER XIV.
Concluding Summary--Classic and Gothic Architecture--Italian
Gothic--Shafts--Cornices--Monuments--Cloisters--Windows--Brickwork--Colour
in Construction--Truth in Architectural Design and Construction.....361
APPENDIX.
Catalogue of the Subjects of the Sculptured Capitals in the Lower
Stage of the Doge’s Palace, Venice.....409
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
(THE FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS ARE NUMBERED IN ORDER.)
PAGE
1. _Frontispiece._ N. Porch, Sta.
Maria Maggiore, Bergamo.
Shop-window, Rheinfelden.....16
2. Cloister of Zürich Cathedral....._to face_19*
Church on the Lake of Zürich.....22
Wooden spire, Ragatz.....32
3. Interior of Cathedral, Chur....._to face_33
Gravidona, ground-plan of Baptistery.....48
4. Gravidona, the Baptistery ....._to face_.....48
5. The Broletto, Bergamo.....“.....54
Campanile, Bergamo.....59
6. Malpaga Castle....._to face_62
Window, Coccaglio.....64
7. House at Coccaglio....._to face_65
Detail of windows and corbelling
for chimneys, Coccaglio.....65
Wooden balcony, Coccaglio.....66
8. Broletto, Brescia....._to face_69
Cloister, Broletto, Brescia.....69
Detail of circular window, Broletto,
Brescia.....70
Doorway, Broletto, Brescia.....71
Brick cornice, Broletto, Brescia.....71
San Francesco, Brescia.....72
9. Details of brickwork in Broletto....._to face_72
Cloister of the Carmine, Brescia.....74
10. Duomo, Trent, Eastern doorway....._to face_81
11. Campanile of Scaliger Palace,
Verona....._to face_84
Plan of Sta. Anastasia, Verona.....87*
12. Pavements, Sta. Anastasia, Verona....._to face_89
Sta. Anastasia, Verona, aisle
window.....90
Door-frame, Sta. Anastasia.....92
Door-frame, San Pietro Martire.....94
Crest of metal railing, Verona.....102
Metal railing, Verona.....103
13. Courtyard of the Scaliger Palace,
Verona....._to face_104
Doorway, old house, Verona.....105
Windows, old house, Verona.....106
Brick battlement, Viccolo Cavaletto,
Verona.....106
14. Courtyard of old house, Verona_to face_106
15. Cloister of San Zenone, Verona....._to face_111
16. Interior of San Zenone.....112
17. San Fermo Maggiore, Verona,
west front....._to face_121
18. Italian brickwork.....122
Domestic window, Verona.....123
19. Porta di Castello, Vicenza ....._to face_128
20. Houses in the Contrada Porto,
Vicenza....._to face_131
Arena Chapel, Padua, west end.....137
Arena Chapel, side window.....139
Sant’Antonio, Padua, ground-plan.....145*
21. Sant’Antonio, view from the
east....._to face_147
S. Mark’s, Venice, ground-plan.....156*
22. Duomo, Torcello, ambon and
screen....._to face_168
Sta. Fosca, Torcello, east end.....171
23. Interior of Sta. Maria dei Frari,
Venice....._to face_177
24. Exterior of Sta. Maria dei Frari,
Venice....._to face_180
Window, San Stefano, Venice.....186
25. Campanile, San Giacomo del
Rialto....._to face_187
26. Byzantine well, Venice.....“ 193
27. Corte del Remer.....“ 196
28. View of Venice, from the Romance
of Alexander, Bodleian
Library....._to face_204
29. Archway, Ponte del Paradiso....._to face_210
30. Doorway on the Ponte San Tomà....._to face_212
Brick battlement, Venice.....214
31. Angle window....._to face_216
Balcony, Venice.....217
Capital of window-shaft, Venice.....220
32. Palazzo Segredo....._to face_221
33. Window, Ponte del Fornaro.....“.....222
34. Staircase, Casa Goldoni.....“.....223
Venetian chimneys.....224
Aquileja, Patriarch’s throne.....243
35. Aquileja, interior of Duomo ....._to face_244
36. Udine, Palazzo Publico.....“.....248
37. Udine, steps to Palazzo Publico....._to face_249
Udine Cathedral, aisle windows.....250
38. Udine, tower and cathedral doorways....._to face_250
39. Ducal Palace, Mantua.....“.....255
40. Windows in ditto.....“.....256
41. Castello di Corte, Mantua.....“.....257
Brick window, Sant’Andrea.....258
42. Gateway, Palazzo della Ragione....._to face_258
43. Campanile of Sant’Andrea....._to face_259
Brick window, Sant’Andrea.....259
