had been placed at one end of the façade. In the town hall at Mons | it to other countries, though at a later period; the most imthere is no tower, but a fine upper storey with ten windows filled with good tracery. Of the town hall at Ghent only one half is Gothic (1480-1482), as it was not completed till a century later, and though overladen with Flamboyant ornament it has fine qualities in its design. Although but few examples still exist of the Gothic structures belonging to the various gilds, owing to their having been rebuilt in the Renaissance style, those of the Bateliers at Ghent (1531), and of the Fishmongers at Malines (1519), bear witness in the rich decoration to the wealth of these corporations. Holland is extremely poor in church architecture, but there are two examples which should be noted, at Utrecht and Bois-le-Duc ('s Hertogenbosch). Of the former only the choir exists. It is of great height (115 ft.), and belongs to the finest period of Gothic architecture (1251-1267). The nave was destroyed by a hurricane in 1674, and so seriously damaged that it was all taken down (a wall being built to enclose the choir) and an open square left between it and the lofty west tower. The cathedral of St John at Bois-leDuc, though founded in 1300, was rebuilt in the Flamboyant period (1419-1497). It is of great length (400 ft.) with a fine chevet, and possessed originally a magnificent rood screen in the early Renaissance style (1625); this seemed to the burghers to be out of keeping with the Gothic church, so it was taken down and sold to the South Kensington Museum, being replaced by a very poor example in Modern Gothic. There is only one Gothic town hall of importance in Holland, that at Middleburg (1468), a fine example, and quite equal to those in Belgium. The ground and upper floors are kept distinct, and as the wall surface of these lower storeys is in plain masonry, the traceried windows and the canopied niches (all of which retain their statues) gain by the contrast. There is a small picturesque specimen at Gouda, and at Leeuwarden in the house of correction (Kanselary) a rich example in brick and stone, with a remarkable stepped gable in the centre having statues on its steps. Both in Belgium and Holland there are numerous examples of domestic architecture in brick with quoins and tracery in stone, in both cases alternating with brick courses and arch voussoirs and with infinite variety of design. (R. P. S.) THE RENAISSANCE STYLE: INTRODUCTION portant of these was the invention of printing (1453), which in a sense revolutionized art, not so much in its enabling classical literature to be more extensively studied and known, as in its taking away to a certain extent from the painter and sculptor and indirectly the architect one of their principal missions, so far as ecclesiastical architecture is concerned, Henceforth these who had hitherto taught their lessons in sculpture, painting stained glass and fresco, could, through the printed book, bring them more immediately before and directly to mankind. Victor Hugo's pithy saying, "ceci tuera cela; le livre tuera l'église,' expressed not only the fall of architecture from the position it occupied as the principal teacher, but to a certain extent the change in the channel by which religious teachers and the writers of the day, the poets and philosophers, could best make their works known. With the invention of printing came the partial cessation of fresco painting, stained glass and sculpture, which subsequently came to be regarded more as decorative adjuncts than as having educational functions. But this transfer from the Church to the Book, the extinction of the one by the other, led to another important change. Henceforth the architect or master-mason, as he was then known, could no longer count on the co-operation. of the various craftsmen, men often of greater culture than himself; and the individuality of the man, which has sometimes been put forward as a gain to humanity, was a loss so far as architecture is concerned, since it was scarcely possible that the imagination and conceptions of a single individual, however brilliant they might be, could ever reach to the high level of the joint product of many minds, or that there could be the same natural expression in what had hitherto been the traditional work of centuries. In France the introduction of the Revival resulted at first in a transitional period during which classic details gradually crept in, displacing the Gothic. In Italy this does not seem to have been the case to the same extent. It is true that in Florence and Venice, where an independent style existed, the new buildings in their general principles of design were copied from the old, but with no mixture of details as in France; in Brunelleschi's church, Santo Spirito at Florence, the capitals and details are all pure Italian, as pure as if they had been carried out in the 3rd or 4th century, the fact being that already before the 15th century the craftsman's work was approaching the new movement, and this was facilitated by the numerous remains still existing of Roman architecture. In the four or five years Brunelleschi spent in Rome, he had the opportunity of studying a far larger number of Roman buildings than are preserved at the carried out in Florence was due to his previous training; the same is found in Alberti's work, and with these two great men leading the way it is not surprising that throughout the earlier Renaissance period in Italy we find a classic perfection of detail which it took half a century to develop in other countries. The causes which led to the evolution of