How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

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,