Brick window, Campitello.....262
Brick window, near Casalmaggiore.....262
44. North transept, Duomo, Cremona....._to face_266
Brick window, Duomo, Cremona.....267
Rose window, ditto.....268
45. Palace of the Jurisconsults,
Cremona....._to face_269
Window-jamb, ditto.....269
Chimney and battlement, ditto.....270
46. San Michele, Pavia, interior....._to face_276
47. Castle of the Visconti, Pavia.....“.....277
48. Bay of courtyard of ditto.....“.....278
49. San Pantaleone, Pavia.....“.....279
50. West end of San Francesco, Pavia....._to face_281
51. Certosa of Pavia.....“.....284*
52. Ferrara, the Duomo....._to face_288
53. San Petronio, Bologna, south
aisle....._to face_291
San Petronio, Bologna, plan.....292*
San Petronio, Bologna, section.....293*
54. San Petronio, Bologna, interior....._to face_294
55. Monument near San Domenico,
Bologna....._to face_296
Cloister, San Stefano, Bologna.....298
Brick window, Palazzo Publico,
Bologna.....301
56. South front of Duomo, Modena....._to face_304
Baptistery, Parma, plan.....307*
Baptistery, Parma, section.....307*
57. Piacenza, view of Palazzo Publico....._to face_308
Brickwork, Palazzo Publico, Piacenza.....310
Sant’Antonino, Piacenza, plan.....312*
Sant’Antonino, Piacenza, section.....313*
Duomo, Milan, ground-plan.....317*
58. Sant’Ambrogio, Milan, baldachin....._to face_326
59. Piazza dei Mercanti, Milan.....“.....329
60. Certosa of Chiaravalle.....“.....330
61. Sant’Andrea, Vercelli, interior....._to face_332
Window in Duomo, Monza.....335
62. The Broletto, Monza....._to face_337
Window in Broletto.....337
63. The Broletto, Como....._to face_340
64. Sta. Maria, Como.....“.....342
Cornice, San Francesco, Brescia.....379
String-course, Palace of Jurisconsults,
Cremona.....391
Window in north transept, Cremona.....392
Detail of window-jamb, Cremona.....393
Brick archivolt, Vescovato, Mantua.....394
Arch-mould, Cremona.....394
Window, Verona.....396
Brick window, Sant’Andrea,
Mantua.....397
65. Key-plan of Capitals in Doge’s
Palace, Venice....._to face_409
⁂ The engravings marked * are taken from Mr. Fergusson’s ‘History
of Architecture.’
BRICK AND MARBLE
IN THE
MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
“Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.”
_Tennyson._
Routes to Italy--Paris--Strasburg--Rouffach--Basel.
An architectural tour in Italy seems to afford about as much prospect of
pleasure and information combined as any which it is possible for an
English student to take. He may see, if time allows, so much on his
road, that whether one thinks of the journey or the end of it all is, at
any rate in the perspective, charming. And in these days when, what with
railways, through-tickets, and Cook’s and other guides for timid
tourists, the journey from one end of Europe to the other is made so
quickly and so cheaply as to be within most educated men’s reach, it is
no wonder if most of us in our turn make the venture.
Many are the ways by which one may reach the North of Italy, but one or
two only of them seem now to be commonly used, to the exclusion of all
others, and with great loss of pleasure to all travellers who make the
journey more than once. The natural, because the quickest, road is now
by the Mont Cenis tunnel to Turin, and for the country described in
these pages nothing can be more convenient. But when my first journey
was made, it was more easy to take one of the passes leading to Milan,
and so I went by the Splügen. Since those days I have found my way to
and from Italy by other roads which I recommend strongly to others. I
pass by such a well-known road as that by railway over the Brenner, in
order to suggest three other roads, either of which brings the traveller
down upon Venetia in the happiest possible frame of mind if he is at all
capable of being moved to pleasure by the sight of exquisite scenery,
pleasant and religious people, and roads and country not too much
crowded with tourists.
