GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.
ITALY AND SICILY.--TOPOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Gothic architecture in Italy may be considered as a foreign
importation. The Italians, it is true, displayed their natural taste
and artistic instinct in their use of the style, and a large number of
their works possess, as we shall see, strongly-marked characteristics
and much charm; but it is impossible to avoid the feeling that the
architects were working in a style not thoroughly congenial to their
instincts nor to the traditions they had inherited from classical
times; and not entirely in harmony with the requirements of the
climate and the nature of their building materials.
Italian Gothic may be conveniently considered geographically, dividing
the buildings into three groups, the first and most important
containing the architecture of Northern Italy (Lombardy, Venetia, and
the neighbourhood), the second that of Central Italy (Tuscany, &c.),
the third that of the south and of Sicily--a classification which will
suit the subject better than the chronological arrangement which has
been our guide in examining the art of other countries; for the
variations occasioned by development as time went on are less strongly
marked in Italy than elsewhere.
_Northern Italy._
Lombardy in the Romanesque period was thoroughly under German
influence, and the buildings remaining to us from the eleventh and
twelfth centuries bear a close resemblance to those erected north of
the Alps at the same date. The twelfth century Lombard churches again
are specimens of round-arched Gothic, just as truly as those on the
banks of the Rhine. Many of them are also peculiar as being erected
chiefly in brickwork; the great alluvial plain of Lombardy being
deficient in building-stone. St. Michele at Pavia, a well-known church
of this date, may be cited as a good example. This is a vaulted
church, with an apsidal east end and transepts. The round arch is
employed in this building, but the general proportions and treatment
are essentially Gothic. A striking campanile (bell tower) belongs to
the church, and is a good specimen of a feature very frequently met
with in Lombardy; the tower here (and usually) is square, and rises by
successive stages, but with only few and small openings or ornaments,
to a considerable height. There are no buttresses, no diminution of
bulk, no staircase turrets. At the summit is an open belfry-stage,
with large semicircular-headed arches, crowned by a cornice and a
low-pitched conical roof.[25]
In the same city a good example of an Italian Gothic church, erected
after the pointed arch had been introduced, may be found in the church
of Sta. Maria del Carmine. The west front of this church is but
clumsy in general design. Its width is divided into five compartments
by flat buttresses. The gables are crowned by a deep and heavy cornice
of moulded brick and the openings are grouped with but little skill.
Individually, however, the features of this front are very beautiful,
and the great wheel-window, full of tracery, and the two-light windows
flanking it, may be quoted as remarkable specimens of the ornamental
elaboration which can be accomplished in brickwork.
The campanile of this church, like the one just described, is a plain
square tower. It rises by successive stages, each taller than the
last, each stage being marked by a rich brick cornice. The
belfry-stage has on each face a three-light window, with a traceried
head, and above the cornice the square tower is finished by a tall
conical roof, circular on plan, an arrangement not unfrequently met
with.
The Certosa, the great Carthusian Church and Monastery near Pavia,[26]
best known by the elaborate marble front added in a different style
about a century after the erection of the main building, is a good
example of a highly-enriched church, with dependencies, built in
brickwork, and possessing most of the distinctive peculiarities of a
great Gothic church, except the general use of the pointed arch. It
was begun in 1396, and is consistent in its exterior architecture, the
front excepted, though it took a long time to build. Attached to it
are two cloisters, of which the arches are semicircular, and the
enrichments, of wonderful beauty, are modelled in terra-cotta.
This church resembles the great German round-arched Gothic churches on
the Rhine in many of its features. Its plan includes a nave, with
aisles and side chapels, transepts and a choir. The eastern arm and
the transepts are each ornamented by an apse, somewhat smaller than
would be met with in a German church; but as a compensation each of
these three arms has two side apses, as well as the one at the end.
The exterior possesses the German arcade of little arches immediately
under the eaves of the roof; it is marked by the same multiplicity of
small towers, each with its own steep roof; and it possesses the same
striking central feature, internally a small dome, externally a kind
of light pyramidal structure, ornamented by small arcades rising tier
above tier, and ending in a central pointed roof.
The finest Gothic cathedral in North Italy, if dimensions, general
effectiveness, and beauty of material be the test, is that of Milan.
