style was Giacomo Barocchio or Barozzi, better known as Vignola, from
the name of the place in which he was born, in 1507. After practising
for some time in Bologna, Piacenza, Assisi, and Perugia, he was summoned
to Rome by Pope Julius III, and built the villa Pope Julius, which is
now the =Etruscan Museum=. But the principal example of his style is the
=Palace of Caprarola=, erected some thirty miles from Rome for the Pope’s
nephew, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. It has a pentagonal plan enclosing
a circular court. Above the ground story the façades consist of two
stories, which have rusticated quoins at the angles and are composed of
an order of Ionic, superimposed upon Doric. Situated on a craggy
projection, overlooking the little town of Caprarola and commanding wide
vistas that reach to the Volscian Hills and the Apennines, with the dome
of St. Peter’s in the middle distance, this palace is embellished with
beautiful gardens, the whole representing one of the most magnificent
palace-villas of the Renaissance.
Vignola was one of the artists invited to =Fontainebleau= by Francis I.
After the death of Michelangelo he was appointed architect of =S. Peter’s=
and erected the cupolas. He also furnished the design of =Il Gesu=, the
Jesuit church in Rome, which was one of many erected along the lines of
S. Peter’s. His fame further rests on his writings, which include “The
Five Orders of Architecture” and a work on perspective. He died in 1573.
=Michelangelo.=--At this date Michelangelo had been dead nine years, but
it is convenient to consider him as the last great architect of the
Roman School, for he introduced new elements of design, which in the
hands of smaller men contributed to the decadence of the Renaissance
style. Architecture played a relatively small part in his titanic and
tempestuous career, which through the political confusion of the times
and changes of popes, oscillated between Florence and Rome. In the
former city he designed, as additions to Brunelleschi’s Medici church of
S. Lorenzo, the =Laurentian Library= and the =New Sacristy= or Mausoleum
which contains the tombs of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke
of Urbino.
In Rome, as early as 1505, Julius II had entrusted Michelangelo with the
commission of erecting his tomb. The ambition of the patron and the
imagination of the artist united in a project so colossal that =S.
Peter’s= was to be rebuilt to serve as a mausoleum for it. Unfortunately
for Michelangelo and perhaps for art, the death of Julius interfered
with the project. His heirs desired a less expensive monument and
succeeding popes were interested only in the rebuilding of S. Peter’s.
After forty years all that had been accomplished of the tomb were the
statues of Moses and the “Bound Captives.” “My youth has been lost,”
cried the sore-afflicted artist, “bound hand and foot to this tomb.”
Even in the lifetime of Julius the planning of =S. Peter’s= had been taken
from Michelangelo and given to Bramante, and it was not until his
seventy-second year that Michelangelo was called in to supervise the
work. He adhered to Bramante’s plan and added the supreme feature of the
dome, which was completed after his death. Meanwhile, he finished, as we
have noted, the =Farnese Palace= and remodelled the =Palaces of the
Capitol=, the latter being his most characteristic work in architecture.
For in the novel design of these he introduced the so-called “one-order”
treatment, abandoning the horizontal lines that mark the stories and
carrying up through them a colossal order of pilasters. The effect lends
grandeur and unity to the design, but at the expense of a violation of
the principle of fitting the character of the exterior to the
constructive character of the interior. It was a sacrifice of parts to
the whole such as Michelangelo employed in sculpture and by his genius
justified. When, however, his example was followed by others who had not
his genius, it led to the degradation of style of the Baroque that alike
in sculpture and architecture resulted in pretentiousness and
extravagance.
The gradual decline from the purity of the Classic style to the showy
and meretricious magnificence of the so-called “Baroque” period, was
encouraged by the wealthy order of the Jesuits. It was characterised by
a growing lack of architectural propriety, an increasing use of heavy
and ill-applied ornament, and a general tendency to profusion of details
for the sake of display--seen in broken and distorted pediments, huge
scrolls, sham marble, excessive gilding, and a general riot of
sculpture, often hysterical in its excess of emotional expression. The
chief promoters of this decadence were =Carlo Maderna= (1556-1629), and
=Borromini= (1599-1667), although the latter was an architect, capable
also of finer achievement, as is proved by his colonnade enclosing the
=Piazza of S. Peter’s=.
=Palladio.=--In some degree a contributor to this decadence, through the
misuse of his example by others, was Andrea Palladio (1518-1580), a
native of =Vicenza=, where his most characteristic work is to be seen. In
youth he studied the writings of the Roman author, Vitruvius, and of
Alberti, and familiarised himself with the classic style by study in
Rome. His own work, “The Four Books of Architecture,” which contains
measured drawings of antique buildings many of which have since
disappeared, had a wide and great influence upon architectural
development throughout Europe. In England, for example, it was
translated and furnished with notes by Inigo Jones, whose own style was
largely based on Palladio’s.
The latter’s work is chiefly associated with =Vicenza=, where his most
important example, considered also his best, is seen in the
double-storied arcades, added to the =Mediæval Basilica=. In the lower
story he introduced the Doric order; in the upper, the Ionic; and, in
both instances, supported the arches on small columns, while large
engaged columns, acting as buttresses, occupy the centre of the spaces
between the arches. This treatment has been known since as the Palladian
motive. These imposing and beautiful arcades were executed in fine
stone, whereas through no fault, it is believed, of the architect, his
palaces in Vicenza are mostly of brick, with stucco front that has
suffered from decay. They include the =Palazzo Capitania= and the =Palazzo
Barbarano=, and the =Villa Rotonda= which was freely imitated by the
English amateur architect, Lord Burlington (1695-1753) in his villa at
Chiswick on the Thames. Palladio’s design of the Villa Rotonda is a
square building fronted on all four sides by a portico, surmounted by a
pediment, the roofing of the square sloping up to a low dome which
crowns the central rotunda. At the end of his life he designed the
=Teatro Olympico= of =Vicenza=, which was completed after his death by
Scamozzi. In this he followed the directions of Vitruvius, but
introduced features of his own, among which is the interesting one of an
architectural background to the stage, built in perspective. Palladio
executed work also in Venice, the churches of =Il Redentore= and =S.
Giorgio Maggiore= being from his design, though the façade of the latter
was by Scamozzi.
PRINCIPAL ARCHITECTS OF THE VENETIAN RENAISSANCE.
The Venetians had developed a beautiful type of Gothic, touched, through
their relations with the East, by Byzantine influence. It was admirably
suited to the social requirements and taste of a community of merchant
princes and wealthy middle-class, comparatively removed by geographical
position from the confusion of the times. For the wars of Venice,
conducted on foreign soil, left her unscathed, and during the fifteenth
century she reached the zenith of her commercial glory. But the decline
set in, when her trade with the Levant was blocked by the Turkish
occupation of Constantinople in 1453, and it was confirmed by the
passing of her Eastern commerce to the Portuguese, following Vasco da
Gama’s discovery of the Cape of Good Hope route to India (1497-1503).
But during the sixteenth century, though menaced both by the Emperor
Charles V and the French king, Francis I, and engaged in almost
perpetual struggle with the Turks, Venice maintained a splendid
isolation and reached the height of her artistic development.
The gradual modification of the Gothic style was effected by the
introduction of Classic features, especially at first of a decorative
character. One of the earliest examples of this transition is the fine
=Portal= of the =Doge’s Palace=, adjoining S. Marco, which was erected by
=Giovanni= and =Bartolommeo Buon=, who share with the Lombardi the chief
place in the early Venetian Renaissance.
=The Lombardi.=--This celebrated family of architects became known in the
person of a certain Martino who had two sons, Moro and Pietro
(1435-1515), and two grandsons by the latter, Antonio and Tullio. To
Martino belongs the façade of =S. Zaccaria=, the design of which was
developed in Pietro’s treatment of the beautiful little church of =S.
Maria dei Miracoli=. Its plan is an oblong, terminating in a square
chancel which is elevated considerably above the nave and is crowned by
a dome. The façade is decorated with two stories of engaged columns,
dividing the surface into panels which are encrusted with coloured
marbles, while the whole is surmounted by a semicircular pediment. The
carved details are of exquisite refinement. This choiceness of
decorative treatment reappears in the façade of the =Scuolo de S. Marco=,
which was also by Pietro, who further proved himself to be the most
accomplished member of the Lombardi by his façade of the =Vendramini
Palace=.
=Sansovino.=--The full development of the Renaissance style in Venice is
chiefly associated with Jacopo Sansovino (1477-1570). A pupil of the
Florentine sculptor, Andrea Sansovino, from whom he took his name, he
was at first employed by Julius II to restore antique statues and also
to make the bronze reproduction of the Laocoön group, which is now in
the Uffizi. After working in Florence and again in Rome, from which city
he fled when it was sacked by the Germans, Sansovino reached Venice in
1527 and was welcomed by Titian and Pietro Aretino. Here from time to
time he still produced indifferent sculpture, but became distinguished
as an architect, his most important works being the =Library of S. Marco=,
the =Zecca= or Mint, the =Cornaro Palace=, and the =Church of S. Giorgio del
Greci=--the last-named, erected by the Greek residents, being a
remarkable evidence of the tolerant spirit of the Venetians in the
matter of religion. In 1545 the roof of Sansovino’s library collapsed
and he was fined, imprisoned, and deprived of his office of chief
architect of S. Marco. He was, however, reinstated through the
intercession of Titian, Aretino, and other powerful friends and in the
course of his duties reinforced the domes with bands of iron.
The free invention with which Sansovino used the Classic orders and the
vigour and richness of his façades set the fashion for a sumptuousness
of style that in his hands had an imposing magnificence, but in his
followers degenerated into excess.
=Sammichele.=--Since Michele Sammichele (1484-1559) designed the =Gvimane
Palace= in Venice, considered his masterpiece, and was also employed by
the Signoria to construct the fortifications of the Lido, he may be
mentioned here, but his chief work is associated with Verona. Born near
the latter city, in the village of San Michele, the son of an architect,
he was sent as a youth to Rome to study Classic sculpture and
architecture. Among his earliest works is the uncompleted =Cathedral of
Montefiascone=. His fame as a military architect was established when he
remodelled the fortifications of Verona, introducing the new system of
corner bastions and giving grandeur to the gateways by the use of
rusticated masonry--a feature which he used effectively in his palace
designs. The finest of these in his native city are the =Canossa=,
=Bevilacqua=, and =Pompeii Palaces=. He wrote a work on “The Five Orders of
Architecture.”
=Scamozzi.=--Scamozzi has already been mentioned as adding the façade to
Palladio’s =Church of S. Giorgio Maggiore=. That his name disappears from
Venetian architecture is due to the fact that he was one of the Italian
artists who carried the Renaissance into Bohemia, and designed parts of
the Hradschin palace in Prague.
=Longhena.=--One exception to the excessive mannerism of the Baroque,
which characterised the Venetian style of the seventeenth century, is
found in the designs of Baldassare Longhena. These include the palaces
=Pesaro= and =Rezzonico= and the church of =S. Maria della Salute=. The
palaces are overcharged with ornament, especially with sculptured
figures, yet as a whole they are dignified, with the imposing character
due to bold, rich contrasts of light and shade that recall the example
of Sansovino. S. Maria is built on the plan of a Greek cross, with a
central dome, rising above an octagonal drum that is supported by
curving buttresses. A secondary dome surmounts the chancel, while
adjoining it is a campanile. Situated at the entrance to the Grand
Canal, the whole mass, especially when viewed from a distance that
reduces the disturbance of the statue-ornaments, presents a mingling of
picturesqueness and stateliness that makes it one of the most beautiful
features of the city.
* * * * *
To the latter part of the sixteenth century belong a number of imposing
palaces, erected in Genoa by the commercial princes, many of which were
designed by =Galeazzo Alessi= (1502-1572). They include the =Balbi=,
=Brignole=, =Durazzo=, =Doria-Tursi=, and =Pallavacini=.
[Illustration: RICCARDI PALACE, FLORENCE
BUILT FOR COSIMO I DE’ MEDICI, BY MICHELOZZO. EARLY RENAISSANCE. P. 358]
[Illustration: PALAZZO VECCHIO
OR MUNICIPAL PALACE OF FLORENCE; BY ARNOLFO DI CAMBIO. GOTHIC STYLE. P.
358]
[Illustration: CA D’ORO, VENICE
GOTHIC STYLE, BY GIOV. AND BART. BUON. P. 360]
[Illustration: VENDRAMINI PALACE, VENICE
RENAISSANCE STYLE, BY PIETRO LOMBARDO. P. 360]
[Illustration: FARNESE PALACE, ROME
BY SANGALLO; THE CORNICE BY MICHELANGELO. P. 363]
[Illustration: COURT OF THE FARNESE PALACE
CONSIDERED THE MOST IMPOSING IN ITALY. P. 363]
[Illustration: CAPITOL PALACES, ROME
BY MICHELANGELO. P. 363]
[Illustration: LIBRARY OF S. MARK, VENICE
BY SANSOVINO. P. 365]
[Illustration: S. ANDREA, MANTUA
BY ALBERTI. P. 367]
[Illustration: S. SPIRITO, FLORENCE
BY BRUNELLESCHI. P. 367]
[Illustration: S. PETER’S, ROME
SHOWING FAÇADE, PIAZZA AND COLONNADES. P. 370, ET SEQ.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF S. PETER’S, ROME
P. 370, ET SEQ.]
CHAPTER III
RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY--CONTINUED
The method that we have followed so far in this book has been to study
architecture in relation to problems of construction and to the
materials employed, and to think of a building as an organic growth
determined by plan, site, and the purposes for which it is intended--as
a structure in which all the parts are co-ordinated to the whole, each
directly functioning in the completed scheme. This is the architect’s
way of considering his problem. So we have followed it, in the desire to
avoid the error into which architects tell us that most laymen fall of
thinking only of the outside of a building--how it is decorated, whether
the design seems to be handsome or the reverse.
When, however, we come to the study of Italian Renaissance architecture,
some architects tell us that we must adopt another method of judgment.
These are the architects who are out-and-out advocates of the Italian
Renaissance style, considering its achievements to be “supreme.” They
admit that the Italian architects were less concerned with problems of
construction than with general beauty of design; hence they were
actuated not so much by logic as by feeling; and feeling especially for
detail. They displayed extraordinary genius for design, both in the
choice and disposition of the decorative effects and in the skill and
refinement of their execution. They were designers rather than
constructors.
This being the case, they should be judged accordingly. To estimate
their work by the test of constructive logic is arbitrary and unfair.
They should be judged by what they started out to accomplish; by the
character and quality of their designs.
In a word, as it may appear, these advocates would have us apply a
pictorial test; such a one, for example, as may serve in the case of the
great picture, “Marriage in Cana of Galilee,” by Paolo Veronese. We do
not trouble to consider the appropriateness of the architectural
setting, still less to explain the functions of its several parts; we
accept it without qualification as contributing to a monumental design.
Very possibly this actually represents the main attitude of the Italian
Renaissance artists toward architecture. They thought of it in its
pictorial aspect and practised it primarily as an art of design. With
them began the modern habit of conceiving a building primarily as a
design on paper. It is an effect of what we have already mentioned--the
separation of builder and designer that characterised the Italian
Renaissance.
Accordingly, while the following comparisons are based upon the
principles that we have been adopting throughout this book, the reader
should bear in mind the exception that has been taken to this method of
judgment.
=Palazzo Vecchio--Riccardi Palace.=--A good idea of the transition from
the Gothic to the Early Renaissance in Florentine Architecture may be
gained from a comparison of the =Palazzo Vecchio= and the =Riccardi Palace=.
