CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMAN RENAISSANCE
As for the rest of the church of St. Peter, we need give attention to
that part only which was designed by Michael Angelo on the basis of
the original scheme of Bramante, namely, all to the eastward of,[65]
and including, the first bay west of the crossing. The western bays
of the nave as it now stands were, as is well known, added at a later
time by the architect Maderna. The plan (Fig. 31) of the earlier part
is thoroughly fine, and if the elevation had been made consistent with
this plan, St. Peter’s might have been one of the noblest monuments
in Christendom. But the architects of the Renaissance rarely sought
consistency in design; they were prone, from first to last, to mix
incongruous elements. The essentially Byzantine plan here adopted
could not be carried out in elevation with classic Roman details
with a noble result; and the attempt which Michael Angelo made to
produce an architectural effect foreign to the real structural system
led of necessity, not only to such inconsistencies as are common in
Renaissance motives, but to some awkward makeshifts which have not, I
believe, been hitherto noticed by writers on this edifice.
Following what appears to have been Bramante’s intention, Michael
Angelo constructed barrel vaults over the arms of the cross,[66]
supporting them on piers and arches which had been begun by Bramante.
To this simple and reasonable scheme he applied a colossal order of
Corinthian pilasters, a pair against each pier, as Alberti had done on
a smaller scale at Mantua, and as Bramante appears to have intended in
the great piers of the crossing, if not in all of the others. Apart
from the superficial and purely ornamental character of the order, and
its inappropriateness as ornament in such a system, its exaggerated
scale dwarfs the effect of magnitude in the whole interior. The eye
naturally estimates this magnitude by the customary proportions of a
large classic order, and while these are by no means fixed, there is an
approximate mean scale upon which we base our judgment. No beholder on
entering St. Peter’s can, indeed, fail to be impressed with the unusual
size of the order; but he is not apt to realize how far it exceeds
the largest orders of antiquity. The order of the Parthenon is about
forty-five feet high, and that of the portico of the Pantheon is about
sixty feet. These are exceptionally large among the orders of Greek and
Roman antiquity[67] but the order of St. Peter’s is one hundred feet
high.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Plan of St. Peter’s, from
Fontana.]
The lack of due effect of scale in this interior has been often
remarked, and it is generally attributed to the great magnitude of the
structural parts. The size of these parts could not, however, well be
different from what they are. Their magnitude is determined by the
scale of the great dome and the width and altitude of the arms of the
cross. The piers of the crossing are masses of masonry measuring on
their longer sides more than fifty feet on the pavement, while the
pendentive arches are one hundred and fifty feet high, and those of
the arms of the cross are seventy-five feet high. But with appropriate
treatment their scale might have been made more apparent. To adorn such
piers and frame such arches with a classic order is to destroy the
proper effect of scale, as well as to violate the true principles of
architectural design by using structural members without any structural
meaning.
Apart from the barbarism already remarked (p. 29) of springing a vault
from a classic entablature, the effect of the gigantic order is unhappy
in other respects; the great salience of its cornice cuts off from view
the lower part of the vaulting, and this pronounced overhanging ledge,
extending around the whole interior, breaks the continuity of the
upright lines into the vaulting, and diminishes the effect of altitude.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Section of aisle of St.
Peter’s.]
But not only did Michael Angelo employ this incongruous and ineffective
ornamental scheme for the interior of St. Peter’s, he also adopted a
corresponding design for the exterior which wholly contradicts the real
character of the structure and led the architect into some curious
makeshifts. For this exterior he used another gigantic order surmounted
with an attic story. This obliged him to carry up the enclosing walls
of the aisles to a height equal to that of the nave, and led to
difficulties within. For the aisle vaulting was now far down below the
top of these walls, and it therefore became necessary, unless the space
above this vaulting was to be left open to the sky, with the enclosing
wall standing as a mere screen answering to nothing behind it,[68] to
construct a flat roof at the level of the attic cornice. Figure 32, a
section through this part of the structure, will explain this and some
other awkward expedients to which the architect was driven by the use
of this colossal external order. Of the two compartments through which
the line _AB_ (plan, Fig. 31) passes, one has a barrel vault
and the other a dome, and, as each of the other corresponding parts of
the plan are vaulted in the same way, there are four small domes in
all. The effect of four smaller domes grouped around the great central
one would be happy for both internal and external effect, if they were
properly related in proportions, and the scheme were carried out in a
structurally consistent and rational way; but such a scheme could not
be developed here. For from the level of the aisle arches a dome, even
on a proportionately high drum, could not be made to reach the level
of the cornice of the enclosing wall unreasonably elevated for the
sake of the gigantic external order. But Michael Angelo nevertheless
constructed such a dome (_A_, Fig. 32), although it had to be sunk
up to its crown beneath the aisle roof, and then, for external effect,
he built another dome over it (_B_, Fig. 32). To light the lower
dome it was necessary to sink oblique openings, _a_, through the
massive masonry of the roof, and to light the useless vaulted chamber,
_b_, which he was obliged to make over the barrel vault of the
inner compartment (the crown of which is still farther down below the
roof), the well, _c_, had to be sunk. Thus instead of making a
reasonable design with ornamental details appropriate to its structural
forms, Michael Angelo first conceived an ornamental scheme consisting
of the inappropriate colossal order, and then fitted the building to
it, filling up vacant spaces with extravagantly massive solids and
useless voids, and resorting to other tortuous devices to piece out a
fundamentally irrational system.