This building is disfigured by a west front in a totally inappropriate
style, but apart from this it is virtually a German church of the
first class, erected entirely in white marble, and covered with a
profusion of decoration. Its dimensions show that, with the exception
of Seville, this was the largest of all the Gothic cathedrals of
Europe. It has double aisles, transepts, and a polygonal apse. At the
crossing of the nave and transepts a low dome rises, covered by a
conical roof, and surmounted by an elegant marble spire.
The structure is vaulted throughout, and each of the great piers which
carry the nave arcade is surmounted by a mass of niches and tabernacle
work, occupied by statues--a splendid substitute for ordinary
capitals. The interior effect of Milan Cathedral is grand and full of
beauty. The exterior, though much of its power is destroyed by the
weakly-designed ornament with which all the surfaces of the walls are
covered, is endowed with a wonderful charm. This building was
commenced in the year 1385, and consecrated in the year 1418. The
details of the window-tracery, pinnacles, &c. (but not the statues
which are of Italian character), correspond very closely to those of
German buildings erected at the same period (close of the fourteenth
century).
Milan possesses, among other examples of pointed architecture, one
secular building, the Great Hospital, well known for its Gothic
facade. This hospital was founded in 1456, and most of it is of later
date and of renaissance character; the street front of two storeys in
height, with pointed arches, is very rich. The church of Chiaravalle,
near Milan, which has been more than once illustrated and described,
ought not to be passed unnoticed, on account of the beauty of its
fully developed central dome. It was built in the early part of the
thirteenth century (1221).
Almost all the great cities of North Italy possess striking Gothic
buildings. Genoa, for instance, can boast of her cathedral, with a
front in alternate courses of black and white marble, dating from
about the year 1300, and full of beauty; the details bearing much
resemblance to the best Western Gothic work. Passing eastward, Verona
possesses a wealth of Gothic work in the well-known tombs of the
Scaligers, the churches of Sta. Anastasia, San Zenone, and several
minor churches and campaniles; and at Como, Bergamo, Vicenza, Padua,
Treviso, Cremona, Bologna, and many other cities and towns, good
churches of pointed architecture are to be found.
Our illustration (Fig. 50) of the ancient Palace of the Jurisconsults
at Cremona, is a good specimen of the secular architecture of North
Italy. Originally the lower storey was a loggia, or open arcaded
storey, but the arches have been built up. Telling, simple, and
graceful, this building owes its effect chiefly to its well-designed
openings and a characteristic brick cornice. It is entirely without
buttresses, has no spreading base, no gables, and no visible roof:
some of these features would have been present had it been designed
and erected north of the Alps.
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--THE PALACE OF THE JURISCONSULTS AT
CREMONA.]
Venice is the city in the whole of North Italy where Gothic
architecture has had freest scope and has achieved the greatest
success, not, however, in ecclesiastical, but in secular buildings.
The great Cathedral of St. Mark, perhaps the most wonderful church in
Europe, certainly the foremost in Italy, is a Byzantine building, and
though it has received some additions in Gothic times, does not fairly
come within the scope of this volume; and the Gothic churches of
Venice are not very numerous nor, with the exception of the fine brick
church of the Frari, extremely remarkable. On the banks of the Grand
Canal and its tributaries, however, stand not a few Gothic palaces of
noble design (see Fig. 9, p. 18), while the Ducal Palace itself alone
is sufficient to confer a reputation upon the city which it adorns.
The Ducal Palace at Venice is a large rectangular block of buildings
erected round a vast quadrangle. Of its exterior two sides only are
visible from a distance, one being the sea front looking over the
lagoon, and the other the land front directed towards the piazzetta.
Rather less than one half the height of each front is occupied by two
storeys of arcades; the lower storey bold, simple, and vigorous; the
upper storey lighter, and ending in a mass of bold tracery. Above this
open work, and resting upon it, rises the external wall of the palace,
faced with marble in alternate slabs of rose-colour and white, pierced
by a few large pointed windows and crowned by an open parapet. Few
buildings are so familiar, even to untravelled persons, as this fine
work, which owes its great charm to the extent, beauty, and mingled
solidity and grace of its arcades, and to the fine sculpture by which
the capitals from which they spring are enriched.