the Renaissance style in Italy in the 15th century were many and diverse. The principal impulse was that derived from the revival of classical | literature. Already in the 14th century the coming movement was showing itself in the works of the painters and sculptors, especially the latter, owing to the influence of the classic sculpture which abounded throughout Italy. Thus in the tomb of St Dominic (1221) at Bologna, the pulpits of Pisa (1260) and Siena (1268), and in the fountain of Perugia (1277-1280) by Niccola Pisano and his son Giovanni, all the figures would seem to have been inspired in their character by those found in Roman sarcophagi. A classic treatment is noticeable in the doorway of the Baptistery of Florence by Andrea Pisano (1330), probably influenced by Giotto, in whose paintings are found the representa-present day, so that the purity of style in the work which he tion of imaginary buildings in which Gothic and Classic details are mixed up together. The time for its full development, however, did not come till the following century, when, with the papal throne again firmly established under Martin V., the amelioration of the city of Rome was commenced, and discoveries were made which awakened an archaeological interest fostered by the Medici at Florence, who not only became enthusiastic collectors of ancient works of art, but promoted the study of the antique figure. In addition to the acquisition of marbles and bronzes, ancient manuscripts of classic writers were sought for and supplied by Greek exiles who seemed to have foreseen the breaking up of the eastern empire; everything, therefore, at the beginning of the 15th century fostered the spread of the new movement. Accordingly, when a great architect like Brunelleschi, who for fifteen years had been making a special study of the ancient monuments in Rome and who possessed in addition great scientific knowledge, brought forward his proposals for the completion of the cathedral built by Arnolfo di Lapo, and showed how the existing substructure could be covered over with a dome like the Pantheon at Rome, his designs were accepted by the town council of Florence, and in 14 20 he was entrusted with the work. Subsequently he carried out other works, in which pure classic architectural forms are the chief characteristics. There were, however, other causes which not only promoted the encouragement of the revival, but extended It is difficult to say what might have been its ultimate develop ment if another discovery had not. been made about 1452, that of the manuscript of Vitruvius, a Roman architect who lived in the time of the emperor Augustus; his work on architec ture gives an admirable description of the building materials employed in his day (c. 25 B.C.), and among other subjects, a series of rules regulating the employment of the various orders and their correct proportions. These rules were based on the descriptions which Vitruvius had studied of Greek temples, but as he was not acquainted with the examples quoted, never having been in Greece or even in south Italy at Paestum, his knowledge was confined to the architectural monuments then existing in Rome. Vitruvius's manuscript, entitled De re aedificatoria, was illustrated by drawings, none of which have however been preserved; when therefore in subsequent years translations of the architectural portion of the manuscript were printed and published by various Italian architects, among whom Vignola and Palladio were the more important, they were accompanied by woodcuts representing their interpretation of the lost illustrations, and thus copybooks of the orders were published, with more or less fidelity to those of existing Roman monuments, in which attempts were made to adhere to the rules laid down by Vitruvius. În Rome and other parts of Italy, where ancient monuments or portions of them still remained in silu, architects could study their details and base their designs on them, but in other countries they were bound to follow the copybook, and thus they lost that originality and freedom of design which characterizes the earlier work of the Renaissance. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the publications of Vignola and Palladio, based as they were on the remains of ancient Rome, then much better preserved than at the present day, tended to maintain a high standard in the employment of the Classic orders, with correct proportions and details; so much so, that in referring to the influence which those works exerted from the middle of the 16th century in France and Spain, and during the 17th and 18th centuries in England and to a certain extent in Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, it is generally spoken of as the introduction of the pure Italian style. The tendency, however, of such hard and fast rules leads eventually to an excess in the opposite direction, and the works of Borromini in Italy and Churriguera in Spain in the middle of the 17th century resulted in the production of what is generally referred to as the Rococo style. This style was fostered in France by the attempts to reproduce, externally and in stone, ornamental decoration of a type which is only fitted for internal work in stucco, and in Germany and the Netherlands by reproductions of fantastic designs published in copybooks, which led to the bastard style of the Zwinger palace in Dresden and the Dutch architecture of the 18th century. Vignola's work on the five orders was published in 1563, and Palladio's in 1570; they were preceded by a publication of Serlio's in 1540, giving examples of various architectural compositions, and to him