Such is St. Peter’s church, which, though it has been much criticised,
has been more generally lauded as a model of architectural greatness.
Its real character has rarely been analyzed or rationally considered.
That it has qualities of majesty and grandeur need not be denied; but
these qualities are mainly due to its vast magnitude, and to what
it retains of the design of its first, and greatest, architect. The
manner in which the scheme of Bramante was modified and distorted
by his successors, and chiefly by Michael Angelo, notwithstanding
his professions of admiration for Bramante’s intentions, is far
from admirable, as I think the foregoing account of its structural
and artistic aberrations must show. The building as a whole is
characterized by incongruity and extravagance, and when we consider
further that the ornamentation of the interior is for the most
part a cheap deception, the rich coffering of the vaulting and the
pilasters of the great order being wrought in stucco on a foundation of
brickwork, we get the measure of the ideals and architectural standards
of men who, like Vasari, could write of it that, “not in Christendom,
nor in all the world, can a building of greater magnificence and
grandeur be seen.”[69] And this short-sighted admiration did not abate
as time went on, as we learn from the estimates quoted by Fontana in
his well-known book,[70] among which are the following: “Temple more
famous than that of Solomon,” “Unique miracle of the world,” “Chief
among the most celebrated of Christendom,” “Compendium of the arts,”
“Basis of the Catholic faith,” “Unique edifice of the orb of earth,”
etc., etc.
Before leaving St. Peter’s a word may be said of a project for the
building which was prepared by Antonio San Gallo the younger, Michael
Angelo’s immediate predecessor as architect for the fabric. This
design, no part of which was ever carried out, is embodied in a wooden
model preserved with that of Michael Angelo in the existing edifice.
The most meritorious feature of this model is the dome which, from
a structural point of view, is better than the one that was built,
since it is well abutted both at the springing and at the haunch. This
important condition is secured, however, by an architectural treatment
that cannot be commended, and consists of two superimposed concentric
arcades, the lower one surrounding the drum and abutting the vault at
the springing, while the upper one is set in retreat and fortifies the
haunch. The architectural effect of these arcades, which are of course
adorned with classic orders, is not happy because an arcade with a
classic order is not an appropriate form of abutment, though it may be
made mechanically effective, and also because the upper circle, rising
from within the circumference of the lower one, gives the composition
an unpleasantly telescopic effect.
Our consideration of St. Peter’s has led us to an advanced phase of the
church architecture of the Roman Renaissance, and we must now go back
and examine a few of the earlier structures in Rome and elsewhere that
were produced under the distinctly Roman influence.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.]
The church of Sant’Agostino is spoken of as a building of the early
Roman Renaissance, and is said to have been built by the architect
Giacomo da Pietra Santa between 1471 and 1484. But it is incredible
that such a church could have been designed by any architect of the
Renaissance, or by an Italian architect of any time. Letarouilly says
of it that from the thirteenth century the Augustinians had a convent
and small church in Rome, and that two centuries later they resolved to
enlarge the church, and employed as architects Giacomo da Pietra Santa
and a Florentine named Sebastiano.[71] The character of the building is
such, however, as to warrant the belief that it is a mediæval structure
with slight interior ornamental additions of the Renaissance, which
may be by Pietra Santa, and a façade, dating from before the close
of the fifteenth century, by Baccio Pintelli. In general character
the church is in the style of the Rhenish Romanesque architecture of
the twelfth century. It has a nave with groined vaulting in square
compartments, each embracing two vault compartments of the aisles. It
has also the Rhenish alternate system with plain square piers, and
archivolts of square section, originally without mouldings, and the
main piers have each a broad pilaster-strip carried up to the springing
of the vaults. The triforium space has no openings, and the clerestory
has plain round-arched windows. It is thus a thoroughly northern
Romanesque scheme, entirely logical in its simple construction and fine
in its proportions. The Renaissance interpolations consist of a few
ornamental details only. A stilted composite column is set against the
pilaster-strip of each main pier (Fig. 33), this column is crowned with
an entablature-block reaching to the level of the triforium, and upon
it is set a short pilaster surmounted with a smaller entablature-block
at the vaulting impost. This superfluous and irrational compound,
breaking the reasonable and effective continuity of the mediæval
pilaster-strip, greatly disfigures the originally noble design. The
only other neo-classic details of the interior are mouldings at the
arch imposts and on the archivolts, and coffering on the soffits of
the arches. These are quiet and less injurious in effect, though
equally superfluous and inappropriate. Thus did the sophistication
of the Renaissance designers often blind them to real architectural
excellence, and lead them to fancy that they could improve such an
admirable and consistent interior by incongruous and meaningless
features.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Façade of Sant’ Agostino.]