The Gothic palaces are almost invariably remarkable for the skill with
which the openings in their fronts are arranged and designed. It was
not necessary to render any other part of the exterior specially
architectural, as the palaces stand side by side like houses in a
modern street, as can be seen from our illustration (Fig. 9). In
almost all cases a large proportion of the openings are grouped
together in the centre of the front, and the sides are left
comparatively plain and strong-looking, the composition presenting a
centre and two wings. By this simple expedient each portion of the
composition is made to add emphasis to the other, and a powerful but
not inharmonious contrast between the open centre and the solid sides
is called into existence. The earliest Gothic buildings in point of
date are often the most delicate and graceful, and this rule holds
good in the Gothic palaces of Venice; yet one of the later palaces,
the Ca' d'Oro, must be at least named on account of the splendid
richness of its marble front--of which, however, only the centre and
one wing is built--and the beauty of the ornament lavishly employed
upon it.
The balconies, angle windows, and other minor features with which the
Venetian Gothic palaces abound, are among the most graceful features
of the architecture of Italy.
_Central Italy._
Those towns of Central Italy (by which is meant Tuscany and the former
States of the Church), in which the best Gothic buildings are to be
found, are Pisa, Lucca, Florence, Siena, Orvieto, and Perugia. As a
general rule the Gothic work in this district is more developed and
more lavishly enriched than that in Lombardy.
In Pisa, the Cathedral and the Campanile (the famous leaning tower)
belong to the late Romanesque style, but the Baptistry, an elegant
circular building, has a good deal of Gothic ornament in its upper
storeys, and may be fairly classed as a transitional building. The
most charming and thoroughly characteristic work of Gothic
architecture in Pisa is, however, a small gem of a chapel, the church
of Sta. Maria della Spina. It displays exquisite ornament, and,
notwithstanding much false construction, the beauty of its details, of
its sculpture, and of the marble of which it is built, invest it with
a great charm.
Pisan Gothic is remarkable as being associated with the name of a
family of highly gifted sculptors and architects, the Pisani, of whom
Nicola Pisano was the earliest and greatest artist; he was followed by
his descendants Giovanni, Nino, and Andrea. With the Pisani and Giotto
the series of the known names of architects of great buildings may be
said to begin.
Florence, the most important of the cities we have named, is
distinguished by a cathedral built in the early part of the fourteenth
century, and one of the grandest in Italy. It has very few columns,
and its walls and vaults are of great height. The walls are adorned
externally with inlays in coloured marble, and the windows have
stained glass--a rarity in Italy; but its lofty dome, added after the
completion of the rest of the building, is its chief feature. This was
always intended, but the pointed octagonal dome actually erected by
Brunelleschi, between the years 1420 and 1444, though it harmonises
fairly well with the general lines of the building, and forms, as can
be seen from our illustration (Fig. 51), a striking object in all
distant views of the city, is probably very different from what was
originally intended. Near the cathedral stand the Baptistry, famous
for the possession of the finest gates in the world, and the Campanile
of Giotto. This tower is built, or at least faced, entirely with
marble; and when it is stated that its height is not far short of that
of the Victoria Tower of our Houses of Parliament, though of slenderer
proportions, it will be seen that it is magnificently liberal in its
general scheme. The tower is covered with panels of variously coloured
marbles from base to summit, and enriched by fine sculpture. The
angles are strengthened by slightly projecting piers. The windows are
comparatively small till the highest or belfry stage is reached, and
here each face of the tower is pierced by a magnificent three-light
window. A deep and elaborate cornice now crowns the whole, but it was
originally designed to add a high-pitched roof or a spire as a
terminal.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--THE CATHEDRAL AT FLORENCE. WITH GIOTTO'S
CAMPANILE. (BEGUN, 1298; DOME, 1420-1444; CAMPANILE BEGUN,
1324.)]
Our illustration (Fig. 52) shows the west front and campanile of the
Cathedral at Siena, an exceedingly good specimen of the beauties and
peculiarities of the style. This building was commenced in 1243. The
plan is simple but singular, for the central feature is a six-sided
dome, at the crossing of the nave and transepts; and some ingenuity
has been spent in fitting this figure to the arches of the main
avenues of the building. The interior is rich and effective; the
exterior, as can be seen by the illustration, is covered with
ornament, and the front is the richest and probably the best designed
of all the cathedral fronts of Central Italy. The strongly-marked
horizontal lines of cornices, arcades, &c., the moulded gables, the
great wheel-window set in a square panel, and the use of marble of
various colours, are all points to note. So is the employment of the
semicircular arch for the doorways of this thoroughly Gothic building.
