CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE
No other work by Brunelleschi is comparable in merit to the great dome
of the cathedral. None of his other opportunities were such as to call
forth his best powers, which appear to have required great magnitude
to bring them into full play. In his other works the influence of his
Roman studies is more manifest, and his own genius is less apparent. In
these other works he revives the use of the orders, and employs them
in modes which for incongruity surpass anything that imperial Roman
taste had devised.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Plan of the chapel of the
Pazzi.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Section of vault of the Pazzi
chapel.]
The first of these works is the small chapel of the Pazzi in the
cloister of Santa Croce. It is a simple rectangle on plan (Fig. 10),
with a square sanctuary on the short axis, and a porch across the
front. The central area is covered with a circular vault which by
most writers is called a dome, but it is not a dome; it is a vault
of essentially Gothic form, like two early Gothic apse vaults joined
together (Fig. 11). It rests on pendentives, and is enclosed by a
cylindrical drum, which forms an effective, though not a logical,
abutment to its thrusts, and is covered with a low-pitched roof of
masonry having a slightly curved outline. Whether this external
covering is connected with the vaulting in any way above where it
parts from the crowns of the vault cells it is impossible to discover,
because there is no way of access to the open space between the two
parts. Through a small opening in the outer shell, near its crown, the
hand may be thrust into the void, but nothing can be reached. It is a
curious form of double vault, and differs fundamentally from the great
double dome of the cathedral. The scheme as a whole is structurally
inconsistent; for while the inner vault has the concentrated thrusts
of Gothic construction, these thrusts are met by the enclosing drum,
and not by the isolated abutments that the vault logically calls for.
The sanctuary has a small hemispherical dome on pendentives, and the
portico is covered with a barrel vault bisected by another small dome
on pendentives.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Interior of the Pazzi chapel.]
The architectural treatment of the interior (Fig. 12) exhibits a
wide departure from that of any previous type of design. The form of
the building is mediæval, being, with exception of the central vault,
essentially Byzantine,[27] but the details are classic Roman, and
consist of a shallow order of fluted Corinthian pilasters with the
entablature at the level of the vaulting imposts. In such a building,
however, and used in this way, a classic order is out of place; for an
order is a structural system designed for structural use, but the order
here has no more structural function than if it were merely painted on
the walls. It is used, of course, with a purely ornamental motive, but
as ornament it is inappropriate. A proper ornamental treatment of such
an interior would be either by marble incrusting, mosaic, or fresco,
or else by pilaster strips, or colonnettes, and blind arches, which
would break the monotony of the broad wall surfaces without suggesting
an architectural system foreign to the character of the building. Such
arcading would have an appropriate structural suggestiveness, if not an
actual structural use; but a classic order is unsuitable for a building
of mediæval character. The mediæval pilaster strip and blind arcade
were designed for this use, and they have the further advantage that
their proportions may be indefinitely varied to meet varied needs, as
the proportions of the classic orders may not. But in their lack of a
true sense of structural expression, and in their eagerness to revive
the use of classic forms, the designers of the Renaissance failed to
consider these things.
A particularly awkward result of this improper use of an order is that
the entablature passes through the arch imposts, making an irrational
structural combination. This scheme was, however, extensively followed
in the subsequent architecture of the Renaissance, but it is a
barbarism for which no authority can, I believe, be found in ancient
Roman design.[28] The nearest approach to it in Roman art is the
entablature block resting on the capital (as in the great hall of the
Baths of Caracalla), which was a blundering device of the later Roman
architects. The complete entablature running through the impost, as
in the chapel of the Pazzi, sometimes, indeed, occurs in the early
churches of Rome and elsewhere,[29] as a result of unsettled conditions
of design, while the architects were struggling with the traditional
use of the entablature and the introduction of the arch sprung from the
columns. But after the admirable logic of the mediæval arched systems
of construction had been reached it appears strange that any designer
should go back to this irrational combination.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Façade of the Pazzi chapel.]
In the portico (Fig. 13) the incongruities of design are of a still
graver nature because they involve weakness of construction. The order
of the interior is, as we have just seen, but a simulated order, and
has no structural function, but in the portico a real Corinthian order
is made to carry the barrel vault and dome above mentioned, and an
attic wall which encloses the vaulting. But a classic order was never
intended for such use, and cannot properly perform it. Such an order
is adapted only to the support of crushing weight, and has no power of
resistance to the thrusts of vaulting. The weight of the attic wall
tends, indeed, in some measure to neutralize the force of the vault
thrust, but this is not enough to render the structure secure, and
unless the order were effectively steadied by some extraneous means the
attic load would constitute a source of danger, as with any disturbance
of its equilibrium by thrust its weight would hasten the overthrow of
the system. How it is actually maintained is not apparent. No tie rods
are visible beneath the vault, such as are common in Italian vaulted
structures, which are rarely buttressed in an effective manner. Ties
or clamps may, however, be concealed within the attic, though they
would be less effective so placed. But in whatever way the system is
held together, it is bad architecture, because the parts have no proper
adaptation to their functions.