The former was built by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1298, as the Municipal
Palace of the Podesta and Signoria. The Riccardi was erected in 1430 by
Michelozzo for Cosimo I de’ Medici. While the Republic still survived as
a name, he had usurped the actual power and occupied the Palazzo
Vecchio until the completion of his own mansion, which was thenceforth
to be the centre not only of the Medicean domination but also of its
courtly splendour and liberal patronage of literature and art.
Each edifice presents to the outside world a cubical mass, while the
interior includes a cortile or open court. But the Vecchio is the
severer in design, as befits Republican simplicity; it still has
something of the character of a mediæval fortress, due largely to the
heavy battlemented cornice that projects on massive corbels, with
machicolations or openings in the floor of the gallery, from which
defenders might drop missiles on an attacking force. A similar feature
surmounted the original tower (for the present superstructure was added
later)--a tower that was an additional source of defence as well as a
lookout for the detection of fires or other local disturbances. It still
served these purposes under the despotism of Cosimo; so that no tower
was needed for his house. Meanwhile, he and his successors had ever to
be on the watch against sudden alarms, so that it was admissible to
preserve somewhat of the fortress character--massive masonry, with door
and window openings, that might not be difficult to defend. On the other
hand, it would be impolitic either to make the purpose of protection too
apparent or to excite hostility by too lavish an appearance of grandeur
on the exterior. Moderation must be the keynote of the design, and the
facilities of luxurious living should be confined to the interior.
The result is a modification of the Palazzo Vecchio design by the
introduction of classic details. A classic cornice replaces the
machicolated; round arches supplant the pointed arches, the windows of
the upper stories, in place of trefoils, have round-top lights,
separated by a circular column. They are technically known as of the
_arcade_ type, while the windows of the ground floor are changed to
rectangular shapes and are of the _architrave_ type, that is to say set
in moulded frames, which are supported on consoles and surmounted by
classic pediments. Moreover in all these details, attention has been
paid to refinements of modelling; there is a choicer feeling of
proportion in the adjustment of the openings to the solid wall spaces
while the divisions of the stories have been distinguished by projecting
string courses and in such a way as to mark the importance of the second
story or _piano nobile_. A superior refinement and logic of arrangement
have regulated the whole design. The building, in fact, reflects the
changed social conditions and the new mental and æsthetic attitude
toward life produced by the study of classic literature and works of
art.
=Ca d’Oro--Vendramini.=--Now if we shift our glance to Venice and compare
the façades of the =Ca d’Oro= and =Vendramini Palaces=, we discover a great
difference between them and the Florentine examples. The Ca d’Oro was
erected by the Brothers Buon in the fifteenth century, a reminder of how
late the Gothic style was continued in Venice. The Vendramini, Pietro
Lombardo’s great achievement in domestic architecture, was completed in
1481. What a contrast both present to the Riccardi! It is an expression
of different habits of life. There is in both Venetian buildings the
suggestion of greater social security and a freer intercourse with the
outside world and less obstructed enjoyment of out of doors. The ample
windows of the Vendramini spread a welcome broadcast. And while the
arcaded loggia which distinguished the Ca d’Oro have been replaced in
the Vendramini by a balcony in the principal story and have disappeared
above, the change means a brighter lighting of the interior.
It is to be noted that the design of the Ca d’Oro is incomplete. One has
to imagine on the left a wing similar to that on the right. The massing
of the openings in the centre of the façade, instead of their even
distribution along the whole front, was peculiar to Venetian palaces. It
is apparent, although in a less pronounced manner, in the spacing of the
façade of the Vendramini. Another Venetian peculiarity is the limiting
of the beauty of the design to the main façade. Even when a side abutted
on another canal or a garden, the walls were finished in stucco instead
of marble; embellishments were omitted and, worst of all, not even was
the cornice continued. These limitations impair the integrity of the
design and seriously diminish its dignity. The fact is even more
apparent in the case of the Vendramini, for by this time the horizontal
members of the façade had acquired a definite constructive meaning, and
the failure to continue them around the sides betrays an indifference to
the logic of design.
The façade of the Vendramini is no longer _astylar_ (columnless), as,
with the exception of the window columns, is that of the Riccardi. The
adaptation of classic details has proceeded so far that pilasters are
introduced as decorative features in the ground story, and engaged
columns in the upper ones; an excuse for their appearance being
suggested by attaching their capitals to the string courses and cornice.
This device was drawn from the example of the Roman buildings, in which
the Greek relation of upright and horizontal members was diverted from
an element of construction into an element purely of design. Further,
while the windows of the Vendramini recall the character of the _arcade_
type, they have advanced to the _order_ type, the openings being framed
by pilasters or columns. Thus, this design embodies more or less all the
changes which the Early Renaissance brought about in secular buildings.
=Vendramini--Cancellaria.=--Comparing the =Vendramini=, however, with
Bramante’s adaptation of classic details as illustrated, for example, in
the =Palazzo della Cancellaria=, we can see how far removed it is in
feeling from the productions of the fully developed Renaissance. By the
latter time (1505) the nutriment derived from the antique had been
digested and assimilated. The antique not only contributed to, but, in
its revived form, was becoming a part of the spirit of the time.
Architecture was becoming identified with a culture that was fast losing
its fresh, Italian inspiration in an unqualified admiration and
imitation of what was antique and pagan.
Compared with the Vendramini or even the severer Riccardi, the
Cancellaria exhibits a precision of style that is rather close to
formalism. The design is less a product of inspired invention than of
scholarly adaptation. It may well strike one, especially at first sight,
as cold, lifeless, even pedantic; and it is not until one has studied
the design in some detail and become conscious of the refinement of
feeling and finesse of taste, involved in the relation of the parts to
the whole, that one is in a mood to recognise its claim to admiration.
The façade is constructed of blocks of travertine, taken from the
Colosseum--for notwithstanding their reverence for antiquity the
Italians of the Renaissance were prone to the vandalism of robbing Peter
to pay Paul. An order of Corinthian pilasters with strongly marked
cornices and string courses, embellishes the upper stories, in which
also is introduced the novel arrangement of alternately narrow and wide
spacings, the contrast being subtly balanced by the window openings.
Noticeable is the variety attained by the alternating of square and
round topped windows, and also their distribution to mark the relative
importance of the several stories. In the windows of the _piano nobile_
the effect of the round-top lights is heightened by a rectangular frame,
formed of pilasters, decorated with arabesques, while the upper part
includes spandrels relieved by a single large rosette and surmounted by
a delicately proportioned cornice.
=Cancellaria--Farnese.=--It is interesting to compare the official
=Cancellaria= with the famous domestic example, the =Palazzo Farnese=. The
latter dates from 1530 to 1546, when the façade designed by Sangallo,
some say with Vignola’s co-operation, was completed by Michelangelo. His
contribution was the cornice, which by its boldness of projection and
richness of detail redeems the comparative monotony of evenly spaced
windows and repeated framings. However, it is the court of this palace,
said to be the most imposing in Italy, that presents its finest claim to
distinction, and here the two lower stories, erected by Sangallo, are
superior in freedom of design, as well as dignity, to the more cramped
and crowded upper one that was added by Michelangelo.
=Capitol Palaces.=--The latter, a few years earlier, namely in 1540, had
begun the erection of the =Capitol Palaces=, a design that flanks three
sides of a square, the right and left of which are occupied
respectively, by the =Palazzo dei Conservatori= and the =Capitoline Museum=,
both completed in 1542, while the centre, finished in 1563, a year
before Michelangelo’s death, holds the =Palazzo dei Senatori=.
In these façades appears the innovation of pilasters, carried through
the two upper stories. This emphasis of the vertical lines contradicts
the internal division of the structure into stories and is at the
sacrifice of the horizontal lines of the façade. The latter are broken
up into balconies, while the interior division is only hinted at by the
windows. But Michelangelo with the audacity of genius rejected
proprieties of detail and even logic of structure, as he was prone to do
also in his sculpture--witness the recumbent figures on the Medici
tombs--for the sake, as we should say to-day, of a grander and more
impressive synthesis. In a word, he sacrificed the parts to the whole;
and to secure the impressiveness of the whole, ties the pilasters
together at the top with an entablature that comprises a boldly
projecting cornice and is additionally emphasised by the crowning
feature of a balustrade. Except that the cornice takes the place of
pediments the principle of design is virtually that of a Roman temple,
diverted from its purpose and brusquely made to accommodate itself to
novel conditions. In the hands of Michelangelo the end may be said to
justify the means, but this device of ignoring the interior necessities
of construction in favour of an arbitrary exterior design became a
precedent that contributed largely to the decadence of the Renaissance
style. Yet, after all, it was only carrying to a destructively logical
conclusion the use of the classic orders as elements not of constructive
but of purely decorative design.
We have already noted in the case of Gothic architecture that its
decadence was exhibited in a superabundance of decorative detail, and a
similar course appears in the Renaissance. Much of the responsibility
of the change is attributed to Sansovino. While Michelangelo magnified
the decorative, the Venetian architect elaborated it. His façade of the
=Library of San Marco= may be cited as an example.
=Capitol Palaces--Library of S. Mark.=--If we compare the Library with the
=Capitol Palaces= we discover several important differences. In the
Venetian building the divisions of the interior are indicated by the
emphatic horizontal features; and the latter, as well as the deep
openings of the arcade and of the windows, produce a depth of shadow
effects, which in combination with the lighted surfaces results in great
variety and richness. It is precisely these qualities, which are also
elements in the design of Hellenic and Roman temples, that Michelangelo
lost or discarded in his adaptation. Contrasted either with a temple or
with Sansovino’s Library, the Capitol Palaces, grandiose although they
are, seem tame and tight, lacking in structural vitality. Sansovino
introduced vigour into his design by increasing the projection of his
large and small columns and by using the latter in couples; also by
giving a corresponding projection to all the decorative details and by
introducing sculptured figures into the spandrels of the arches and the
frieze.
The principle of his design, stated in ordinary terms, was: If such and
such things are good, more of them will be better. It was a principle
that might well commend itself to the Venetians’ love of pageantry and
display. Sansovino had sufficient taste to know how far to carry the
elaboration; but in the hands of succeeding architects his restraint was
exchanged for license, variety degenerated into fussiness, and
elaboration became extravagance.
=Pesaro Palace.=--These faults are discernible in the Pesaro Palace
(1650-1680) by Longhena, a product of the Venetian Rococo spirit, and by
no means an extreme example. For it preserves a certain dignity of mass
notwithstanding that it is overcharged with ornament that gives it an
effect of trickiness and restlessness. And the latter, it is to be
noted, is partly due to the device, which for a long time had been
prevalent, of carrying the horizontal moulding around the projecting
capital of an engaged column or pilaster. Borrowed from Roman usage, it
represents an element of decoration that tends to convert the
contrasting quietness of the horizontal lines into a jiggety
disturbance. This palace, however, can lay claim to the distinction that
the superimposed orders are continued, with pilasters instead of
columns, along the façade that abuts on the side canal.
ECCLESIASTICAL BUILDINGS
We have now to trace the progress of the Renaissance style as it
affected Ecclesiastical architecture. It is maintained by enthusiastic
advocates of Gothic architecture, such as Ralph Adams Cram in his
inspired little book, “The Gothic Quest,” that whereas Gothic
architecture was evolved by the Church and laity through the impulse of
a common Faith, and was determined in all its essential particulars by
the symbolism of the Christian religion and the requirements of
Christian worship, the change effected by the Renaissance was a
reversion to the architectural types of Paganism. Renaissance
ecclesiastical architecture did not grow; it was formulated out of
precedents that were the direct antithesis of Christianity and Christian
worship; derived either from temples that were built after the belief
even in the Pagan religion had languished or died out, or from types of
secular architecture, such as baths, basilicas, and triumphal arches.
Therefore it was false in principle and illogical and insincere in fact.
It is difficult not to agree with this criticism; the more so, that it
is a matter of knowledge that the Renaissance style was developed by
ecclesiastics and laity who, while they tolerated the traditional
religion--“If we are not ourselves pious,” as Pope Julius II said, “why
should we prevent the people from being so?”--were in their own tastes,
convictions, and habits of life notoriously pagan. Accordingly, it is
not the aspiration of the soul, the ascending confidence of faith, the
yearning of the spirit beyond the confines of the flesh that are
embodied in Renaissance church architecture; but, increasingly, the
pride of intellect, the pride of life, and the satisfaction of the
senses in ceremonial display.
=S. Spirito--S. Andrea.=--We will compare first Brunelleschi’s Church of
=S. Spirito= in =Florence= (1476) with Alberti’s =S. Andrea= in =Mantua= (1512).
Professor Fletcher points out the close analogy between the former and
the Romanesque church of the Apostles, erected in Florence during the
ninth century. It represents, in effect, a reversion to the features of
the Tuscan Romanesque--vaulted aisles, a flat ceiling over the nave,
surmounting a high clerestory and aisles. For the support, however, of
the low dome over the crossing, Brunelleschi revived the Byzantine
system of pendentives, which henceforth were used in all the Renaissance
domes. Classic influence is chiefly apparent in the details of the
columns, which present probably the first example of fragments of
entablature placed upon the capitals to sustain the spring of the
arches.
Alberti’s design, on the other hand, is unqualifiably an adaptation of
Roman style, except in the case of the dome, which is supported by
pendentives and raised on a drum. But the latter assumes the classical
form of a peristyle of columns surmounted by an entablature. The roof of
the nave is barrel vaulted and coffered in the Roman manner and springs
directly from the entablature, which rests on piers that are decorated
with engaged pilasters of the Corinthian order. The façade of the porch
supplies the motive of the whole design, being an adaptation of the
Roman triumphal arch in Mantua. Accordingly, it is composed of four
Corinthian engaged columns, mounted on pedestals in the Roman manner,
supporting an entablature and pediment. The three intervening spaces are
occupied by doors, over each of the side ones being a window above a
window, while the central door is flanked by two columns, which support
a cornice and arch that frame a lunette. If the student will compare it
with the main portal of some Gothic or Romanesque church, he will
discover an instructive difference.
=Il Gesu--S. Giorgio Maggiore.=--Here is a further comparison of
Renaissance church-façades:--the Jesuit Church in Rome, =Il Gesu= (1568)
and =S. Giorgio Maggiore= in Venice (1560). The former is by Vignola; the
latter was erected by Scamozzi, the pupil of Palladio. But Palladio
designed the rest of the church and, since the façade was built during
his lifetime, may have had more or less to do with its design. It is at
any rate in the Palladian manner.
Both Palladio and Vignola were pronounced classicalists, and yet they
contributed to the decadence of the Renaissance style. It is true that
Palladio’s own style was characterised by a marked severity; note the
present façade which presents a severely formal application of columns,
entablatures, and pediments. But it involves a feature that readily lent
itself to extravagant exploitation; namely, the emphasis upon colossal
columns. Vignola’s design, on the other hand, is characterised by a
multiplication and elaboration of features, which his sense of classic
propriety has kept within ordered bounds but which a less refined taste
might easily degrade into exuberant pretentiousness.
And indeed a certain pretentiousness marks both these façades. They make
claim to being imposed by methods that are actually a pretence. For
neither design has grown out of the necessities and circumstances of the
building. Each represents the arbitrary importation of alien
ingredients, pieced together to conform to the principles of a style
that was evolved for other purposes and conditions. Each design is false
in motive and specious in its application of principles; and, since lies
breed lies, it must share responsibility for the flagrancy of specious
and pretentious shams that in time ensued from it.
