PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN NORTH ITALY
The palace architecture of the Renaissance in north Italy which has
the most marked local character is that of Venice. We have already, in
the preceding chapter, noticed several buildings here by Sansovino,
but these belong to the later Roman Renaissance style, and are thus
not so distinctly Venetian. Several civic monuments, however, and
many houses of the Grand Canal and elsewhere, exhibit the peculiar
Venetian type. Among the earliest and most noteworthy of these is the
east side of the Court of the Ducal Palace by the architect Antonio
Riccio of Verona.[110] This richly ornamental scheme is wrought upon
a foundation of earlier work to which the architect was obliged
to conform, and this appears to have given rise to the irregular
magnitudes and spacings of the openings of the upper stories, which
are so noticeable, and are in marked contrast with the symmetrical
regularity of Renaissance design in general. The long façade is in two
walled stories above a basement in two stages of open arcading, with
the so-called giant’s stairway giving access to the upper arcade. The
ground story has splayed round arches on piers of corresponding section
adorned with pilasters of neo-classic form, while the stage above has
a pointed arcade on compound shafted supports of mediæval Venetian
character (Plate VI). The upper stories are marked by entablatures,
and the round-arched windows are flanked by pilasters reaching, in the
principal story, to the arch impost, and then stilted to carry curved
pediments worked in relief against the entablature that crowns this
story. The top story is divided into two parts of nearly equal length,
but of different height, and different design. The part extending from
the middle to the sea side of the court is the lower, and has its
windows flanked by pilasters reaching to the crowning entablature.
These pilasters are raised on pedestals forming ressauts to a podium,
and some of the windows are grouped in pairs, some in double pairs,
and some are single. In the taller part the windows are taller, and
show considerable differences of design. One group, consisting of
a double pair, has flanking pilasters reaching only to the impost,
with a stilt-block rising from the capital of each to the crowning
entablature, while Corinthian colonnettes, with strongly marked
entasis, support the archivolts--both pilasters and shafts being raised
on low pedestals. Separated from this by a considerable interval is
another window group of the same design, but consisting of a single
pair, while in the intervening space, and along the rest of the wall
toward the church of St. Mark, are unequally spaced single windows
with pilasters supporting the archivolts, and other pilasters flanking
these, all raised on high pedestals connected by a continuous podium.
In the upper stage of the basement, at the head of the giant’s stair,
the pointed arcade is interrupted by a group of three round arches
on grouped pilasters. The wall surfaces are everywhere elaborately
panelled and enriched with arabesques, and the friezes, spandrels,
and podiums have panelled disks, festoons, and arabesque ornaments in
tiresome profusion.
[Illustration:
Plate VI
FAÇADE OF COURT, DUCAL PALACE
Venice]
[Illustration: FIG. 90.]
The north side is also in the Renaissance style, but here is only
one enclosed story, and this is on the level of the upper arcade of
the east side. The architectural scheme of this part is different,
except that its entablature is a continuation of the lower one of the
eastern façade. The work here appears to have been wholly new, and the
regularly spaced windows are each framed with a pseudo-Corinthian order
in high relief, the shafts of this order being raised on ornamented
round pedestals resting on corbel-blocks (Fig. 90). The walls are
incrusted with large slabs of veined marble, and an ornamental disk in
relief is set in each interspace.
The finest thing in this court is the giant’s stair. Few architectural
works of the Renaissance are so reasonable and so free from superfluous
and unmeaning features. The steps, broken about midway by a landing
stage, are enclosed by balustrades of severely simple design starting
from square newels; and the sides are plainly panelled in marble,
with delicate mouldings and arabesque carvings on the surfaces of the
framing members. The mechanical execution of the whole is superb, no
settlement or fracture appearing in any part.
The façade of the Scuola di San Marco, begun in 1485 and attributed to
the architect Martino Lombardo, is a marvel of delicate workmanship
resembling in many of its features the small church of the Miracole
(p. 151) while including details of a different character. It is in
two stories, and is divided into two parts, answering to an internal
division, one of which, embracing the main portal, is larger and richer
than the other. An order of Corinthian pilasters embraces both parts of
each story, and these pilasters are unequally spaced in conformity with
the proportions of the respective parts and their openings. The main
division, which is on the spectator’s left as he faces the building,
has three bays of which the central one is the wider. The main portal
(Fig. 91) is in this bay, and has two arch orders on pilasters flanked
with larger pilasters, also in two orders, reaching to the entablature
which passes over the arch. A free-standing Corinthian column on a high
pedestal is set in front of each pilaster of the greater suborder, and
from ressauts of the entablature over these columns an archivolt in
high relief is sprung against the wall of the upper story. The shafts
of the flanking columns are unusually short, the pedestals being about
half the total height from the ground to the entablature. Comment on
the unreason of such compositions becomes wearisome, and criticism may
appear like captiousness. But if the reader will consider the character
of a Greek portal, with its jamb mouldings and cornice, as reasonable
and appropriate as they are simple, of a true Gothic doorway with its
consistent arch orders, but with no superfluous or unmeaning features,
he can hardly fail to feel the childishness of this Renaissance design
in comparison.