The campanile is a good example of that feature, except that instead
of the rich window which usually occupies the belfry stage, or highest
storey, two storeys of small lights have been formed. The
introduction of angle turrets is not very usual, and it here supplies
a deficiency which makes itself felt in other campaniles, where the
junction of tower and spire is not always happy.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--CATHEDRAL AT SIENA. WEST FRONT AND
CAMPANILE. (FACADE BEGUN 1284.)]
Gothic churches of importance can be found in many of the cities and
towns of Central Italy. None are more remarkable than the singular
double church of St. Francis at Assisi, with its wealth of mural
paintings and stained glass, and the cathedral at Orvieto (Fig. 53)
with its splendid front.
In Rome, so rich in specimens of the architecture of many styles and
times, Gothic could find no footing; the one solitary church which can
be claimed as Gothic may be taken as an exception. And south of the
Capital there lies a considerable tract of country, containing few if
any examples of the style we are considering.
_Southern Italy._
Southern Italy is conveniently grouped with Sicily, but the mainland
is deficient in examples of Gothic buildings. The old towns of Apulia
indeed, such as Bari, Bitonto and Brindisi, possess an architecture
which the few who have had an opportunity of examining, declare to be
surpassingly rich in its decoration, but it is for the most part
Romanesque.
The Gothic work remaining in and about Naples is most of it extremely
florid, and often rich, but seldom possesses the grace and charm of
that which exists further north.
Sicily shows the picturesquely mixed results of a complication of
agencies which have not affected the mainland, and is accordingly an
interesting field for architectural study. The island was first under
Byzantine influence; was next occupied and held by the Saracens; and
was later seized and for some time retained by the Normans.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--THE CATHEDRAL AT ORVIETO. (BEGUN 1290;
FACADE, 1310.)]
The most striking early Gothic building in Sicily is the richly
adorned cathedral of Monreale, commenced in the twelfth century. Here
very simple pointed arches are made use of, as the entire surface of
the interior is covered with mosaic pictures of Norman origin. The
small Capella Palatina in Palermo itself is of the same simple and
early architectural character, and adorned with equally magnificent
mosaics. In these buildings the splendour of the colouring is only
equalled by the vigorous and often pathetic power with which the
stories of sacred history are embodied in these mosaics. The cathedral
of Cefalu is a building bearing a general resemblance to that at
Monreale, but not enriched in the same manner.
Of the fourteenth century are the richly ornamented cathedral of
Palermo and that of Messina. The latter has been so much altered as to
have lost a good deal of its interest; but at Palermo there is much
that is striking and almost unique. This building has little in common
with the works of northern or central Italy, and not much more
alliance with the Gothic of North Europe. It is richly panelled and
decorated, but its most striking feature is its bold arcaded portal.
ANALYSIS OF BUILDINGS.
_Plan._
The plans of Italian churches are simple, compared with those of the
northern and western architects. As a rule they are also moderate in
size, and they bear a close resemblance to those of the early basilica
churches from which they are directly descended. Though the apse is
all but universal, the French _chevet_, with its crown of clustering
chapels, was not adopted in Italy. There is very much in common
between the churches of Lombardy and those of Germany, but the German
western apse and the apsidal ends to the transept do not occur. The
spaces between the piers of the main arcade are greater than in French
or English examples, so that there are fewer piers, and the vaults are
of wider span. In the churches founded by the great preaching orders,
the division into nave and aisle does not take place, and the church
consists of nothing but a large hall for the congregation, with a
chancel for the choir.
In monastic, secular, and domestic building a general squareness and
simplicity of plan prevails, and where an internal arcaded quadrangle
can be made use of (_e.g._ in the cloister of a monastery), it is
almost always relied upon to add effect. The famous external arcade at
the Ducal Palace, Venice, was nowhere repeated, though simpler
external arcades occur frequently; but it is so splendid as to form,
itself alone a feature in Italian planning.