And, already, in both these designs the imitation of the antique results
in cold and rigid formalism. Compare, for example, Vignola’s façade with
one of the Tuscan Romanesque, for instance, Pisa cathedral. The
architects of the latter borrowed from the Romans the use of applied
arcades of arches and columns; but used the device frankly as a
decorative sheathing, subordinated in scale to the constructive mass,
and maintained the rich simplicity of effect by repetition of the same
decorative motive.
Vignola, however, treated his sheathing as if it had actual constructive
meaning; and, moreover, multiplied the motives. Big, coupled columns,
mounted on pedestals, supported an entablature, the cornice of which
becomes the support of another series of big, coupled columns, which
make a great display of supporting a little pediment. Comparing this
Renaissance example with the Pisan, one may be reminded of a circus
incident. At first there enters a performer who with delightful agility
and grace keeps a number of balls moving lightly in the air. He is
followed by another, who, assuming the attitudes of an Atlas supporting
the world, labours with a cannon ball, which, when it is finally tossed
aside, proves to be no heavier than a football.
Scarcely less incongruous is the Palladian design, with its colossal
framework of columns, entablature and pediment, and the paltry scale of
its doorway and windows. And then the enormity of the broken pediment,
the two parts of which form the front of the series of side-chapels that
flank the interior of the nave. Of course there is a sort of callous
logic represented. The pediment is the end of a sloping roof; therefore,
if the roof be separated into two parts, why not separate the pediment?
But what about the taste which, as we have seen, always tempered the
logic of the Greeks? Could the Greek taste have tolerated the cleavage
in half of a little temple design and the swaggering intrusion between
them of a giant design and persuaded itself that the domination of the
latter produced a harmony of relations?
S. PETER’S
The culminating achievement of the Italian Renaissance was the new
Church of =S. Peter’s=, the erection of which, dating from 1506 to about
1626, covers the whole period of the rise and decline of the Classic
movement in Rome.
The original plan, as laid out by Bramante, was a Greek cross,
comprising, that is to say, four equal parts. On this he proposed to
design a building that should combine the three great barrel-vaulted
halls of the Basilica of Constantine with the dome of the Pantheon. In
1514, the year preceding Bramante’s death, Sangallo the Elder, Raphael,
and Fra Gioconda da Verona were associated with the work; but the
advanced age of the first and third and Raphael’s preoccupation with
painting and his early death caused little to be accomplished.
Meanwhile a difference of opinion had arisen as to whether the plan
should be a Greek or Latin cross. The construction was continued under
the directorship of Sangallo the Younger and Peruzzi, until in 1546
Michelangelo was appealed to. He rescued the ground plan of Bramante,
reinforced the piers which the latter had begun at the crossing, and
made drawings and a wooden model of the dome as far up as the lantern
and actually completed the erection of the drum.
He was succeeded by Vignola, who added the four cupolas around the dome.
The dome itself was completed from Michelangelo’s model, and finished
(1585-1590) with a lantern, by Giacomo della Porta and Fontana.
During 1605-1612, at the instance of Paul V, the nave was lengthened by
Carlo Maderna to form a Latin instead of a Greek cross and the façade
was erected.
Finally, between 1629 and 1667, Bernini constructed the brazen
baldachino and lavished sculpture on the interior, while completing the
exterior effect by the colonnades which enclose the Piazza.
Easily the largest church in the world, S. Peter’s compares with other
large churches as follows, the figures representing square yards of area
in round numbers: =S. Peter’s=, 18,000; =Seville=, 13,000; =Milan=, 10,000; =S.
Paul’s=, =London=, 9000; =S. Sophia=, 8000; =Cologne=, 7000. The interior
measurement of S. Peter’s is approximately 205 yards long; the nave
being 150 feet high and 87 feet wide (the same dimensions as those of
the great hall of the Constantine basilica). The dome from the pavement
to the summit of the lantern is 403 feet, the cross adding another 30;
while the diameter is 138 feet, about five feet less than the dome of
the Pantheon.
The prolongation of the nave by three bays has destroyed the symmetry of
mass, conceived by Bramante and Michelangelo, besides interfering with
the exterior view of the dome, which is visible only from a distance.
The east façade (for S. Peter’s reverses the usual orientation from west
to east) is, for all its magnitude, unimpressive. Its extension beyond
the actual edifice at each end still further accentuates the
comparatively mean scale of the portal. But scale is very generally
sacrificed both on the exterior and in the interior of S. Peter’s. This
is attributed by experts to the change of design introduced by
Michelangelo.
As arranged by Sangallo the Younger, the façades were to comprise the
superimposed orders; for which Michelangelo substituted his scheme of
the Capitol Palaces--a single colossal order, surmounted by an attic. He
thus gained dignity at the expense of scale; for although the huge
pilasters are eighty-seven feet high, they look much smaller, while the
windows between them, each twenty feet in height, give an impression to
the eye of about half that size. There is a similar apparent dwarfing of
size in the piers and engaged columns of the nave, which actually
measure to the top of the entablature one hundred feet. And this
necessitated a corresponding increase of the dimensions of the
sculptured figures in the spandrels, which are twenty feet high, thus
further overpowering the sense of height.
The noblest feature of the interior is the magnificent barrel vault of
the nave, while the surpassing grandeur of the whole edifice consists in
Michelangelo’s dome.
Like Brunelleschi’s it has an inner and an outer shell, and is
constructed on sixteen ribs, which, however, are all visible internally.
The chief difference is the elevation of the dome and drum upon a second
and loftier drum, composed of coupled Corinthian columns and intervening
windows. This design was an adaptation of those which had been made by
Bramante and Sangallo the Younger. The former had suggested a peristyle
of columns; the latter, two drums; and Michelangelo virtually combined
the two. But, in doing so he conceived new proportions between the
vertical parts of the drum and the curve of the dome, that give his
design not only a superior majesty but also a superior lightness and
airiness.
S. Peter’s indeed, notwithstanding much extravagant, tasteless, and
meretricious sumptuousness, due to Bernini and others, remains a
stupendous monument to the genius of Michelangelo and Bramante and to
the genius of the Italian Renaissance. It is the fit symbol of an age
that gradually lost touch of the finer things of the spirit and grew to
worship greatness, power, and pomp; that had all but discarded
Christianity for Paganism.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the noblest trait of the Italian genius was its worship of
beauty as well as power. The creativeness of the Italians was revealed
in their extraordinary sensitiveness to all forms of beauty in the
visible world; and in the world of intellectual conception, and in their
marvellous aptitude for translating their impressions of beauty into
forms of equivalent refinement. Accordingly, the student of to-day
visits churches to enjoy the treasures of pictured altar-pieces,
sculptured tombs, pulpits, wonders of metal-work in screens and sacred
vessels, marvels of exquisite craftsmanship in objects too numerous to
mention. The =Sistine Chapel= draws him because of Michelangelo’s
frescoes, the =Stanze= apartments for Raphael’s, and the adjoining =Loggia=
for his pictured Bible. Again, it is Raphael’s frescoes that lead him to
the =Villa Farnesina=, while many another villa charms to-day by the
beauty of its gardens and terraces, fountains, cascades, and fish-ponds,
shaded alleys and grottos. In innumerable ways it is the accompaniments
of Italian Renaissance architecture, as well as the architecture itself,
that excite admiration and have their message for ourselves.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS
GOTHIC PART BUILT BY LOUIS XII. P. 379]
[Illustration: MAISON FRANÇOIS I. PARIS
BUILT IN 1527. NOTE UNUSUAL SIZE OF WINDOWS; ALSO RICHNESS OF
INTERVENING PILASTERS. P. 380]
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS
PART ADDED BY FRANCIS I, SHOWING STAIRCASE TOWER. P. 380]
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE CHAMBORD
PERIOD FRANCIS I. P. 380]
[Illustration: LUXEMBOURG PALACE
ERECTED FOR MARIE DE MÉDICIS, WIFE OF HENRI IV; BY SALOMON DE BROSSE. P.
386]
[Illustration: PLAN SHOWING GROWTH OF LOUVRE
FROM THE ORIGINAL PART ERECTED BY PIERRE LESCOT--THE LEFT LOWER CORNER
OF THE DARK QUADRANGLE ON RIGHT OF PLAN. P. 382, ET SEQ.]
[Illustration: PAVILLON DE L’HORLOGE, LOUVRE
WING TO THE RIGHT, THE ORIGINAL PART BY PIERRE LESCOT. THE PAVILLON AND
LEFT WING BY LEMERCIER (LOUIS XIII). PP. 384, 385]
CHAPTER IV
RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE
1. _Early Renaissance._ Reigns of Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I
(1483-1547).
2. _Advanced Renaissance._ Henri II, Francis II, Charles IX, and Henri
III (1547-1589).
3. Classic Period. Henri IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV (1589-1715).
4. _Rococo._ The Regency and Louis XI (1715-1774).
* * * * *
By the middle of the fifteenth century commercial relations with Italy
and the number of Italian ecclesiastics holding benefices in France, had
caused a steady influx of Italian influence, which became intensified by
the military interferences of Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I in
the politics of Italy. The practical issue of these otherwise disastrous
expeditions was the invasion of Italian culture into France.
=Italian Culture.=--It produced a new era of intellectual activity and
fostered a new refinement of taste and social conditions. Its earliest
results are typified in the career of Francis I. No French king before
his time had received so liberal an education. Under the enlightened
care of his mother, Louise of Savoy, he was early trained in Latin,
Italian, and Spanish, sharing the studies with his gifted sister,
Margaret, afterward Queen of Navarre, a patroness of literature and
herself the author of the “Heptameron,” a collection of stories,
supposed to extend over seven days in the telling and modelled on the
style of Boccaccio’s “Decameron.” Francis also played the rôle of
patron, surrounding himself with men of letters and artists; but while
he encouraged the visits of Italian artists he was no less eager to
encourage native talent. His patronage of Clement Marot, the first great
poet of the French Renaissance, is a case in point and, corresponding
with this _amour propre_ regarding native talent notwithstanding his
love for things Italian, was his employment of French architects, the
services of foreign artists being used chiefly in the way of sculptural
and painted decorations.
By the middle of the fifteenth century the great era of church building
had been exhausted. The needs of the population for places of worship
were fully satisfied; the profession of architect passed from the
clerics to laymen, who, so far as ecclesiastical work was concerned,
were busy embellishing existing churches with altar-furnishings,
screens, pulpits, fonts, tombs, and so forth, in which the novel skill
of the Italian craftsman was freely used.
=School of Tours.=--Thus, in consequence of Italian influence, a new
school of French sculpture grew up, which centered in Tours, a city at
this period specially favoured by the kings of France. The genius of
this “School of Tours” was Michel Colombe, whose art represented a blend
of Italian refinement and Gothic vigour; and it was precisely this
mingled quality that characterised the architecture of the Early French
Renaissance. It, too, was centered in Tours, and blossomed forth
throughout the Province of Touraine. For it was a distinction of the
French Court life of the period that it avoided cramped conditions of
city environment and spread itself luxuriantly in the pleasures of
country life. Accordingly, the architectural memorials of the Early
French Renaissance are mainly the royal and noble châteaux that stud
Touraine, especially along the banks of the rivers Loire and Cher.
=Châteaux.=--The conditions being so local and essentially an expression
of the French idea of living, the model of the Italian palace--a product
primarily of the needs and conditions of city life--could not be
directly applied, while the logic of the French genius, working at that
time freely, eschewed the attempt to make a compromise with imitation.
So the châteaux of the Early French Renaissance retain the structural
character of the Gothic Feudal castle but modify it in the way of
Italian refinements, passing from military offensive and defensive
purpose to that of elegant and luxurious living. Hence a distinction of
these French châteaux is their picturesqueness and the degree to which
they participate in the natural picture.
Instead of the unity of effect presented by an Italian palace,
completely enclosing its cortile, they retained the Gothic
characteristic of variety in unity; their extensive and differing
façades being grouped around a spacious courtyard, and composed so as to
furnish a variety of effects from different view-points of the
landscape.
One side of the court was occupied by a windowless screen wall along
which, upon the inside, ran a colonnade, while the centre was pierced by
a large covered gateway that afforded a _porte-cochère_. The sides of
the courtyard were flanked by buildings, devoted to the servants’
quarters and the various offices connected with the home-life and the
outdoor pastimes, while on the fourth side, facing the entrance,
extended the main edifice, designed for the occupation of the family
and the entertainment of guests. The chief architectural distinction of
this main part was reserved for its outer façade, where it abutted on a
terrace, which communicated with the alleys, parterres, and fish-ponds
of the formally laid out gardens and commanded views of the surrounding
park.
In this adaptation of the plan of a Gothic fortress to the conveniences
and pleasures of a country palace, some of the old architectural
features were preserved but modified to decorative purposes. Thus the
gateway was square and massive, recalling distantly the appearance of a
donjon keep; the more so that round towers, built, however, with squared
walls in the interior, projected from the angles. The angles also of the
outer façades were embellished with similar towers, that preserved a
picturesque contrast to the straight lines of the intervening masonry as
well as presenting from their windows a variety of views of the
surroundings. The actual machicolations that previously overhung the
walls were now reduced to a decorative motive of little arches upon
corbels, and the battlements gave way to balustrades. Further, the great
hall was replaced by state apartments which, as in an Italian palace,
occupied the second floor or _bel étage_.
Meanwhile, the crowning distinction of the Early Renaissance palaces was
the high-pitched roofs, surmounted in the case of the turrets with
lanterns or louvers, and everywhere enlivened with tall decorated
chimneys and recurring dormer windows, in frames of richly carved
tracery. It was, in fact, in the treatment of the roofs that the French
architects chiefly preserved the Gothic tendency to verticality; and,
correspondingly, it was in the gradual lowering of the roofs and the
emphasis of the horizontal features of the façades that they exhibited
their gradual conversion to Italian influences.
To-day, these _châteaux_ of Touraine, embosomed in the beauty of their
natural surroundings, quietly mirrored in the river’s surface, still
testify to the vigour and freshness of the Gallic genius in the
dayspring of its acceptance of Italian refinements. A little effort of
imagination, assisted, maybe, by pictures such as those of Eugène
Isabey, can reconstruct in fancy the splendour and vivacity of the
scene, when the terraces vied with the parterres in their blossoming of
colours, as courtly men and women in the bravery of imported Italian
velvets and brocades, lounged in elegant ease or gathered in a group to
listen to a poet’s latest _chanson_, while the activity of the
courtyard, with its constant coming and going of russet and green-clad
serving men, was stirred to a gayer aspect by the arrival or departure
of a brilliant cavalcade of hunters with hawk and hound.
=Château de Gaillon.=--One of the earliest of the castles that marked the
transition from Gothic to Renaissance was the =Château de Gaillon=, which
was built for a Tourainer, the Cardinal George of Amboise, not, however,
in Touraine, but in the neighbourhood of =Rouen=. Only fragments of it
remain which are now preserved in the École des Beaux Arts in Paris; but
in its day it was a masterpiece of the Rouen School, which preceded that
of Tours as a flourishing centre of art and letters. It much more nearly
resembled in its lay-out the character of a fortified castle, having
among other defensive details, a moat and drawbridge.
=Château de Blois.=--Meanwhile, a surviving example of the transition and
Early Renaissance, is the =Château de= =Blois=, the first of the Royal
Palaces, begun by Charles XII and completed by Francis I. The earlier
façade is still unmistakably Gothic; the arches of the colonnade are
flat segments, characteristic of the latest period; the shafts of the
columns are attached to piers that reinforce the upper walls and run
into the cornice; the windows still have stone mullions and transoms,
and the design and decorative detail of the dormer windows are purely
Gothic.
On the other hand, in the façade of Francis I, the ornament of the
dormer windows, as well as the decorative details elsewhere, are of
Italian design. The cornice has been given a more pronounced decorative
treatment; it has a bolder projection and, while the old machicolations
are represented they are converted into a purely decorative motive.