The first of these is by the Lake of Constance, the Vorarlberg, and the
Vintschgau to Botzen; the next by the Brenner pass as far as
Franzensfeste, and thence by the Ampezzo pass through Cortina and
Cadore--Titian’s country--to Conegliano, and so by railway to Venice, a
road lighted up by the wild beauty of the Dolomite mountains and now
unaccountably neglected by English tourists; the third, and perhaps the
most charming, though somewhat indirect, and requiring more time, again
by the Brenner as far as Franzensfeste, thence by railway to
Lienz--stopping to see the fine church and Dolomite mountains at
Innichen on the way--and then by country carriages from the Pusterthal
into the Gailthal where there is the most charming combination I know of
pastoral and picturesque scenery, seasoned by interesting old churches;
and thence to Ober Tarvis and by the stern and magnificent Predil pass
to the head of the Adriatic at Gorizia, whence--after seeing Aquileja
and Grado--the traveller may, with halts at Udine and Pordenone, reach
his goal at Venice by railway.
But in this my first journey to Italy, I was sufficiently happy in
finding the Splügen prescribed for me as on the whole the most
convenient mode of reaching in succession all the spots which had most
special interest for me. My scheme was to make myself fairly well
acquainted with some of the most interesting Italian cities north of the
Apennines, and for this purpose to descend from the Splügen on Bergamo,
and from thence to go on to Venice, halting as often as necessary by the
way, and then to return by Mantua, Cremona, and Pavia, or by Ferrara,
Bologna, Parma, and Piacenza to Milan, and so home. And railways, if
they have made the journey somewhat more easy than it was, and have
deprived it now and then of the charm which always attends the
recollection of impediments and difficulties on the road, have not in
any way altered the advantages of such a route for those whose tastes
are at all akin to those which I carried abroad with me in those days,
and carry still with undiminished strength. Whether, however, one enters
Italy by one pass or another, the first part of one’s journey is by the
well-worn road to Paris, which, by reason, I suppose, of its being the
prelude to nearly every holiday tour that I make, never seems to be
stale, old, or too well-known.
There is something very novel, and it strikes me more every time it is
seen, in the aspect of everything directly you have crossed the Channel;
indeed, there is no country in Europe so much as France, and no city,
perhaps, so much as Paris, which strikes an Englishman as being foreign
in its aspect, and new in all its customs and proceedings. The dress of
every one, the arrangements of the railways, the harnessing and
character of the horses, the mode of life in hotels, and the ordinary
habits and pleasant traits of the middle classes are all quite fresh to
the English eye. Nor is the aspect of the country less so: fields cut up
into small strips of a dozen kinds of crops; unprosperous-looking cows,
each feeding discontentedly and drearily, tethered to a man or woman on
a small patch of grass; corn cut and then stacked in small cocks for a
month or two of exposure to the pleasant changes of the atmosphere; and
the entire absence of hedge-rows and other trees than poplars, all go to
make up a thoroughly un-English picture.
After skirting the coast and its dreary expanse of sandhills, reminding
one very much of those singular sands on the north coast of Cornwall,
which are so often shifting about, covering up new churches, or
uncovering the old oratory of some early British saint, we reach the
banks of the Somme, and then travel along a poor peaty tract of country
until the famous west front and short but lofty nave of Abbeville come
in view. Thence by a valley (rather more rich than is common in good
churches) we continue our race for Amiens. Among these churches I may
instance the hipped saddle-back roofed steeples of Picquigny, Hangest,
and Pont Rémy, as very valuable examples of their order; that of
Picquigny, indeed, surmounting a central steeple, and finished at the
top with some delicate open ironwork, is about as graceful a specimen as
I know.
At Longpré is another church with a steeple of some pretension, but not
satisfactory. It has a perforated spire of stone much too small for the
size of the tower, and ungraceful in the extreme.
At Amiens one always longs to stop again and again to feast one’s eyes
upon its glorious cathedral, perhaps after Chartres and the Parthenon
the noblest and most masculine piece of architecture in the world. But
with us this was impossible; our destiny was--come what might--to
endeavour at any rate to discharge ourselves in Paris within the
shortest possible number of hours from London; and the dusk of the early
autumn evening prevented our having more than the very slightest glimpse
of the Minster.
The refreshment-room at Amiens is one of the best I have ever been
in--reasonable, clean, and good--and placed just at that happy distance
from the sea at which the poor wretches who have been in the depths of
woe on the passage begin to recover their presence of mind, and with it,
of course--as good Englishmen--their appetites; what wonder then if the
Buffet at Amiens prospers!
