ITALY AND SICILY.—TOPOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
GOTHIC architecture in Italy may be considered as a foreign importation. The Italians, it is true, displayed their natural taste and artistic instinct in their use of the style, and a large number of their works possess, as we shall see, strongly-marked characteristics and much charm; but it is impossible to avoid the feeling that the architects were working in a style not thoroughly congenial to their instincts nor to the traditions they had inherited from classical times; and not entirely in harmony with the requirements of the climate and the nature of their building materials.
Italian Gothic may be conveniently considered geographically, dividing the buildings into three groups, the first and most important containing the architecture of Northern Italy (Lombardy, Venetia, and the neighbourhood), the second that of Central Italy (Tuscany, &c.), the third that of the south and of Sicily—a classification which will suit the subject better than the chronological arrangement which has been our guide in examining the art of other countries; for the variations occasioned by development as time went on are less strongly marked in Italy than elsewhere.
Northern Italy.
Lombardy in the Romanesque period was thoroughly under German influence, and the buildings remaining to us from the eleventh and twelfth centuries bear a close resemblance to those erected north of the Alps at the same date. The twelfth century Lombard churches again are specimens of round-arched Gothic, just as truly as those on the banks of the Rhine. Many of them are also peculiar as being erected chiefly in brickwork; the great alluvial plain of Lombardy being deficient in building-stone. St. Michele at Pavia, a well-known church of this date, may be cited as a good example. This is a vaulted church, with an apsidal east end and transepts. The round arch is employed in this building, but the general proportions and treatment are essentially Gothic. A striking campanile (bell tower) belongs to the church, and is a good specimen of a feature very frequently met with in Lombardy; the tower here (and usually) is square, and rises by successive stages, but with only few and small openings or ornaments, to a considerable height. There are no buttresses, no diminution of bulk, no staircase turrets. At the summit is an open belfry-stage, with large semicircular-headed arches, crowned by a cornice and a low-pitched conical roof.[25]
In the same city a good example of an Italian Gothic church, erected after the pointed arch had been introduced, may be found in the church of Sta. Maria del Carmine. The west front of this church is but clumsy in general design. Its width is divided into five compartments by flat buttresses. The gables are crowned by a deep and heavy cornice of moulded brick and the openings are grouped with but little skill. Individually, however, the features of this front are very beautiful, and the great wheel-window, full of tracery, and the two-light windows flanking it, may be quoted as remarkable specimens of the ornamental elaboration which can be accomplished in brickwork.
The campanile of this church, like the one just described, is a plain square tower. It rises by successive stages, each taller than the last, each stage being marked by a rich brick cornice. The belfry-stage has on each face a three-light window, with a traceried head, and above the cornice the square tower is finished by a tall conical roof, circular on plan, an arrangement not unfrequently met with.
The Certosa, the great Carthusian Church and Monastery near Pavia,[26] best known by the elaborate marble front added in a different style about a century after the erection of the main building, is a good example of a highly-enriched church, with dependencies, built in brickwork, and possessing most of the distinctive peculiarities of a great Gothic church, except the general use of the pointed arch. It was begun in 1396, and is consistent in its exterior architecture, the front excepted, though it took a long time to build. Attached to it are two cloisters, of which the arches are semicircular, and the enrichments, of wonderful beauty, are modelled in terra-cotta.
This church resembles the great German round-arched Gothic churches on the Rhine in many of its features. Its plan includes a nave, with aisles and side chapels, transepts and a choir. The eastern arm and the transepts are each ornamented by an apse, somewhat smaller than would be met with in a German church; but as a compensation each of these three arms has two side apses, as well as the one at the end. The exterior possesses the German arcade of little arches immediately under the eaves of the roof; it is marked by the same multiplicity of small towers, each with its own steep roof; and it possesses the same striking central feature, internally a small dome, externally a kind of light pyramidal structure, ornamented by small arcades rising tier above tier, and ending in a central pointed roof.
The finest Gothic cathedral in North Italy, if dimensions, general effectiveness, and beauty of material be the test, is that of Milan. This building is disfigured by a west front in a totally inappropriate style, but apart from this it is virtually a German church of the first class, erected entirely in white marble, and covered with a profusion of decoration. Its dimensions show that, with the exception of Seville, this was the largest of all the Gothic cathedrals of Europe. It has double aisles, transepts, and a polygonal apse. At the crossing of the nave and transepts a low dome rises, covered by a conical roof, and surmounted by an elegant marble spire.
The structure is vaulted throughout, and each of the great piers which carry the nave arcade is surmounted by a mass of niches and tabernacle work, occupied by statues—a splendid substitute for ordinary capitals. The interior effect of Milan Cathedral is grand and full of beauty. The exterior, though much of its power is destroyed by the weakly-designed ornament with which all the surfaces of the walls are covered, is endowed with a wonderful charm. This building was commenced in the year 1385, and consecrated in the year 1418. The details of the window-tracery, pinnacles, &c. (but not the statues which are of Italian character), correspond very closely to those of German buildings erected at the same period (close of the fourteenth century).