The façade (Fig. 34) is wholly of the Renaissance, and has no mediæval
character except in its general outline, which conforms with that of
the building itself. It is a simple design, and foreshadows those of
Vignola and Della Porta for the church of the Gesù, to which it is
superior in merit, being more reasonable and quiet. Shallow pilasters
of considerable elegance mark the divisions of the interior, the
portals are framed with simple classic mouldings without orders, and
the aisle compartments are surmounted with reversed consoles after the
manner of those introduced by Alberti in the façade of Santa Maria
Novella in Florence. These consoles are, however, so different in
character from the rest of the façade, having their details in higher
relief and being set a little in retreat, that they would appear to
be later interpolations. Answering to nothing in the building, they
are superfluous ornaments, and do not improve the composition, which
without them is as reasonable as a composition made up of superficial
classic details can well be. A peculiar feature of this front is the
truncated pediment that crowns the lower division, and forms the basis
of the clerestory compartment. The small rectangular tablets that break
the wall surfaces are also noticeable as foreshadowing a treatment
that was subsequently much affected by Vignola. Contemporaneously
with the façade, and by the same architect, a dome on a drum resting
on pendentives was built over the crossing. The present dome rising
directly from the pendentives is an alteration of a later time.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--Exterior of Santa Maria della
Consolazione, Todi.]
In the earlier churches that were wholly built under the Roman
Renaissance influence, the Byzantine scheme largely prevails in the
plan and structural forms, probably because it lent itself to the most
effective display of a high central dome. Among the first of these
buildings is the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione outside the
wall at Todi. The design is attributed to Bramante,[72] and it seems
to bear enough resemblance to what we know of his work to justify the
attribution. The arms of the cross here take the form of apses, the
eastern one being semicircular on plan, and the others polygonal.
The dome (Fig. 35) is raised on a high drum, and is almost an exact
reproduction of that of San Pietro in Montorio. Its thrusts are thus
entirely unbuttressed, but it is probably bound with chains, as was
the custom at this time in domes constructed in this manner.[73] The
half-domes of the apses are better adjusted. They spring from within
the supporting walls, which are carried up high enough to give
effective abutment, and are loaded at the haunch by stepped rings of
masonry, as in the Pantheon. The details of the interior (Fig. 36)
consist of two superimposed orders of small pilasters, with great
pilasters on the angles of the crossing reaching from the pavement to
the springing of the pendentive arches, and from ressauts of the upper
entablature converging ribs rise against the surfaces of the vaults.
Several further awkward results are here noticeable as a consequence
of this application of the inappropriate classic details to the
Byzantine structural scheme. The entablature which is carried around
the whole interior at the springing of the vaults, has to do duty at
once for the small order of the upper stage and for the great angle
pilasters, and thus in so far as it is in good proportion for the one
it cannot be so for the other. Then the true magnitudes of the piers
and the pendentive arches are falsified by the pilasters and simulated
archivolts which spring from them. These piers and arches really
embrace in width both the pilasters and archivolts and the spaces of
wall and vaulting between them and the pilasters of the smaller orders
and ribs which spring from them. The proper and impressive massiveness
of the essentially Byzantine system employed is thus contradicted by an
apparent skeleton of classic orders simulating an organic structural
scheme which has no real existence.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Interior of Todi.]
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Plan of San Biagio.]
The exterior of this monument (Fig. 35) has much merit in its general
form and proportions. The great central square mass, visible from the
ground upward, gives the sense of support for the dome which the eye
demands, and the apses with their half-domes are effectively grouped
in subordination to the crowning feature. But this merit, which Todi
shares with many other buildings of the Renaissance, is primarily due
to the Byzantine scheme adopted, and cannot, therefore, be wholly
credited to the Renaissance architect.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Interior of San Biagio.]
[Illustration: FIG. 39.]
A variation of this scheme occurs in the church of San Biagio at
Montepulciano by Antonio San Gallo the elder, and begun in the year
1518. Here the arms of the cross (Fig. 37) are square, with an apse
added to the eastern arm. The interior is ornamented with a single,
and very heavy, Doric order (Fig. 38), framing arched recesses in the
imperial Roman manner. The use of pilasters on the angles makes the
awkward combination of a pilaster coupled with a column necessary,
and since the entablature is in the plane of the wall, it has to be
broken into very salient ressauts in order to cover these members.
Above the entablature is a low ledge in retreat, broken into ressauts
in conformity with those of the entablature, and from these ressauts
coffered archivolts are sprung under the ends of the barrel vaults
which cover the arms of the cross. The Doric order is designed here,
for the most part, in close conformity to ancient models, save for
the pilaster on the angle, which does not generally occur in Roman
monuments. The common Roman treatment of the angle is shown in the
arch of Septimius Severus (Fig. 20, p. 41), where the end column of
the order is placed at some distance from the end of the façade, which
is left in retreat without any pilaster. But Serlio[74] describes the
ruins of an ancient Roman building (Fig. 39) that appears to have been
a sort of open arcade or stoa, used as a meeting place for merchants,
on the angles of which pilasters are set together with columns,
somewhat as they were by Alberti in Santa Maria Novella, by San Gallo
here in San Biagio, and by many other architects of the Renaissance. He
speaks of the treatment of the angles of this building as follows: “The
corner pilasters are larger than the others, and were truly made with
excellent judgment, for they strengthen the angle with good effect;
and from this architects may learn how to design angles with columns
and pilasters bound together, in order that the corner may be brought
into line with the column, which gives more solidity to the angle. If
the said angle were withdrawn into line with the middle pilasters,
the façade, when viewed obliquely, with the round column on the angle,
would appear imperfect, and for this ... I strongly commend this form
of angle because it may be fully seen from all sides.”
