A great activity in church-building marked the period between 1475 and 1490. The plans of the churches erected about this time throughout north Italy display an interesting variety of arrangements, in nearly all of which the dome is combined with the three-aisled cruciform plan, either as a central feature at the crossing or as a domical vault over each bay. Bologna and Ferrara possess a number of churches of this kind. Occasionally the basilican arrangement was followed, with columnar arcades separating the aisles. More often, however, the pier-arches were of the Roman type, with engaged columns or pilasters between them. The interiors, presumably intended to receive painted decorations, were in most cases somewhat bare of ornament, pleasing rather by happy proportions and effective vaulting or rich flat ceilings, panelled, painted and gilded, than by elaborate architectural detail. A similar scantiness of ornament is to be remarked in the exteriors, excepting the façades, which were sometimes highly ornate; the doorways, with columns, pediments, sculpture and carving, receiving especial attention. High external domes did not come into general use until the next period. In Milan, Pavia, and some other Lombard cities, the internal cupola over the crossing was, however, covered externally by a lofty structure in diminishing stages, like that of the Certosa at Pavia (Fig. 152), or that erected by Bramante for the church of S. M. delle Grazie at Milan. At Prato, in the church of the Madonna delle Carceri (1495–1516), by Giuliano da S. Gallo, the type of the Pazzi chapel reappears in a larger scale; the plan is cruciform, with equal or nearly equal arms covered by barrel vaults, at whose intersection rises a dome of moderate height on pendentives. This charming edifice, with its unfinished exterior of white marble, its simple and dignified lines, and internal embellishments in della-Robbia ware, is one of the masterpieces of the period.
FIG. 161.—INTERIOR OF S. SPIRITO, FLORENCE.
In the designing of chapels and oratories the architects of the early Renaissance attained conspicuous success, these edifices presenting fewer structural limitations and being more purely decorative in character than the larger churches. Such façades as that of S. Bernardino at Perugia and of the Frati di S. Spirito at Bologna are among the most delightful products of the decorative fancy of the 15th century.
FIG. 162.—COURTYARD OF RICCARDI PALACE, FLORENCE.
FLORENTINE PALACES. While the architects of this period failed to develop any new and thoroughly satisfactory ecclesiastical type, they attained conspicuous success in palace-architecture. The Riccardi palace in Florence (1430) marks the first step of the Renaissance in this direction. It was built for the great Cosimo di Medici by Michelozzi (1397–1473), a contemporary of Brunelleschi and Alberti, and a man of great talent. Its imposing rectangular façade, with widely spaced mullioned windows in two stories over a massive basement, is crowned with a classic cornice of unusual and perhaps excessive size. In spite of the bold and fortress-like character of the rusticated masonry of these façades, and the mediæval look they seem to present to modern eyes, they marked a revolution in style and established a type frequently imitated in later years. The courtyard, in contrast with this stern exterior, appears light and cheerful (Fig. 162). Its wall is carried on round arches borne by columns with Corinthianesque capitals, and the arcade is enriched with sculptured medallions. The Pitti Palace, by Brunelleschi (1435), embodies the same ideas on a more colossal scale, but lacks the grace of an adequate cornice. A lighter and more ornate style appeared in 1460 in the P. Rucellai, by Alberti, in which for the first time classical pilasters in superposed stages were applied to a street façade. To avoid the dilemma of either insufficiently crowning the edifice or making the cornice too heavy for the upper range of pilasters, Alberti made use of brackets, occupying the width of the upper frieze, and converting the whole upper entablature into a cornice. But this compromise was not quite successful, and it remained for later architects in Venice, Verona, and Rome to work out more satisfactory methods of applying the orders to many-storied palace façades. In the great P. Strozzi (Fig. 163), erected in 1490 by Benedetto da Majano and Cronaca, the architects reverted to the earlier type of the P. Riccardi, treating it with greater refinement and producing one of the noblest palaces of Italy.