FIG. 163.—FAÇADE OF STROZZI PALACE, FLORENCE.
COURTYARDS; ARCADES. These palaces were all built around interior courts, whose walls rested on columnar arcades, as in the P. Riccardi (Fig. 162). The origin of these arcades may be found in the arcaded cloisters of mediæval monastic churches, which often suggest classic models, as in those of St. Paul-beyond-the-Walls and St. John Lateran at Rome. Brunelleschi not only introduced columnar arcades into a number of cloisters and palace courts, but also used them effectively as exterior features in the Loggia S. Paolo and the Foundling Hospital (Ospedale degli Innocenti) at Florence. The chief drawback in these light arcades was their inability to withstand the thrust of the vaulting over the space behind them, and the consequent recourse to iron tie-rods where vaulting was used. The Italians, however, seemed to care little about this disfigurement.
MINOR WORKS. The details of the new style were developed quite as rapidly in purely decorative works as in monumental buildings. Altars, mural monuments, tabernacles, pulpits and ciboria afforded scope for the genius of the most distinguished artists. Among those who were specially celebrated in works of this kind should be named Lucca della Robbia (1400–82) and his successors, Mino da Fiesole (1431–84) and Benedetto da Majano (1442–97). Possessed of a wonderful fertility of invention, they and their pupils multiplied their works in extraordinary number and variety, not only throughout north Italy, but also in Rome and Naples. Among the most famous examples of this branch of design may be mentioned a pulpit in Sta. Croce by B. da Majano; a terra-cotta fountain in the sacristy of S. M. Novella, by the della Robbias; the Marsupini tomb in Sta. Croce, by Desiderio da Settignano (all in Florence); the della Rovere tomb in S. M. del Popolo, Rome, by Mino da Fiesole, and in the Cathedral at Lucca the Noceto tomb and the Tempietto, by Matteo Civitali. It was in works of this character that the Renaissance oftenest made its first appearance in a new centre, as was the case in Sienna, Pisa, Lucca, Naples, etc.
FIG. 164.—TOMB OF PIETRO DI NOCETO, LUCCA.
NORTH ITALY. Between 1450 and 1490 the Renaissance presented in Sienna, in a number of important palaces, a sharp contrast to the prevalent Gothic style of that city. The P. Piccolomini—a somewhat crude imitation of the P. Riccardi in Florence—dates from 1463; the P. del Governo was built 1469, and the Spannocchi Palace in 1470. In 1463 Ant. Federighi built there the Loggia del Papa. About the same time Bernardo di Lorenzo was building for Pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini) an entirely new city, Pienza, with a cathedral, archbishop’s palace, town hall and Papal residence (the P. Piccolomini), which are interesting if not strikingly original works. Pisa possesses few early Renaissance structures, owing to the utter prostration of her fortunes in the 15th century, and the dominance of Pisan Gothic traditions. In Lucca, besides a wealth of minor monuments (largely the work of Matteo Civitali, 1435–1501) in various churches, a number of palaces date from this period, the most important being the P. Pretorio and P. Bernardini. To Milan the Renaissance was carried by the Florentine masters Michelozzi and Filarete, to whom are respectively due the Portinari Chapel in S. Eustorgio (1462) and the earlier part of the great Ospedale Maggiore (1457). In the latter, an edifice of brick with terra-cotta enrichments, the windows were Gothic in outline—an unusual mixture of styles, even in Italy. The munificence of the Sforzas, the hereditary tyrants of the province, embellished the semi-Gothic Certosa of Pavia with a new marble façade, begun 1476 or 1491, which in its fanciful and exuberant decoration, and the small scale of its parts, belongs properly to the early Renaissance. Exquisitely beautiful in detail, it resembles rather a magnified altar-piece than a work of architecture, properly speaking. Bologna and Ferrara developed somewhat late in the century a strong local school of architecture, remarkable especially for the beauty of its courtyards, its graceful street arcades, and its artistic treatment of brick and terra-cotta (P. Bevilacqua, P. Fava, at Bologna; P. Scrofa, P. Roverella, at Ferrara). About the same time palaces with interior arcades and details in the new style were erected in Verona, Vicenza, Mantua, and other cities.
VENICE. In this city of merchant princes and a wealthy bourgeoisie, the architecture of the Renaissance took on a new aspect of splendor and display. It was late in appearing, the Gothic style with its tinge of Byzantine decorative traditions having here developed into a style well suited to the needs of a rich and relatively tranquil community. These traditions the architects of the new style appropriated in a measure, as in the marble incrustations of the exquisite little church of S. M. dei Miracoli (1480–89), and the façade of the Scuola di S. Marco (1485–1533), both by Pietro Lombardo. Nowhere else, unless on the contemporary façade of the Certosa at Pavia, were marble inlays and delicate carving, combined with a framework of thin pilasters, finely profiled entablatures and arched pediments, so lavishly bestowed upon the street fronts of churches and palaces. The family of the Lombardi (Martino, his sons Moro and Pietro, and grandsons Antonio and Tullio), with Ant. Bregno and Bart. Buon, were the leaders in the architectural Renaissance of this period, and to them Venice owes her choicest masterpieces in the new style. Its first appearance is noted in the later portions of the church of S. Zaccaria (1456–1515), partly Gothic internally, with a façade whose semicircular pediment and small decorative arcades show a somewhat timid but interesting application of classic details. In this church, and still more so in S. Giobbe (1451–93) and the Miracoli above mentioned, the decorative element predominates throughout. It is hard to imagine details more graceful in design, more effective in the swing of their movement, or more delicate in execution than the mouldings, reliefs, wreaths, scrolls, and capitals one encounters in these buildings. Yet in structural interest, in scale and breadth of planning, these early Renaissance Venetian buildings hold a relatively inferior rank.