Further, although the square mullion windows still appear, they are
framed with pilasters and cornice and the intervening spaces of solid
wall are treated as panels and enriched with arabesques.
The finest feature of this wing is the staircase tower, which occupies
the centre of the façade on the side facing the court. Polygonal in
plan, it is constructed with four great piers, extending from the ground
to the cornice, to which are fitted the rising balustrades. The whole is
magnificently Gothic in its structural design as well as in the
character of the canopied niches; but the actual ornament is Renaissance
and was probably executed by Italian artists. In the pierced carving of
the balustrades the decorative motive is the King’s monogram, “_F_,”
intertwined with his emblem, the Salamander.
=Château de Chambord.=--Another famous staircase appears in the =Château de
Chambord=, a palace which in other respects also presents most
interesting features. It was erected by Francis I (1526), probably as a
hunting box, and the architect, Pierre C. Nepveu, has adhered more
closely than had been usual to the plan of a feudal fortress. For in
place of the gateway in the centre of the screen wall, a square
structure with corner towers, which are round outside but square in the
interior, projects into the courtyard, in the manner of a donjon-keep.
Yet its purpose was not for defence but for ceremonial entertainment,
since the interior contains four halls carried up to a great height and
covered with coffered barrel vaults, while the centre of the plan is
occupied by the staircase.
The latter, constructed in a stone cage, consists of a double spiral
stairway, respectively for ascent and descent. It communicates with
small rooms in the angles of the square and in the turrets, and finally
with the lantern, which commands a superb view of the surrounding
country. This lantern, octagonal in plan, the crowning feature of the
exterior design, rises above the surrounding roofs, dormer-windows, and
chimneys in two tiers of arcades, noticeably Italian in their system of
pilasters and entablatures. They are surmounted by a domed roof, which
supports an elaborate cupola. While the sky line thus presents a richly
picturesque confusion, the façades are comparatively severe and in the
ordered repetition of their details reflect the Italian influence. This
is especially perceptible in the orders of Corinthian pilasters, in the
general emphasis of the horizontal features, and in the use of round
arches in the arcades. Meanwhile, the uniformity of the façades are
relieved by the projecting angle-turrets, and by the admirably disposed
masses of solid masonry, which besides their decorative value serve the
practical use of backings to the interior fireplaces.
Other famous châteaux of =Touraine= are those of =Bury=, =Chenonceaux=,
=Azay-le-Rideau=, and =Amboise=. Then came the day when Francis moved his
court to Paris, thus shifting the scene of architectural activity. A
rural palace sprang into form at Fontainebleau, a royal château at St.
Germain-en-Laye, and a start was made with the city palace of the
Louvre.
=Palace of Fontainebleau.=--The =Palace of Fontainebleau= was begun in 1528
by the architect Gilles le Breton. It followed the plan of a convent
which it replaced, so that a remarkable irregularity distinguishes its
arrangement. The design of the façades was probably influenced by
Vignola and Serlio, who were among the artists invited from Italy by
Francis I. They included also the painters Niccolo dell’ Abbati, Il
Rosso, and Primaticcio, and the sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini, who were
employed upon the decoration of the interior. Indeed, it is for the
magnificence of the interior decoration, especially in the Galerie de
François I, and in the Salle des Fêtes, added by Henri II, and the
Galerie de Diane and Galerie des Cerfs of Henri IV, rather than for
architectural distinction, that Fontainebleau is celebrated.
=Louvre.=--The =Louvre= was commenced in 1546, the year preceding the death
of Francis I. The design was entrusted to the French architect, Pierre
Lescot, but is supposed to have been influenced by Serlio. It exhibits,
in fact, a noticeably Italian character and marks the beginning of the
advanced phase of the French Renaissance, associated with the reigns of
Henri II, Charles IX, and Henri III (1547-1589), while subsequent
additions, made during the reigns of Henri IV, Louis XIII, and Louis
XIV, record the progress of the matured Renaissance toward the period of
pronounced Classicalism. Accordingly the history of the Louvre is an
epitome of what this development involved.
The Palace was originally designed to cover the comparatively small
square plan which had been occupied by the Gothic, fortified palace of
Philippe Augustus, and the parts, executed by Lescot, comprise the west
and south façades. In the reign of Louis XIII the original square was
doubled in size, so as to enclose the present court of the, so-called,
“Old Louvre.” Meanwhile, under Charles IX, the adjacent palace of the
Tuilleries was erected by the architect, Philibert de l’Orme, for
Catherine de Medicis; and to connect it with the Louvre, a long gallery,
subsequently completed by Henri IV, was built along the bank of the
Seine. This was supplemented later by wings, forming three sides of the
larger Court of the =Place du Carrousel=, which was finished by Napoleon
I. Meanwhile, by Louis XIV a new front, bordering on the Seine, had been
added to the =Old Louvre=, and finally, under Napoleon III, two wings were
projected from the Old Louvre on the north and south of the Place du
Carrousel, forming what is now known as the =New Louvre=. At present the
only change from the plan thus gradually compiled, consists in the loss
of the =Tuilleries= which was burnt by the Commune mob in 1871.
=Old Louvre--Blois.=--Returning to the original façade by Pierre Lescot,
one may compare it profitably with both the earlier and the later
façades of Blois. The Louvre design, like the earlier Blois, consists of
three parts, but has become more unified. The arcade is replaced by
deeply set windows, under round arches; the _bel étage_ now presents a
regular recurrence of windows at closer intervals, and the dormer
windows have given way to a continuous attic with a consequent lowering
of the pitch of the roof. Again, when compared with the later façade of
Blois, one notes in that of the Louvre the disappearance of the mullion
divisions in the windows, their narrower and higher shape, and the
Italian detail of their pedimental tops. Particularly noticeable is the
more simplified and organic effect produced by compressing the four
stories of the older design into an appearance of three divisions, very
carefully balanced. Under this appearance, however, lies an actual
fourth story, introduced as a mezzanine floor between the first and
second. It is betrayed by the bull’s-eye window or _œil de bœuf_, a
characteristically French shape of window, and by a range of
semi-circular windows which at first sight may seem to be a part of the
windows below them. This exterior blending of the mezzanine with the
first story results in strengthening the character of the lower part, so
that it affords a resolute foundation for the _bel étage_, which in
itself is effectively emphasised by the special treatment of the
windows.
And this unity of design is further increased by the bold projection of
the entablatures and cornice. The suggestion of verticality has been
abandoned in the frank acceptance of the horizontal motive. Lest,
however, this should produce monotony, the Gallic preference for variety
relieved the flatness of the façades by doubling the width of the
window-bays at the ends and in the centre, and by giving them a slight
projection. Around this the entablatures are broken, while double
pilasters are employed and the summit terminates in segmental pediments,
which break into and relieve the continuous line of the cornice. When
further we note that in addition to the Corinthian and Composite
pilasters and other carved details of purely Italian design, there are
statues and much other enrichment, characterised by the free, vigorous
feeling of French sculpture, the work it is said of Jean Goujon, we
realise than even the advanced phase of French Renaissance, at least in
its early stage, reflects still a temperament noticeably Gallic.
When it was decided, in the reign of Louis XIII, to double the size of
the court of the Louvre, Jacques Lemercier, who was entrusted with the
work, erected as a central feature of the prolonged façade, the
“=Pavilion de l’Horloge=.” This was supplemented on the side facing west
by another pavilion called after the famous minister of Henri IV and
Louis XIII, the =Pavilion Sully=. The former occupies a width twice that
of the double, projecting bays, and, while it continues the sequence of
windows in the _bel étage_ and attic, introduces in the former a large
round-topped window. Further, the attic is surmounted by a clerestory of
three windows, framed with twin-figured caryatids by Jacques Sarrazin.
They support a pediment, above which rises a domical roof, divided by
four well-defined ribs and terminating in a balustraded crown--a
treatment of pavilions essentially French in character.
It is akin to that type of roof construction, which was called after the
architect, François Mansart or Mansard, who popularised its use. The
principle is the replacement of the continuous slope by a “hip” or
“curb”--namely, the meeting of an upper and a lower slope at an obtuse
angel; a form of construction which reduces the outward thrust on the
walls by directing much of the strain to the post that supports the
angle. When used upon pavilions, it gives them something of the effect
of towers.
=East Façade.=--Under Louis XIV the Old Louvre was completed by the
addition of the east façade. The work had been entrusted to Bernini, who
was a visitor at the court, but his project was rejected in favour of
one designed by the King’s physician, Dr. Perrault. This involved again
doubling the size of the plan by the continuation of the north and south
façades. In these the style of Lescot’s was fortunately preserved,
though another story was added to accommodate the extra height of the
east façade.
The latter represents the full acceptance of the classical style, which
reflects the taste of the time; and is such a design as an intelligent
student of the writings of Vignola might compile. Its main feature is a
colossal order of coupled Corinthian columns, forming a colonnade,
behind which the walls of the edifice are set back. The uniformity of
this front of six hundred feet is interrupted by projections at the ends
and in the centre, the predominance of the latter being asserted by a
pediment. The character of this façade is echoed on the south one,
overlooking the Seine, by an order of colossal pilasters.
=Luxembourg Palace.=--Before enumerating other examples of the Classicism
of Louis XIV, we must revert to a notable example of the advanced
Renaissance; namely, the =Luxembourg Palace=, which was erected in 1611 by
Salomon de Brosse for Marie de Médicis, the wife of Henri IV. In
conformity with her Florentine tastes the design was based upon that of
the garden front of the Pitti Palace, which is distinguished by its
orders of rusticated pilasters. But the French character prevails in the
plan, which presents a central main building or _corp_ _de logis_,
flanked by wings that extend back and form the sides of a courtyard,
which is separated from the street by a screen-wall with
_porte-cochère_. Moreover, the garden front is distinguishably French in
the picturesque variety obtained by the projecting portions that form
terminal and central pavilions, crowned with characteristic roofs. It is
a design of quietly elegant refinement.
A corresponding choiceness of quality was prolonged into the classical
régime in the =Château de Maisons=, near =St. Germain-en-Laye=, by François
Mansart and in the same architect’s domical church of =Val de Grace,
Paris=, in which he was assisted by Lemercier. Meanwhile, Mansart’s
nephew, Jules Hardouin Mansart, was associated with Levau in Louis XIV’s
special pride, =Versailles=.
=Versailles.=--This immense palace is representative at once of the
monarchical spirit of the time and of the sterility of classicism.
Colossally pretentious, for the total length of the garden façade is one
thousand three hundred and twenty feet, the design in its monotonous
repetition of orders, scarcely relieved by the tame projections, is also
monumentally dull. It fronts upon formal gardens, laid out with terraces
and fountains, that in their magnificence are a memorial to the genius
of Le Nôtre. The decorations of the interior of the palace exhibit the
unfortunate taste for prodigal display, represented in exuberant and
oppressively heavy relief work, executed in gilded _papier maché_, and
set off with prodigious canvases by Lebrun and his assistants.
J. H. Mansart also designed the =Place Vendome=, around the four sides of
which all the houses are treated with a uniform order of colossal
pilasters, out of scale with the size of the square and pretentiously
inappropriate. His, too, was the Veterans’ home, the =Hôtel des
Invalides=.
=Hôtel des Invalides.=--The latter is vast but truly barrack-like, with
tedious repetition of the orders; but is celebrated for the stately
grace of the dome. This surmounts the church that is in the form of a
Greek cross, the angles being filled with chapels, so as to make the
complete plan a square. The exterior design of the dome includes a high
drum, pierced with windows, between which project eight coupled columns
that form buttresses. These terminate in carved corbels, which reinforce
a smaller drum, with round topped lights. From this springs the dome;
the grace of its curve being echoed in the airy cupola whose roof
diminishes in concave curves to a soaring point.
The somewhat excessive height of the exterior needed on the inside very
considerable reduction, in order to bring it into proportion with the
rest of the interior. This the architect accomplished by erecting
beneath the wooden shell of the outer dome two interior ones, a middle
and a lower one, independently constructed. The lower, which rises
immediately above the lower drum, has a large circular opening, through
which is visible the decorations painted on the middle dome, which rests
upon the upper drum and is lighted by its windows. The whole structure
is supported upon four large piers, which, as in S. Paul’s, London, are
pierced by arched openings, leading, in the case of the Invalides, into
the four angle chapels.
Another instance of a triple dome occurs in the Church of =S. Geneviève=,
better known as the =Pantheon=, which we shall refer to later in
connection with the Classic revival, although its construction,
extending from 1755 to 1781, occupied a considerable part of the Rococo
period.
=Rococo.=--The Rococo is marked by a further decline into dry and
pedantic formality in the use of the orders, which, however, in time
produced a reaction toward a more intelligent, if uninspired, observance
of the principles of classic design. It appears in the façade added to
the Church of =S. Sulpice= in 1755 by the Italian, Servandoni. This
comprises a Doric portico, supporting an Ionic arcade, above which, at
the extremities, rise turrets in two tiers of orders. Other examples
which mark the end of the reign of Louis XV will be referred to in the
subsequent chapter on Classic Revival.
Meanwhile the style that is recognised as Rococo is characteristically
exhibited in the interior decorations. These reflect the change of
spirit that came over court life with the death of Louis XIV and the
succession of the Duke of Orleans as regent during the minority of Louis
XV. The old King under the control of Madame de Maintenon and his
confessor had become gloomily religious; the court spirit, punctilious
as ever, was ponderously dull. With the Regency it rebounded into
lightsomeness. Versailles was abandoned for the Luxembourg; the peruke
and stiff fashions gave way to powdered hair and elegance of costume;
rigid etiquette was replaced with gay wit and gallantry; all that was
lightest in the Gallic temperament bubbled sparkling to the surface. To
the call of this new spirit the decorators responded. The papier-maché
ornament was discarded for stucco; profusion still abounded, but it was
no longer heavy and oppressive; it wandered in light luxuriance over
walls, doors, and ceilings; exhibiting a fertility of decorative
invention in its combinations of curly-cues, scrolls, shells, foliage,
flowers, and rockwork. The last named motive (_rocca_ in Italian) is the
doubtful origin attributed to the term Rococo.
It was a style that characteristically avoided straight lines and, in
general, the formality of arrangement which distinguishes classic
ornament. Accordingly it fell under the ban of the Classical Revival and
is always condemned by those whose preferences are classical. And,
undoubtedly, its freedom often degenerated into license and its
profusion became excess, especially in the hands of German or Spanish
imitators. Yet, at its best, when considered as a setting to the
costumes and manners of the period and as an expression of the social
spirit, it represented something so vitally appropriate to the time and
place of its creation that it commands the consideration of the student.
Under an impulse infinitely inferior to that which inspired the
decorators of the Gothic and Early Renaissance, it yet represents the
same fecundity of Gallic creativeness.