[Illustration: FIG. 91.--Portal of the Scuola di San
Marco, Venice.]
The other division of this front has a smaller and more simple doorway
in its central bay, with an unbroken wall above, and a narrow arched
window, framed with pilasters and a gabled pediment in each upper
lateral bay, while the lateral compartments of the ground story are
adorned with remarkable carvings in very low relief which present
an extreme instance of that tendency to pictorial treatment that
distinguishes the relief sculpture of the Renaissance. The main
cornice, embracing both divisions of the front, is crowned with a
series of arched pediments, varying in span with the bays beneath,
which recall those of the façade of the church of St. Mark. Those over
the main division of the façade are raised on ornamental attics of
which the middle one is in two stages.
The details of this composition are in very low relief, and the
entablatures are broken into slight ressauts over the pilasters. The
wall surfaces are incrusted with marble slabs, with simple panellings
and small disks introduced sparingly, and the archivolts of the main
portal, and of the crowning pediments, are adorned with arabesques and
with small statues and finials.
The merit of this composition as a whole lies solely in the ordering
of the component details which the designer has employed in a purely
fanciful way without any proper architectural meaning; but the
refinement of execution, and the beauty of the marbles, with their
pearly colours subdued and harmonized by time, make the monument one of
the most notable in Venice.
[Illustration: FIG. 92.--Part of the Scuola di San
Rocco.]
Another characteristic example of early Renaissance design in Venice
is the Scuola di San Rocco (Fig. 92). The façade of this building is
again in two divisions each of two stories, the main division having
three bays and the other but two. These bays are marked by superimposed
pilasters which are carried across both divisions, and in the main
division a free-standing Corinthian column is set in front of each
pilaster. In each story the columns are raised on pedestals connected
by a podium, and each one is wreathed with a band of ornamental
foliage. The entablatures are in the plane of the wall, and are broken
into very salient ressauts which in the main cornice are unpleasantly
conspicuous against the sky. Both the columns and the ressauts are
meaningless, the columns having nothing but the ressauts to carry,
and the ressauts having no function but to cover the useless columns.
The lesser details of this façade are of mixed character. The main
portal has splayed jambs adorned with pilasters, and an archivolt of
corresponding section. This portal is framed by an order of smaller
Corinthian columns, on high polygonal pedestals, with a pediment over
the entablature. The side bays of the basement of the main division
have each a wide arched window subdivided by a central colonnette
and jamb shafts carrying two small arches, with a tympanum pierced
with a circle and triangles in mediæval fashion. The great arches of
these windows have spandrels in relief crowned with cornices in the
Lombard Renaissance manner. In the upper story each bay has a pair of
arched windows framed by a pseudo-Corinthian order of colonnettes on
ornamented round pedestals resting on corbels, the entablature of this
diminutive order being surmounted by a pediment. In the window of the
central bay the pier between the openings is wider than the piers of
the side windows, and has a pair of colonnettes on its face instead of
only one.
But the most characteristic architecture of the Renaissance in Venice
is that of the private palaces of the grand canal. The princely
dwellings ranged along this unique waterway are unmatched by anything
else in the world. The finest of them are, however, those of the later
mediæval period. These alone have the thoroughly distinctive Venetian
character; but a few of the palaces of the early Renaissance retain the
fine proportions, the quiet outlines, and the expression of refined
opulence that belong to the buildings of the preceding epoch. In the
best of them the neo-classic details are used sparingly, though not
without strange new inconsistencies of form and adjustment.
The Palazzo Corner-Spinelli (Plate VII), attributed to Pietro Lombardo,
is one of the most characteristic. Its broad-walled basement, and the
well-ordered subdivisions of the upper stories, are exceedingly fine,
though the basement is high and the principal story rather low. No
complete orders occur in this façade, but superimposed pilasters are
placed on the angles, and an entablature is carried across each of the
upper stories, while only a narrow string course crowns the basement.
The windows are disposed in the manner of those of the mediæval
Venetian palaces, a pair of them being set together in the middle, and
a single one occupying the centre of each lateral bay in conformity
with the divisions of the interior. These windows are wide, and are
composed in the mediæval manner, with a dividing shaft and two small
arches encompassed by a larger arch, as in the Scuola di San Rocco. A
noticeable peculiarity of detail in these windows is the incomplete
circle in the tympanum space, which intersects the smaller arches so
as to form sinuous curves like those of Flamboyant Gothic tracery.
