PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMAN RENAISSANCE
Among the first of the great Roman palatial houses of the Renaissance
is the so-called Cancelleria, which together with the Palazzo Girand
Torlonia of similar design, has been attributed to Bramante. The
building is believed, however, to have been begun before Bramante had
settled in Rome, but it is not impossible that he may have had a hand
in its design and construction at a later time while he was at work on
the church of St. Peter. Some ground for belief in his authorship of
the façade is found in some of its leading features which resemble, on
the one hand, those which are characteristic of the early Renaissance
architecture of the north of Italy, where Bramante received his early
training, and on the other, the work of Alberti under whose influence
it is reasonable to suppose that he had come while in Mantua. The north
Italian features[92] are the windows of the principal story (Fig. 61),
which are undivided and flanked with pilasters carrying archivolts
surmounted with cornices on panelled spandrels, and the disks in the
wall over the windows, while the features bearing likeness to the work
of Alberti are the orders of pilasters applied to the walls, as in the
Rucellai of Florence. But Bramante, if this be his design, has gone
a step farther in conformity with the Roman antique in introducing
a podium beneath each order, as in the Flavian Amphitheatre. He
has also extended Alberti’s arrangement of the pilasters of the
clerestory of Santa Maria Novella, setting them in pairs across the
whole front instead of spacing them equally. He thus established a
mode of treatment that was afterwards extensively followed, with many
variations, in palatial façades. Among Renaissance innovations in the
use of the orders this is one of the most marked. In ancient Greek
usage the columns of an order were equally spaced, save in exceptional
cases where the central intercolumniation is considerably widened to
give a more ample passageway, as in the Propylæa at Athens. The Romans,
in their triumphal arches, increased the width of the central space,
but no other inequality of spacing is common in ancient art.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--Façade of the Cancelleria,
Rome.]
The façade of the Cancelleria has a feature that is not common in
Italian architecture, that of a slight advance of the wall at each
end, so as to form projecting bays, as in the pavilions of the French
Renaissance châteaux. The salience of these bays is very slight,
however, and is hardly noticeable in a general front view. The scheme
of the upper façade resembles that of the Rucellai very strikingly,
save in the points just noticed; but the basement is different, having
no order, its rusticated wall being unbroken except by the portals, of
which there are two, and a series of small arched window openings. Only
one of these portals belongs to the original design. This one, shown
in the illustration, is of stately magnitude and fine proportions. Its
jambs and lintel are profiled with severely classic mouldings, and it
is crowned with a cornice on consoles with a frieze between it and the
lintel. It is an amplification of Alberti’s portals in the Rucellai,
and is of almost Greek purity of design, though it differs from a
Greek portal in the more pronounced character of its cornice, in the
introduction of the frieze, in the greater development of the consoles,
and in its vertical jambs, which in Greek design would incline inward.
A comparison with the portal of the Erechtheum will illustrate the
points of likeness and of difference. The other portal appears to be
an interpolation of a later time. An order of Doric columns framing
an arch is set against a double order of Doric pilasters, the whole
supporting a balcony, and forming a scheme characteristic of the later
Renaissance.
The court of the Cancelleria has an arcade of two vaulted stories.
These arcades support the overhanging upper story and attic, both of
which are embraced by a single order of pilasters not arranged in
pairs, as in the external façade, but evenly spaced.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.--Portico of the Massimi, Rome.]