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--San Biagio, Montepulciano.]
Externally the composition is remarkably good in its larger features
(Fig. 40). The dome, of slightly pointed outline, on a high drum, rises
grandly from the substructure, and is well proportioned in relation
to it. The wall surfaces are treated broadly, with no orders carried
across them. They are divided into two stages, with a pediment over
each façade. Super-imposed pilasters are set on the angles, and a Doric
entablature, carried across the whole front, with ressauts over the
lower pilasters, divides the two stages. The wall of the lower stage is
entirely plain, with a severely simple rectangular portal surmounted
by a pediment. The wall of the upper stage is divided into rectangular
panels, as in the attic of the Pazzi chapel in Florence, the central
panel being pierced with a square-headed window and framed with an
order of which the capitals are Ionic and the entablature Doric. The
cornice of the top story and the raking cornice of the pediment of
each façade are broken into ressauts over the pilasters, and an order
of Ionic pilasters, with a very high entablature broken into ressauts,
surrounds the drum which supports the dome. Square detached towers
are set in the reëntrant angles of the west side, only one of which
was carried to completion. The completed one is in three stages, each
adorned with a heavy order, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian respectively.
In these orders half-columns are coupled with angle pilasters, as in
the interior, and the entablatures have ressauts on the angles over
these members. An octagonal spire-like lantern, with a tall drum
adorned with an order of Corinthian pilasters and surmounted by an
attic, crowns the tower. Small obelisks set on the tower angles and
reversed consoles against the angles of the attic give a simulation
of Gothic form to the neo-classic scheme, and show the strong hold
that mediæval ideas still retained upon the minds of the designers.
The first of these spire-like towers of the Renaissance appears to
be that of the church of Santo Spirito in Florence, which is spoken
of by Milizia as the most beautiful of Italian bell towers.[75] It
was designed by Baccio d’Agnolo, who, beginning as a wood carver,
imbibed the new enthusiasm for the antique, and after studying the
ancient monuments of Rome[76] began the practice of architecture.
This campanile is thus noteworthy as the first of a large class of
modern towers with spires of which Wren’s famous steeples were the
ultimate outcome. The scheme is based on the mediæval campanile, the
earliest form of which is the Lombard Romanesque tower. The Lombard
tower is characterized by its simple rectangular outline, the walls
rising sheer from the ground to the cornice, and strengthened and
adorned with shallow pilaster-strips, corbelled string-courses marking
the successive stories, and by small grouped openings. The tower of
Santa Maria Novella in Florence is designed on this model, and the
neighbouring tower of Prato and Giotto’s famous campanile are later and
richer modifications of the same type. In the tower of Santo Spirito
(Fig. 41) Baccio d’Agnolo has taken the Lombard scheme and clothed it
with a pseudo-classic dress. While his classic details have much of
that elegance which belongs to the best Italian work, they are out of
place in such a structure. The tall pilaster-strips of the mediæval
tower gave an expression as of an organic skeleton running through the
building. They had been developed out of the classic pilaster to meet
the needs of the mediæval type of structure, and in substituting the
superimposed classic orders for the appropriate continuous members, the
artist did violence to the true principles of design.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Tower of Santo Spirito.]
The lantern with which this tower is crowned is an adaptation of
Brunelleschi’s lantern on the dome of the cathedral, but made more
aspiring in form, so that the general outline is like that of a Gothic
spire. But the form of a Gothic spire is far removed from anything that
is proper to classic composition.
Returning to San Biagio, it may be said that the orders here have a
closer conformity with those of classic antiquity than occurs in the
earlier monuments already mentioned, except the Tempietto of San Pietro
in Montorio by Bramante.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Santissima Annunziatta, Arezzo.]
In the nave of the church of Santissima Annunziatta in Arezzo, the same
architect produced a different design. The nave (Fig. 42), of only
three bays, is covered with a barrel vault, and the aisles have small
domes on pendentives. The supporting piers are square with a shallow
Corinthian pilaster on the face of each and an entablature passing over
the crowns of the arches. The archivolts are deep, and each one is
moulded on the face and plain on the soffit. These are carried on plain
pilasters with simple impost mouldings. The wall above the entablature
is plain and unbroken, except by a round-arched window over each bay of
the ground story, and is crowned with a heavy cornice from which the
vaulting springs. We have here a structural system of imperial Roman
massiveness, necessitated by the use of the great barrel vault.