The rest of our journey to Paris was all performed in the dark, relieved
only by the sight of the then long-expected comet, and it was almost
midnight ere we found ourselves settled at our hotel.
I am never sorry to have a day in Paris. In spite of alterations and
reconstructions which have converted an interesting old city into the
most spick-and-span place in the world, there are even to the present
day parts which are untouched by the improver, and full of a pleasant
national character which seems to be little to the liking of the rulers
of the French. There is, too, in spite of the changes which a great and
rich city must always undergo, a great deal which is interesting to the
architect. We may look at old engravings, and wish ourselves back in
those old times when the walls surrounded the city where now the
Boulevards run round its heart, when the Temple and a number of other
important buildings, now wholly destroyed, adorned the country just
outside the walls; but the city which has still, among other
architectural treasures, such churches as Notre Dame, S. Germain des
Près, the Sainte Chapelle, S. Martin des Champs, and a host of lesser
lights, and the Chapel of Vincennes, and S. Denis within a short drive,
is in quite a different category from such a city as London, and is
indeed hardly second to any other in Europe in architectural interest.
To come to much later times and very different work, it is always
pleasant to be able to walk down the Boulevard des Italiens to the
Madeleine, and for a few minutes to gaze at a church which certainly
presents one very grand idea--that of space--clothed in very gorgeous
dress. One always feels a certain sympathy for a church in which so many
people are ever praying; and I have never yet been into this church
without being able to count them by scores. The last time I was at Paris
I remember being struck by seeing for the first time a peripteral
building made really useful. The walls within the columns were hung with
rich draperies, and a long procession coming out marched round the
circuit of the church between the columns and the walls, and in again at
the west door; the effect was, as may be imagined, very striking.
From the Madeleine we found our way to the new church of S. Clothilde, a
large cruciform church, and the last erected in Paris in the Gothic
style. Its design is intended to be of early character, but in reality
is quite late in its effect; nor do I know when I have seen anything
much less successful than the two western steeples rising but a short
distance above the nave roof, and looking mean and weak to a degree. In
plan the church is not badly arranged; there is just such a choir as
might easily be properly used, and a large space for congregational
purposes.
How much we want churches, in this respect at least, somewhat like S.
Clothilde, in our large cities in England!
There are here a great many windows filled with stained glass, executed,
I believe, by Mons. Marischal. His windows are illustrations of a truth
which men are very slow to receive and act upon, viz. that in decorating
a transparent material, one whose transparency moreover is the sole
cause of its use, we have no right to shade it with dark colours so far
as to destroy its brilliancy. These windows were elaborately shaded,
and, as a necessary consequence, were heavy and dismal in their effect;
besides which, most unpleasant mixtures of green, yellow, and ruby, and
of ruby and blue--very glaring and very bad--abounded.
The carving of the capitals is, as is usually the case in recent foreign
works, all derived from natural types of foliage, and is fairly well
done: but the carving of rather elaborate sculptures of the “Stations”
did not please me, having none of the severity of ancient examples. When
shall we see a school of sculptors rise able really to satisfy the
requirements of the times? I confess I despair more on this point than
on any other; for I have as yet seen no fair attempt made to recover the
style, or work upon the principles, of the best mediæval sculptors. The
work of our modern sculptors is nearly all foreign and unreal, and
almost always involves the assumption that they are representing the
proceedings of the Greeks or Romans, and not of the English: it is
impossible therefore that such a school can be healthy, strong, or
successful. We lack men who will give us (clothed with as much
anatomical correctness as they like, so that they do not leave them
lifeless and academical) representations of subjects from English
history and national life, illustrations of the Scriptures which we
still believe, of the faith which we still profess, conceived in
something of the architectonic and yet really dramatic and romantic
spirit which marks the best sculpture of the middle ages. The strange
thing is that with works near at hand which few living men could rival,
they absolutely refuse to study them at all, and I believe if we were to
summon all the most eminent sculptors to a conclave and put them to the
question, not one in four of them would confess to having ever been to
Chartres or Bourges, and four out of five would assert that it would
have done them no good if they had. If they would give us anything at
all comparable to the great works of the best Greeks the case would be
altogether different, but to be served with a réchauffé of the antique
when one is crying out for something suitable to the present, is cause
enough for the apathy of the English public about sculptors’ work. We
ask for English history or Bible story, and are treated to nymphs
combing their hair; and for figures of our Lord and St. Peter, and get
nothing but Musidoras and Clyties. No sculptor would lose much by the
study of the best mediæval examples of drapery--and there are among the
gothic statues which deck the doors and porches of the churches I have
named, some of the most admirable description, such as warrant any one,
who is at all troubled with feeling for his art, in using strong
language about those who neglect them. In Italy we shall find the same
careful shutting of men’s eyes to what is good, simply because it
belongs to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Orvieto is left on
one side in order to spend time over work not possessed of a tithe of
the beauty of that on its cathedral façade; and, indeed, just as the
French examples, they appear only too often never even to have been so
much as heard of!