The archivolts are carried by small pilasters, and the spandrels are
framed with mouldings. The windows open on corbelled balconies with
balustrades in Renaissance form of great refinement and elegance, and
the balcony rails are carried as string courses along the walls. The
panelling of the pilasters, as in this design and many others that we
have noticed beginning with Alberti’s façade of St. Andrea of Mantua,
is of questionable propriety, for supporting members need to have
an expression of concentrated strength with which such treatment is
hardly compatible. The surface of a pier or pilaster may be enriched by
any kind of fluting or chasing that does not materially diminish its
substance, but to sink panels in such supporting members is to destroy
in a measure the expression of homogeneous compactness. The classic
details in this building show the same disregard for correct classic
forms and proportions that we find in the art of the Renaissance
generally. The superimposed pilasters on the angles are of uniform
width, though they differ greatly in height, and those of the various
openings are of still different proportions and sizes. This association
of members of the same kind, but of many different magnitudes,
is proper to the organic mediæval architectural systems, under the
influence of which these designers were unconsciously working; but
it is foreign to the principles of the classic art. The beauty of
the Corner palace, is, however, quite independent of the neo-classic
details which are sparingly ingrafted upon it, and belongs to the
larger forms and proportions of the mediæval Venetian style.
[Illustration:
Plate VII
PALAZZO CORNER-SPINELLI
Venice]
Other Venetian palaces of the early Renaissance exhibit other
peculiarities which it would be tedious to describe at length, but
it may be well to notice a few of them. The Palazzo Contarini, for
instance, has its three principal interior divisions marked by
superimposed pilasters in addition to the pilasters on the angles. The
basement order is raised on a podium, and both the basement and the
principal story have an entablature, while the top story is crowned
with a low cornice with modillions and no complete entablature. The
arched portal is flanked with pilasters in two orders, both crowned
with entablature blocks, but no entablature spans the opening under the
arch, and the spandrels are framed with mouldings and crowned with a
cornice. The windows are narrow and round arched, and have no dividing
members. Four of these are grouped together in the central bay of each
upper story, and those of the principal story are framed in with a
Corinthian order of five columns surmounted by a pediment, the whole
composition having exactly the form of a diminutive temple front. Each
lateral bay above the basement has two single windows, those of the
principal floor being each framed with a Corinthian order like that of
the central group, and crowned with a pediment. The windows of the top
story are flanked by very slender pilasters of equal height with those
of the main order, and smaller pilasters carry the archivolts. The end
windows of the central group and the inner ones of the lateral bays
come close to the pilasters of the main order, thus giving on each side
a group of pilasters of three different proportions and magnitudes,
as in Figure 93. The front as a whole is good in its proportions, and
quiet in effect. The neo-classic details add nothing to it of value,
and the composition would be better without them.
The Palazzo Vendramini has full orders in all three stories, and the
distinctive Venetian character is materially altered by them. The
usual scheme of the Venetian palace front, in which a wide central
bay wholly occupied by openings is flanked by lateral bays each with
a solid wall on either side of an opening, is indeed retained, but
the effect of it is much obscured by the prominence given to the
orders, which are in high relief, and extend across the whole front.
The openings have the mediæval form of two shafted arches beneath an
embracing arch with a circle in the tympanum space. Three, instead
of two, of these compound openings are grouped within the unusually
wide central bay, and each one fills an intercolumniation of the
order. In each lateral bay the columns of the order are unequally
spaced in conformity with the narrow strips of solid wall, one on
either side of the opening, which they enclose, giving a wide central
intercolumniation and two narrow ones. The cornice of the basement
entablature is widened, and supported on corbels from the frieze, in
front of the windows of the principal story, and balustrades are set on
these projecting ledges so as to form balconies. To give emphasis to
the topmost entablature as the crowning feature of the façade, it is
made so high as to be out of all proportion to the order of which it is
a part.
[Illustration: FIG. 93.]
[Illustration:
Plate VIII
PALAZZO DEL CONSIGLIO
Verona]
Of the later palace architecture of Venice it is unnecessary to give
any extended analysis because it is less distinctly Venetian, and
belongs more fully to the so-called Roman Renaissance style which is
essentially uniform in character in all parts of the country. In these
later palace fronts the main divisions of the typical Venetian scheme
persist indeed, but they are so slightly emphasized, and so overladen
with heavy orders, that they lose their proper effect. In Sansovino’s
Palazzo Cornaro, for instance, already described (p. 124), these main
divisions of the front are hardly noticeable in a general view. The
general effect is of evenly spaced pairs of columns in each of the
upper stories. It is not until we examine the composition closely that
we perceive the narrower proportions of the three middle openings. The
same is true of the façade of the Palazzo Grimani by Sanmichele, though
in this case the grouping is different, the columns being set in pairs
in the lateral bays only. Even in the still later and heavy rococo
design of the Palazzo Pesaro by the architect Longhena, which is based
on the scheme of the Library of St. Mark, the unequal main divisions of
the Venetian palace type are still preserved.