Milan possesses, among other examples of pointed architecture, one secular building, the Great Hospital, well known for its Gothic façade. This hospital was founded in 1456, and most of it is of later date and of renaissance character; the street front of two storeys in height, with pointed arches, is very rich. The church of Chiaravalle, near Milan, which has been more than once illustrated and described, ought not to be passed unnoticed, on account of the beauty of its fully developed central dome. It was built in the early part of the thirteenth century (1221).
Almost all the great cities of North Italy possess striking Gothic buildings. Genoa, for instance, can boast of her cathedral, with a front in alternate courses of black and white marble, dating from about the year 1300, and full of beauty; the details bearing much resemblance to the best Western Gothic work. Passing eastward, Verona possesses a wealth of Gothic work in the well-known tombs of the Scaligers, the churches of Sta. Anastasia, San Zenone, and several minor churches and campaniles; and at Como, Bergamo, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Cremona, Bologna, and many other cities and towns, good churches of pointed architecture are to be found.
Our illustration (Fig. [50]) of the ancient Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona, is a good specimen of the secular architecture of North Italy. Originally the lower storey was a loggia, or open arcaded storey, but the arches have been built up. Telling, simple, and graceful, this building owes its effect chiefly to its well-designed openings and a characteristic brick cornice. It is entirely without buttresses, has no spreading base, no gables, and no visible roof: some of these features would have been present had it been designed and erected north of the Alps.
Fig. 50.—The Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona.
Venice is the city in the whole of North Italy where Gothic architecture has had freest scope and has achieved the greatest success, not, however, in ecclesiastical, but in secular buildings. The great Cathedral of St. Mark, perhaps the most wonderful church in Europe, certainly the foremost in Italy, is a Byzantine building, and though it has received some additions in Gothic times, does not fairly come within the scope of this volume; and the Gothic churches of Venice are not very numerous nor, with the exception of the fine brick church of the Frari, extremely remarkable. On the banks of the Grand Canal and its tributaries, however, stand not a few Gothic palaces of noble design (see Fig. [9], p. 18), while the Ducal Palace itself alone is sufficient to confer a reputation upon the city which it adorns.
The Ducal Palace at Venice is a large rectangular block of buildings erected round a vast quadrangle. Of its exterior two sides only are visible from a distance, one being the sea front looking over the lagoon, and the other the land front directed towards the piazzetta. Rather less than one half the height of each front is occupied by two storeys of arcades; the lower storey bold, simple, and vigorous; the upper storey lighter, and ending in a mass of bold tracery. Above this open work, and resting upon it, rises the external wall of the palace, faced with marble in alternate slabs of rose-colour and white, pierced by a few large pointed windows and crowned by an open parapet. Few buildings are so familiar, even to untravelled persons, as this fine work, which owes its great charm to the extent, beauty, and mingled solidity and grace of its arcades, and to the fine sculpture by which the capitals from which they spring are enriched.
The Gothic palaces are almost invariably remarkable for the skill with which the openings in their fronts are arranged and designed. It was not necessary to render any other part of the exterior specially architectural, as the palaces stand side by side like houses in a modern street, as can be seen from our illustration (Fig. [9]). In almost all cases a large proportion of the openings are grouped together in the centre of the front, and the sides are left comparatively plain and strong-looking, the composition presenting a centre and two wings. By this simple expedient each portion of the composition is made to add emphasis to the other, and a powerful but not inharmonious contrast between the open centre and the solid sides is called into existence. The earliest Gothic buildings in point of date are often the most delicate and graceful, and this rule holds good in the Gothic palaces of Venice; yet one of the later palaces, the Ca’ d’Oro, must be at least named on account of the splendid richness of its marble front—of which, however, only the centre and one wing is built—and the beauty of the ornament lavishly employed upon it.
The balconies, angle windows, and other minor features with which the Venetian Gothic palaces abound, are among the most graceful features of the architecture of Italy.
Central Italy.
Those towns of Central Italy (by which is meant Tuscany and the former States of the Church), in which the best Gothic buildings are to be found, are Pisa, Lucca, Florence, Siena, Orvieto, and Perugia. As a general rule the Gothic work in this district is more developed and more lavishly enriched than that in Lombardy.
In Pisa, the Cathedral and the Campanile (the famous leaning tower) belong to the late Romanesque style, but the Baptistry, an elegant circular building, has a good deal of Gothic ornament in its upper storeys, and may be fairly classed as a transitional building. The most charming and thoroughly characteristic work of Gothic architecture in Pisa is, however, a small gem of a chapel, the church of Sta. Maria della Spina. It displays exquisite ornament, and, notwithstanding much false construction, the beauty of its details, of its sculpture, and of the marble of which it is built, invest it with a great charm.
Pisan Gothic is remarkable as being associated with the name of a family of highly gifted sculptors and architects, the Pisani, of whom Nicola Pisano was the earliest and greatest artist; he was followed by his descendants Giovanni, Nino, and Andrea. With the Pisani and Giotto the series of the known names of architects of great buildings may be said to begin.