In Rome as in Florence many of the great palaces are without engaged
orders dividing the wall surfaces into bays. The Palazzo Massimi,
for instance, the next one of importance, designed by Baldassare
Peruzzi, and dating from the early part of the sixteenth century, has
an order on the basement story only, while the wall above is unbroken
even by string courses. In conformity with the line of the street on
which it stands, the façade of the Massimi is curved on plan. A wide
recessed portico (Fig. 62) gives a reason for the introduction of a
free-standing Doric order, and in continuation of this order, an order
of engaged Doric pilasters is ranged along the basement wall on either
side. Both columns and pilasters are here again placed in pairs, the
narrow intervals being narrower than in the Cancelleria, and in the
portico the interval on the axis, opposite the portal, is wider than
the other wide ones, while at each end a column is necessarily paired
with a pilaster. The plain wall of the upper stories is uniformly
rusticated and smooth-faced. The windows of the principal story are
framed with mouldings of quiet classic profiling, have simple cornices
on consoles, and are ranged on a podium with a ressaut under each
window. Above are two tiers of small oblong rectangular windows with
cartouche frames. The details of this façade have great refinement, and
show the influence of Alberti. The Roman Doric order of the portico has
much simple beauty. The entasis of the columns is more moderate than
is common in later Renaissance design, and the light falls on their
rounded surfaces, as they stand relieved against the dark void of the
porch, with admirable effect. The façade as a whole is monotonous, but
it has an expression of architectural reserve that is worthy of praise.
The façade of the Palazzo Farnese, by Antonio da San Gallo the younger,
the grandest of these Roman palaces, again has its wall surfaces
unencumbered with orders. The basement is comparatively low, and all
three stories are in effect of nearly equal height. The walls are of
brick with rusticated quoins of stone, and a rusticated stone portal
in relief, of the simple early Florentine type, occupies the centre
of the basement. The quoins suggest the influence of the rusticated
pilasters on the angles of the Bartolini palace in Florence, and San
Gallo has followed Baccio d’Agnolo, the architect of the Bartolini,
further by introducing small orders with pediments to frame the windows
of the upper stories. But for pilasters he has substituted engaged
colonnettes on high pedestals, and in the principal story has made
angular pediments alternate with curved ones. This mode of designing
doors and windows has since become so common that it generally passes
without question of its propriety. It is, however, justifiable only
on the principle, universally accepted by the architects of the
Renaissance, that structural members may be used for ornamental
purposes without any structural meaning or expression in harmony with
the character of the building to which they are applied. But this is
a principle which finds no support in any thoroughly noble system of
architecture--Greek, Byzantine, or Gothic. Structural members may be
used properly enough with a primarily ornamental purpose when they have
a character in keeping with the real structural system in which they
are used. The blind arcades, and shafted archivolts of the portals, of
Romanesque and Gothic architecture, are largely of this nature;[93]
but to surround the windows of a walled structure, like the Farnese,
with columns and entablatures applied to the surface of the wall, is an
architectural solecism. A further barbarism occurs in the windows of
the top story, which are said to have been designed by Michael Angelo,
and the fact that they are like the upper windows of the church of St.
Peter lends support to the attribution. These windows of the Farnese
are arched, and the crowns of the arches rise above the capitals of the
flanking colonnettes so that an entablature resting on these capitals
cannot pass over them. Complete entablatures are therefore omitted,
entablature blocks being set upon the capitals to support the raking
cornices of the pediments (Fig. 63). This makes a bad composition,
because the structural system simulated would in reality be an
insecure one in consequence of the absence of a tying member which the
entablature should form in such a scheme. The eye instinctively feels
that the pediment cornices are tending to thrust so as to overthrow the
supporting colonnettes. It is true that in the windows of the principal
façade (the figure is taken from a window on the side of the building)
the cornice of the entablature block is returned against the wall over
the arch; but this is so far in retreat, and so inconspicuous, that it
does not properly complete the pediment triangle. Precedents for many
of these Renaissance aberrations of design may be found in ancient
Roman art, and this particular one is foreshadowed at Baalbek, where
in the pediment already noticed (p. 95) the entablature, as well as
the raking cornice, is broken, the middle part being set back in the
plane of the wall, and the parts over the supporting pilasters forming
ressauts. But I know of no ancient instance in which the entablature
is completely removed between the ressauts, unless the one figured by
Serlio[94] (reproduced in Fig. 64) be ancient. He does not say that it
is, but he describes it among other things that he calls ancient, and
says that he found it between Foligno and Rome, and that it exhibits an
architectural license because the architrave is broken by the arch.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.--Window of the Farnese.]
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--Portal from Serlio.]
