The great staircases might have served more immediately as models; but he had peculiar ideas on this subject, which interfered with his admiration of those usually deemed most excellent. “Where scenic effect was given by various flights of steps, arcades, and columns, he seemed to think that space was sacrificed and a grand hall spoilt. He did not like to see ‘steps hanging in the air’ or supported by cumbrous walls; and sudden changes in the direction of the flights annoyed him. His ideal staircase was a grand straight flight, the whole space, however great, being occupied by the steps; but if this were impossible, he required that all that could be seen at one view should be straight, and preferred the staircase, so common in Italy, where each separate flight is enclosed in solid walls.”
In Italy he first acquired that liking for visible roofs, which he afterwards showed, both in his Italian and Gothic works. He approved of them, because, being essential features, they ought not to be concealed; because, in fact, their visible appearance was the proof that the building was covered and was not a mere shell.
“To rustic work he had at first a great aversion. In substruction it might be tolerated, but elsewhere its employment seemed to him indefensible, and a rusticated column monstrous.” His admiration for Sanmicheli’s works, especially that at Lido, first shook his determination; at home his delight in the work of Inigo Jones carried on the process of conversion; and he himself afterwards used what at this time he would have proscribed.
His study of the Italian palaces was minute and elaborate, and produced the greatest effect upon his own future works. The great churches, though not less carefully studied, had less direct influence. The Gothic revival in England had begun to make itself felt, and his thoughts were already turned in that direction, although he had probably at this time less knowledge of Gothic than of any other style. He was not then, nor did he ever become, an admirer of Italian Gothic. None of its forms appeared to him to be free from the characteristics of other recognised styles; some appeared corrupt Roman, others impure Gothic; and not even the eloquence and ability of their modern advocates could make him approve their revival.
But the great churches, though they could hardly be models for imitation, yet demanded admiration and criticism.
St. Peter’s disappointed him greatly in its elevation. He thought it had “a confused appearance and want of simple grandeur;” that “the openings in the centre were too crowded,” and that “the three-quarter columns, always objectionable, did not afford sufficient relief.” The details he greatly disliked. He noticed especially the want of apparent size in a building, one of the largest in the world, and accounted for it by the presence of colossal figures on the top of the façade, without anything to give the true scale,[21] by the want of sufficient projection in the front, and the enormous size of the windows, and by the impossibility of seeing any great part of the dome from the piazza, whence alone the whole substructure was visible. On the whole he much preferred the exterior of St. Paul’s, in spite of the “piling of order upon order,” which was a departure from Wren’s original design; he preferred its regularity of design to “the complicated front and lofty attic of St. Peter’s;” he thought the circular peristyle of columns under the dome far finer than the corresponding substructure in the other case; and, if only the churchyard could be enlarged, he thought that its complete insulation, and the fine perspective views which it offers, gave it a decided advantage in position and apparent grandeur.
It was far otherwise with the general effect of the interior of St. Peter’s. Its magnificent size, satisfying his love of spaciousness, its beautiful proportions and simplicity of design, its richness and completeness of decoration, producing a sense of harmony and perfection, seized his imagination at once, and seemed to “leave nothing to be desired.” Its details he thought unworthy of special notice; but not so its decoration. The decoration of the dome delighted him; but the gem in his eyes was the baptistery. There the arrangement of marbles and mosaics seemed perfect, both in colour and form; it constantly recurred to him in designing, and had much to do with fixing his taste for that gorgeous kind of decoration. He delighted also in the gilding of the vault. Being wholly gilt (either dead or burnished gold), it seemed not gilt, but golden. This was to him real magnificence; “parcel-gilding” was gaudy, and he held it in contempt. This vault and the ceiling of Sta. Maria Maggiore were models which he would have gladly followed in his designs, and it was with reluctance that he gave up the idea of making the roof of his House of Lords all gold.
The piazza in front of St. Peter’s, with its semicircular colonnades and magnificent fountains, greatly impressed him. The remembrance of it constantly floated before his memory as the ideal of the proper treatment of such a spot; and he long cherished a hope of realizing his ideal in London.[22]
The portico of the Pantheon he thought perfect in plan, and magnificent in effect. He admired its great depth, the increase of this in the centre, and above all the disposition of the inner columns, which gave apparent stability and variety of effect, without confusing the eye or obstructing the approach. He never could endure a portico which was shallow, or which had no inner columns, or which had the wall, the background of the columns, broken up by windows. But the junction to the circular building appeared to him unhappy. In fact he objected in toto to the treatment of a portico as a mere porch, thinking that in all cases the portico should be a continuation of the main building.[23] The interior he used to quote as the finest example in the world of the grandeur of a dome, when sufficiently large, and sufficiently near the eye to be comprehended in one glance. Domes like that of St. Peter’s, which could only be seen by a painful throwing back of the neck, seemed to him wrong in principle. For at all times he held, that interiors should be so contrived that a spectator on entering should see enough of the design to enable him to comprehend the whole, and that, when this was not the case, there was a distraction of thought, fatal to any striking effect.
The exterior of the cathedral at Florence seemed to him grand only in size, “unworthy to be compared with our best Gothic cathedrals;” and the arrangement of black and white marbles such as to destroy both massiveness of general effect and beauty of form in its various parts. The dome, as the largest in the world, and the first constructed after St. Sophia, called for attentive study, especially in construction; but it convinced him that “polygonal domes should be avoided, especially when ribbed and of few sides. If, on looking directly at the dome, you do not see exactly an equal portion of the two remote sides, the perspective gives an untrue figure; and when the ribs are prominent and far removed from each other, this effect is increased.” The general architecture seemed to him a vicious mixture of Roman and Gothic, though details, especially the beautiful external cornice running round the building, were worthy of study and admiration.