The arrangements of the mansions and palaces found in the great cities
were a good deal influenced by the circumstance that it was customary,
in order to secure as much cool air as possible, to devote one of the
upper floors to the purpose of a suite of reception rooms; to this was
given the name of _piano nobile_.
_Walls, Towers, Columns._
Walls are usually thick and stand unbuttressed, and rarely have such
slopes and diminutions of apparent thickness towards their upper part
as are not uncommon in England. Base mouldings are not universal. The
cornice, on the other hand, is far more cared for, and is made much
more conspicuous than with us. In the brick buildings especially it
attains great development. Above the cornice a kind of ornamental
parapet, bearing some resemblance to battlements, is common. The
strikingly peculiar use of materials of different colours in alternate
courses, or in panels, to decorate the wall surfaces, has already been
referred to. It is very characteristic of the style.
The campanile or bell-tower of an Italian church is a feature very
different from western towers. It is never placed over the crossing of
nave and aisles and rarely forms an essential part of the church,
often being quite detached and not seldom placed at an angle with the
walls of the main building. Such towers are not unfrequently appended
to palaces, and are sometimes (_e.g._ at Venice) erected alone. Some
of the Italian cities were also remarkable for strong towers erected
in the city itself as fortresses by the heads of influential families.
Many of these are still standing in Bologna. The smaller towers in
which northern architects took so much delight are almost unknown in
Italy, though on a few of the great churches of the north (_e.g._ the
Certosa at Pavia, and St. Antonio at Padua) they are to be found.
The use of constructive columns is general; piers are by no means
unknown, but fine shafts of marble meet the eye frequently in Italian
churches. The constant use of the column for decorative purposes is a
marked characteristic. Not only is it employed where French and
English architects used it, as in the jambs of doorways, but it
constantly replaces the mullion in traceried windows. It is employed
as an ornament at the angles of buildings to take off the harshness of
a sharp corner, and it is introduced in many unexpected and often
picturesque situations. Twisted, knotted, and otherwise carved and
ornamental shafts are not unfrequently made use of in columns that
serve purely decorative purposes.
_Openings and Arches._
The constructive arches in Italian Gothic buildings are, as a rule,
pointed, but it is remarkable that at every period round and pointed
arches are indiscriminately employed for doors and windows, both being
constantly met with in the same building.
The naves of Italian churches rarely show the division into three,
common in the north. The triforium is almost invariably absent, and
the clerestory is often reduced to a series of small round windows,
sufficient to admit the moderate light which, in a very bright
climate, is grateful in the interior of such a building as a church;
but they are far less effective features than our own well-marked
clerestory windows.
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--OGIVAL WINDOW-HEAD.]
The doorways are often very beautiful, and are frequently sheltered by
projecting porches of extreme elegance and lightness. The window
openings are, as a rule, cusped. An ogee-shaped arch (Fig. 54) is
constantly in use in window-heads, especially at Venice, and much
graceful design is lavished on the arched openings of domestic and
secular buildings. A great deal of the tracery employed is plate
tracery.[27] The tracery in terra-cotta has already been referred to.
In the large windows of the principal apartments and other similar
positions of the palaces in Venice and Vicenza, a sort of tracery not
met with in other countries is freely employed. The openings are
square-headed, and are divided into separate lights by small columns;
the heads of these lights are ogee-shaped, and the spaces between them
and the horizontal lintel are filled in with circles, richly
quatrefoiled or otherwise cusped (Fig. 55). The upper arcade of the
Ducal Palace at Venice offers the best known and finest example of
this class of tracery.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--TRACERY, FROM VENICE.]
_Roofs and Vaults._
The vaulting of Italian churches is always simple, and the bays, as
has been pointed out, are usually wider than those of the northern
Gothic churches. Frequently there are no ribs of any sort to the
groins of the vaults. A characteristic feature of Italian Gothic is
the central dome. It is rarely very large or overpowering, and in the
one instance of a magnificent dome--the Cathedral at Florence, the
feature, though intended from the first, was added after the Gothic
period had closed. Still many churches have a modest dome, and it
frequently forms a striking feature in the interior, while in some
northern instances (_e.g._ at the Certosa at Pavia, or at Chiaravalle)
it is treated like a many storeyed pyramid and becomes an external
feature of importance. At Sant' Antonio at Padua there are five domes.