is probably due the introduction of the pure Italian style in the Louvre in 1546. They were followed by other authors, as Scamozzi in Italy, Philibert de l'Orme in France, and, at a later date, Sir William Chambers in England. The term given to the earlier Renaissance or transition work in Italy is the Cinque-cento style, though sometimes that title is given to buildings erected in the 16th century; in France it is known as the François I. style, in Spain as the Plateresque or Silversmiths' style, and in England as the Elizabethan and Jacobean styles. There is still another and very important difference to be noted between the styles of the middle ages and those of the Renaissance. Although the names of the designers in the former are occasionally known and have been handed down to us, they were only partially responsible, as the works were carried out by other craftsmen working on traditional lines, whereas in the latter they are of much more importance because of the independent thought and study of the individual; and though to a certain extent the development of each man's work may have been influenced by others working in the same direction, his special object was to acquire personal fame and by his own fancy or predilection to produce what he conceived to be an original work peculiar to himself. Consequently in our description the name of the architect who designed a particular building, as well as the date of its erection, are necessarily given to show the progress made in his studies or otherwise. (R. P. S.) RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY In the styles hitherto described a chronological order has been followed, as far as possible, in order to show the gradual develop ment of the style; that course is adopted here to a certain extent, when dealing with the Renaissance, though the introduction of the personal element, to which reference has been made, brings in a change of some importance. Henceforth the career of the individual has to be taken into consideration, and at times it may be an advantage when describing a building by an architect of eminence to mention other works by him, and so depart from the chronological sequence. Ecclesiastical-The classic revival in Italy, though foreshadowed in other branches of art, as in painting and sculpture, and also to a marked degree in literature, was virtually introduced by one sculptor, and disappointed with his want of success in the competigreat man, Filippo Brunelleschi of Florence, who, trained as a tion held in 1403 for the bronze gates of the baptistery at Florence, determined to devote himself to architecture, possibly in the hope that he might some day be able to solve the great problem of erecting projected by the latter but never executed. Having spent some over the crossing of Arnolfo di Lapo's great cathedral the dome years in Rome, Brunelleschi returned to his native town about 1410, with a profound knowledge of classic architecture and of Roman construction, as shown in the Pantheon, the thermae, Colosseum and other remains, then in much better preservation than at the and in deliberations with the council of Florence, but eventually in present day. Some years passed in the production of various schemes 1420 the completion of the cathedral was entrusted to him, and he undertook to construct the dome without centreing, and to raise it on a drum so as to give it greater importance than Arnolfo had contemplated, as shown in the fresco of the Spanish chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. The dome as projected by Brunelleschi was of considerable size, being 130 ft. in diameter and 135 ft. from the cornice to the eye of the dome, including the drum on which it was raised; it was octagonal in plan, and built with an inner and outer casing partly in brick, with angle and two intermediate ribs on each face, which were in stone. The construction of the dome was completed in 1434; but the lantern, built on the basis of the model he had made, was not carried out till 1462, some years after his death. Brunelleschi's other works in Florence consisted of the church of San Lorenzo, which he rebuilt in 1425 after a fire, and the church of Santo Spirito (1433), a very remarkable building, the design of which was based on the medieval basilicas of Rome, with such modifications in plan and section as his knowledge of ancient Roman work aisles all round, the centre or crossing being covered with a dome suggested. This church consists of nave, transept and choir, with on pendentives, which henceforth became the chief characteristic in all the Renaissance churches. Brunelleschi's earliest work was the Pazzi chapel, an original conception which is more remarkable for the pure classic feeling and refinement in all its details than for the and the mass of panelled wall carried on columns (far too slight in design. The weakness of the archivolt round the central archway, their dimensions), detract seriously from the effect of the façade; internally the structural function of the pilasters is not sufficiently maintained, and instead of a simple hemispherical dome, as in the scalloped cells, which destroys its dignity. cathedral, a quasi-Gothic type was built, with twelve ribs and Brunelleschi was followed by another great Florentine architect, Leon Battista Alberti, who was also a great mathematician and a scholar, and further promoted the study of classic architecture by writing a treatise in Latin, Opus praestantissimum de re aedificatoria, which was based partly on that of Vitruvius and was published in 1485, after his death, accompanied by illustrations. The first building with