[Illustration: CASTLE OF HEIDELBERG
ON RIGHT RUINS OF THE HEINRICHSBAU WING, ADJOINING REMAINS OF OLD GOTHIC
PORTION: ON EXTREME LEFT THE FRIEDRICHSBAU WING (1601). P. 394]
[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE HEINRICHSBAU
P. 394]
[Illustration: BREMEN CITY HALL
NOTE GOTHIC WINDOWS, WITH RENAISSANCE PEDIMENTS, AND INTERVENING
“GAINES.” P. 395]
[Illustration: PELLERSHAUS, NÜREMBERG
RUSTICATED MASONRY. P. 395]
[Illustration: ANTWERP CITY HALL
P. 406]
[Illustration: LIEGE, COURT OF THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE
GOTHIC VAULTING AND OTHER DETAILS COMBINED WITH RENAISSANCE. NOTE
BALUSTER-SHAPED COLUMNS; CAPITALS COVERED WITH GROTESQUE MASKS, FIGURES
AND FOLIAGE. P. 406]
[Illustration: COLLEGE OF SANTA CRUZ, VALLADOLID
CHOICE EXAMPLE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE, BY ENRIQUE DE EGAS. P. 399]
[Illustration: COURT OF THE CASA DE ZAPORTA
NOTE ARCADE IN THE SECOND STORY. P. 400]
[Illustration: ELEVATION AND PLAN
OF THE UNCOMPLETED PALACE IN CLASSICAL STYLE, OF CHARLES V IN THE
ALHAMBRA GROUNDS. P. 402]
[Illustration: COURT OF THE COLLEGE OF ALCALA DE HEÑARES
BY ALONZO DE COVARRUBIAS. P. 400]
[Illustration: THE ESCORIÁL
A PALACE, MONASTERY AND MAUSOLEUM. P. 403]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE ESCORIÁL
IMITATING THE GRIDIRON ON WHICH S. LAWRENCE WAS MARTYRED. P. 403]
CHAPTER V
RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS, AND SPAIN
Notwithstanding the close commercial relations that cities such as
Augsburg and Nüremburg maintained with Northern Italy, especially with
Venice, the Renaissance influences did not make much impression on
German architecture until about the middle of the sixteenth century. It
had, however, appeared in the paintings and engravings of Dürer and
Burkmair and in the sculpture of Peter Vischer--as in his =Tomb of S.
Sebald= in =Nüremburg=. But even in architecture there had been symptoms of
the spread of Italian taste, Italian architects being employed on
castle-building, as in the case already mentioned, of the Venetian,
Scamozzi, in Prague. These, however, were only sporadic instances; for
two reasons conspired to defer a general movement: the deep-rooted
Gothic feeling and the political conditions.
Architecture depends largely upon conditions of social stability, making
for wealth and ease, and these had been disturbed by Charles V’s long
struggle to crush the nobility that upheld the Protestant faith. It was,
therefore, not until security had been established by the Peace of
Augsburg in 1555, that a widespread activity of architecture was
resumed. It lasted until the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618.
This covers the period of the Early and Later German Renaissance; the
remainder of the seventeenth century being marked by a gradual decline
into the extravagance of Rococo.
=Characteristics.=--Moreover, the German architects, after borrowing the
Gothic style, had so fitted it, especially in the way of decorative
details, to their own taste, that when at length they borrowed from the
Renaissance, they preserved, except in rare instances, much of the
Gothic feeling. The new style was employed chiefly in castles, domestic
buildings, city halls, gild and corporation houses. In these the German
love of irregularity, profusion, fantasticalness, and general
picturesqueness still prevailed. It was displayed in the continued
partiality for towers and turrets (octagonal, not circular, as in
France), often containing spiral staircases; high-pitched roofs and
decorated gables, carried up in steps; dormer windows, prolonged through
several stories up to the height of the roof and emulating the effect of
gables; oriel windows, curved or polygonal, projecting from the face of
the façade or from the angles upon corbel-supports.
The German taste also showed itself in the character and distribution of
the ornament. While this was apt to be spread freely over the façades
and was used profusely in the decoration of the windows and doors, it
was lavished especially on the gables and dormer gables, so that they
are the distinctive feature of the design. To some extent the details of
Italian ornament were introduced, but more generally the German carver
followed his own taste for bold and deeply cut designs, showing a
preference for rusticated masonry, including rusticated pilasters, and
drawing on his fancy for grotesques, caryatids and the half-length
figures, terminating in a pedestal, known as _gaines_. And the wood
carver vied with the sculptor, especially in the interior decoration of
ceilings and wall panelling, while the exteriors as well as the
interiors afforded scope for the fancy of the painter.
The ornamental tendency increased until the purpose seemed to be to
cover every available space with decoration; while as the latter grew
less and less organic, it became less original. The carver ceased to
invent his designs and was satisfied to copy them with tedious
repetitions from the pattern books which, compiled apparently in the
Netherlands--one of them by Cornelius de Vriendt--circulated through
Germany and, as we shall see, found their way to England. They comprised
a heterogeneous assortment of motives, for title pages and frontispieces
of books as well as for doorheads and other architectural details, and
introduced a variety of designs in bands and straps, borrowed from the
work of locksmiths and leather-workers. The degradation reached its
climax in the Rococo ornament of the early eighteenth century,
especially in the Zwinger Palace, Dresden, “the most terrible Rococo
work ever conceived, if we except some of the Churrigueresque work in
Spain.”
In the neighbourhood of the Hartz Mountains, where forests abounded,
timber was used with handsome effect in the design of the structure;
beams, doors and window frames, corbels, and so forth being richly
carved and often coloured. In the alluvial plain of the North, bounded
roughly by a line drawn east and west through Berlin, the absence of
stone and the abundance of clay encouraged the use of brick both for the
structure and its decoration, and developed a skill in the handling of
this material that could scarcely be surpassed. Elsewhere stone was
plentiful and the main walls were constructed either of masonry or
rubble covered with stucco.
=Castle of Heidelberg.=--Among the highest achievements of the German
Renaissance is reckoned the =Castle of Heidelberg=, which affords a
comparison of the early and later styles. For to the old Gothic fortress
was added, in 1556, the wing known as the =Heinrichsbau=, which was
supplemented in 1601 by the wing called =Friedrichsbau=. The latter is in
good repair and used as a museum, but the earlier is a roofless shell,
devastated, as was the Gothic part, by a fire which originated in a
stroke of lightning in 1764. Consequently, to-day we view the façade of
the Heinrichsbau without the dormer gables which are so marked a feature
of the later design. And the loss, no doubt, helps to emphasise the
horizontal character of the older façade. The design, in fact,
throughout suggests a struggle to apply Italian principles and adjust
them to German Gothic characteristics. Thus, orders of pilasters are
employed in all three stories, but these are rusticated and alternately
broken in upon by niches embellished with gaines. The windows have
double lights separated by sculptured mullions and, although they are
surmounted by pediments and cornices, the constructive simplicity of
these details is interfered with by ornamental accessories.
The general conflict of effects becomes more perceptible when one
compares this façade with that of the Friedrichsbau. Here the pilasters
and entablatures are of bolder projection; the windows are well set
back, their repetition is pleasantly varied by the traceried windows of
the first story; the pediments are undisturbed by accessory carving. The
walls present an agreeable balance between the horizontal and the
perpendicular features; and then, above the cornice, the perpendicular
asserts a final quiet predominance in the dormer gables. The whole
façade, indeed, suggests that the architect had thoroughly mastered the
principles of Italian design and could apply them freely; neither
yielding to them unduly nor muddling them with the Gothic motive, but
blending them flexibly in an ensemble that, while it has derived a
certain orderliness from the Italian, preserves the essential spirit of
German picturesqueness.
=City Halls.=--Out of the variety of City Halls space permits only a
comparison of two famous ones--those of =Cologne= and =Bremen=. Both are
Gothic buildings modified by Renaissance additions. In the case of
=Cologne= the two-storied porch was added in 1571. In style and detail, it
is more purely Italian than usual. So much so, that it presents a
somewhat incongruous addition. On the other hand, the Renaissance façade
of the =Bremen= Hall, is more in harmony with the original Gothic edifice.
It is true the arches of the arcades are pointed instead of round; but
the spacing, proportions, and treatment of the upper masonry are very
Italian in feeling. Again, while the windows are capped with pediments,
they retain the mullions and, which is more significant, the height of
the older, purely Gothic lights. Finally, the façade is crowned by a
cornice, markedly Italian in the depth of its projection, above which
appears the characteristically German roof and dormer gables. This
façade, in fact, erected in 1611, presents another example of
intelligent combination of the two styles.
=Domestic.=--As an example of domestic architecture we may study the
famous =Pellershaus=, of =Nüremburg=. The masonry of the wall is rusticated
throughout. The treatment of the first story with its arched doorway and
windows is as massively reposeful as that of a Florentine palace; while,
except for the corbels alternating with the pilasters in the support of
the entablature and the corbel-supported bay windows, the upper stories
present a quite Italian orderliness. It is only in the huge dormer gable
that the German feeling is allowed full play. The architect has utilised
Italian principles of design; but he has emphasised the projection of
the pilasters and of the entablatures that break around them; has
exercised his German taste in the details of the pilasters; retained the
German steps to the gable and embellished them with the characteristic
ornament of obelisks, but has also filled in the angles with curving
buttresses and, when he reached the summit, let himself go in the way of
enrichments, using German gaines, the French bull’s-eye, and Italian
pediment, on which, with a fine flourish of German independence, he
props a statue! Note also the pilasters and curved pediments of the
small dormer windows.
Here, as in most examples of the German Renaissance, the decorative
emphasis is lavished above the cornice in the treatment of the roof. And
the Pellershaus combines the two principles of German roof treatment.
For in some cases the roof ridge is parallel to the street and the
several stories into which the interior is divided are marked by tiers
of dormers, while elsewhere the roof runs at right angles to the street
and the gable-end is the imposing feature. In this instance, however,
while the ridge is parallel and two small dormers are introduced, the
main dormer feature is magnified to the importance of an actual gable,
and thus the picturesqueness of the two methods are united in one
effective design.
=Fountains.=--Among the smaller memorials of the Renaissance are the
fountains which abound in German cities: some of the finest examples
being those of =Tübingen=, =Hildesheim=, =Mainz=, =Rothenburg=, =Ulm=, and
=Nüremburg=.
SPANISH RENAISSANCE
The election in 1492, of the Spaniard, Roderigo Borgia, to the Papacy
under the title of Alexander VI, drew Spain into close relations with
Rome, while the absorption of the Kingdom of Naples into the Spanish
monarchy by Charles V in 1522 involved the country more and more in the
political intrigues of Italy. At the same time the immense wealth that
was flowing into Spain from her possessions in the New World gave an
impetus to her trade with Italy and fostered the enrichment of such
families as the Mendoza, Fonseca, Miranda, Ribera, and Velasco, who
rivalled the merchant princes of Genoa and Milan. Thus a new era of
splendour and of lavish expenditure was promoted in which the influence
of Italian art began to penetrate Spain. The date of this Spanish
Renaissance may be reckoned from the beginning of the sixteenth century.
In Spanish painting the example of the Flemish School was abandoned for
that of the Italian; especially for the Milanese School of Leonardo da
Vinci and the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. The sculptors absorbed
the Italian influence either through the example of Italian craftsmen
invited to Spain or by direct study in Italy, while architecture became
affected by the example first of Bramante and later of Michelangelo. But
the reaction to Italian influence of these three arts was different.
Painting needed reinforcement; it went to school with the Italians to
master principles of drawing, foreshortening, perspective, and
composition, as well as the art of fuller and more refined expression.
It had to serve an apprenticeship of imitation before it could develope
its own individually native strength in the seventeenth century. But it
was otherwise with architecture. The fundamentals of the art were
thoroughly understood by the Spaniards through Gothic tradition and,
when they came under the spell of the Italian, it was in the way only of
modifying the design, especially the character of the decorative
elements, in which they were assisted by their sculptors. In place of
the flamboyant decoration of the late Gothic there grew up a new style
of more refined ornament. And it was also a new style, both in its
character and in the use made of it; a style created by Spanish
architects and sculptors and confined to Spanish art, and known as
_estilo plateresco_ or silversmith’s style.
=Plateresque Style.=--The Spaniards had inherited from the Moors a
consummate skill in metal-craftsmanship; and now the inflow of silver
from the New World gave a stimulus to the craft of the silversmith. It
reached extraordinary development in the making of church plate,
particularly in the _custodias_ or tabernacles, designed to hold the
“Host,” which reached the magnitude of lofty structures, simulating
towers and decorated with a wealth of intricate ornament of the most
exuberant and yet delicate fancy. Foremost among these artists in silver
was the family of Arphe, consisting of Enrique de Arphe, his son
Antonio, and grandson Juan. Their work, which extended throughout the
sixteenth century, began by being Gothic in character, but gradually
reflected the Italian influence. It was so remarkable in its exuberant
creativeness and so widely spread throughout the country--in =Toledo=,
=Cordova=, =Santiago=, =Seville=, =Valladolid=--that its enormous effect upon
architectural decoration is quite comprehensible.
The plateresque style is a combination of several elements: the freedom
of the Gothic, the delicate profusion of Moorish ornament, and the
ordered refinement of Raphael’s arabesques, mingled into a new and
living medium of decorative expression by the vitality and fecundity of
the Spanish fancy. And a corresponding originality was displayed in the
manner of using it. It was massed chiefly around the doors and windows.
Its earliest appearance is in the decorated portals, added to the Gothic
cathedrals or to the newly erected secular buildings, of which a famous
example is the doorway of the west façade of the =University of
Salamanca=, in the province of Castile.
The earliest architect to apply this sculptural embellishment to the
façades of buildings is said to have been Enrique de Egas, a native of
Brussels, trained in the Gothic style, who was supervising architect of
the Cathedral of Toledo. Among the gems which he contributed to the
Early Spanish Renaissance are the =College of Santa Cruz= in Valladolid,
built for Bishop Mendoza, and the =Hospital= of the same name, erected by
Cardinal Pedro Mendoza in =Toledo=, which served as a model for the
=University of Salamanca=. All three of these edifices are celebrated for
the magnificent decoration of their principal portal: the one in
Salamanca being specially notable for the device adopted to offset the
effect of foreshortening in the ornament remote from the eye. For the
depth of the cutting is graduated from flat relief in the lowest panels
up to a bold enrichment of light and shade at the top. Another feature
of these buildings, particularly fine in the two earlier ones, is the
interior court or _patio_.
=Patio.=--The importance of the patio is a distinctive characteristic of
Spanish architecture, deriving, not from the _cortile_ of the Italian
palace, but from the _atrium_ of the Roman villa, preserved in the
courts of Moorish buildings. The patio is surrounded on all four sides
by colonnades of two stories into which all the rooms open, while
approach to the second floor is given by a handsome staircase. A
characteristic feature is the use of bracket columns, a well-known
example being in the patio of the =House of Miranda= in =Burgos=. Sometimes,
in the second story, an arcade is substituted for columns and
entablature, as in the =Casa de Zaporta=, also known as the Infantado
Palace, in =Guadalajara=.
Frequently the columns and surfaces of the patio are richly decorated
with plateresque ornament, for the patio was the centre of the life and
ceremony of the family. And this habit of domestic seclusion, inherited
apparently from Moorish times, reacted on the exterior of the buildings;
and, while the patio was luxuriantly decorated, a singular barrenness
characterised the façades.
Thus the chief feature of the latter was the entrance doorway; the
windows were few, small in size, and raised high above the level of the
street, while occasionally a portico was added under the roof, where the
inmates could take the air and view the outside life without themselves
being seen. A famous example of this is seen in the =college= erected for
=Cardinal Ximenes= in =Alcala de Henares= by the Castilian architect, Alonzo
de Covarrubias, son-in-law of Enrique de Egas. He also designed the
=Archbishop’s Palace= in the same city and the celebrated =Chapel of the
New Kings= in the =Toledo Cathedral=.
=Cathedrals.=--Another northern centre of the Early Spanish Renaissance
was =Burgos=. Here the master of the plateresque style was Diego de Siloe,
sculptor and architect, who built the celebrated =Golden Staircase= in
the Cathedral, to connect the higher levels of the old, thirteenth
century Puerta de la Coroneria, with the floor of the north transept by
a flight of 39 steps, which has a gilded balustrade, richly embellished
and bearing the arms of Bishop Fonseca.