The ornamental treatment of the attic wall is worthy of notice. The
surface is divided into panels by diminutive pilasters, and these
panels are subdivided by mouldings in a manner which recalls the
treatment of the attic of the Baptistery. The coupling of the pilasters
was an innovation in the use of classic members, but it enabled the
architect to avoid unpleasant proportions in these details. Single
pilasters of the same magnitude would be too slender for the deep
entablature over them, or to harmonize with the great Corinthian
order below, while wider single ones would be stumpy and inelegant.
The pair give good proportion in the total composition, while each
pilaster is well proportioned in itself. Another noticeable point is
the manner in which the central archivolt and the archivolts spanning
the ends of the porch intersect the pilasters at the springing. This
could not be avoided, because the pilasters cover the whole space on
the entablature over the capitals of the columns, and leave no place
for the archivolts. Thus the mediæval principle of interpenetration is
carried over into the neo-classic design.
It should be observed that the details of this attic are wrought
in stucco, so that we have with the beginning of the Renaissance a
revival of a common ancient Roman practice of architectural deceit.
The great order, however, is necessarily of stone, and its general
proportions are good, though the details are poor in design, and coarse
in execution.[30]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Badia of Fiesole.]
The façade of the Pazzi has been considered as showing noteworthy
originality of design. But there are older buildings in the
neighbourhood to which it bears enough likeness to suggest its
derivation from them. The façade of the Badia of Fiesole (Fig. 14) is
one of these. By substituting a free-standing colonnade for the blind
arcade of this front, and breaking its entablature and attic wall with
an arch, we should get the leading features of the Pazzi front. Sant’
Jacopo Soprarno, with its attic surmounting an open portico having an
arcade on Corinthian columns, is also strongly suggestive of the same
scheme. The features that are peculiar to the Pazzi, the arch breaking
the entablature, the barrel vault sprung from the order, and the dome
bisecting this vault, do little credit to the architect as a consistent
designer.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Impost of San Lorenzo.]
Two more important examples of church architecture in Florence,
which appear to be mainly by Brunelleschi, are San Lorenzo and Santo
Spirito. What part Brunelleschi had in the design of San Lorenzo
is not perfectly clear,[31] but the main scheme was probably his,
though the work was not completed until after his death. In the old
sacristy of this church, which appears to be the part that was first
built, the interior design of the Pazzi chapel is reproduced with
some modifications of proportions and details, including the celled
vault on a system of ribs, resting on pendentives. The church itself
exhibits a frank return to primitive basilican forms and methods of
construction, though with modifications and some additions. The nave
has a flat wooden ceiling, but the aisles are covered with domical
vaulting on salient transverse ribs, and over the crossing is a
hemispherical dome on pendentives. In the arcades, which are carried
on Corinthian columns like those of the portico of the Pazzi, the
entablature blocks of late Roman design are reproduced in the impost
(Fig. 15). The revival of this meaningless feature shows again how
little impression the logic of mediæval art had made on the Italian
mind, and what lack of discrimination in their borrowings from the
antique the designers of the Renaissance often show. Whatever features
the Roman models displayed were looked upon as authoritative, and
copied without question; and the frequency with which this superfluous
detail was reproduced in the subsequent architecture of the Renaissance
has given it wide acceptance in more recent times. Notwithstanding
the intention of the designer to revive the ancient style, mediæval
features are conspicuous in San Lorenzo, and something of the mediæval
logic of structural adjustment occurs in some details. Not only is
the dome over the crossing supported on pendentives, which, in their
developed form, are mediæval features and thus foreign to classic Roman
design, but the piers sustaining this dome are compound, and consist
of members of different proportions adjusted in the organic mediæval
manner. The members which take part in the support of the aisle arcades
are necessarily short, while those which carry the great pendentive
arches are lengthened to reach the higher level from which those arches
spring. But all of these members have the form of fluted Corinthian
pilasters (Fig. 16). Thus were classic members used in ways that are
foreign to classic principles, and their proportions altered with as
much disregard for the rules of Vitruvius as the mediæval builders had
shown.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Crossing pier of San Lorenzo.]