Florence, the most important of the cities we have named, is distinguished by a cathedral built in the early part of the fourteenth century, and one of the grandest in Italy. It has very few columns, and its walls and vaults are of great height. The walls are adorned externally with inlays in coloured marble, and the windows have stained glass—a rarity in Italy; but its lofty dome, added after the completion of the rest of the building, is its chief feature. This was always intended, but the pointed octagonal dome actually erected by Brunelleschi, between the years 1420 and 1444, though it harmonises fairly well with the general lines of the building, and forms, as can be seen from our illustration (Fig. [51]), a striking object in all distant views of the city, is probably very different from what was originally intended. Near the cathedral stand the Baptistry, famous for the possession of the finest gates in the world, and the Campanile of Giotto. This tower is built, or at least faced, entirely [!-- original location of Fig. 51 --] with marble; and when it is stated that its height is not far short of that of the Victoria Tower of our Houses of Parliament, though of slenderer proportions, it will be seen that it is magnificently liberal in its general scheme. The tower is covered with panels of variously coloured marbles from base to summit, and enriched by fine sculpture. The angles are strengthened by slightly projecting piers. The windows are comparatively small till the highest or belfry stage is reached, and here each face of the tower is pierced by a magnificent three-light window. A deep and elaborate cornice now crowns the whole, but it was originally designed to add a high-pitched roof or a spire as a terminal.
Fig. 51.—The Cathedral at Florence. With Giotto’s Campanile. (Begun, 1298; Dome, 1420-1444; Campanile begun, 1324.)
Our illustration (Fig. [52]) shows the west front and campanile of the Cathedral at Siena, an exceedingly good specimen of the beauties and peculiarities of the style. This building was commenced in 1243. The plan is simple but singular, for the central feature is a six-sided dome, at the crossing of the nave and transepts; and some ingenuity has been spent in fitting this figure to the arches of the main avenues of the building. The interior is rich and effective; the exterior, as can be seen by the illustration, is covered with ornament, and the front is the richest and probably the best designed of all the cathedral fronts of Central Italy. The strongly-marked horizontal lines of cornices, arcades, &c., the moulded gables, the great wheel-window set in a square panel, and the use of marble of various colours, are all points to note. So is the employment of the semicircular arch for the doorways of this thoroughly Gothic building. The campanile is a good example of that feature, except that instead of the rich window which usually occupies the belfry stage, or highest storey, two storeys of small lights have been formed. The [!-- original location of Fig. 52 --] introduction of angle turrets is not very usual, and it here supplies a deficiency which makes itself felt in other campaniles, where the junction of tower and spire is not always happy.
Fig. 52.—Cathedral at Siena. West Front and Campanile. (Façade begun 1284.)
Gothic churches of importance can be found in many of the cities and towns of Central Italy. None are more remarkable than the singular double church of St. Francis at Assisi, with its wealth of mural paintings and stained glass, and the cathedral at Orvieto (Fig. [53]) with its splendid front.
In Rome, so rich in specimens of the architecture of many styles and times, Gothic could find no footing; the one solitary church which can be claimed as Gothic may be taken as an exception. And south of the Capital there lies a considerable tract of country, containing few if any examples of the style we are considering.
Southern Italy.
Southern Italy is conveniently grouped with Sicily, but the mainland is deficient in examples of Gothic buildings. The old towns of Apulia indeed, such as Bari, Bitonto and Brindisi, possess an architecture which the few who have had an opportunity of examining, declare to be surpassingly rich in its decoration, but it is for the most part Romanesque.
The Gothic work remaining in and about Naples is most of it extremely florid, and often rich, but seldom possesses the grace and charm of that which exists further north.
Sicily shows the picturesquely mixed results of a complication of agencies which have not affected the mainland, and is accordingly an interesting field for architectural study. The island was first under Byzantine influence; was next occupied and held by the Saracens; and was later seized and for some time retained by the Normans.
Fig. 53.—The Cathedral at Orvieto. (Begun 1290; Façade, 1310.)
The most striking early Gothic building in Sicily is the richly adorned cathedral of Monreale, commenced in the twelfth century. Here very simple pointed arches are made use of, as the entire surface of the interior is covered with mosaic pictures of Norman origin. The small Capella Palatina in Palermo itself is of the same simple and early architectural character, and adorned with equally magnificent mosaics. In these buildings the splendour of the colouring is only equalled by the vigorous and often pathetic power with which the stories of sacred history are embodied in these mosaics. The cathedral of Cefalu is a building bearing a general resemblance to that at Monreale, but not enriched in the same manner.
Of the fourteenth century are the richly ornamented cathedral of Palermo and that of Messina. The latter has been so much altered as to have lost a good deal of its interest; but at Palermo there is much that is striking and almost unique. This building has little in common with the works of northern or central Italy, and not much more alliance with the Gothic of North Europe. It is richly panelled and decorated, but its most striking feature is its bold arcaded portal.