How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

Palladio.—In some degree a contributor to this decadence, through the misuse of his example by others, was Andrea Palladio (1518-1580), a native of Vicenza, where his most characteristic work is to be seen. In youth he studied the writings of the Roman author, Vitruvius, and of Alberti, and familiarised himself with the classic style by study in Rome. His own work, “The Four Books of Architecture,” which contains measured drawings of antique buildings many of which have since disappeared, had a wide and great influence upon architectural development throughout Europe. In England, for example, it was translated and furnished with notes by Inigo Jones, whose own style was largely based on Palladio’s.

The latter’s work is chiefly associated with Vicenza, where his most important example, considered also his best, is seen in the double-storied arcades, added to the Mediæval Basilica. In the lower story he introduced the Doric order; in the upper, the Ionic; and, in both instances, supported the arches on small columns, while large engaged columns, acting as buttresses, occupy the centre of the spaces between the arches. This treatment has been known since as the Palladian motive. These imposing and beautiful arcades were executed in fine stone, whereas through no fault, it is believed, of the architect, his palaces in Vicenza are mostly of brick, with stucco front that has suffered from decay. They include the Palazzo Capitania and the Palazzo Barbarano, and the Villa Rotonda which was freely imitated by the English amateur architect, Lord Burlington (1695-1753) in his villa at Chiswick on the Thames. Palladio’s design of the Villa Rotonda is a square building fronted on all four sides by a portico, surmounted by a pediment, the roofing of the square sloping up to a low dome which crowns the central rotunda. At the end of his life he designed the Teatro Olympico of Vicenza, which was completed after his death by Scamozzi. In this he followed the directions of Vitruvius, but introduced features of his own, among which is the interesting one of an architectural background to the stage, built in perspective. Palladio executed work also in Venice, the churches of Il Redentore and S. Giorgio Maggiore being from his design, though the façade of the latter was by Scamozzi.

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECTS OF THE VENETIAN RENAISSANCE.

The Venetians had developed a beautiful type of Gothic, touched, through their relations with the East, by Byzantine influence. It was admirably suited to the social requirements and taste of a community of merchant princes and wealthy middle-class, comparatively removed by geographical position from the confusion of the times. For the wars of Venice, conducted on foreign soil, left her unscathed, and during the fifteenth century she reached the zenith of her commercial glory. But the decline set in, when her trade with the Levant was blocked by the Turkish occupation of Constantinople in 1453, and it was confirmed by the passing of her Eastern commerce to the Portuguese, following Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the Cape of Good Hope route to India (1497-1503). But during the sixteenth century, though menaced both by the Emperor Charles V and the French king, Francis I, and engaged in almost perpetual struggle with the Turks, Venice maintained a splendid isolation and reached the height of her artistic development.

The gradual modification of the Gothic style was effected by the introduction of Classic features, especially at first of a decorative character. One of the earliest examples of this transition is the fine Portal of the Doge’s Palace, adjoining S. Marco, which was erected by Giovanni and Bartolommeo Buon, who share with the Lombardi the chief place in the early Venetian Renaissance.

The Lombardi.—This celebrated family of architects became known in the person of a certain Martino who had two sons, Moro and Pietro (1435-1515), and two grandsons by the latter, Antonio and Tullio. To Martino belongs the façade of S. Zaccaria, the design of which was developed in Pietro’s treatment of the beautiful little church of S. Maria dei Miracoli. Its plan is an oblong, terminating in a square chancel which is elevated considerably above the nave and is crowned by a dome. The façade is decorated with two stories of engaged columns, dividing the surface into panels which are encrusted with coloured marbles, while the whole is surmounted by a semicircular pediment. The carved details are of exquisite refinement. This choiceness of decorative treatment reappears in the façade of the Scuolo de S. Marco, which was also by Pietro, who further proved himself to be the most accomplished member of the Lombardi by his façade of the Vendramini Palace.

Sansovino.—The full development of the Renaissance style in Venice is chiefly associated with Jacopo Sansovino (1477-1570). A pupil of the Florentine sculptor, Andrea Sansovino, from whom he took his name, he was at first employed by Julius II to restore antique statues and also to make the bronze reproduction of the Laocoön group, which is now in the Uffizi. After working in Florence and again in Rome, from which city he fled when it was sacked by the Germans, Sansovino reached Venice in 1527 and was welcomed by Titian and Pietro Aretino. Here from time to time he still produced indifferent sculpture, but became distinguished as an architect, his most important works being the Library of S. Marco, the Zecca or Mint, the Cornaro Palace, and the Church of S. Giorgio del Greci—the last-named, erected by the Greek residents, being a remarkable evidence of the tolerant spirit of the Venetians in the matter of religion. In 1545 the roof of Sansovino’s library collapsed and he was fined, imprisoned, and deprived of his office of chief architect of S. Marco. He was, however, reinstated through the intercession of Titian, Aretino, and other powerful friends and in the course of his duties reinforced the domes with bands of iron.

The free invention with which Sansovino used the Classic orders and the vigour and richness of his façades set the fashion for a sumptuousness of style that in his hands had an imposing magnificence, but in his followers degenerated into excess.

Sammichele.—Since Michele Sammichele (1484-1559) designed the Gvimane Palace in Venice, considered his masterpiece, and was also employed by the Signoria to construct the fortifications of the Lido, he may be mentioned here, but his chief work is associated with Verona. Born near the latter city, in the village of San Michele, the son of an architect, he was sent as a youth to Rome to study Classic sculpture and architecture. Among his earliest works is the uncompleted Cathedral of Montefiascone. His fame as a military architect was established when he remodelled the fortifications of Verona, introducing the new system of corner bastions and giving grandeur to the gateways by the use of rusticated masonry—a feature which he used effectively in his palace designs. The finest of these in his native city are the Canossa, Bevilacqua, and Pompeii Palaces. He wrote a work on “The Five Orders of Architecture.”

Scamozzi.—Scamozzi has already been mentioned as adding the façade to Palladio’s Church of S. Giorgio Maggiore. That his name disappears from Venetian architecture is due to the fact that he was one of the Italian artists who carried the Renaissance into Bohemia, and designed parts of the Hradschin palace in Prague.