The church of Santo Spirito, built after the architect’s death, closely
resembles San Lorenzo in its architectural character, though it is
larger in scale. The entablature blocks occur in the arcades here
also, but instead of a dome over the crossing as in San Lorenzo, there
is a circular celled vault on converging ribs, like the vault of the
Pazzi chapel. The interior is spacious and finely proportioned, but it
presents no features that afford further illustration of the progress
of neo-classic design.
The retrospective movement was carried further by the Florentine
scholar and architect Leon-Batista Alberti, who, says Milizia, is
justly regarded as one of the principal restorers of the architecture
of antiquity.[32] His chief designs in church architecture are found
in Santa Maria Novella of Florence, in San Francesco of Rimini,
and in Sant’Andrea of Mantua. The first two of these are mediæval
structures in which Alberti’s work is confined to the remodelling of
the exteriors, but the last was wholly designed by him, though the work
was not completed within his lifetime, and the dome over the crossing
is the work of another architect of a later time.
How much Alberti did to the façade of Santa Maria Novella, the part of
the building to which his work is confined is not very clear. Vasari
speaks vaguely as if the whole front were by him,[33] but from a
foot-note by Milanesi it would appear that he merely completed a part
which had been left unfinished by an older architect, and the work
remaining by the older architect is said to include all below the first
cornice except the central portal, which is attributed to Alberti.
Milizia says[34] that although it is common to attribute the whole
façade to Alberti, it has too much Gothic character to be entirely by
him, and that therefore a part of it may, with more probability of
correctness, be assigned to Giovanni Bettini, an older architect; but
he adds that the central portal is undoubtedly by Alberti.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Façade of Santa Maria Novella.]
An examination of the monument itself would seem to show that the part
below the first entablature, with exception of the great Corinthian
columns and the central portal, is mediæval work (Fig. 17). The whole
Corinthian order, with the angle pilasters and the pedestals on which
the order is raised, look like neo-classic work, and are probably by
Alberti. This order is wholly different in character from mediæval
design, and quite foreign to the mixture of Pisan Romanesque and
Italian Gothic features of the distinctly mediæval part with which
it is associated. The columns of the order are, however, of mediæval
proportions, being eleven or twelve diameters in height, and they
are built of small stones in a common mediæval manner. But these
proportions were necessitated by the older work to which the order
had to be adjusted, and the small masonry of which they are composed
makes them harmonize with the older parts. The central portal has a
round arch on fluted Corinthian pilasters framing in a deeply recessed
rectangular opening with a classic lintel and jamb mouldings. It is
noticeable that the arch does not spring directly from the capitals
of the pilasters, but that the entablature block is interposed, as
in Brunelleschi’s arcades of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito. Milizia,
speaking of this feature in another work by the same architect, says:
“In these arcades Alberti observed a rule always followed in the good
ancient times, but since universally disregarded. The arches are
not sprung from the columns, because this would be incorrect, but
architraves [_sic_] are interposed. It would now be ridiculous
to inculcate the importance of this rule, which is familiar to
children.”[35] This, like other notions to which the Renaissance
gave currency, is a mistake. In inserting the entablature block at
the arch impost Alberti did not follow a rule always observed in the
ancient times. This feature is uncommon in ancient Roman art. It was,
as before remarked, introduced by the late Roman architects, who,
being accustomed to the use of the entablature over the column in the
trabeate system which they had borrowed from the Greeks, did not see,
when they began to spring arches from columns, that the entablature had
no longer any reason for existence. The radical nature of the change
wrought in architecture by the introduction of the arch was never
grasped by the imperial Roman designers. First framing the arch with an
order, thus uniting two contradictory systems, they afterwards, when,
as in the basilica of Maxentius, springing the arches of vaulting from
columns, thought that the rules required them to crown these columns
with bits of entablature.