In the court of the Farnese we have a frank return to the ancient
Roman combination of arch and entablature, with a Doric order in the
basement, an Ionic order next above it, and an order of Corinthian
pilasters in the top story. Where engaged orders are thus used in the
inside of a rectangle it is usual to set a section of a pilaster in the
angle, as the architect has done here. But the treatment of the capital
in this angle becomes a matter of difficulty which cannot be overcome
in an entirely satisfactory manner. This is especially the case where
the Ionic order is used, as in the principal story of this court. It
is necessary here to have parts of two capitals, on the angle strip of
pilaster, in order that there may be a bolster on each side parallel
with those of the other capitals in the colonnade to which it belongs,
and a volute on each side facing in the same direction as the others
in the same series. Thus two volutes have to be mitred together with
awkward effect. A further awkwardness arising from this misuse of the
orders is that of bringing three supporting members together in the
angles, the end column of each adjoining colonnade, and the pilaster
set in the angle in which they meet.
An earlier instance of the Roman arch and entablature scheme applied to
a continuous arcade occurs in Rome in the cloister of Santa Maria della
Pace, the design of which is attributed to Bramante. The upper story of
this arcade is worthy of notice as having a rhythmical scheme, such as
is common in mediæval design, wrought into the neo-classic composition.
This story has no arches, but a simple entablature is carried on square
piers rising over the piers of the ground story, with a pilaster on
the face of each, and in each interval is a small round column rising
over the crown of the arch below. But this alternation of large and
small, and compound and simple, members has no meaning apart from that
of ornamental effect. In mediæval design, the larger members would
have the function of supporting heavier weights, and the rhythmical
arrangement would thus have a primarily structural meaning.
After the early part of the sixteenth century Italy, as before
remarked, produced few architects of a high order of genius. The later
architecture of the Renaissance is the work of men of little genuine
artistic inspiration, though many of them had great enthusiasm for what
they conceived to be the true principles of the art and unbounded zeal
in its practice. A few typical examples of the later forms of palatial
design by such men as Sansovino, Sanmichele, Vignola, Palladio, and
Scamozzi will be enough for us to consider. All of these men based
their practice theoretically, as we have seen, on the writings of
Vitruvius and on a rigorous study of the architectural remains of Roman
antiquity; and nearly all of them wrote treatises on their art which
have formed the basis of most modern practice.
[Illustration: FIG. 65.--Part of façade of the Library
of St. Mark.]
Jacopo Tatti, called Sansovino, went to Rome early in the sixteenth
century in company with Giuliano de San Gallo, and there formed a
friendship with Bramante[95] under whose influence he acquired that
exclusive predilection for classic forms which we find reflected in
his art. Coming to Florence, we are not told in what year, he designed
a false front of wood for the cathedral church of Santa Maria del
Fiore, which is said to have called forth the admiration of Pope Leo
X.[96] This incident is significant of the spirit of the time, and such
architectural shams were extensively produced by the architects of the
later Renaissance. The most important works of Sansovino are in Venice,
where he built the well-known Library of St. Mark, the so-called
Loggia of the Campanile, the Palazzo Cornaro, and several other large
buildings.
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--Corner of the Parthenon.]
The façade of the Library of St. Mark has but two stories including
the basement, and these are adorned with a Doric and an Ionic order
respectively (Fig. 65); the first noticeable peculiarity of this design
is its very florid character. The reveals are deep, the orders are in
high relief, and the friezes and arch spandrels are loaded with showy
ornamental carvings. Milizia says[97] that in the Doric order of this
façade Sansovino attempted to solve a problem which had troubled all of
the Italian architects, namely, how to make exactly half of a metope
fall at the end of the frieze. The Greeks had placed a triglyph at the
angle, but in so doing they had been obliged to sacrifice uniformity,
since this angle triglyph fell over one side of the corner column,
instead of over its centre as the other triglyphs of the series did
(Fig. 66). This had made it necessary to lengthen the last metope,
and to narrow the last intercolumniation. The Romans had set the last
triglyph over the centre of the corner column, and had thus been
obliged to give less than half a metope to the corner (Fig. 67), though
they secured uniformity in all the rest of the parts. The frieze,
however, had now an appearance of incompleteness at each end, as of a
thing cut off arbitrarily through one of its members. The architects
of the Renaissance appear to have disliked this narrow section of a
metope at the end of the frieze, and to have sought a way to make it
exactly half. This, as Milizia tells us, Sansovino did in the Library
of St. Mark by lengthening the frieze enough to give the fragment of
metope the width that was desired. Turning to the design itself (Fig.