After the early part of the sixteenth century Italy produced few
architects of a high order of genius. Most of the more advanced
neo-classic art is the work of mediocre men who, while professing to be
ardent advocates of grammatical correctness according to the ancient
rules, were hardly less capricious in their misuse of classic elements
than their predecessors had been. To enter upon the examination of any
large number of buildings in this later Renaissance style would be
tedious and unnecessary; but in addition to what we have already seen
of it in the work of Michael Angelo in St. Peter’s, we may give some
attention to a few characteristic works of the two leading architects
of the later time: Vignola and Palladio.
Few men did more to make the neo-classic ideas authoritative than
Giacomo Barrozzi, called Vignola. Beginning like so many others with
painting, Vignola was led early to the study of architecture, in which
he strove to gain an exact knowledge of classic Roman forms by drawing
and measuring the remains of the ancient edifices. He thus became a
devoted partisan of the antique, and he wrote a treatise on the Five
Orders which has been widely accepted as an authoritative guide in
modern architectural practice. To him, says Milizia, “Architecture is
under lasting obligations because he established it upon system, and
prescribed its rules.”[77] And the same author tells us further that
Vignola “purified architecture from some abuses which neither his
contemporaries nor the ancients had perceived”; yet nevertheless, he
adds, “his book has produced more harm than good, for to make the rules
more general, and more easy of application, he has altered the finest
proportions of the antique.” No system of architecture, Milizia says
further, “is more easy than that of Vignola, but the facility of it is
obtained at the expense of architecture itself.”
In his book,[78] which is made up largely of drawings and diagrams,
Vignola shows how the proportions of an order may be regulated by a
module down to the smallest details. He explains how to construct Ionic
volutes and other curves from centres, and how to describe the details
of Corinthian and composite capitals by means of plan and elevation.
He thus introduces a mechanical system modelled after the formulas of
Vitruvius.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Vignola’s entablature.]
But notwithstanding his ardent advocacy of the principles of ancient
Roman art, Vignola, in his own practice, not only altered the
proportions of the orders as Milizia says, but made many fanciful
changes in them. He introduced details which have no counterparts in
correct Roman design, and freely mixed those of different orders. An
instance of this occurs in an entablature figured in his book,[79]
which he calls his own invention. In this composition (Fig. 43) we have
a pseudo-Doric frieze between an architrave with multiplied faciæ, and
a cornice on modillions. In the place of triglyphs this frieze has
consoles with two channels, like those of a triglyph, on the curved
face of each. To such travesties of classic design did the striving
after novelty, which was curiously mingled with their ardour for the
antique, lead the men of the later Renaissance. For an advocate of
classic correctness such aberrations are the more surprising as they
are expressly condemned by Vitruvius, who warns his readers against
them as follows: “If dentiled cornices are used in the Doric order,
triglyphs applied above the voluted Ionic, thus transferring parts to
one order which properly belong to another, the eye will be offended,
because custom otherwise applies these peculiarities.”[80] The Roman
writer might, indeed, have given a better reason why the purity of the
orders ought to be maintained, namely, because to each of them the fine
artistic genius of the Greeks had given its appropriate details.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Half plan of Sant’Andrea.]
In designing entire buildings Vignola shows no less freedom in
unclassic and incongruous combinations. This is manifested in the
earliest of his church edifices, that of Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle
outside of the Porta del Popolo at Rome (Figs. 44, 45, and 46). It is a
small, oblong, rectangular enclosure covered with a dome of oval plan
on pendentives. The structural scheme is thus primarily Byzantine,
but the architectural treatment is Roman. The dome is built in a
praiseworthy form, and follows the construction of the dome of the
Pantheon. An enclosing drum is carried up from the pendentives to a
considerable height, and the haunch of the vault is well fortified by
stepped rings of masonry. These rings are criticised by Milizia[81] as
awkward and unnecessary because, he affirms, the vault might have been
made secure without them. He probably means that it might have been
bound with chains in the usual manner of the Renaissance. As in the
Pantheon, the drum rises so high above the springing that but little
of the dome is visible externally. The character of the rectangular
substructure is puzzling to the eye of a beholder who looks for meaning
and congruity in architectural forms. Wrought in shallow relief upon
its façade is an order of Corinthian pilasters surmounted by a classic
pediment, and the entablature of the order is returned on the sides
of the building. The effect of the whole may be compared to that of a
Greek temple with an attic supporting a dome built upon it. So awkward
is the combination that it might be supposed to be a piece of patchwork
in which a building of Greek temple form had been altered to gain more
height within, were it not that we find in the architect’s own book
the plan and section reproduced in Figs. 44 and 45, which show that
the building as it now exists was originally designed in its present
form.[82]
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Longitudinal section of
Sant’Andrea, from Vignola’s book.]