which he was connected was the church of San Fran cesco at Rimini, to which in 1440 he added the front. In this he was evidently inspired by the Roman triumphal arch in that city, and his interpretation of it, to meet the requirements in its façade which were imposed upon him by the existing nave, was admirable. Unfortunately the principal front was never completed, but on the south side he designed a series of recesses to hold the sarcophagi Malatesta, the effect of which is simple and grand. Alberti's largest containing the remains of the friends of his client, Sigismondo work, the church of Sant' Andrea at Mantua (1472), in which the nave, transept and choir are all covered with barrel vaults, recalls the vaulted corridors of the Colosseum. There are no aisles, but a series of rectangular chapels on each side, the division walls of which act as buttresses to resist the thrust of the great vault. The lofty arched openings to the chapels, separated by Corinthian pilasters with entablature supporting the coffered vault and a central dome (since rebuilt), complete the structure, which has served since as the model for all the Renaissance churches of the same type. The principal front is not satisfactory, as it takes no cognizance of the width of the nave, and the side doors have no use or meaning; here Alberti seems to have been led astray in his triumphal arch treatment, which is inferior to his scheme for the church at Rimini. In 1462 Michelozzo, another Florentine architect, built the chapel of St Peter at the east end of the church of Sant' Eustorgio, Milan. Externally it has little attraction, but internally the dome, with its magnificent frieze of winged angels in relief with a painted backcomposition of the Renaissance. Michelozzo's first work was the ground of arcades and other accessories, is the most beautiful Dominican monastery and church of San Marco at Florence (14391452), but he is better known for his secular work, to which we shall return. The next great architect chronologically is Bramante d'Urbino, to whom was entrusted the commencement of the church of St Peter at Rome. His first important work was the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi (1472), which consists of a square nave The nave is with immense semicircular apses, one on each side. covered with a dome raised on a drum, and carried on pendentives, and the apses with hemispherical vaults butt against the nave walls and form externally a very fine group. Bramante was the architect of the chapel in the cloisters of San Pietro-in-Montorio, Rome (1472), a small circular building covered with a dome and surrounded with a peristyle of columns of the Doric order; and of the dome of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, as also of the three apses, which are decorated with pilasters and baluster shafts with circular medallions enclosing busts, all in terra cotta. Before passing to his work at St Peter's there are some other early churches we must notice. The Certosa, near Pavia, was begun in 1396, and in one sense suggests the revival of classic architecture, in that all its arches have semicircular heads. The magnificent façade of the church was commenced in 1473 from the designs of Borgognone, a Milanese architect: it is one of the few examples in Italy of large size in which the transition is noticeable, for although there are no Gothic details the design follows that of the middle ages, and instead of great pilasters of the Corinthian order, buttresses with niches containing statues divide the façade and accentuate the internal divisions of the church; the open galleries above the entrance doorway crossing the upper storey of the central portion are all derived from well-known Lombardic features. The upper part of the façade is inferior to the lower, Borgognone's design having been departed from. The enrichment of the whole front, from the lower plinth to the string course under the first gallery, with bas-reliefs, panelled pilasters, niches, medallions and other decorative acces sories, all in white marble, so completely covers the whole surface that scarcely any portion is left plain, which to a certain extent detracts from its effect as a whole; but there is an endless variety of design, and the baluster or candelabrum shafts dividing the windows and the friezes and cresting above their cornices, are of great beauty. The circular rose window above, with its enclosing frontispiece of later date, shows the coming influence of the later Italian style. The cloisters adjoining are surrounded with a light arcade, with enrichments in the spandrils and frieze, all in terra cotta. The cathedral of Como is also a transitional example, where buttresses are employed all round the church, and it is only in the finials which surmount them, the great projecting cornice which crowns the structure, and the doorways and windows, that we find classical details; the doorways recall the porches of the Lombard churches, and are of great beauty in design, the south doorway being said to be by Bramante. Another example, remarkable for its elaborately carved front and porch, is the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli at Brescia (1487-1490) by Ludovici Beretta, which both externally and internally is one of the richest specimens of the early Italian Renaissance. The church dedicated to Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice (1481-1489), by Pietro Lombardo, is another transitional example in which the Byzantine influence of St Mark's is recognizable in the semicircular pediments of its façade and of the exterior of the chancel, and Lombardic