68), we find that this obliged him to set a square pier with a pilaster
on its face at the angle. Of this device Milizia remarks that it was a
folly.[98]
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Roman corner.]
In the general scheme of this façade (Fig. 65) Sansovino has followed
that of the ancient theatre of Marcellus, with a free introduction of
additional enrichments. In the order of the basement he has departed
from the severe plainness of the Roman model by adding mouldings and
keystones to the archivolts, reliefs to the spandrels, and disks to
the metopes of the frieze. But all this is done with a commendable
feeling for breadth of effect. To the order of the upper story he has
made more striking additions, the most noticeable of which is the
insertion of a small free-standing column on each side of the pier to
bear the archivolt, an innovation which was followed by Palladio and
many later architects. The least admirable features of the design are
the frieze of the upper order, which is widened beyond all tolerable
proportion, and an ornamental balustrade over the main cornice. The
frieze is ornamented with inelegant festoons in high relief, and
pierced with oblong windows opening into a low upper story which the
entablature encloses. The columns of the upper order, as well as the
free-standing colonnettes, are raised on panelled pedestals, and
balustraded balconies are formed in front of each window opening. This
sumptuous scheme embodies very fully the ideal to which the designers
of the Renaissance had been tending under the Roman influence of the
sixteenth century, and it has been extensively reproduced, with various
minor modifications, in the civic architecture of all parts of Europe.
[Illustration: FIG. 68.--Angle of Library of St. Mark.]
As the façade of the Library of St. Mark is based upon that of the
ancient theatre of Marcellus, so the Loggetta of the Campanile is an
adaptation of the scheme of the Arch of Titus extended to include three
arches, and enriched with statues and reliefs to suit the florid fancy
of the time. But while the scheme is plainly derived from the Arch of
Titus, the proportions of the parts are very different, and much less
admirable. The order is made lower and the attic higher. The Arch of
Titus is the finest in proportions of all the Roman triumphal arches,
and the grandest in monumental simplicity. Sansovino’s changes and
ornamental additions spoil the composition, and do not fit the design
for the building to which it is attached. Such a design could not have
any proper relationship to such a building. To attach any sort of a
Roman triumphal arch scheme to the base of a mediæval tower is an
architectural absurdity.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--Palazzo Cornaro.]
In the scheme of the Palazzo Cornaro an Ionic order and a Corinthian
order frame in the round-headed windows of the upper stories. The
columns of these orders are set in pairs, each pair having a plinth
and pedestal in common. On the side walls of the building these orders
are returned to the extent of one bay, which brings four columns
together at the angles with clumsy effect. The frieze of the uppermost
entablature is widened, as in the Library of St. Mark, but its
surface is plain save for a series of oval openings which light a low
attic. The high rusticated basement, which includes a mezzanine, has
square-headed windows framed by a rusticated Doric order resting on a
projecting sill supported on plain consoles; and over each of these a
low rectangular window, flanked by elongated consoles on square blocks
set upon the entablature of the window below, lights the mezzanine.
A curved pediment over each of the lower windows, between the blocks
that support the flanking members of the windows above, gives further
awkwardness to the total scheme (Fig. 69). Barbaric compositions such
as this were now to become of frequent occurrence in the architecture
of the later Renaissance. While the designers were eliminating the
mediæval forms more completely than their predecessors had done, they
were at the same time departing more widely from classic models, and
introducing many monstrosities of composition, from the influence of
which modern art has greatly suffered.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--Two bays of the Porta del
Palio.]