This façade appears to have been originally designed in the Pisan
Romanesque style, with a tall, shallow blind arcade on pilaster-strips
reaching across the ground story. But the Romanesque character was
modified in some details, the portals having pointed arches, pointed
arched niches sheltering tombs being ranged in the intervals between
the pilaster-strips. How far the upper part of this façade had been
left incomplete until Alberti took it in hand we have no means of
knowing; but no mediæval features occur in it as it now stands, except
the circular opening in the central compartment. Upon this front,
then, Alberti appears to have ingrafted the great Corinthian order,
placing a wide pilaster paired with a column on each angle, breaking
the entablature into ressauts to cover the columns, which have nothing
else to support, and replacing the central portal with the existing one
in the revived classic style. The preservation of the greater part of
the mediæval work in the ground story made it impossible to get in more
than the four columns in the great order, and these are necessarily
spaced in an unclassic way, with a narrow interval in the middle and
very wide ones on either side. To the upper compartment the architect
has given an order of pilasters surmounted by a classic pediment, and
flanked by screen walls over the aisle compartments in the form of
gigantic reversed consoles, apparently the first of these features
which became common thereafter in Renaissance fronts. The pilasters
of this order are again four in number, and are set in pairs on either
side of the circular opening, the width of this opening making it
impossible to space them otherwise. We thus have in the clerestory
compartment of this façade a forced arrangement of pilasters, which may
have led to that alternation of wide and narrow intervals that became
very common in the subsequent architecture of the Renaissance. The
attic over the ground story, which extends across the entire front and
answers to nothing in the interior of the building, is presumably also
by Alberti.
The front of Santa Maria Novella is notable as the first mediæval one
which was worked over by a Renaissance architect, and as a whole,
notwithstanding that it is a patchwork of incongruous elements, it
exhibits a remarkable unity of effect. The merit of Alberti’s work
here consists in its quietness. The applied orders are in low relief,
their details are unobtrusive, and the mellowing effect of age on the
beautiful marble incrusting has fused the whole front into an exquisite
colour harmony that is almost unmatched elsewhere.
Very different is the west front of San Francesco of Rimini, in which
Alberti has introduced a Roman composition without any admixture of
mediæval elements. It is substantially a reproduction of the arch of
Septimius Severus. The details are in higher relief here in conformity
with the ancient model, and the ressauts of the entablature become
correspondingly more salient. A ressaut of this kind is another
feature of Roman art which has no justification on structural grounds,
and to which there is nothing analogous in any reasonable style of
architecture. To set a useless column in advance of an entablature and
then make a ressaut to cover it, is irrational.
[Illustration:
Plate II
SANT’ANDREA
Mantua]
Alberti’s capital work in church architecture is Sant’Andrea of Mantua,
begun in 1472, the year of the architect’s death, in which he made
a frank return to Roman models in the structural forms of the whole
edifice, as well as in the ornamental details--a thing that was rarely
done by the architects of the Renaissance. The plan (Fig. 18) is,
however, cruciform, and the dome over the crossing is supported in
the Byzantine manner on pendentives. The nave (Plate II) has a barrel
vault on massive square piers connected by arches, the intervals
between the piers forming side chapels, and the lower part of each
pier having a small square chamber within it, so that it does not
look as massive on the plan as it does in elevation. The east end has
the strictly Roman form of a semicircular apse with a half-dome vault.
The details of the interior consist of a single order of pilasters,
on high pedestals, set on the angles of the piers, and of rich Roman
coffering on the surfaces of the vaulting. The piers closely resemble
those of the so-called arch of the Silversmiths in Rome, which it is
not unlikely that Alberti had in mind in designing them, inasmuch as he
was a devoted student of Roman architectural antiquities. This interior
is, I think, one of the very finest that the Renaissance produced. The
justness of its proportions, the simplicity of the structural scheme,
and the quietness of the ornamental details are all admirable. With
the given elements it is hard to see how a better composition could
be made; but the incongruity between the structural and ornamental
systems, the entirely superficial use of the order, and its unfitness
as ornament where it has no structural meaning, are fundamental defects
of this as of most other Renaissance designs. The scheme of St. Andrea
foreshadows that of St. Peter’s, and was undoubtedly in the mind of
Bramante when he was preparing his colossal project for Pope Julius II.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Sant’Andrea, Mantua.]
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Façade of Sant’Andrea, Mantua.]
The west front of this church (Fig. 19) is again an adaptation of
a Roman triumphal arch design. It is, in fact, as the plan (Fig.
18) shows, a great porch set against the true front, and has no
correspondence in its parts with those of the building itself. In
outline it is an unbroken rectangle crowned with a pediment. A very
shallow order of Corinthian pilasters divides it into a wide central
bay and two narrow ones. A great arch over a smaller order opens into
a barrel-vaulted recess, on the three sides of which the entablature
is returned. A rectangular portal, with square jambs and a cornice,
opens into the nave, and an arch reaching to the entablature opens into
the lateral compartment on each side, and each of these compartments
has a barrel vault with its axis perpendicular to that of the great
central one. The entablature of the small order is carried across the
front of each lateral bay, dividing it into two stages, and the great
order rises through it, embracing both stages, and forming an early
instance of the so-called colossal order that became common in the
later Renaissance. The great order is raised on pedestals, and both
pedestals and pilasters of this order are panelled, while the small
order rests directly on the pavement and its pilasters are fluted. It
is noticeable that the design of the central arch is almost exactly
like that of the central portal of Santa Maria Novella in Florence,
the smaller entablature being broken into shallow ressauts over the
pilasters, giving the same character to the imposts. The front as a
whole has the quiet and refined character that distinguishes this
architect’s work in general.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Arch of Septimius Severus.]