On reflection we discover that the scheme suggests a derivation
from the Pantheon. Not only is the dome shaped and adjusted as in
that ancient monument, save for its oval plan, but the rest of the
composition is pretty clearly from the same source. To realize this it
is necessary only to eliminate, in idea, the portico of the Pantheon
with the exception of its pediment, and to conceive this pediment as
drawn back into the plane of the rectangular façade. The pediment
would then surmount the order of Corinthian pilasters which adorn this
façade, and the resulting composition would be substantially identical
with that of the façade of St. Andrea. The minor differences are
unimportant, as where Vignola has placed a pair of pilasters, instead
of only one, at each end of the façade, has given the whole order more
shallow relief, and has omitted the fluting on the pilasters. Even the
niches on either side of the portal are reproduced from the Pantheon,
though Vignola has pierced them with windows.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Sant’Andrea di Ponte Molle.]
The likeness extends farther. The return of the entablature along
the side walls and the cornice of the attic are the same in both
instances; but the second pediment in the Pantheon façade Vignola has
not reproduced. St. Andrea is thus a close, though a modified, copy of
the rectangular part of the Pantheon, with the rectangle elongated and
surmounted by a dome designed on the Pantheon model. It was not known
in the sixteenth century that the ancient monument is not a homogeneous
structure, but an awkward patchwork, the result of successive
alterations and additions.[83] Vignola took it entire as an example
of that ancient style which he regarded as authoritative, and based
his design for St. Andrea upon it, just as many modern architects have
taken motives from Vignola himself. If it were proposed to erect a dome
upon the Parthenon, few people would fail to see that the result would
be an architectural monstrosity, yet this would not be very different
from what was done in St. Andrea by an architect who has been looked
upon as a champion of classic correctness in design.
M. Palustre has called attention to the fact that, in the interior
of St. Andrea (Fig. 45), the two parts of the entablature which have
no _raison d’être_ under a vault have been omitted.[84] But the
impropriety of a complete entablature in connection with vaulting is
no greater than that of any part of a classic order, which has no
justification in such connection, as we have already remarked.
The pilgrimage church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built over the
oratory of St. Francis at Assisi, is a more extensive monument which
was begun by Vignola in the year 1569. Though completed by other
architects, and extensively restored in 1832, the building as it now
stands is uniform in style throughout, and bears the marks of Vignola’s
manner of design. It is cruciform in plan, with a long nave and aisles,
and a square chapel opening out of each bay of each aisle. The nave and
transept have barrel vaulting, a half-dome covers the apse, and a dome
on a high drum resting on pendentives rises over the crossing. The
aisles have domical groined vaulting with transverse ribs, and the side
chapels have barrel vaults with their axes perpendicular to that of the
nave. These chapels thus form abutments to the inner vaulting, so that
no external buttresses are needed. The entire fabric is of brick, but
the details, including the orders of the interior, of the west front,
and of the drum, are wrought in stucco. For the interior the architect
has employed a great order of Doric pilasters, a single pilaster on
the face of each pier, and on the sides of the piers, under the aisle
archivolts, he has placed pairs of smaller pilasters. The soffits
of the archivolts are very wide, and have each a pair of salient
sub-archivolts corresponding with the pilasters. It had been common for
the architects of the Roman Renaissance to break the entablature into
ressauts over the columns or pilasters of the orders when used in this
way, as San Gallo had done in Montepulciano and Michael Angelo in St.
Peter’s. But the effect of thus breaking the continuity of the cornice
line is unpleasing, and Vignola has avoided it here by confining the
ressaut to the architrave, frieze, and bed-mouldings, leaving the
corona of the cornice unbroken as in Figure 47. The great piers of the
crossing show the influence of St. Peter’s in being splayed, and the
forms of the pendentives lose their spherical surfaces in being fitted
to the straight line of the splay, as they do in St. Peter’s. The
design of the façade expresses with unusual truthfulness the divisions
of the interior, which are marked by pilasters like those of the great
order within, and by an arch coinciding with the curve of the vaulting.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Order of Santa Maria degli
Angeli.]
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Plan of the Gesù.]
The Gesù in Rome, another large church by Vignola, and built at about
the same time as Santa Maria degli Angeli, is a variation of the
same scheme, and shows in a more marked degree the influence of St.
Peter’s. A plan of this building, the intended façade which Vignola
did not live to construct, and the existing façade by Jacomo della
Porta are given in the addendum to the edition of the architect’s book
on the Five Orders published in 1617 already referred to (p. 84),
and are reproduced in Figures 48, 49, and 50. The aisles are omitted
here so that the side chapels, which communicate with each other by
narrow openings in the dividing walls, open directly out of the nave.
The transept is short, and extends on either side beyond the nave
only by the thickness of its walls. An elevated dome on pendentives,
circular on plan within and octagonal on the outside, rises over the
crossing, and barrel vaults cover the nave and transept arms. The
side chapels are vaulted, with small domes on pendentives, except
those in the angles of the crossing, which do not require pendentives
because their supports are shaped to the circular form as shown in the
plan, Figure 48. These supports are made heavier than the others in
order to strengthen the crossing piers, which, in consequence of this
reënforcement, do not need to advance so far into the space under the
great dome as they otherwise would. In Santa Maria degli Angeli the
aisles prevent this treatment, and the crossing piers extend far into
the nave and narrow the spans of the crossing arches.