The churches of the preaching orders are some of them covered by
timber ceilings, not perfectly flat but having an outline made up of
hollow curves of rather flat sweep. The great halls at Padua and
Vicenza displayed a vast wooden curved ceiling resembling the hull of
a ship turned upside down.
The ordinary church roof is of flat pitch and frequently concealed
behind a parapet. Dormer windows, crestings, and other similar
features, by the use of which northern architects enriched their
roofs, are hardly ever employed by Italian architects.
_Mouldings and Ornaments._
Ornament is almost instinctively understood by the Italians, and their
mastery of it is well shown in their architecture. The carving of
spandrels, capitals, and other ornaments, and the sculpture of the
heads and statues introduced is full of power and beauty. The famous
capitals of the lower arcade of the Ducal Palace may be quoted as
illustrations.
The employment of coloured materials is carried so far as sometimes to
startle an eye trained to the sombreness of English architecture, but
a great deal of the beauty of this style is derived from colour, and
much of the comparative simplicity and scarcity of mouldings is due to
the desire to leave large unbroken surfaces for marble linings,
mosaics or fresco painting. Mouldings, where they are introduced,
differ from northern mouldings in being flatter and far less bold,
their enrichments are chiefly confined to dentils, notches, and small
and simple ornaments. Stained glass is not so often seen as in France,
but is to be met with, as, for example, in the fine church of San
Petronio at Bologna, and in Sta. Maria Novella, and in the Cathedral
at Florence. At Florence the stained glass has a character of its own
both in colour and style of treatment. It is not too much to say that
every kind of decoration which can be employed to add beauty to a
building may be found at its best in Italy. In the churches much of
the finest furniture, such as stall-work, screens, altar frontals,
will be found in profusion; and the church porches and the mural
monuments should be especially studied on account of the singular
elegance with which they are usually designed.
_Construction and Design._
The material employed for the external and internal face of the walls
in a very large proportion of the buildings mentioned in this chapter
is marble. This is sometimes used in blocks as stone is with us, but
more frequently in the form of thin slabs as a facing upon masonry or
brickwork. In Lombardy, where brick is the natural building material,
most of the walls are not only built but faced with brick; and the
ornamental features, including tracery, are often executed in
ornamental brickwork, or in what is known as terra-cotta (_i.e._
bricks or blocks of brick clay of fine quality, moulded or otherwise
ornamented and burnt like bricks). Stone was less commonly employed as
a building material in Italy during the Gothic period, than in other
countries of Europe. The surfaces of the vaults, and the surfaces of
the internal walls were often covered with mosaics, or with paintings
in fresco. Vaulting is frequently met with, but it is generally simple
in character, the flat external roof over it is commonly covered with
tiles or metal, while the apparent gable frequently rises more
sharply than the actual roof. The Italians seem never to have
cordially welcomed the Gothic principle of resisting the thrust of
vaults or arches by a counter-thrust, or by the weight of a buttress.
The buttress is almost unknown in Italian Gothic, and as a rule an
iron tie is introduced at the feet of such arches as would in France
or Germany have been buttressed. This expedient is, of course,
economical, but to northern eyes it appears strange and out of place.
The Italians, however, take no pains to conceal it, and many of their
lighter works, such as canopies over tombs, porches, &c., would fall
to pieces at once were the iron ties removed.
Open timber roofs in the English fashion are unknown; but the wooden
ceilings already alluded to are found in San Zeno at Verona, and the
Eremitani at Padua. A kind of open roof of large span, carried by
curved ribs and tied by iron ties, covers the great hall of the
Basilica at Vicenza, and the very similar hall at Padua. The ribs of
these roofs are built up of many thicknesses of material bolted
together.
The design of Italian Gothic buildings presents many peculiarities,
some of which are due to the materials made use of. For example, where
brick and terra-cotta are alone employed, wide moulded cornices of no
great projection, and broad masses of enriched moulding encircling
arches are easily executed, and they are accordingly constantly to be
found; but bold mouldings, with deep hollows, similar to those of
Early English arches, could not be constructed of these materials, and
are not attempted. These peculiarities will be found in the Town Hall
at Cremona, of which an illustration (Fig. 50) has already been given.
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--WINDOW FROM TIVOLI.]