influence in its external decorations with pilaster strips and blind arcades. The interior is one of the gems of the Renaissance, on account of its splendid decoration with marble linings and fine cinque-cento carving. Similar semicircular pediments are found in the façade of the church of San Zaccharia at Venice (1515), but are purely decorative because the roof behind is not semicircular like that of the Miracoli. The decoration of the main front, here all in marble, is of an entirely different design, and is subdivided into a series of storeys, the lower panelled, the first storey with arcades and the upper ones with pilasters. An earlier example (1461) in San Bernardino at Perugia is of a far higher standard, and its enrichment with bas-reliefs by the Florentine sculptor Agostino di Duccio (c. 1418-c. 1490) gives it the first place for its conception and execution. Among others, the church of Spirito Santo, Bologna, in terra cotta; the church of Santa Giustina, Padua (1532); the sacristy of San Satiro, Milan (1479), by Bramante; and the sacristy of the church of Santo Spirito, Florence (1489-1496), by Sangallo, are all interesting examples of the early Renaissance in Italy. In 1505, on the advice of Michelangelo, Bramante was instructed to prepare designs for a new church in Rome dedicated to St Peter, to take the place of the early basilica, which, built in haste, began to show serious signs of failure. Already, fifty years earlier, Pope Nicholas V. had commenced a new building, the erection of which was stopped by his death in 1454. The scheme was revived by Julius II., and the foundation stone of the new structure was laid in 1506. On Bramante's death in 1514, Raphael, Peruzzi and Sangallo were successively appointed, and the last named prepared a new design, which, however, was not carried out, as he found it necessary first to strengthen the piers of the dome provided by Bramante and to remedy the defects of his successors. In 1546 Michelangelo, then seventy-two years of age, was entrusted with the continuance of the work, and he made radical changes, chiefly in the design of the dome. Comparison of the plans of Bramante and Sangallo with that actually carried out by Michelangelo shows that he not only increased the size of the piers to carry his dome, but the outer walls of the north, south and west apses, and omitted the aisles which surrounded the latter (fig. 51). He would seem to have availed himself of the foundation walls already built and of Bramante's piers to carry the dome, which had been raised up to the cornice, but otherwise the architectural features of the whole building externally and internally were carried out from Michelangelo's own designs. Sangallo had suggested for the exterior a series of superimposed orders with three storeys; Michel angelo elected to have one order only with an attic storey. The building gained thereby in dignity, but it lost in scale, for the huge pilasters of the Corinthian order (87 ft. high) look considerably smaller, in spite of the two storeys of windows between them. These windows also, which from their design are apparently about 10 to 12 ft. high, actually measure 20 ft. in height. The same defect exists in the interior, where the Corinthian order, over 100 ft. in height to the top of the cornice (Plate III., fig. 69), calls for a similar increase in the dimensions of all the sculptured decorations; the figures in the spandrils being 20 ft. high, and the cherubs supporting the holy water spouts 10 ft. Otherwise the scheme realizes the conception which Bramante proposed from the first, viz. to raise the dome of the Pantheon on the top of the basilica of Constantine; FIG. 51.-Plan of St Peter's at Rome. the latter being represented by the magnificent barrel vault (75 ft. in span) of the nave, transepts and choir; the former by the great hemispherical dome, 140 ft. in diameter, which, including the drum, is 162 ft. from the top of the cornice above the pendentives to the soffit of the dome. The dome is built in two shells with connecting ribs on the same principle as Brunelleschi's dome in Florence, and was nearly completed before Michelangelo's death in 1563, and the lantern in 1590 from the model which he had made. In 1605 the east end of the old basilica was taken down, and three more bays design into the Latin cross originally conceived by Bramante. The were added, thus converting the Greek cross of Michelangelo's semicircular portico was added by Bernini in 1667. The immense nave and the eastern vestibule were completed in 1620, and the great height of the east façade, and its prolongation in front of Michel angelo's chief feature, the dome, hides the design of a great portion of the latter, so that it can only be seen either from a great distance (Plate III., fig. 68), or from behind the western apse, where the | Gothic style still held its own in the palaces of Venice, so that it is relative grouping with the great apses can be properly appreciated. A second well-known work by Michelangelo is the new sacristy of the church of San Lorenzo, Florence (1523-1529), designed to contain the monuments of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, the architectural design of which is poor. Antonio di Sangallo was the architect of the church of San Biagio at Montepulciano (1518), with a cruciform plan, and dome in the centre, and a campanile at the south-west angle somewhat similar to those of Wren in London. The church of Santa Maria-di-Carignano (1552) at Genoa, by Galeazzo Alessi, is finely situated but unsatisfactory in its design, the lower part being stunted in its proportions and its order