In 1520 Siloe was summoned to =Granada= to superintend the building of the
=Cathedral= which had been designed in the Gothic style by Enrique de
Egas. This, the earliest and most remarkable of the Renaissance
cathedrals of Spain, represents an application of the Classic orders to
the piers which support the vaulting. But its most distinctive feature
is that the sanctuary or _capilla mayor_, instead of terminating in an
apse, is fully circular in plan and crowned by a lofty dome, under
which, in a flood of light, stands the high altar.
Two other important examples of Renaissance =Cathedrals= are those of =Jaen=
and =Valladolid=, while amongst the Gothic edifices that were embellished
with magnificent Renaissance portals may be mentioned the =Cathedrals= of
=Malaga= and =Salamanca= and the =Church of Santo Domingo= in the latter city
and of =Santa Engracia= in =Saragossa=. Also of the Early Renaissance period
are the octagonal lantern of =Burgos Cathedral=, designed by Vigarni,
called de Borgoña, because he was born in Burgundy, famous as a sculptor
even more than as an architect; and the towers of the =Cathedral del
Pilar= and of =La Seo= in =Saragossa=. The last named, octagonal in plan and
consisting of four stories, diminishing in size and crowned with a
lantern, bears some resemblance to the English steeples of Wren.
=Casa Lonja.=--The most splendid Municipal building of Spain is the =Casa
Lonja=, or Exchange for merchants, in Seville, which was built in
1583-1598 by Diego de Riano from a design, not closely adhered to, by
Juan de Herrera. The most highly decorated façade, which is on the side
removed from the Square, shows a more than usual following of the
Italian style in its system of pilasters and entablatures and the
repetition and treatment of the windows. Yet the style is used with a
decorative freedom, characteristically Spanish.
Thus the pilasters of the second story are of the baluster type,
emulating, that is to say, the forms which can be obtained in wood by
turning on a lathe; the ornament is lavishly expended over the whole
front in a rich encrustation, and, as in the case of Salamanca, already
alluded to, increases in boldness of relief toward the top. Moreover,
the vivacity is enhanced by the intricate mitreing of the courses of the
entablatures, broken round the projection of the pilasters. The handsome
patio is double-storied, respectively in the Doric and Corinthian
orders. The sumptuous marble staircase was added in the eighteenth
century, during the reign of Charles III.
=Classical Style.=--Even while the plateresque style was flourishing a
more direct invasion of Italian influence was in progress.
=Palace of Charles V.=--The earliest example of this is in the =Palace=
which Charles V began to build on the hill of the Alhambra. The work was
entrusted to Pedro Machucha, who, like Berruguete, his assistant in the
design, had studied in Rome. The plan is a square, enclosing a circular
court, and the style is Palladian. Each façade, measuring 207 feet in
length and 53 in height, is composed of rusticated masonry and pilasters
in the first story and, in the second, of an order of Ionic pilasters,
supporting a Doric cornice. In both stories occurs a mezzanine floor
lighted by circular windows. The circular court, nearly one hundred feet
in diameter, is surrounded by a lower and an upper open colonnade,
respectively of the Doric and the Ionic order. A tribute exacted from
the Moriscoes or survivors of the Moors, who were permitted to remain
after the expulsion of the majority, defrayed the cost; but their
insurrection in 1568 interfered with the work, which dragged on during
Philip II’s reign, until it was abandoned before completion. The roof
was never built; nor the octagonal chapel, crowned with a dome which, at
the northeast angle, was to dominate all the buildings of the Alhambra.
The unfinished building further suffers from the competition of the
Alhambra, which is the chief attraction to every visitor, so that
insufficient justice has been done to the grandeur and dignity of the
design.
=The Escoriál.=--Philip II’s cessation of work upon his father’s palace
may have been largely due to his preoccupation with the memorial to his
own memory--=the Escoriál=. By the terms of his inheritance he was bound
to erect a mausoleum for his father. He enlarged the scheme to be a
burial place also for himself and succeeding Catholic Kings and added a
church, a monastery, and palace.
Situated thirty-one miles from Madrid and overlooking the intermediate
landscape, this prodigious congeries of buildings occupies a rocky
plateau that juts out from the precipitous side of the Guadarrama Sierra
and is extended by immense foundations. Its plan, which tradition says
was to reproduce the gridiron on which St. Lawrence suffered martyrdom,
is a gigantic rectangle, 675 feet by 530, from which projects the
handle, a small rectangle. One enters on the mountain side, the Patio
of the Kings. Along the right extends the monastery, terminating in the
cloistered Patio of the Evangelists; while along the left is the
College, terminating in the Palace. But the chief feature is in front of
us, the vestibule of the church.
The latter is built over the mausoleum-crypt, in the form of a Greek
cross, after the original plan of S. Peter’s, Rome. Its Capilla Mayor
adjoins the small projecting annex, which contained the private
apartments of the royal family: the King’s small, cell-like bedroom,
commanding a view of the High Altar, so that, unseen, he could
participate in the service of the Mass.
The work was begun by Juan de Bautista and continued by Juan de Herrera.
But Philip himself perpetually supervised the design, which reflects his
character not only in the ambitiousness of its dimensions but also in
the grim plainness of the façades. Constructed of grey granite, cut in
large blocks, they are composed of five stories, the windows of which
are square headed, without dressing of any kind, and ranged in rows,
without any attempt at grouping, so that the façades present a bare and
barrack-like appearance. Meanwhile an effect of grandeur is produced by
the immense scale of the whole mass, while the sky-line is rendered
imposing by the towers, crowned with lanterns, which flank the façade of
the church, and by the noble dome and lantern, built entirely of stone,
on which rises in sequence a pyramid, a hollow ball, and a cross. The
interior of the church, designed in the Doric order with flattish
vaulting, is again of majestic scale and of extreme simplicity, which,
however, is contradicted by the extravagant paintings on the ceilings. A
feature of the church is the removal of the coro from the floor to a
gallery so that there is less interference than usual in a Spanish
church with the impressiveness of space.
The severely classical style of the Escoriál was a reaction from the
luxuriousness of the plateresque and the extravagance of the so-called
“Grotesque Style,” which Berruguete, a pupil of Michelangelo, introduced
into his sculptural decorations. The absence of embellishment and
reliance upon a strict use of the orders caused the classic style to be
known as _Griego-Romano_, though, as a matter of fact, it was in nowise
Greek.
=Churrigueresque Style.=--By the seventeenth century Spain, denuded of her
foreign possessions by Holland and England and impoverished with war and
corrupt government, had reached a condition of national exhaustion. In
consequence no new buildings of importance were created, and such
additions as were made to existing ones were chiefly in the nature of
sculptural embellishments, which reflected the prevailing taste for the
baroque. This, toward the end of the century, passed into the glaringly
ostentatious and vulgarly meretricious Churrigueresque style, called
after its principal perpetrator, the sculptor Churriguera.
FLEMISH AND HOLLAND RENAISSANCE TYPES
At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Netherlands, especially
the southern provinces now comprised in Belgium, entered upon a period
of enhanced commercial prosperity. Through their textile industries,
their overland trade with Italy and the East, and their sea traffic with
Cadiz and Lisbon, which tapped the trade routes to India and the New
World, they had become the richest country in Europe. They were the
favourite dominions of Charles V, who was born in Brussels, and, while
he allowed his “dear Netherlander” municipal self-government, taxed them
roundly for the privilege. It was inevitable that Netherlandish art
should become affected by the Italian influence.
It showed itself first in painting: Mabuse, Floris, Van Orley being
among those who sought inspiration in Rome, where Raphael’s and
Michelangelo’s fame was supreme. One can picture the sensation in
Brussels, in 1515 and 1516, while the former’s cartoons for the Sistine
Chapel were being executed in tapestry by Flemish weavers. Brussels
shared the glory of the achievement and her artists and decorators may
well have aspired to emulate the Italian manner. At any rate, it shortly
began to appear in the decorative treatment of certain buildings: the
superb chimney piece in the Council-Chamber of the =Palais de Justice=, in
=Bruges= (1529); the façade of the gild-house of the Fishmongers in
=Malines=, known as the =Salm= or =Salmon House= (1534), and the two courts of
the Archbishop’s Palace, now the =Palais de Justice=, in =Liège= (1533).
These courts, attributed to François Borset, are surrounded by vaulted
arcades, in which occur baluster columns, and capitals carved with
grotesque masks and fantastic figurines and foliage--features that
suggest a Spanish influence.
Then, about 1565, was built the =City Hall of Antwerp=, which represents
the most imposing example of the Renaissance in Belgium. It corresponds
to the importance which the city had now attained as the chief
commercial emporium of the Netherlands. For the supremacy of Bruges was
past: her harbours had been allowed to fill up with silt and in 1505 the
Fuggers, merchant princes of Augsburg, removed their affairs to Antwerp,
whither the “factories” of the Hanseatic League soon followed. By the
middle of the century a thousand foreign commercial firms were
represented there; her great fairs attracted merchants from all parts of
the world; the Scheldt was filled with shipping and over a hundred
vessels are said to have passed in and out of her harbour daily. She
surpassed in wealth and prosperity even Venice and Genoa.
The design is by the sculptor and architect, Cornelius de Vriendt, also
known as Cornelius Floris. The principal façade, over three hundred feet
long, consists of four stories; the first being of rusticated masonry,
forming an open arcade; the second and third embellished with pilasters
and entablatures, framing a regular repetition of mullioned windows,
while the fourth comprises, as occasionally in Spain, an arcaded loggia,
the shadowed effects of which correspond to those of an Italian cornice.
The roof has a slight _curb_ inward and is studded with two tiers of
small dormers. The monotony of the façade is somewhat relieved by the
projection in the centre. But, though this involves a change in the
shape of the windows, there is a new kind of repetition, while above the
third story the place of a dormer-gable is taken by an erection that has
no structural significance and is merely a piling up of ornamental
details to produce a colossal embellishment. It is instructive to
compare this pavilion with the Pavillon de l’Horloge of the Louvre,
which represents a logical as well as flexible and original application
of the Palladian style. Compared with it De Vriendt’s design exhibits a
formality which suggests that it had been copied from some work in the
Orders of Architecture, while the top part proclaims him a sculptor of
florid taste, rather than an architect.
The best examples, however, of Flemish Renaissance are to be found in
the gild houses and domestic buildings. Magnificent examples of the
former are the =Houses= of the =Brewers=, =Tanners=, =Archers=, and =Cordeliers=
or rope-makers, in =Antwerp=, and in =Brussels= those of the =Archers=,
=Butchers=, =Carpenters=, and =Skippers=; the gable-end of the last-named
representing the stern of a vessel with four protruding cannons.
=Musée Plantin.=--The most interesting example of domestic architecture is
the =Musée Plantin-Moretus=, originally the home, office, and printing
house of the great publisher, Charles Plantin, who obtained from Philip
II a monopoly in the printing of breviaries and missals for the
Netherlands and Spain. After his death the business was continued in the
family of his son-in-law, Moretus; and the building which had been
erected in 1549, received various additions down to the middle of the
seventeenth century. Meanwhile the interior presents a complete picture
of the combined residence and place of business of the period, since
there are still preserved the wainscots, Spanish wall-leather, panelled
ceilings, chimney-pieces, stained glass, and other furnishings, as well
as the fittings of the various departments of the shop, devoted to
composing, printing, proof-reading, binding, and display of goods.
=Carillons.=--An incidental feature of the Flemish Renaissance is the
Carillon, or set of bells, tuned to the chromatic scale and connected
with a manual keyboard, so that they can be played by hand. The most
famous of these is in the Cathedral Tower of =Malines= (=Mechlin=). It
comprises 45 bells, most of which were cast in the seventeenth century
by the great bell-founder, Hemong, of Amsterdam. They surpass in volume
and tone even the famous chimes of the Belfry of Bruges, which were set
up in 1743.
HOLLAND
The earliest Renaissance =City Hall= in Holland is that of =The Hague=.
Erected in 1564, it exhibits the picturesque features of stepped gables
and octagonal turrets that became characteristic of later examples, such
as the =City Hall= at =Leyden= (1597) and the Renaissance addition made to
that of =Haarlem= between 1620 and 1630. While the decorative details of
the façade are of stone, the walls are constructed of red brick. This
material is the distinctive feature of Holland domestic architecture,
and the combination of its red, blue, or buff tints, weathered by time,
with the green of foliage, reflected in the sleepy waters of the canals,
gives a colourful picturesqueness to the quaint street fronts that is
peculiarly fascinating.
=Weighing Houses.=--The best preserved buildings of the seventeenth
century are to be found in the South at =Dordrecht= and =Delft=, and in the
North in =Leyden=, =Haarlem=, =Alkmaar=, =Hoorn=, =Enkhuisen=, and, across the
Zuyder Zee, in =Leuwarden=, =Bolsward=, =Zwolle=, and =Kampen=. Of particular
interest are the =Waaghuisen=, or =Weighing Houses= for cheese, which are
often of imposing size and richly decorated.
During the latter part of the seventeenth and the following century
Holland architecture emulated the styles of Louis XIV and XV, though
without the refinement of the French models.
CHAPTER VI
RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND AND AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE
=Transition.=--The direct effect of the Italian Renaissance did not reach
English architecture until the seventeenth century, when Inigo Jones
introduced the Palladian style. The so-called “Anglo-Classical” style
which then ensued had been preceded by a period of transition from the
Gothic, which is usually divided into “Elizabethan” and “Jacobean.”
These represent not so much styles as mannerisms. Just as, according to
Shakespeare, the Englishman derived the fashion of his clothes from
various foreign sources, so, at this time, he decked out what was left
of the Gothic style with details borrowed from Italian, French,
Netherland, and German models.
The debased form of Gothic, known as Perpendicular, involving the use of
the low, four-centered arch, emphasising vertical and horizontal lines,
and covering surfaces with mechanically repeated geometrical patterns,
lingered on into the sixteenth century. But conditions in England were
changing. The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), waged by the nobles on one
another, had completed the break up of the Feudal System. Castles were
destroyed and the powerful families exterminated or represented mainly
by minors. Statesmanship passed into the hands of an intellectual middle
class whose power was advanced by the growing prosperity of trade and
commerce.
[Illustration: WOLLATON HALL, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
BY ROBERT SMITHSON. ELIZABETHAN EXAMPLE OF GOTHIC COMBINED WITH
RENAISSANCE. NOTE THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN THE STRAPWORK GABLES. P. 412]
[Illustration: BANQUETING HALL, WHITEHALL
BY INIGO JONES. P. 418]
[Illustration: HADDON HALL, DERBYSHIRE
GOTHIC EXTERIOR. P. 412]
[Illustration: HADDON HALL. THE LONG GALLERY
ELIZABETHAN-JACOBEAN. P. 412]
[Illustration: S. MARY-LE-BOW, CHEAPSIDE, LONDON
BY SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. P. 423]
[Illustration: S. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON
BY SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. P. 420]
[Illustration: OLD CHARLTON, KENT
JACOBEAN, RED BRICK AND STONE FACINGS]
[Illustration: GEORGIAN CHIMNEY PIECE AND OVERMANTEL
BY ROBERT ADAMS. P. 428]
=Italian Influence.=--This was augmented, as the century advanced, by the
foreign craftsmen who sought refuge in England from the religious
persecutions in the Netherlands and the Huguenot war in France. They
introduced not only superior skill of workmanship, but the French,
Dutch, and Flemish modes. Meanwhile Henry VIII, in surrounding himself
with a new kind of political advisers, had also welcomed foreign artists
to his court. Among them were Holbein, a versatile designer in various
mediums as well as a great portrait painter; Torrigiano, who executed
=Henry VII’s Tomb= in =Westminster Abbey= (1512); Giovanni da Majano, who
modelled the busts of the emperors in the terra-cotta medallions over
the entrance-gates of Hampton Court; Benedetto da Rovezzano, designer of
the Tomb of Cardinal Wolsey, which has perished, and a certain John of
Padua, who is supposed to have been the architect of =Longleat House= in
=Wiltshire=.