Among examples of north Italian Renaissance palace architecture outside
of Venice the well-known Palazzo del Consiglio of Verona (Plate VIII)
presents a mediæval broletto scheme dressed out in Renaissance details
which it would be better without. The building has but one story over
an open arcaded basement. The arcade is in two divisions of four
arches each, the arches springing from short columns raised on square
pedestals, and the pedestals connected by a balustrade. A central
pier and a pier at each end enclose these divisions, and on the face
of each pier is a shallow pilaster supporting a narrow entablature
which extends across the whole front, with a corbelled capital over
the central column of each division to support the entablature in
the long intervals between the pilasters. The upper story is divided
into four equal parts by pilasters set over the pilasters and corbels
of the basement. These pilasters are on ressauts of a podium over
corresponding ressauts in the entablature below, and the crowning
entablature is likewise broken with ressauts. A twin-arched opening
with central colonnette, flanked by pilasters and crowned with an
entablature and curved pediment, occupies the middle of each division
of this story, and the walls are incrusted with elaborate marble inlay.
The general form and proportions of this monument are exceedingly
fine, but in respect to these qualities it belongs to the Middle
Ages and not to the Renaissance. To the simple arcade and plain
walled superstructure the neo-classic details are inappropriate and
meaningless.
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--One bay of basement of the
Ospedale Maggiore.]
Another northern Renaissance building of the broletto type is the
Palazzo Comunale of Brescia, in which we have a basement arcade of
three arches on heavy piers, with an engaged Corinthian order adjusted
in the Roman manner, and over this a single story in retreat divided
into three wide bays by pilasters carrying a heavy entablature. A
square-headed window in each bay is framed by an order of smaller
pilasters the entablature of which reaches to the soffit of the
crowning entablature. In those parts of the Ospedale Maggiore of
Milan which were designed about the middle of the fifteenth century,
by the Florentine architect, Antonio Filarete, the larger features
are of mixed and debased mediæval character with no application of
classic orders. The building is of brick with elaborate ornaments
of terra-cotta, and has but two stories including the basement. The
basement has a blind arcade of round arches on stumpy columns with
Corinthianesque capitals, and a compound opening of two pointed
arches under a larger pointed arch is set in each bay (Fig. 94).
The faces of the jambs and archivolts of these openings are heavily
adorned with mouldings and foliate ornaments in terra-cotta relief,
while the archivolts of the arcade above have more simple neo-classic
profiling, and more refined and conventional foliate ornamentation.
The window-sills are on coupled corbels of heavy and inelegant form,
and the whole arcade is raised on a high base with ressauts under the
columns. Medallions with busts in high relief are set in the tympanums
of the windows and in the spandrels of the arcade, while a wide frieze
somewhat like an entablature crowns this part of the composition. The
upper story has a plain brick wall with windows like those of the
basement enclosed within rectangular panels.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.]
Other peculiarities of design are found in some of the early
Renaissance palaces of Bologna, where in the Palazzo Bevilacqua the
windows of the principal story have the mediæval form of two small
arches under a larger arch, modified by the omission of the central
shaft which gives the middle of the tympanum the form of a pendant. But
it is not worth while to follow these aberrations of early northern
Renaissance design further. The palace architecture of the later
Renaissance in north Italy has no distinctive character that calls
for particular comment. It is for the most part based on the art of
Palladio and Vignola which we have already enough considered. While
it exhibits many more of those misadjustments of structural members,
and other vagaries of design, in which Italian architects have been
at all times fertile, it has no great importance to justify special
remark. To point out in detail many such meaningless caprices as those
introduced by Pellegrini in the court of the Palazzo Brera in Milan,
where the arches of the superimposed arcades are sprung from pairs of
columns connected by short entablatures, making it necessary to double
the transverse arches of the vaulting behind them, or such novelties
as occur in the windows of the basement of the Palazzo Martinengo
of Brescia, which are adorned with small Doric columns carrying
architraves without the other parts of an entablature, while an upright
block with a ball on it rises over each column (Fig. 95), would be
tiresome and profitless. We may therefore pass on in the next chapter
to a brief consideration of the carved ornament of this architecture,
before taking up the architecture of the Renaissance in France and
England.