to a different scale from that in the campanile towers and the dome. The most beautiful interior is that of the Annunziata in the same town, by Giacomo della Porta (1587); the arches of its nave arcade are carried on Corinthian columns of marble, of fine proportion, and the nave is covered with a barrel vault with penetrations admitting the light from clerestory windows. The churches of San Giorgio Maggiore (1556-1579), San Francesco della Vigna (1562), and II Redentore (1577), all in Venice, were designed by Palladio, the interior of the latter being the finest; the façade of the first named is the best-proportioned, but whether its design is due to Palladio, or to Scamozzi, who built it in 1610, is not known. A far finer church in its picturesque grouping and the originality of its design is that of Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal (1631), by Baldassare Longhena; the church is octagonal on plan, with aisles round, giving access to six recesses with altars and to an important eastern chapel with central dome. The central octagon is covered with a lofty dome with immense corbel buttresses of vigorous and fine design. The entrance portal of the west front is perhaps the best example of the period in Italy. Longhena also designed the Santa Maria degli Scalzi (1680), completed by Sardi in 1689, the latter being responsible for the heavy front of San Salvatore (1663), as also of the rich but somewhat debased church, in the Jesuit style, Santa Maria Zobenigo (1680-1683). only towards the close of the century we find the first actual results of the Classic Revival. The earlier palaces may be looked upon as transitional work, in which Gothic principles rule the design while the details are borrowed from classic sources. The intimate acquaintance with the proportions of the Classic orders and their ornamental detail shows that the designers of the earliest Renaissance palaces must have acquired their knowledge outside Venice. Among these designers we find the names of members of the Lombardi family (which, as the name suggests, come from Lombardy), who for three or four generations, either as architects or sculptors, would seem to have been the chief founders of the Renaissance style in Venice. One of these, Pietro Lombardo, has already been referred to as the designer of the church of the Miracoli, and to him is due the Vendramini-Calerghi palace on the Grand Canal (Plate IV., fig. 71), built Secular Architecture. In the application of the leading features of classical architectural design to palaces and mansions, the Italians had a much easier field on which to exercise their originality, as the requirements were very different from those which obtained in the middle ages. Moreover, the classic style lent itself more readily to the horizontal lines given by string courses, cornices and ranges of windows, which naturally exist in dwelling-houses on account of the various storeys. As in ecclesiastical, so in secular architecture, the first introduction of the Revival takes place in Florence, which was then the principal art centre of Italy, and the earliest examples are in a sense transitional, in that they are based on the earlier medieval work. As in the Palazzo Vecchio (1298) in Florence, and the Ricciarelli palace at Volterra (c. 1320), the rusticated masonry which gives them so fine a character forms the chief characteristic of the Riccardi and Strozzi palaces, the only changes being the substitution of a classic cornice of considerable projection in the place of the machicolations of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the employment of circular arches in the windows in the place of the pointed and curved arches. The earliest example, the Riccardi palace (1430), by Michelozzo (fig. 52), built for Cosimo de' Medici, is certainly the finest, owing partly to its size but more especially to the magnificent bossed and rusticated masonry of the ground storey and the bold projecting cornice, which crowns so admirably the whole structure. The lower two storeys of the main front of the Pitti palace were built by Brunelleschi in 1435, the return wings and court not being carried out till after 1550 from the designs of Ammanati; compared with the other Tuscan palaces the cornice is extremely poor and the whole front too monotonous. The beautiful court of the Palazzo Vecchio was reconstructed and decorated by Michelozzo in 1434. The From a photo by Alinari. Strozzi palace (1489), by Benedetto da Maiano and S. Pollajuolo, (Cronaca), comes next to the Riccardi as regards general design, but in comparison with it the windows are too small, and the want of a much bolder rustication, as provided in the latter, is much felt. Other examples of the same type are the Gondi (1481) and the Antinori palaces, by G. di Sangallo, and the Casa Larderel, all in Florence; the Spanochi (1470) and the Piccolomini (1460) palaces in Siena, and the Piccolomini palace (1490) in Pienza. In the Guadagni palace at Florence, by S. Pollajuolo, there is a third storey, consisting of an open gallery, which gives the depth of shadow otherwise afforded by the projecting cornice. In the Ruccellai palace (1460), by Alberti, the design is spoilt by the introduction of the classic pilasters at regular intervals on each storey, which suggest no structural object and have too little projection to give any effect of light and shade, so that it is only on account of the purity of their details that they are worth notice. The Pandolphini palace, the design of which is attributed to Raphael, carried out after his death by Sangallo, is a simple and unpretentious building of fine