The works of Sanmichele show an equally exclusive employment of
classic features, with the same freedom in deforming them and using
them in novel and ungainly ways. In the Porta del Palio of Verona, a
characteristic example of his work, he has used a pseudo-Doric order
in which the columns are fluted after the Ionic manner with fillets
between the channels, and are raised on heavy square plinths. The
columns are disposed in pairs, dividing the façade into three wide
intervals and four narrow ones (Fig. 70), and each wide space has a
large rectangular recess spanned by a flat arch, with a sculptured
keystone in the form of a console, under the entablature of the
order. At the level of the soffit of this arch the wall is crowned
by a cornice passing behind the columns. The central bay has a large
rectangular portal without jamb mouldings, and in each lateral bay is
a small doorway framed with classic jamb mouldings and a pediment on
consoles. Over each of these openings is a secondary flat arch with
deep voussoirs reaching to the soffit of the upper one. Pilasters take
the place of columns on the angles of the façade, and the walls are
rusticated. In the façade of the opposite side the scheme is varied,
and is plainer. The columns of the order are disposed as before, but
instead of being fluted they are rusticated like the walls, and have no
bases, while a large round-arched opening, with impost mouldings and a
plain keystone, fills each wide interval.
Of Sanmichele’s palace fronts the best in Verona is, I think, that
of the Palazzo Canossa, where over a high rusticated basement he
has placed a shallow order of Corinthian pilasters in pairs, set
close together, on a podium with ressauts. This order embraces both
the principal floor and a low story above it, and has considerable
elegance. The effect of the whole front is broad and quiet, save for
the heavy balustrade with showy statues which crowns it. It will be
seen, as we pass in review these different compositions, that the range
of eccentricities of design embodied in them is as great as we find in
the works of the earlier Renaissance, though they show fewer mediæval
characteristics. The Palazzo Pompei alla Vittoria, also by Sanmichele,
for instance, has a Doric order over a plain rusticated basement, like
that of the Porta del Palio, but with the columns equally spaced,
except that the central intercolumniation is made wider than the others
in conformity with the width of the portal beneath it, and a pilaster
is coupled with a column on each angle. Plain round-arched windows
occupy the intervals between the columns, and a corbel in the form
of a sculptured head is set under the entablature of the order over
the crown of each arch. The plain windows of the basement have clumsy
rectangular sills on consoles.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Palazzo Bevilacqua.]
A more elaborate design by the same architect is that of the front of
the Palazzo Bevilacqua (Fig. 71). Here an order of rusticated Doric
pilasters, supporting an entablature with channelled consoles in
the place of triglyphs, and a cornice surmounted with a balustrade
forming a balcony to the story above, divides the basement wall into
alternately wide and narrow bays. A round-arched window in each bay
has a heavy keystone in the form of a sculptured bust, which forms
at the same time a corbel to the entablature. The unequal spacing of
the pilasters leads to an awkward irregularity in the spacing of the
channelled consoles which do duty as triglyphs in the frieze. One of
them is set over the centre of each pilaster, and the spaces over the
wide intervals each give place to three of them, while over the narrow
intervals there is too much room for one and not enough for two. The
designer has chosen to have but one, and the effect of the resulting
wider spacing over the narrow bays is both unpleasant and unclassic.
The upper story has a still more barocco character. A Corinthian order
with columns of alternately straight and spiral channelling, spaced in
conformity with the pilasters of the basement and raised on pedestals,
frames in a series of round-arched windows which are alternately large
and small in correspondence with the magnitudes of the intervals.
The window of each wide bay nearly fills the space enclosed by the
order, and a keystone in the arch forms a corbel to the entablature,
while the spandrels are adorned with sculptures in high relief after
the manner of those of the Roman triumphal arches. Over the smaller
arch in each narrow bay the spandrels are in relief and are crowned
with a pediment surmounted by a horizontal cornice on a shallow
ressaut corresponding to that of the spandrels, while over all this
a plain oblong rectangular opening lights a low top story which is
not otherwise expressed in the composition. In these narrow bays the
corbels are introduced under the entablature as in the wider ones, and
carved festoons fill the spaces between them and the capitals on either
side. It is a capricious scheme, by which the designer has sought to
quicken the jaded sensibilities of people surfeited with architectural
aberrations. Of course the arrangement of these elements is based on a
certain rhythmical order which often appears to be thought a sufficient
justification of such meaningless compositions; but order and rhythm do
not alone constitute a fine work of art.