The scheme of the interior of the Gesù is a close reproduction of
that of St. Peter’s, though the great pilasters are of the composite,
instead of the Corinthian, order, and other minor differences are
noticeable. It is worthy of remark that the entablature has no
ressauts except at the crossing, and the vaulting is raised upon an
attic, so that no part of it is hidden from view by the cornice of the
entablature, as it is in St. Peter’s. It is also noticeable that, while
capricious in the use of elements derived from the antique, Vignola
in his church architecture eliminates mediæval forms more completely
than most architects of his time. Where in St. Peter’s, for instance,
the apses have celled vaults on converging ribs, he employs the plain
half-dome of Roman antiquity.
[Illustration: _Questa facciata no fu messa in opera per la
morte del architecto_
FIG. 49.--Façade of the Gesù, Vignola.]
[Illustration: _Facciata del Giesu come al presente si troua
fatta da Iacomo della Portta._
FIG. 50.--Façade of the Gesù, Della Porta.]
Vignola’s design for the façade (Fig. 49) presents the familiar
features of his style as already embodied in the earlier façade of St.
Andrea, but with additional infractions of propriety, as well as of
classic form in its more elaborate details. This façade corresponds in
outline with the form of the building, except for the podium of the
upper story (which contradicts the roof lines of the side chapels),
and the abutting walls of curved outline over the side compartments.
The chief aberrations of detail are the broken pediments of the
doors and windows, and the barbaric scrollwork and hermæ, the use of
which this architect did much to establish. How far the barbarism of
breaking the pediment was an independent freak of the Renaissance I
do not know. Instances of somewhat similar treatment occur in the
Roman architecture of Syria, as in Baalbek (Fig. 51), where the middle
part of the pediment is in retreat of the rest, so that the ends form
ressauts. Of the complete removal of a part of the cornice I know no
instance in the Roman architecture of antiquity. To this, however, the
architects of the later Renaissance were, in their desire for novelty
of design, led. But the cornice of a pediment is, like the roof of an
entire building, suggestive of shelter for the parts below. The actual
necessity for such shelter may be slight, but any justification which
the raking cornice has must be for expression, if nothing more, of a
sheltering roof to what it surmounts (unless we are to assume that
architectural design is a matter of purely fanciful composition of
lines with no structural meaning or expression). To cut a piece out of
the middle of it is an architectural solecism.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Pediment of Baalbek.]
The actual façade by Della Porta (Fig. 50) follows the main lines of
Vignola’s design, but the details are much altered. The podium of the
upper story is raised in height, reversed consoles are substituted for
the plain curved abutments of Vignola, and the raking cornices of the
small pediments are made whole. But other aberrations take the place
of those which are eliminated, as that of placing one pediment within
another over the central portal, and the ugly shapes and framings of
the tablets and niches that break the wall surfaces. Della Porta had
acquired these habits of design from his master, Vignola, and how far
Vignola himself could go in such monstrosities is shown in some of the
figures of his book already spoken of. Figure 52 from this book affords
an instance.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Tablet from Vignola.]
If Vignola did much to make authoritative the later ideas of the
sixteenth century as to the principles of ancient art and their
application to modern uses, Palladio did even more. By the example
of his numerous architectural works, as well as by his writings,
the influence on modern art of this famous neo-classicist has been
greater than that of any other architect of the Renaissance, so that
we have, in the principal countries of Europe, a style of architecture
which is known as Palladian. Palladio was the first architect of the
Renaissance who was not at any time either a painter or a sculptor.
He begins his well-known book[85] as follows: “Guided by natural
inclination, I began in my earliest years to devote myself to the study
of architecture, and having been always of the opinion that the ancient
Romans were in building, as in many other things, far in advance of all
those who came after them, I took for my master and guide Vitruvius,
who is the only ancient writer on this art, and I set myself to the
investigation of the remains of the ancient edifices which, injured
by time and the violence of barbarians, are still extant. And finding
them much more worthy of attention than I at first thought, I began
with great diligence to measure most minutely every part of them. I
became so ardent an investigator, not having known with what judgment
and fine proportion they had been wrought, that not once only, but many
times, I visited different parts of Italy and elsewhere, in order to
understand and delineate them completely. And seeing how far the common
manner of building differs from what I have observed in the ancient
edifices, and read in Vitruvius, and in Leon Batista Alberti, and in
other excellent writers since Vitruvius, and from that new manner which
I have practised with much satisfaction, and which has been praised by
those who profited by my work, it has seemed to me right, since man is
not born for himself alone, but also to be useful to others, to publish
the drawings of these edifices, which at the cost of much time and
peril I have gathered; and to state briefly that which has seemed to me
most worthy of consideration in them, together with those rules which I
have observed, to the end that those who shall read my book may profit
by such good as may be in it, and supply that which may be wanting (for
much, perhaps, may be) so that, little by little, we may correct the
strange abuses, the barbarous inventions, avoid the superfluous cost,
and (what is more important) the various and continued deterioration
which we see in so many buildings.”