proportions: the Pall Mall façade of Sir Charles Barry's Travellers' Club in London is a reproduction of this palace. The Bartolini palace (1520), by Baccio d' Agnolo, is said to have been the first astylar example in which the Classic orders were employed only to decorate the entrance door and windows, but this had already been done in 1488 in the Scuola di San Marco in Venice.comic Throughout the greater part of the 15th century, the Venetian shti od slid lie sow FIG. 52. Riccardi Palace, Florence. in 1481, which in some respects is the finest example in Venice. It should be observed that all these palaces on the Grand Canal have an architectural frontage only, the flanks being built in plain masonry or brick stuccoed over, and with very poor, if any, dressings to the windows. This is well exemplified in the Vendramini palace, where there are gardens on each side, showing the total want of correlation between the rich architectural front and the poverty of the flanks. In a still earlier example, the Dario palace, one of the flanks borders on a side canal, so that its brick construction, partly covered with stucco, contrasts strangely with the rich marbles encrusting the main front. In the Dario palace the transition from Gothic to Renaissance is more clearly seen, as the only changes made are the substitution of circular window-heads for the Ogee Venetian arch, the projecting cornice with modillions, and more or less pure classic details. In the Vendramini palace the employment of the orders, to break up or subdivide the wall surface, has become a recognized treatment, based on the theatre of Marcellus and the Colosseum at Rome. On the ground storey there are panelled pilasters only, but on the first and second storeys three-quarter detached columns of the Corinthian order are employed, and the entablature is doubled in height with a bold projecting cornice, so as to crown properly the whole building. The semicircular-headed windows of the palace are filled with moulded tracery carried on columns in the centre of each, which must be looked upon as the classic version of the arcade of the Ducal palace. This feature is found in other early Renaissance work in Venice, as in the Scuola de San Rocco (1517), and the Cornaro Spinelli palace (1480). In the latter, probably also by Pietro Lombardo, there are pilasters only on the groins of the main front, and the window-heads are enclosed in square-headed frames. In the Scuola de San Marco (1488), by Lombardo, we find another type of window, single and lofty, with pilaster strips each side carrying an entablature with pediment. The same window decoration is found on the south and west fronts of the court of the Ducal palace and the external south front, and also in the Camerlenghi palace (1525), by Bergamasco and in other examples of early 16th-century work. In the Scuola de San Rocco the columnar decoration assumes much greater importance, and, in imitation of the triumphal arches of Septimus Severus and Constantine in Rome, the column is completely detached, with a wall-respond behind. Among other examples to be noted are the Cornaro-della-Grande palace (1532), by Sansovino, which is very inferior to his other work in Venice; the Grimani palace (1554), by San Michele (who also designed the fortifications of the Lido); the Zecca or mint (1537), the small loggetta (1540) at the foot of the campanile of St Mark's and now destroyed, and the Procuratie Nuove (completed by Scamozzi in 1584), all by Sansovino; the Balbi palace (1582), by Vittoria; and the Ponte Rialto (1588), by Antonio da Ponte. Sansovino's greatest work in Venice was the library of St Mark's, which was commenced in 1531; in this he has shown not only remarkable powers of design but great boldness in the projection of his columns, cornices and other architectural features. The upper frieze has been increased in height, so as to admit of the introduction of small windows to light an upper storey, and this gives much greater importance and dignity to the entablature crowning the whole structure. Two of the most imposing palaces on the Grand Canal, but of later date, are the Pesaro (1679) and the Rezzonico (1680), both by Longhena, the architect of the Salute church. The former is too much overcharged with ornament, but it has one advantage, the classic superimposed orders of the main front being repeated on the flank overlooking the side canal, with pilasters substituted for the detached columns of the main front. The Rezzonico palace is much quieter in design, and finer in its proportions, but even there the cherubs in the spandrils are too pronounced in their relief. | palace (1574) by Fontana (the architect who raised the obelisk in The villa of Pope Julius (1550), and the Costa palace, Rome, are Though he laid down no rules for the guidance of others, the works of San Michele are superior to those of Palladio, with the exception, perhaps, of the basilica at Vicenza and the library at Venice. In the Bevilacqua palace (1527), at Verona, there is far greater variety of design than in Palladio's work, and the Pompei palace (1530) and the two gateways at Verona (1533 and 1552) are all bold and simple early Renaissance, the Loggia del Consiglio (1476) by Fra Giocondo; a similar example with open gallery on the ground storey exists at Padua, where there is also the Giustiniani palace (1524) by Falconetto, an interesting example of a master not much known. The town hall of Brescia (1492) was built from the designs of Tommaso Formentone, who employed for the carving of the medallions on the lower storey, and the pilasters with their capitals and the friezes, various