Where marble is used, the peculiar fineness of its surface, upon which
the bright Italian sun makes the smallest moulding effective,
combined with the fact that the material, being costly, is often used
in thin slabs, has given occasion to extreme flatness of treatment,
and to the use of modes of enrichment which do not require much depth
of material. Our illustration of a window from the Piazza S. Croce at
Tivoli, shows these peculiarities extremely well (Fig. 56), and also
illustrates the strong predilection which the Italian architects
retained throughout the Gothic period for squareness and for
horizontal lines. The whole ornamental treatment is here square; the
window rests on a strongly-moulded horizontal sill, and is surrounded
by flatly-carved enrichment, making a square panel of the entire
feature. Even in the richly-decorated window (Fig. 57), which is in
its pointed outline more truly Gothic than the Tivoli example, much of
the same quality can be traced. The arch and jamb are richly moulded,
but the whole mass of mouldings is flat, and the flat cuspings of the
tracery, elaborately carved though it be, more resemble the cusps of
early Western Gothic, executed at a time when tracery was beginning
its career, than work belonging to the period of full maturity to
which this feature, as a whole, undoubtedly belongs.
Where marbles were plentiful enough to be built into the fabric, the
national love of colour gave rise to the use of black and white--or
sometimes red and white--alternate courses, already mentioned. The
effect of this striped masonry may be partly judged of from the
illustration of the cathedral at Siena (Fig. 52), where it is employed
to a considerable extent. A finer method of surface decoration, less
simple, however, and perhaps less frequently practised, was open to
the Italian architect, in the use of panels of various coloured
marbles. A beautiful example of the employment of this expedient
exists in Giotto's campanile at Florence (Fig. 51).
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--ITALIAN GOTHIC WINDOW, WITH TRACERY
IN THE HEAD. (13TH CENTURY.)]
The flatness of the roofs, which the Italians never abandoned, was
always found difficult to reconcile with the Gothic tendency to height
and steepness. In many cases, the sharp pitched gables which the
buildings display, are only masks, and do not truly denote the pitch
of the roofs behind them. In other instances the walls finish with a
horizontal parapet, plain or ornamental, quite concealing the roof. In
the roofs of their campaniles, however, the Gothic architects of Italy
were usually happy; they almost always adopted a steep conical
terminal, with or without pinnacles, which is very telling against
the sky; even if its junction with the tower is at times clumsy.
The brightness of southern suns prevented the adoption of the great
windows, adapted to masses of stained glass, which were the ambition
of northern architects in the fourteenth century; and the tenacity
with which a love for squareness of effect and for strongly-marked
horizontal lines of various sorts retained its hold, tended to keep
Italian Gothic buildings essentially different from those of northern
nations; but the love of colour, the command of precious materials,
and of fine sculpture, the passion for beauty and for a decorative
richness, and the artistic taste of the Italians, display themselves
in these buildings in a hundred ways: all this lends to them a charm
such as few works of the middle ages existing elsewhere can surpass.
SPAIN.--CHRONOLOGICAL SKETCH.
An early, middle, and late period can be distinguished in dealing with
Spanish Gothic. The first period reaches to the first quarter of the
thirteenth century, the second occupies the remainder of the
thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, the third completes the
fifteenth and runs on into part of the sixteenth.
The early style is one of much purity and dignity, and is developed
directly from the Romanesque of the country. The cathedral of St. Iago
di Compostella, a fine cruciform church of round-arched Gothic, with a
magnificent western portal,[28] recalling the great lateral porches at
Chartres, is an early and fine example. Like other churches of the
type in Spain, it is far plainer inside than out, but it is vaulted
throughout.
The cathedral of Zamora, and those of Tarragona and Salamanca must
also be referred to. In each of these, the most thoroughly Spanish
feature is a dome, occupying the crossing of the nave and transepts,
and apparently better developed than those in early German churches or
in Italian ones. It is called in Spanish the _cimborio_. This feature
was constructed so as to consist of an inner dome, decorated by ribs
thrown over the central space, and carried by pendentives; having
above it a separate outer dome somewhat higher and often richly
decorated. This feature unfortunately disappeared when the French
designs of the thirteenth century began to be the rage. A peculiarity
of plan, however, which was retained throughout the whole Gothic
period in Spain, is to be found in the early churches; it consists of
an inclosure for the choir quite in the body of the church, and often
west of the transepts,--in such a position, in fact, as the choir at
Westminster Abbey occupies. A third peculiarity is the addition of an
outer aisle, not unlike the arcade of a cloister, to the side walls of
the churches, possibly with a view of protecting them from heat.