Of the secular architecture of Vignola the Palazzo Caprarola, in the
hill country between Rome and Viterbo, is the most important. This
building, says Milizia, “is without doubt the grandest and the most
beautiful work of this great artist.”[99] The building, which is
illustrated by elaborate drawings in Vignola’s own book, has in plan
the form of a regular pentagon enclosing a circular court. The form is,
of course, given from pure caprice, and imposes needless difficulties,
as if with the sole purpose of ingeniously solving them. The basement,
with a salient fortress-like bastion on each angle, is in two stages,
of which the lower one has a batter wall. Over this are the principal
story of the state apartments, and two other stories containing upward
of eighty sleeping chambers. Slightly projecting bays are formed on the
angles, as in the Cancelleria at Rome, and each façade is divided into
two stages by superimposed orders of pilasters on high pedestals. The
projecting bays have rusticated quoins instead of pilasters, and the
wall of the first story of each of these bays is rusticated. An open
loggia with five arches in the intervals of the order, and one enclosed
arch at each end, reaches across the main front of the principal story
between the salient bays, and the main portal is an arched opening,
with rusticated jambs in relief and an entablature, in the upper stage
of the basement. This portal is reached by a double ramp mounting
an outer terrace and the lower basement stage. Below this, giving
access to the lower basement, is a rusticated portico with an order
of rusticated pilasters and three open arches flanked by two narrow
enclosed bays with niches, and crowned with a balustrade.
The circular court has an open arcade of widely spaced arches in two
stages, of which the lower one has a plain rusticated wall, and the
upper one an Ionic order with columns in pairs, and a balustrade
with statues crowning the entablature. This sumptuous monument was a
source of inspiration to the later architects of the trans-alpine
Renaissance, and De l’Orme’s oval courts of the Tuileries, and the
circular courts of the palace of Whitehall by Inigo Jones, suggest its
influence.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--Part of the Portico of Vicenza,
from Palladio’s book.]
[Illustration: FIG. 73.]
But in domestic and civic architecture Palladio was more prolific
than Vignola, and his work has had a correspondingly wider influence.
Among the earlier civic buildings by him is the well-known portico
of the town hall of his native city, Vicenza. This portico of two
stories covers three sides of a building of oblong rectangular plan,
dating from the Middle Ages, and consisting of a great hall over a
low basement. Palladio’s scheme (Fig. 72) for this portico is plainly
derived from the town hall of Padua to which he refers in his book
as a most notable edifice.[100] But while basing his design on that
of Padua, he modifies it by features drawn from other sources. In
place of the simple arcades of the mediæval Paduan model, he has
substituted a complicated combination of arches with large and small
orders, in which the inspiration of Sansovino’s Library of St. Mark in
Venice is apparent. The free-standing column under the archivolt of
Sansovino’s upper story (Fig. 65, p. 120) is reproduced by Palladio
in both stories of the portico of Vicenza. But instead of a single
column, he has inserted a pair on each side of the arch, ranged in the
direction of the thickness of the wall, as shown in the plan (Fig.
73). The intervals between the columns of the great orders are very
wide, because they had to conform with the spacing of the openings in
the mediæval structure enclosed; but the arches within the intervals
are necessarily of narrower span, since their crowns could not rise
above the soffit of the entablature. Thus the free-standing columns
of the small order which support these arches are set farther away
from the pier than they are in Sansovino’s scheme. This free-standing
column supporting the archivolt is often spoken of as an innovation of
Sansovino and Palladio. It is worthy of notice, however, that instances
of it occur in the Græco-Roman architecture of Syria, as in S. Simeon
Stylites (Fig. 74); but the arch in these cases is not framed in with
the useless order. In the ground story arcade of Padua the spandrels
have circular perforations, and these are reproduced by Palladio in
both stories of his portico.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--Arch of St. Simeon Stylites.]