The implicit confidence of the neo-classicists in the art of Roman
antiquity as the embodiment of all true principles of architectural
design, and their unquestioning belief that mediæval art was wholly
false in principle and barbaric in character, have seldom been more
naïvely expressed.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--Orders of San Giorgio.]
Of church architecture by Palladio we have two important buildings,
San Giorgio Maggiore and the Redentore, both in Venice. The first of
these stands on the island of San Giorgio, opposite the Piazzetta, and
is a characteristic Palladian design, though some parts of the west
front may have been added after the architect’s death. This church is
cruciform, and has barrel vaulting with interpenetrations for light,
and a dome on pendentives over the crossing. The piers are heavy, with
a single engaged column of the composite order, raised on a high
pedestal, against each one, except at the crossing, where the columns
are coupled with pilasters, while the wide archivolts rest on pairs
of smaller pilasters of the Corinthian order, without pedestals (Fig.
53). Both columns and pilasters have strong entasis, and the frieze of
the entablature is rounded in profile. In raising the great order on
pedestals Palladio conformed more closely to ancient Roman practice
than Michael Angelo and Vignola had done; but the pedestals have a
clumsy effect thus ranged along the nave, and their sharp angles are
in the way of moving crowds of people. It is noticeable, too, that
Palladio has introduced complete orders under the archivolts, giving an
entablature to each pair of small pilasters. The entablature had before
been omitted in this situation. The whole scheme shows in a marked
degree how inappropriate is the use of classic orders in a church
interior. The application of such orders to a building with aisles and
a high nave obliges the designer to make awkward combinations, and
to violate true classic usage in manifold ways, as we have already
abundantly seen. He must associate large and small orders, and give
them relationships and adjustments that belong to mediæval, rather
than to classic, composition. The façade of this building (Fig. 54)
has the merit of conforming in outline to the shape of the nave and
aisles. It is the outline of the primitive Christian Roman basilica
without any disguises in the way of reversed consoles over the aisle
compartments, or divisions contradicting those of the interior. Instead
of the superimposed orders of Vignola’s west fronts, Palladio has
here, in the nave compartment, one great order of engaged columns, on
high pedestals, rising through the entablature of a small order of
pilasters, which is carried across the whole front, reaching to the
height of the aisles. The total scheme gives a suggestion of mediæval
organic composition, but has no real organic character pertaining to
the building.
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--Façade of San Giorgio.]
In the façade of San Francesco della Vigna, also in Venice, and by
the same architect, the design of San Giorgio is repeated, with some
notable changes in detail. In this case the small order, as well as the
larger one, consists of columns, except that on each angle a pilaster
takes the place of a column, and both orders rise from the same level,
the smaller one resting on a continuous podium, and the larger one
on pedestals which are ressauts of the podium. The entablature of
the small order is here not continuous, but is broken by the nave
compartment, though a fragment of it is inserted in the central bay of
this compartment over the small columns that flank the portal.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--The Redentore, Venice.]
The scheme of the Redentore differs from that of San Giorgio. It has
no transept and no aisles, but in the place of aisles a series of side
chapels. A square area in front of the sanctuary is covered with a
dome on pendentives, while the nave has a barrel vault, and the side
chapels have barrel vaults with their axes perpendicular to the axis
of the nave. From the dividing walls of these chapels solid abutments
in pairs are carried up through the lean-to roofs over the chapels to
meet the thrusts of the nave vaulting, as shown in the general view of
the exterior (Fig. 55). The plan of the east end is peculiar. A round
apse opens out of the north and south sides of the square covered by
the dome, and a colonnade on a curved plan forming the sanctuary bounds
this square area on the east side. Beyond this is an oblong enclosure
the eastern wall of which is on a curved plan, and the sanctuary is
flanked by small towers. The interior has a great order of Corinthian
columns, one against each pier, resting directly on the pavement, and
the small pilasters under the archivolts carry entablatures which
extend to the outer wall and from them the barrel vaults of the chapels
spring. The entablature of the great order is not set in the wall and
broken by ressauts to cover the columns, as in San Giorgio; but is
carried by the columns, and thus overhangs the wall with a supporting
corbel in the middle of each intercolumniation which forms a keystone
to the arch beneath. The façade of the Redentore is a variation of
that of San Giorgio with the pedestals omitted from the great order,
as in the interior, and it has an attic behind the pediment like that
of Vignola’s small church of St. Andrea at Rome. Such is the nature
of Palladian church architecture. We shall see more of Palladio’s art
when we come to the consideration of the later civil and domestic
architecture of the Renaissance.
It is unnecessary to multiply examples of the church architecture of
the Roman Renaissance, _i.e._ that architecture which derived
its character primarily from the influences that were active in Rome
from the beginning of the sixteenth century. For while the churches
of this style differ considerably one from another in details, they
agree essentially in architectural treatment growing out of a closer
contact with ancient monuments, though with no strict conformity to
them. Descriptions of minor differences in the forms of such buildings,
and in the composition of their ornamental details, are tedious, and
enough of them have now been given. We may, therefore, in the next
chapter, pass on to the consideration of the palace architecture of the
Renaissance.