With the thirteenth century a strong passion for churches, closely
resembling those being erected in France at the same time, set in, as
has just been remarked. Accordingly the cathedrals of Toledo, Burgos,
and Leon, approach very closely to French types. Toledo is very large,
five aisled, and with a vast chevet. Its exterior is unfinished, but
the dignity of its fine interior may be well understood from the
illustration (Fig. 58) here given. Burgos is not so ambitious in size
as Toledo, but has a florid exterior of late architecture with two
lofty, open-traceried spires, like Strasburg and other German
examples. Leon is remarkable for its lofty clerestory. Spanish Gothic
may be said to have culminated in the vast cathedral at Seville
(begun 1401), claiming to be of greater extent than any Gothic
cathedral in the world, larger, therefore, than Milan or Cologne. It
stands on the site of a mosque, and has never been completed
externally. The interior is very imposing and rich, but when it is
stated that it was not completed till 1520, it may be readily
understood that many of the details are very late, and far from the
purity of earlier examples.
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--THE CATHEDRAL AT TOLEDO. INTERIOR.
(BEGUN 1227.)]
In the fourteenth century an innovation, of which French architects
immediately north of the Pyrenees were also availing themselves, found
favour in Barcelona. The great buttresses by which the thrust of the
vaults was met were brought inside the boundary walls of the church,
and were made to serve as division walls between a series of side
chapels. Both here and at Manresa and Gerona, cathedrals were built,
resembling in construction that at Alby, in Southern France; in these
this arrangement was carried a step further, and the side aisles were
suppressed, leaving the whole nave to consist of a very bold vaulted
hall, fringed by a series of side chapels, which were separated from
each other by the buttresses which supported the main vault. These
large vaults, however, when bare of decoration, as most of the Spanish
vaults are, appear bald and poor in effect, though they are grand
objects structurally.
The Gothic work of the latest period in Spain became extraordinarily
florid in its details, especially in the variety introduced into the
ribs of the vaulting and the enrichments generally. The great
cathedrals of Segovia and Salamanca were neither of them begun till
the sixteenth century had already well set in. They are the two
principal examples of this florid Gothic.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--THE GIRALDA AT SEVILLE. (BEGUN IN 1196.
FINISHED IN 1538).]
It will not be forgotten that the country we are now considering was
fully occupied by the Moors, and that they left in Southern Spain
buildings of great merit. A certain number of Christian churches exist
built in a style which has been called Moresco, as being a kind of
fusion of Moorish and Gothic. The towers of these churches bear a
close resemblance to the Saracenic towers of which the beautiful
bell-tower, called the Giralda, at Seville (Fig. 59) is the type; with
this and similar examples in the country it is not surprising that at
Toledo, Saragoza, and other places, towers of the same character
should be erected as parts of churches in which the architecture
throughout is as much Saracenic as Christian.
To many of these great churches, cloisters, and monastic buildings,
which are often both extensive and of a high order of architectural
excellence, are attached. The secular buildings, of Spain in the
Gothic period are, on the other hand, neither numerous nor remarkable.
PORTUGAL.
The architecture of Portugal has been very little investigated. The
great church at Batalha[29] is probably the most important in the
country. This building, though interesting in plan, is more remarkable
for a lavish amount of florid ornament, of which our illustration
(Fig. 60) may furnish some idea, than for really fine architecture.
The conventual church at Belem, near Lisbon, a work of the beginning
of the sixteenth century, and equally florid, is another of the small
number of specimens of Portuguese Gothic of which descriptions or
illustrations have been published.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] An illustration of such a campanile will be found in that
belonging to the Cathedral of Siena (Fig. 52).
[26] See Frontispiece.
[27] For an explanation of this term, see _ante_, Chapter V., page 48.
[28] A cast of this portal is at the South Kensington Museum.
[29] See _Sculptures of the Monastery at Batalha_, published by the
Arundel Society.
[Illustration: {CRETE FROM NOTRE DAME, PARIS.}]