The study of ancient sculpture in England is not quite so easy, because
our old buildings are not so rich in it as are the French; but if one is
told--as one is too often--that the art of sculpture in the middle ages
was unknown or rude in comparison with its state now, one may fairly
refer to some of the modern attempts at its imitation for a proof that
this was not the case, as e.g. to the recumbent effigy of Archbishop
Howley at Canterbury, or to another, of some more humble individual, in
the south transept of Chichester Cathedral; a glance only at which, and
a comparison with some of the noble mediæval effigies lying in all the
stateliness of their repose by their sides, will at once show any one
that it is not merely necessary to put an effigy upon its back with its
hands in prayer in order to vie with the effigies of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. The position is something, but not all, and
requires very much more skill in its treatment than of late years we
have had to bestow.
From S. Clothilde we went first to the pleasant gardens of the
Luxembourg--gardens which always make one envious for London--and thence
to Notre Dame. Here I always feel no slight pride in the success which
its architect has achieved. Six hundred years have passed over Paris,
one effort after another has been made, vast sums of money have been
spent, and still this great work stands supreme and separated by a vast
distance from all competition, and greatest beyond comparison of all
Parisian buildings, not only in its general scheme, but equally in the
admirable design and execution of every detail. There is much to be seen
and learnt here in every way. The west doors are superb. The planning
and construction are very fine, and the series of sculptures behind the
stalls full of interest and well worthy of study.
From Notre Dame one goes, of course, to the Sainte Chapelle. When this
journey was undertaken everything about this chef-d’œuvre was
gradually growing to perfection: the flèche was being put up on the
roof, the painting on the walls was nearly finished, and the altar was
in progress. Since then it has escaped, as it were by a special
providence (and why not?), from the incendiary fire which destroyed
almost the whole of the surrounding Palais de Justice, and it still
rises uninjured among the ruins. Of all the chapels of the same kind it
is certainly the most beautiful--and whether one names our own St.
Stephen’s, or thinks of others, such as the Chapel at S. Germer and the
other at Riom, the Paris chapel is certainly by far the finest--being in
truth a real work of inspired genius.
Altogether, I cannot help thinking that the effect upon the mind of what
one sees in Paris is very unsatisfactory; the revival of Christian art
seems, as it were, to be only skin-deep; there seems to be no enthusiasm
for it. What is done is done in the same way as other public works, as
the business of the state, not by the will of the people. The
scaffolding, which was just being removed from the avenue leading from
the Tuileries to the Barrière de l’Etoile, after having assisted at the
fête of Napoleon, was an illustration sufficiently apt of the work which
seems to engage too many of the artists of Paris; Parisian fête
composers and decorators really appear to be the architects of the day,
and of course this fact must mitigate very much against real art in
every branch, as its tendency is to make people accustomed to temporary
exhibitions, the shortcomings of which are pardoned on the score of
their temporary character, and so the artist is lowered in his tone by
assisting in the production of works which are not intended--as all
great works ought to be intended--to last for ages.
A day in Paris is generally a long and tiring one; and so we found it;
but nevertheless we pushed on without delay, and leaving our hotel
before the table-d’hôte was much more than half over, we drove to the
station of the Strasburg Railway, and in a few minutes we were _en
route_. If any one doubts the possibility of really resting one’s body
in a railway carriage, let him take the same precaution that we took,
and he need not despair: a day of sight-seeing in Paris is certainly the
best possible recipe for sound sleep in a railway carriage, and I
believe that when we arrived at Strasburg, at about eight the next
morning, we were very fairly rested. I confess, however, that I did feel
a twinge of horror when I found that the train by which we were anxious
to reach Basel left again in about half an hour--too long to wait, but
not long enough for either breakfast or dressing. There seemed, however,
to be no alternative, and so on we went, comforting ourselves as best we
might with some sour grapes and bad dry bread--the sole edibles
procurable at the Strasburg buffet!