artists of high merit, so that the building takes its rank as one of the finest in north Italy, but independently of their collaboration the design of the first floor is in design and execution equal to Greek work. The upper storey and its circular windows are said to have been added by Palladio, and they are so commonplace and out of scale that by contrast they increase the artistic value of Formentone's work. The so-called Palazzo de' Diamanti at Ferrara, built in 1493 for Sigismondo d' Este, is decorated externally with a peculiar kind of rustication, in which the square face of the stones is bevelled towards the centre in imitation of diamond facets: the quoins of the palace have panelled pilasters richly carved, and similar pilasters flank the entrance door; the windows, with simple architrave mouldings and cornices on ground storey and pediments on the first storey, constitute the only architectural features of a novel treatment. In Rome there are no important examples of the 15th century, with the exception of the so-called "Venetian palace," which still retains externally the features of the feudal castle, such as machico-designs. In the same town is an extremely beautiful example of the lations, small windows and rusticated masonry. This was owing probably to the comparative poverty of the city, which had to recover from the disasters of the 14th century. The earliest example of the Renaissance is that of the Cancellaria palace (1495-1595), by Bramante, the architect of the church at Todi; this was followed by a second and less important example, the Giraud or Torlonia palace (1506). The former is an immense block, 300 ft. long and 76 ft. high, in three storeys, with coursed masonry and slightly bevelled joints, the upper two storeys decorated with Corinthian pilasters of slight projection and crowned with a poor cornice, so that its general effect is very monotonous, and the design is only relieved by the purity of its details, such as those of the window and balcony on the return flank. In 1506 Bramante was instructed to carry out the court of the Vatican, of which the great hemicycle at one end, designed in imitation of similar features in the Roman thermae, is an extremely fine example; to what extent he was responsible for the court of the Loggie, decorated by Raphael, is not known. The Villa Farnesina (1506), best known for its fresco decorations by Raphael and his pupils; the Ossoli palace (1525); and the Massimi palace (1532-1536), with magnificent interiors, were all built by Baldassare Peruzzi. The finest example in Rome is the Farnese palace, commenced in 1530 from the designs of Antonio di Sangallo; the design is astylar, as the employment of the orders is confined to the window dressings, the angles of the front having rusticated quoins; the upper storey, with the magnificent cornice which crowns the whole building, was designed by Michelangelo, and in the upper storey he introduced a feature borrowed from the Roman thermae, brackets supporting the three-quarter detached columns flanking the windows. The brilliance of the design is not confined to the exterior, and the entrance vestibule and the great central court are the finest examples in Rome. Here the upper storey added by Michelangelo is inferior to the two lower storeys by Sangallo. At Bologna there are two or three palaces of interest,-the Bevilacqua by Nardi (1484), chiefly remarkable for its central court surrounded with arcades, there being two arches on the upper storey to one on the lower, which presents a pleasant contrast and gives scale to the latter; the Fava palace (1484), in which on one side of the court are elaborately carved corbels carrying arches supporting an upper wall; and the Albergati palace (1521), by Peruzzi, in which the architectural decoration is confined to the entrance doorway windows flanked with pilasters and cornices in pediments and the entablatures of the ground and upper storeys, all the features being in stone on a background of simple brick construction. The Casa Tacconi is similarly treated. Many of the streets in Bologna have arcades on which the upper part of the house is built, and there is an endless variety in the capitals of these arcades. If the palaces of Genoa are disappointing as regards their external The museum in the Capitol at Rome, by Michelangelo (1546), is one of those examples in which the principles of design are violated by the suppression of the horizontal divisions of the storeys which it should have been an object to emphasize. By carrying immense Corinthian pilasters through the ground and first storeys, Michel-design, this is in some measure compensated for by the magnificence angelo, it is truc, obtained the entablature of the order as the chief crowning feature, and so far the result is a success, but in other hands it led to the decadence of the style. Among other examples in Rome which should be mentioned are the Villa Madama by Giulio Romano (1524); the Nicolini palace (1526) by Giacomo Sansovino; the Villa Medici (1540) by Annibale Lippi; the Chigi palace (1562) by G. de la Porta; the Spada palace (1564) by Mazzoni; the Quirinal of their entrance vestibules, which (with the staircases and the arcades in the courts beyond) are built in white marble, and have probably suggested the title of the "marble palaces of Cenoa." Many of these palaces are situated in narrow streets, so that no general view can be obtained of them, which may account for their exterior being erected in inferior materials with stucco facing. The ground storey of the palaces is almost always raised about 6 to 8 ft. above the street level. |