That Alberti derived all of these façades, and especially that of St.
Andrea, from the Roman triumphal arch scheme a direct comparison will
show; and the arch of Septimius Severus (Fig. 20) may, I think, be
taken as the model that he had chiefly in mind. In Santa Maria Novella
the mediæval scheme upon which he had to fit his work prevented such
a disposition of the columns, and such general proportions as this
model exhibits. He was obliged to make the lateral intercolumniations
much wider than the central one, and to make the whole rectangle of the
composition more oblong than that of the ancient monument; but in most
other points he has followed the arch of Septimius Severus closely.
As in the Roman design the entablature crowns the wall instead of the
order, so that ressauts have to be formed to cover the columns. The
insertion of the angle pilaster is a departure from the Roman scheme,
and the placing of the stumpy pilaster of the attic over the great
pilaster, instead of on the column, is another point of difference.
But the general scheme of the ground story and attic will be seen to
resemble that of the Roman design about as closely as the mediæval
edifice on which it is ingrafted would allow. In San Francesco at
Rimini the architect had a freer hand, and the order is treated in
closer conformity with the ancient model as to the spacing of the
columns and other details. The angles are treated precisely as they
are in the arch of Septimius Severus, the pilasters being omitted,
and the entablature at each end extending beyond the ressaut. The
attic is omitted here, and the unfinished upper part of the façade is
necessarily of different design.
In St. Andrea at Mantua the use of pilasters instead of columns,
and the absence of ressauts in the great order, as well as the
substitution of a pediment for the attic, make a great difference in
the general character of the design; and yet the triumphal arch idea
is even more strongly marked in this case, because it is not confined
to the mere façade but extends to the form of the whole porch. The
great barrel-vaulted recess is an exact reproduction of the central
passageway of the Roman arch, and so are the lesser arches which open
out of this recess on either side.
The triumphal arch idea applied to church fronts appears to be
peculiar to Alberti. Most other architects among his contemporaries
and immediate successors limit themselves to an application of the
orders variously proportioned and disposed. In some cases the mediæval
scheme of buttresses dividing the front into bays is retained, and
this scheme is enriched with pilasters, or columns, and mouldings of
classic profiling, as in the façade of the Duomo of Pienza by the
Florentine architect Rossellino. In the later Renaissance façades,
as we shall see, there is frequently no organic division of the whole
front into bays by continuous members embracing its whole height, but
superimposed pilasters and entablatures are variously disposed upon the
surface without any suggestion, in the composition as a whole, of the
triumphal arch idea (as in Vignola’s fronts, Figs. 49 and 50). But in
the characteristic Palladian scheme an organic division is formed by
a great order of columns reaching to the top of the nave compartment,
and overlapping a smaller order of pilasters extending across the whole
front as in Figure 54.
The foregoing examples are enough to illustrate the character of
Florentine church architecture, and that which was wrought elsewhere
under Florentine influence, in the fifteenth century. These examples
show us that the designers, while ostensibly striving to revive the
antique forms, were in reality working more or less unconsciously on a
foundation of mediæval ideas from which they could not free themselves.
The inconsistencies of their work are largely due to the irreconcilable
nature of the elements which they sought to unite, not appreciating
the logic of mediæval art on the one hand, nor the true principles
of the best art of antiquity on the other. The classic orders were
entirely unsuited to the buildings to which they affixed them. They
properly belong to a very different type of architecture which had been
developed by the Greeks in ancient times, and the Greeks alone have
used them with propriety. The Romans misapplied and deformed them,
and the Italians of the Renaissance now surpassed the Romans in their
misapplication and distortion. Many further illustrations of this will
appear as we go on.
Early in the sixteenth century this architecture began to assume
another phase in which the mediæval elements became less conspicuous,
though they were not eliminated, and the imperial Roman features were
more rigorously reproduced, yet they were never used with strict
conformity to ancient models. This phase of the art was inaugurated by
the architect Bramante after his settlement in Rome. We shall consider
the Roman work of Bramante, in the following chapter.