The Railway from Strasburg to Basel is much more enjoyable than
iron-ways generally are. There is scarce a cutting during the whole
extent of the journey, and the views of the chain of the Vosges
are--before one has gazed on real mountains in Switzerland--very
delightful.
The railway runs up the broad valley of the Rhine, and within a few
miles of Strasburg approaches very near to the mountainous district. The
outlines of the hills are bold, picturesque, and well varied; and, as
they rise rather precipitously from the valley, are often crowned with
ruined castles, and have on their lower slopes large and
populous-looking villages, they are at any rate very pleasing neighbours
for a railway journey.
A few architectural notes of such churches as are passed on this route
(which I travelled not for the first time) will not be out of place,
though, with one exception, there is not anything of great value.
At Schlestadt there is a large tower of late date to the principal
church, which is rather fine in its effect. It has its two upper stages
nearly similar, which is rarer at home than abroad. Another church has
an early spire; and there is a smaller church with a good open turret.
Opposite Schlestadt the chain of the Vosges is very striking, and some
of the picturesque outlines of hills capped with ruined castles remind
one of the more famous banks of the lower portion of the Rhine. Beyond
Schlestadt we reach Colmar, the cathedral of which is large, and has a
late tower capped with an ugly bulbous roof. Another church in Colmar
has a good open-work and very light turret rising from the middle of the
length of its roof. The effect of this kind of turret, of which we in
England have no examples, is always very satisfactory.
But the best church in the whole extent of this journey is that of
Rouffach, one on whose merits ‘Murray’--whose services all travellers
must gratefully acknowledge--is silent. It is of early date, cruciform
in its plan, and the crossing surmounted by a good early tower and spire
of octangular form. Each side of the tower has a good window, above
which a string-course forms the base to a gable on each side. The angles
of the spire spring from the bases of these eight gables, and the whole
design reminded me somewhat of the only example of the same type in
England--the beautiful steeple of Lostwithiel. Rouffach has a good choir
terminating in an apse, and a south-western steeple, surmounted by a
slender spire too small for the tower. Altogether, the general effect of
the church is very fine. Beyond this point there are no features of
interest; the Vosges retreat into the distance, and nothing is to be
seen but a dead flat of field and wood, relieved occasionally by a
village or town, remarkable mainly for the ugliness of its church. The
busy manufacturing town of Mulhausen is passed, the number of stations
is carefully reckoned, and long before you catch the first view of Basel
you are heartily sick of the slow pace at which the Strasburg and Basel
Railway Company always arrange to carry their passengers.
Those who know the Hotel of the Three Kings at Basel will understand how
grateful was the information given to us, as we mounted its steps, that
the table-d’hôte was to be ready in half an hour. Refreshing enough at
any time, such an announcement was doubly so to travellers just arrived
from a journey from Paris without a stoppage; and in no bad spirit did
we enter the salle à manger, whose windows, opening into balconies which
absolutely overhang the great and glorious Rhine, flowing strong and
quick for ever in the same unceasing current, make it about the
pleasantest room of the kind that I know.
There are few things in the world so fine as a mighty river, few rivers
so fine as the Rhine, and few spots so favourable for its contemplation
as the balcony at Basel. As you look at the deep colour of the water,
you think of all the wonders which on its way it has seen. You remember
your own exploits and pleasant walks in past times along the lovely
valley of the Aar, and over the barren and stony waste of the Grimsel,
to the source of this beautiful feeder of the Rhine; or you think of
Lake Constance and Schaffhausen, and of the beautiful valley of the
Upper Rhine, and of the lakes of Wallenstadt, Lucerne, Brienz, and
Thun--every one of which seems to the mind’s eye to be represented and
brought near by each wave that dashes madly along before your gaze. And
then, whither do they all so swiftly wend their way? Down by minsters
and by castles, along broad plains, through narrow water-worn chasms,
and again through great, dreary, but many-peopled flats, into the sea,
there to mix themselves and all their recollections in the great,
glorious, but tradition-despising depth of Old Ocean.