Henry’s partiality for Italian artists may well have been inspired by
the example of Francis I, whom he met in 1520 on the celebrated “Field
of the Cloth of Gold.” At any rate there are many examples of sculpture,
dating from the first half of the sixteenth century, represented in
tombs, choir-screens, and organ-screens, which were purely Italian in
their decorative design and of marked refinement. Terra-cotta
enrichments, of similarly pure Italian craftsmanship, are to be seen in
certain specimens of domestic architecture, such as =Sutton Place=, near
=Guildford=, Surrey, and the entrance tower of =Layer Marney, Essex=, both
of which were completed in 1525.
The suppression of the monasteries, 1536-1540, resulted in a revival of
architecture, for in many cases the buildings were bestowed upon laymen
who converted them into mansions, while a large part of the Church funds
was devoted by Henry VIII and Edward VI to the erection and endowment of
Grammar Schools.
ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN PERIODS
Under Elizabeth England reached a hitherto unexampled prosperity and the
period is one of country-house building, in which especial attention
began to be paid to the allied art of landscape gardening. Among the
most famous are: =Burghley House= and =Kirby Hall=, =Northamptonshire=; =Knoll=
and =Penshurst=, in =Kent=; =Charlecote=, =Warwickshire=; =Longleat House= and
=Longford Castle=, =Wiltshire=; =Wollaton=, =Nottinghamshire=, and =Haddon Hall=,
=Derbyshire=.
Some of the mansions built during the reign of James I, the so-called
“Jacobean Period,” are =Holland House, Kensington=; =Bolsover Castle,
Derbyshire=; =Old Charlecote House, Kent=; =Audley End, Essex=; =Hatfield,
Hertfordshire=; =Ham House, Surrey=; =Bramshill, Hampshire=; =Bickling Hall,
Norfolk=; and =Aston Hall, Birmingham=, which was completed in the
following reign.
The houses mentioned in both these lists are constructed of stone or
brick; but timber construction was still employed, especially in
Cheshire, Lancashire, and Shropshire. To these periods also belong the
following Colleges. In Cambridge: =The Gate of Honour, Caius=; =Emmanuel=;
the courts of =Sidney Sussex= and =St. John’s=; the quadrangle, =Clare=, and
=Nevill Court=, =Trinity=. In Oxford, =Jesus=, =Wadham=, =Pembroke=, =Merton
Library=, and the =Gateway of the Schools=, now the =Bodleian Library=.
It is of little advantage to try to distinguish between the Elizabethan
and the Jacobean period. Both represent a progression from the Gothic in
the direction chiefly of superior conditions of comfortable living; but
they retain many of the Gothic characteristics, while the modifications,
more or less Renaissance, are in the manner of embellishments, and
applied not according to any structural principles but as opportunities
of imitation were available.
=Books of Design.=--There were books on the use of Classic Orders. The
first to reach England was the work of the Italian Serlio, who had
become domiciled in France. In 1567, John Shute, a painter and
architect, who had been sent to Italy by the Duke of Northumberland,
brought out his “Chief Groundes of Architecture,” the first work of its
kind published in England. In 1577 appeared the pattern book of Vredeman
de Vries of Antwerp, representing Italian details, debased by Flemish
and German ingenuity, which was responsible especially for the
prevalence of _strap-ornament_, that is to say, geometric designs of
flat bands, studded with knobs, as if they were metal or leather work,
attached to the wall by rivets.
The decorative inspiration, therefore, was purer at the beginning than
in its subsequent development. For example, the decorative use of the
orders is better in some of the earlier buildings than the later ones.
In fact, what chiefly distinguishes the Jacobean from the Elizabethan is
an increasing grossness of detail, apparent in the furniture and
fittings, as well as in the embellishment of the exteriors.
=Architect’s Function.=--These conditions were fostered by the
circumstances under which the building was conducted. There were
architects whose names survive, the earliest being John Thorpe, the
designer of Kirby, Burghley, Longford Castle, and Holland House. But the
custom of the time seems to have limited the architect’s function to the
supplying of a plan and design; probably more in the nature of a sketch
than of actual detailed drawings, after which the building was handed
over to the sole control of a master-mason, who worked out his details
from the pattern book. Naturally, such a divorce of construction and
design was little likely to result in the consistent development of an
architectural style.
=Plans.=--The square plan was retained from Gothic times in the case of
colleges and in some mansions. But usually, to secure more air and light
the fourth side was dispensed with, the gate-house, which had been its
central feature, becoming a separate building. And the tendency was to
prolong one side and shorten the wings, so as to produce the E plan, or
to lengthen the wings by projecting them on each side of the main
façade, thus forming a letter H. Or the wings are replaced by outlying
pavilions joined to the main building by corridors. Sometimes the plans
are irregular, representing the additions made to an original Gothic
house.
=Roofs.=--Many Gothic features were preserved. Oriel and bay windows were
frequent, and the windows retain their mullions and transoms, and
increase in size, being often carried up through several stories. Square
or octagonal towers abound, occasionally battlemented but generally
finishing in a parapet or cresting, the roof being concealed or rising
in a low cone or pyramid. Similarly, the main roofs vary; high, flat,
and low ones even occurring in the same design. They are covered with
lead or tiles, and surrounded by balustrades, formed of battlements,
successive arches, or pierced ornament. Gables are edged with
scroll-work, while dormer-gables, as in the Netherlands and Germany, are
stepped or carried up with variously curved outlines. The chimneys,
single or grouped in stacks, continue to be a prominent feature, their
decoration, occasionally, as at Kirby and Hatfield, involving a use of
orders.
=Use of Orders.=--The orders when applied to the façade, are treated with
little regard to purity of style and are often disfigured with strap
ornament. When used in interior decoration, the pilasters frequently
diminish in width toward the base, or swell out in bulbous curves; there
being little or no limit to the extravagance of form that columns and
pilasters alike assume in chimneypieces and furniture. Indeed, during
the Jacobean period the grotesqueness of ornament notably increased,
accompanied by a corresponding coarseness in the modelling. Moreover,
this characteristic invaded the gardens, where trees and hedges were
trimmed or “pleached” into the shape of birds, or beasts, or fantastic
designs.
However, although the mansions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods
will not stand scrutiny on the score of architectural propriety, they
have besides their picturesqueness a quality that is aptly characterised
in Cowper’s phrase, “the stately homes of England.” They possess dignity
and, above all, are homelike. They bear the stamp, not of the
professional architect, but of the variegated family life that they have
fostered for successive generations.
=Interiors.=--And this is equally true of the interiors. Comfort is not
sacrificed to stateliness. The chief apartments may attain grand
proportions, but they do not give the impression of being reserved for
merely ceremonial purposes; they are centres of domestic life. The
Gothic feature of the Great Hall was preserved; and, in the early
examples, while the family and the retainers still took their meals
together, a dais occupied one end, the opposite end being separated from
the buttery or larder, and the kitchen by a richly decorated wooden
screen, above which was the minstrel gallery. The conspicuous feature of
the hall was the fireplace, with a chimneypiece on which the most
elaborate decoration was lavished, the rest of the walls being panelled
in wood to a height of eight or ten feet, leaving a space above for
trophies of the chase or family portraits. This type of hall is still
retained in all the dining halls of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges.
Adjoining the hall was a _solar_ for the intimate life of the family.
Gradually, as the taste for privacy increased, a separate room was used
for dining and other living-rooms were added until the hall came to be
more and more an entrance hall, and the main living apartments were
disposed as in Italian and French custom, on the second floor. This
caused the staircase to be treated as a prominent feature, which, as it
were, prolonged the spaciousness of the hall. Occasionally of marble or
stone, it was usually constructed of oak with massive newel-posts and
balustrade, richly decorated.
In the earlier examples, and even in some later ones, as Inigo Jones’s
design of =Chevening House=, the apartments are arranged on the
“thoroughfare” system, opening into one another en suite. But the
inconvenience of this in the entertaining of guests led to the adoption
of a corridor along one side. By degrees this was widened and developed
into what is the most distinctive feature of these old English
houses--the Long Gallery. Lit with tall windows, often with deep bays
that form attractive alcoves, it served as a pleasant sitting-room and
equally as a place for exercise in wet weather, while its inner wall
provided space for pictures. In fact, this room seems to have been the
origin of the term “_picture gallery_.”
Special care was bestowed upon the ceilings. Occasionally the beams were
exposed, but the usual practice by this time was to sheathe them with
lath and plaster, the surface of which was decorated with stucco relief
in geometrical designs. At times the flat of the ceiling was connected
with the walls by a concave member, called a _cove_. Often, when the
wainscot was not carried up to the level of this, the upper part or dado
also was decorated with stucco relief.
It is characteristic of the use of the pattern books that the motives of
decoration employed in the exterior and interior embellishment are used
also in the furniture of the period, which on the whole is distinguished
by its massiveness, exuberance of ornament, and the mechanical method of
the workmanship. For much of the ornament is either cut out of the flat
wood with a jig-saw or carved upon forms that have been turned upon a
lathe.
ANGLO-ITALIAN PERIOD
With the accession of Charles I commenced an era of more refined and
cultivated taste. The King, as a young man, escorted by the
pleasure-loving Duke of Buckingham, had visited the Court of Spain in
search of a wife, and had seen the wonderful array of Titians and
Rubens’s in the Royal Gallery. Later he had married Henrietta Maria,
daughter of Henri IV, who, under the inspiration of his wife, Marie de’
Medici, was introducing the classical style into French architecture.
=Inigo Jones.=--Charles himself had planned to erect a palace at Whitehall
that should surpass the Louvre in grandeur and found in Inigo Jones
(1573-1652) an architect fully qualified for the ambitious enterprise.
He had made a prolonged study of the Renaissance style in Italy,
spending much of the time in Vicenza, where he had become an ardent
admirer of Palladio’s work.
=Whitehall Palace.=--His plan of =Whitehall Palace= provided for an immense
rectangle, 1152 by 720 feet, surrounded by façades, three stories high.
The interior court was to be divided into three parts by two wings of
two stories, which were to be united to the main side-façades by
transverse wings, so that the plan would have embraced a large court and
six smaller courts, one being circular in plan. However, a scheme of
such magnificence was entirely beyond the King’s means and the only part
erected was a small portion of one of the interior wings--the =Banqueting
House=, which now abuts on the street that retains the name, Whitehall.
The façade that it presents to the latter is in the Paladian style and
of extreme purity. Constructed throughout of fine, rusticated masonry,
it consists, above the basement, of two stories, decorated,
respectively, with the Ionic and the Corinthian orders, while a
well-proportioned cornice, surmounted by a balustrade, defines the
sky-line. An admirable feature, apparently originated by Inigo Jones,
for it is not found in Italy, is the slight prominence given to the
central three window bays by substituting columns for pilasters and
breaking the entablature and cornice round them. The interior contains a
handsome vaulted hall, divided into three aisles.
Another design by Jones, which recalls Palladio’s Vicenza gates is the
=Water Gate=, now in the =Embankment= =Gardens=, which formerly was the water
entrance from the river to old York House, which has been destroyed. He
also built =S. Paul, Covent Garden= (1638), a severe but imposing design
that suffers from its proximity to the market, the arcades of which are
also his. His design for the river façade for =Greenwich Hospital=, in
which the two lower stories are included in one colossal Corinthian
order, was executed by his pupil, John Webb. Among the examples of
Jones’s domestic buildings are =Raynham Hall, Norfolk=; =Wilton House,
Wiltshire=; =Chevening House, Kent=; =Stoke Park, Northamptonshire=, and
=Coleshill, Berkshire=.
But the erection of country houses and indeed all architectural activity
were seriously interrupted by the Civil War and the consequent unsettled
conditions.
=Wren.=--More fortunate in opportunity was Sir Christopher Wren
(1632-1723), upon whom it devolved to repair some of the damage wrought
by the Great Fire of London, in 1666. He was never in Italy and his
foreign experience was limited to six months in Paris, where Bernini’s
design for the Louvre, fortunately never executed, was being commenced.
Consequently he did not possess the technical equipment of Inigo Jones
and was not always successful in the decorative sheathing which he
applied to the construction. It was on the constructive side that his
genius lay and in this he was assisted by his previous career as a
mathematician and professor of astronomy at Gresham College and the
University of Oxford.
Wren’s earliest architectural works, executed before he went to Paris,
were the =Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge= and the =Sheldonian
Theatre, Oxford=. His scientific knowledge was demonstrated in the
ceiling of the latter, which has a span of 68 feet. After the fire of
London he planned to lay out the devastated part of the city on new and
broader lines; but the reconstruction was defeated, as city replanning
is liable to be in our own day, by the opposition of property owners.
Meanwhile a plan he had previously made for the enlargement of S. Paul’s
was now superseded by the necessity of erecting an entirely new
building.
=S. Paul’s.=--The plan of S. Paul’s is a cross with short arms; both the
choir and nave, comprising three bays, flanked, like the transepts, with
aisles. The choir terminates in a small apse; the transepts in
semi-circular porticoes and the west end in a vestibule with lateral
chapels.
The internal piers are embellished with Corinthian pilasters, supporting
an entablature and attic, the latter containing clerestory windows,
which, however, though giving light to the interior, are not visible
from outside. The ceilings, throughout, are composed of repetitions of
flat, saucer-like domes.
But the dominant feature of the interior is the octagon at the crossing,
which comprises the width not only of the nave and choir but also of the
aisles. It permits four great arches, opening into the nave, choir, and
transepts, and four smaller and lower arches, connecting with the
ambulatory, which is formed by the aisles. This arrangement is somewhat
similar to the octagon of Ely Cathedral and may be compared with the
plan of the dome of the Invalides.
Surmounting the eight pendentives of St. Paul’s is a circular gallery,
known as the “Whispering Gallery,” above which rises a circular
peristyle. The latter’s entablature supports the interior dome, which
mounts to a height of 281 feet from the floor.
In recent years the barrenness of the interior has been considerably
relieved by glass mosaic decorations, designed by Sir William Richmond.
=The Façades= comprise two stories; the lower embellished with the
Corinthian order, the upper with the Composite; the line of division
being at the height of the aisles. Thus, on the north and south sides of
the building, the upper part of the façade is only a screen, carried up
for the purpose of composing with the mass of the dome. The flying
buttresses of the latter are concealed behind it, while light penetrates
through it to the clerestory windows. Admirable features of the lower
story of the side façades are the semi-circular porticoes, of beautiful
design, which project from the ends of the transepts. Excellently
proportioned, if somewhat bald, is the west façade, which is a double
storied portico of coupled columns, supporting a pediment. This is
flanked by two towers, which rise above the sky-line in diminishing
stories, terminating in bell-shaped cupolas. Not only are they fine
compositions in themselves, but they are also designed in fine relation
to the dominating feature of the dome.
=The Dome.=--The latter, in mass and outline and in the relation achieved
between its several parts, can lay claim to being the most majestic dome
of the Renaissance. Among the elements that enter into its
impressiveness is the emphasis given to the lowest course of masonry,
which well suggests the union of the nave, choir, and transepts and
forms a substantial stylobate to the peristyle. The latter, again, is
exceptionally fine in proportion. In appearance, relatively higher than
that of S. Peter’s and related with more freedom to the mass above, it
is formed of coupled columns attached to radiating buttress walls;
every fourth space between the columns being filled with solid masonry,
which is relieved in the way of light and shadow by a decorated niche.
