How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

We are also prepared to find that as the study of classic examples lost the freshness of its early inspiration, it led to a growing formalism in the use of the classic details; and that, as the temper of the time declined in taste and grew in grossness, the architectural style reflected the decadence in increasing pretentiousness and extravagance of forms.

The Renaissance proper, in so far as the term New-birth is justified, occupies the fifteenth century, the period called by the Italians the Quattrocento. To the first half of the sixteenth century, the Cinquecento, belongs the more formally classic style, after which appeared the decline of the latter half of the century, known as the Baroque style, followed during the seventeenth century by the further degeneration into the Rococo.

PAZZI CHAPEL

By Brunelleschi: in S. Croce, Florence. [P. 343]

SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE

By Alberti. Earliest Example of Flaring Consoles. [P. 345]