From a structural point of view Palladio’s scheme is an improvement on
that of Padua. For in Padua, as in Vicenza, both stories of the portico
are vaulted, and the slender columns which alone bear the vaulting
are too weak to withstand the thrusts of this vaulting, and thus both
transverse and longitudinal tie-rods are inserted to maintain the
stability of the fabric. But Palladio’s massive and heavily weighted
piers are strong enough to bear the thrusts without the aid of ties,
and it may be added that the great orders have more function here
than they usually have in Renaissance design, since their columns act
somewhat as buttresses. The shaft of an order has not, indeed, a proper
form for an abutment, and has no buttress expression. Its resistance
to thrust is slight, but it is better than nothing at all. Following
Sansovino, the architect has introduced a balustrade in each opening of
the arcade, and a continuous one as a crowning feature of the cornice.
Palladio himself thought well of this work, and he does not hesitate to
say in his book that it will bear comparison with the most beautiful
buildings of antiquity. He tells us, also, that it is constructed in
the best manner out of excellent cut stone.[101] The last remark is
significant, for genuine stone masonry was not always employed by
Palladio in buildings which had the appearance of stone construction.
The use of brick and rubble with a revetment of stucco had not been
uncommon with the builders of the early Renaissance, and such materials
were extensively employed even by Bramante and Michael Angelo. But
Palladio went further than his predecessors in the creation of
architectural shams.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--Loggia Bernarda.]
Palladio was an earnest devotee of his art as he understood it, but
he had what may be called a theatrical ideal of architecture. The
superficial appearance was what chiefly concerned him. He had great
versatility in scenic and structurally meaningless composition,
and his numerous palace fronts in Vicenza are remarkable for their
superficially varied character. The Palazzo Valmarana, with its
colossal pilasters on a high podium overlapping a lesser order
embracing the basement and mezzanine, while the great entablature is
broken into ressauts over the pilasters; the Palazzo Colleone-Porta,
with its basement wall rusticated over a plain dado and an Ionic order
on the face of the superstructure; the Palazzo Porta-Barbarano, with
its superimposed orders and elaborate ornamentation in stucco relief;
and the Loggia Bernarda, with its gigantic composite order and balcony
corbels in the form of Doric triglyphs (Fig. 75), are sufficient
illustrations of this. The skin of stucco with which many of these
buildings were originally covered has broken off in many places,
revealing the poor materials of which they are built.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Window of Palazzo Branzo.]
Palladio’s compositions are, indeed, based on order and symmetry, but
order and symmetry of a mechanical kind. On these and other kindred
qualities grammarians in art are prone to lay great stress, but unless
accompanied by many others, which for the most part elude all human
powers of analysis and description, though they are instinctively
grasped by the true artist and appreciated by the discerning and
sympathetic beholder, they have little value. Palladio and his
associates were not true artists, they were grammatical formalists
without the inspiration of genius.[102] As for Scamozzi, little need be
said. Milizia tells us that he studied architecture with his father,
but that his real masters were the monuments of art themselves; and
that, stimulated by the fame of Sansovino and Palladio, he observed
their compositions closely, and conceived the ambition to surpass
them. His works, which do not differ materially from those of these
masters, present no features that are worthy of special remark, unless
a peculiar form of compound window, which occurs in the Palazzo Branzo
in Vicenza, be an exception. In this composition, often reproduced
in the later Renaissance architecture of all countries, two narrow
square-headed openings, each crowned with an entablature, flank a wider
one spanned by an arch (Fig. 76). This composition has been called
an invention of Scamozzi’s.[103] But there had been many previous
instances of its most noticeable feature, _i.e._ the entablature
broken by an arch, as in the porch of the Pazzi by Brunelleschi. I do
not know that windows had before been designed in this form in the
architecture of the Renaissance; but the same composition occurs in the
Roman architecture of Syria, as in the Basilica of Shakka (Fig. 77).
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--Basilica of Shakka.]
[Illustration:
Plate V
SAN BERNARDINO
Perugia]
We have thus far confined our attention to the architecture of the
Renaissance as it was developed under the Florentine and Roman
influences, early and late. We must now notice some of the phases which
the art assumed under other local influences that were subordinately
active, chiefly in the north of Italy.