The effect is at once strong, stately, and of airy lightness. Very fine
also, in its peculiar accent of effectiveness is the proportion of the
upper drum to the superincumbent mass of the dome, whose curve is lifted
to a culminating springiness by the height and freedom and sensitive
proportions of the lantern.
No less remarkable is the scientific knowledge expended in the
construction of this externally superb masterpiece. It is composed, like
the domes of the Invalides and the Panthéon in Paris, of three shells,
although the arrangement is different. For the intermediate shell
consists of a cone of brickwork, 18 inches thick. It springs from behind
the upper drum, and on it bears the stone lantern, ball, and cross; the
last being 365 feet above the ground level. It also helps to bear the
weight of the timber supports of the outer shell, which is constructed
entirely of wood, sheathed with lead. The inner dome, resting on the
peristyle, is of brickwork, and of the same thickness as the cone.
=Wren’s Churches.=--Between the years 1670 and 1711 were erected some
fifty-three London churches, in which Wren displayed remarkable
versatility in adapting Renaissance design, not only to the different
conditions which the crowded site involved but also to the requirements
of Protestant worship, which laid so much stress on preaching and needed
chiefly an auditorium. A famous example is that of =S. Stephen’s
Walbrook=, in which sixteen columns support a coffered ceiling,
interrupted by a pendentive dome. This is the predominating feature, for
its diameter is 43 feet in a total width of 60 feet.
Wren’s churches, however, are better and more characteristically known
by the variety of steeples, which may be considered an invention of his
own. From a square tower, which is treated as the main feature of the
front façade, they pass into circular or octagonal stories, diminishing
in diameter, clothed with Renaissance details, and terminating in a
slender spire. Their beauty consists in the variety and proportions
given to the several parts, achieving an ensemble of peculiar elegance.
Occasionally they suggest a certain mechanicalness of repetition; hence
the example which is considered the best is that of =S. Mary-le-Bow=. For
here the repetition of the orders is interrupted by a story composed of
inverted consoles, the effect of which is to vary not only the character
of the embellishment, but also, by introducing the contrast of a curve,
the regularity of successive steps. Wren’s inexhaustible activity is
represented also, among many other examples, by the =Monument= at =London
Bridge=; =The Fountain Court= and =Garden Façade= of =Hampton Court=; =Chelsea
Hospital=; =Marlborough House, Pall Mall=; and =Temple Bar=. The last,
forming the entrance gate to the City of London proper, has been removed
from its old site at the foot of Fleet Street, and set up in Theobald’s
Park, Northamptonshire.
He lies buried beneath the choir of his masterpiece, a tablet bidding
you, “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.”
=Hawksmoor, Gibbs.=--The most notable of =Wren’s= pupils were Nicholas
Hawksmoor (1666-1763) and James Gibbs (1683-1754). The latter published
a book of his own designs, which, as we shall see, exercised a
considerable influence on the beginnings of architecture in the American
Colonies.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY STYLES
ANGLO-CLASSICAL. QUEEN ANNE. GEORGIAN
This period comprises the reigns of Anne (1702-14) and of the three
Georges (1714-1820). In the case of large mansions it represents a
continuation of the “Anglo-Palladian” style, with an increased
importance given to the use of columns, especially in porticoes. Hence
it is sometimes called the “Anglo-Classical,” or more specifically, the
“Portico Style.”
In less pretentious houses the tendency was to avoid columns and
ornamental details and to rely upon the sterling character of plain
brick work. The so-called _Flemish bond_ was introduced, a method of
binding a wall into solidity by laying the bricks in courses of
alternate _stretchers_ and _headers_--bricks, that is to say, laid,
respectively lengthwise with and at right angles to the outer surface of
the walls. It differed from the _English bond_, in which stretchers and
headers were laid in alternate courses. A single projecting string
course might mark the division of the stories, while several, projecting
one over the other, would form a cornice under the eaves of the tiled
roof. Or this arrangement might be replaced by a wooden cornice.
Windows, owing to the tax upon them, were reduced in number and often
increased in size, especially in the direction of height.
Correspondingly, doors were heightened until they had an effect of
narrowness. In all these particulars, as also in the introduction of
pediment-shaped gables and wooden cornices under the eaves of the tiled
roofs, there was a disposition to follow the seventeenth century type of
Dutch and Flemish domestic architecture. This so-called “Queen Anne”
style--though it is more a manner than a style--involved a certain
primness of effect, quite in keeping with the somewhat pedantic attitude
of the time, but is characterised by simple refinement and suggestion of
comfortable domesticity.
By the time of George III--1760 and onward--certain modifications were
introduced into the Anglo-Classical style, which are sometimes
characterised by the distinction, “Georgian.”
=Anglo-Classical.=--The Anglo-Classical is frankly a style of ostentation
and magnificent pretension. So far as one man could be responsible for
what was in effect an expression of the temper of an age that was
amassing great wealth in the Indian and Chinese trade, the man was Sir
John Vanbrugh. But it is significant that he first became famous as a
writer of witty and spicy comedies. Then he “turned his attention to”
architecture and wrote to his friend Tonson, the publisher, for a
“Palladio.” With the aid of this he qualified himself as an
architectural designer and having already gained the favour of society
by his talents as a wit was readily accepted as an architect, enjoying
particularly the patronage of Queen Anne, who sent him abroad on a
special mission. His first important mansion was =Castle Howard= (1714),
followed a year later by =Blenheim Palace=.
In both of these he achieved what may be described as a scenic
impressiveness on a prodigious scale, but without much reference to
architectural logic or to internal convenience. The two plans have a
general similarity, consisting of a main block with an extensive garden
front, connected at the rear by two corridors with the kitchen block and
the stable block. These flank a great court, which at Blenheim is closed
by a screen wall and gateway in the manner of a French château. The
kitchen at Blenheim was some 400 feet distant from the dining room!
Windows in both designs were disposed for exterior effect and not for
proper lighting of the interior. In numberless particulars internal
convenience was sacrificed to palatial planning and display. As Voltaire
said, if the rooms had been as wide as the walls were thick the palace
would have been passably convenient. Amongst the new features,
introduced by Vanbrugh, was the converting of the ground story into a
kind of mimic cellar, with inconveniently small staircases to the floor
above, the main approach to which was on the outside of the building, by
a grand flight of steps leading up to a superb portico.
Notwithstanding the magnificence of scale, these designs have a chill
formality that makes their dignity rather dull.
Meanwhile they set a fashion exactly suited to the taste of the time,
which in literature also was disposed to substitute dilettantism for
culture, and, in its infatuation for what it called “style,” to attach
more importance to form than to subject-matter. It was the age of the
amateur. Lord Burlington, for example, a patron of art, designed a villa
at Chiswick in a free translation of the Villa Capra, Vicenza by
Palladio. Also, in conjunction with his protégé, Kent, he erected the
=Horse Guards= and =Devonshire House= in London and =Holkham Hall, Norfolk=;
the last-named presenting a central block connected by corridors with
four outlying pavilions. One of the shibboleths of this time that passed
for a principle was that to a style of this grandeur only one form of
roof was appropriate--a dome. Interior proprieties were sacrificed to
the securing of a dome, and where the exigencies of building
necessitated a flat or pointed roof it was hidden behind an attic or
balustrade.
=Pope’s Satire.=--The fatuities, however, of this craze for the monumental
did not escape contemporary satire. When Lord Burlington published the
designs of Inigo Jones and Palladio’s drawings of the “Antiquities of
Rome,” Pope referred to them in one of his epistles--
“You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse,
And pompous buildings once were things of use.
Yet shall, my Lord, your just, your noble rules,
Fill half the land with imitating fools;
Who random drawings from your sheets may take
And of one beauty many blunders make;
Load some vain church with old theatric state,
Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate:
....... “’tis very fine,
But where d’ye sleep or where d’ye dine?
I find by all you have been telling
That ’tis a house, but not a dwelling.”
=Chambers.=--It was a reaction from this mania for magnificence that
encouraged, in the case of more modest houses, the so-called “Queen
Anne” style, and later, in large and small alike, the “Georgian.” The
change to the latter, moreover, was assisted by the influence of Sir
William Chambers, who acquired a real knowledge of architecture through
long study in Italy and in 1759 published his “Treatise on Civil
Architecture.” His most important work is the river front of =Somerset
House=. He, too, however, was responsible for a craze. In early life he
had visited China, where he made sketches of architecture, furniture,
and costumes, which formed the basis of his “Designs for Chinese
Architecture, Etc.” published in 1757. It led to an infatuation for the
socalled “Chinese Style” which survives directly in the Pagoda at Kew
Gardens and indirectly in the Chinese motives that Chippendale (d. 1779)
introduced with so much taste into his furniture designs.
=Adam.=--Meanwhile, the Georgian revival was due even more to the genius
of the Scotsman Robert Adam (1728-1792). Realising that the existing
knowledge of Roman architecture had been derived from public buildings,
he visited the only example known then of domestic architecture, the
ruins of Diocletian’s Palace at Spalato in Dalmatia. Here in
co-operation with the French architect, C. L. Clerisseau, and two
experienced draughtsmen, he made the measurements and drawings out of
which he projected a restoration of the building in a fine work entitled
“The Ruins of the Palace of Diocletian” (1764). To him belongs the
credit of inaugurating the modern idea, not yet sufficiently lived up
to, of using the monumental style for a number of separate buildings,
grouped in one design. His first achievement was on the banks of the
Thames just east of Buckingham Street, where the steep descent
necessitated a system of vaulted foundations that are said to be a
remarkable example of engineering skill. On this Adam erected the
dignified design, which, since his brother James co-operated with him,
was called after the Greek word _adelphoi_, brothers, =Adelphi Terrace=.
Other instances of his group designs are parts of =Fitzroy Square=, the
older portion of =Finsbury Circus= and =Portland Place=. Among his country
houses is =Keddleston Hall, Derbyshire=. Here he clung to the sprawling
plan, in which the offices are widely parted from the main block; but,
in the façades, employed large windows, finely grouped, and permitted
the sloping roofs to be a strong feature of the design.
[Illustration: HOME OF THE POET LONGFELLOW, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. P. 431]
[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA P. 430]
[Illustration: WASHINGTON’S HOME AT MOUNT VERNON
REAR VIEW. EXAMPLE OF SOUTHERN COLONIAL. P. 432]
[Illustration: ANOTHER SOUTHERN COLONIAL EXAMPLE, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA P.
432]
It was Adam’s idea that the architect should be responsible also for the
interior decorations and furniture, thus making each room and its
furnishings a unified design. Indeed, that everything outside as well as
inside the house, summer-houses, terraces and so-forth, should unite in
a single ensemble. In the style of furniture that has been associated
with his name he showed a rare taste in blending classical motives with
elements of his own fancy; exhibiting a particular skill in the graceful
use of curvilinear forms, in which he had a partiality for ovals, and in
modelling details that, while very delicate, were neither weak nor
petty. As the result of his influence the Georgian interior presented an
appropriately dainty setting to the costumes and manners of society,
which had abandoned the stiff ostentation of the earlier Georgian period
for the graceful elegance of the later mode.
AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE
Naturally it was from the Mother-Country that the American Colonies
derived the models of their earliest architecture. The date at which
increased population and prosperity encouraged buildings of a more
permanent character, distinguished by their appearance as well as by
their immediate utility, is placed at about 1725. From this time the
rigour of life in New England, and particularly in Massachusetts, began
to be considerably abated. The theocratic form of government, in which
the clergy were the arbiters of moral and social conventions, had given
way to the active participation of laymen in public affairs. The manners
as well as the costumes of society became elegant and the pleasures of
life were no longer frowned upon. The change which thus came over
social life is reflected in the contrast presented by Copley’s portraits
and those of his predecessor, Smibert.
A corresponding advance in the amenities of life was represented also in
New York and Philadelphia; while, as to the Southern States, which had
been colonised by Royalists rather than by Puritans, the tradition of
elegant life had always been maintained and the change at this period
was only in the increased opportunity of realising it.
=English Influences, Modified.=--The edifices which began to be erected
comprise churches and meeting-houses, mansions, and a few public halls;
the last being of historical rather than architectural interest. The
places of worship represent an adaptation of the Wren-Gibbs type, while
the domestic designs are based on Queen Anne and Georgian styles. In a
few cases the prototype was fairly reproduced; notable examples being
=Christ Church, Philadelphia= (1727-35); =Old South Church, Boston=, now
used as a museum (1730-82), and =S. Paul’s, New York= (1766). The last
named is one of the few instances of stone building at this period; the
usual material being either brick imported from England or, far more
usually, wood. This affected the use which was made of the drawings of
Gibbs, Adam, and others, from which the Colonial church-builders derived
their designs. Brick did not permit of carved enrichment. Mouldings
were, in consequence, of extreme simplicity and such embellishments as
columns, pediments, and cornices were constructed of wood. The character
of the design was still further modified in the New England States,
since wood was used also for the main structure.
=Colonial Style Developed.=--Thus there was developed a skill of design in
the use of wood alone and of wood in combination with brick that is
distinguishable as a distinct style, to which the term “Colonial” has
been applied. It is a style in no sense monumental, even when it
includes spires, columns and porticoes. On the contrary, it is
characterised by simplicity and reserve but is saved from insignificance
by the quiet dignity of the whole and the refinement of the details. The
wooden spires of the innumerable meeting-houses distributed over New
England, many of which were designed by the almost forgotten worthies,
Ascher Benjamin and Ithiel Town, present a type of their own,
distinguished by extreme sensitiveness of outline and aspiring grace and
airiness. These are veritable creations, growing logically out of the
wood construction. And even in the porticoes, although their columns are
structurally shams, being mere shells enclosing a post, the feeling of
woodwork is so frankly retained, that in association with the wooden
walls they seem quite reasonable.
A corresponding unity of effect is achieved in the best examples of
wooden domestic buildings, such as the =Craigie House=, Longfellow’s home
in =Cambridge=; the =Sherburn House, Portsmouth=, and innumerable other
examples throughout New England. They are characterised by the choice
proportions and distribution of the windows, by the pilasters running up
through two stories, to a well-designed cornice, broken in the centre by
a pediment that serves as a porch. The roofs vary. Some are flat; some
slope up from front and rear, with a gable at each end. In other cases,
the continuous slope is broken by a _gambrel_ into two slopes, forming
an obtuse angle, as in the Mansard roof. While again, the roof may be
_hipped_, sloping up, that is to say, from all four sides, the four
planes meeting in hips or ridges.
While similar styles of roofs and windows reappear in the Southern
Colonial type of house the latter is distinguished by the addition of a
verandah. It may take the form of a pedimented portico, composed of
colossal columns, carried up to the cornice, or of a colonnade extending
along the entire front and frequently consisting of two stories; the
floor beams of the upper one being let into the columns--a device that
violates structural propriety but may be overlooked in the comfortable
dignity of the whole design. The latter in some cases covers an
extended, symmetrical plan, as, for example, in Washington’s home, =Mount
Vernon=, where the main block is connected by curving colonnades with the
kitchen wing on one side and offices on the other, while the
slave-quarters were in detached buildings, separated by formal gardens
from the mansion. The comparative smallness of the latter emphasises the
suggestion of the patriarchal character of the best of the old Southern
life before the Civil War, while the quiet dignity of the exterior is
repeated in the spirit of refined and gentle breeding that pervades the
interior.