Character of Renaissance Architecture

by Charles Herbert Moore

Fig. 31.—Plan of St. Peter’s, from Fontana.

The lack of due effect of scale in this interior has been often remarked, and it is generally attributed to the great magnitude of the structural parts. The size of these parts could not, however, well be different from what they are. Their magnitude is determined by the scale of the great dome and the width and altitude of the arms of the cross. The piers of the crossing are masses of masonry measuring on their longer sides more than fifty feet on the pavement, while the pendentive arches are one hundred and fifty feet high, and those of the arms of the cross are seventy-five feet high. But with appropriate treatment their scale might have been made more apparent. To adorn such piers and frame such arches with a classic order is to destroy the proper effect of scale, as well as to violate the true principles of architectural design by using structural members without any structural meaning.

Apart from the barbarism already remarked (p. [29]) of springing a vault from a classic entablature, the effect of the gigantic order is unhappy in other respects; the great salience of its cornice cuts off from view the lower part of the vaulting, and this pronounced overhanging ledge, extending around the whole interior, breaks the continuity of the upright lines into the vaulting, and diminishes the effect of altitude.

Fig. 32.—Section of aisle of St. Peter’s.

But not only did Michael Angelo employ this incongruous and ineffective ornamental scheme for the interior of St. Peter’s, he also adopted a corresponding design for the exterior which wholly contradicts the real character of the structure and led the architect into some curious makeshifts. For this exterior he used another gigantic order surmounted with an attic story. This obliged him to carry up the enclosing walls of the aisles to a height equal to that of the nave, and led to difficulties within. For the aisle vaulting was now far down below the top of these walls, and it therefore became necessary, unless the space above this vaulting was to be left open to the sky, with the enclosing wall standing as a mere screen answering to nothing behind it,[68] to construct a flat roof at the level of the attic cornice. Figure 32, a section through this part of the structure, will explain this and some other awkward expedients to which the architect was driven by the use of this colossal external order. Of the two compartments through which the line _AB_ (plan, Fig. 31) passes, one has a barrel vault and the other a dome, and, as each of the other corresponding parts of the plan are vaulted in the same way, there are four small domes in all. The effect of four smaller domes grouped around the great central one would be happy for both internal and external effect, if they were properly related in proportions, and the scheme were carried out in a structurally consistent and rational way; but such a scheme could not be developed here. For from the level of the aisle arches a dome, even on a proportionately high drum, could not be made to reach the level of the cornice of the enclosing wall unreasonably elevated for the sake of the gigantic external order. But Michael Angelo nevertheless constructed such a dome (_A_, Fig. 32), although it had to be sunk up to its crown beneath the aisle roof, and then, for external effect, he built another dome over it (_B_, Fig. 32). To light the lower dome it was necessary to sink oblique openings, _a_, through the massive masonry of the roof, and to light the useless vaulted chamber, _b_, which he was obliged to make over the barrel vault of the inner compartment (the crown of which is still farther down below the roof), the well, _c_, had to be sunk. Thus instead of making a reasonable design with ornamental details appropriate to its structural forms, Michael Angelo first conceived an ornamental scheme consisting of the inappropriate colossal order, and then fitted the building to it, filling up vacant spaces with extravagantly massive solids and useless voids, and resorting to other tortuous devices to piece out a fundamentally irrational system.

Such is St. Peter’s church, which, though it has been much criticised, has been more generally lauded as a model of architectural greatness. Its real character has rarely been analyzed or rationally considered. That it has qualities of majesty and grandeur need not be denied; but these qualities are mainly due to its vast magnitude, and to what it retains of the design of its first, and greatest, architect. The manner in which the scheme of Bramante was modified and distorted by his successors, and chiefly by Michael Angelo, notwithstanding his professions of admiration for Bramante’s intentions, is far from admirable, as I think the foregoing account of its structural and artistic aberrations must show. The building as a whole is characterized by incongruity and extravagance, and when we consider further that the ornamentation of the interior is for the most part a cheap deception, the rich coffering of the vaulting and the pilasters of the great order being wrought in stucco on a foundation of brickwork, we get the measure of the ideals and architectural standards of men who, like Vasari, could write of it that, “not in Christendom, nor in all the world, can a building of greater magnificence and grandeur be seen.”[69] And this short-sighted admiration did not abate as time went on, as we learn from the estimates quoted by Fontana in his well-known book,[70] among which are the following: “Temple more famous than that of Solomon,” “Unique miracle of the world,” “Chief among the most celebrated of Christendom,” “Compendium of the arts,” “Basis of the Catholic faith,” “Unique edifice of the orb of earth,” etc., etc.

Before leaving St. Peter’s a word may be said of a project for the building which was prepared by Antonio San Gallo the younger, Michael Angelo’s immediate predecessor as architect for the fabric. This design, no part of which was ever carried out, is embodied in a wooden model preserved with that of Michael Angelo in the existing edifice. The most meritorious feature of this model is the dome which, from a structural point of view, is better than the one that was built, since it is well abutted both at the springing and at the haunch. This important condition is secured, however, by an architectural treatment that cannot be commended, and consists of two superimposed concentric arcades, the lower one surrounding the drum and abutting the vault at the springing, while the upper one is set in retreat and fortifies the haunch. The architectural effect of these arcades, which are of course adorned with classic orders, is not happy because an arcade with a classic order is not an appropriate form of abutment, though it may be made mechanically effective, and also because the upper circle, rising from within the circumference of the lower one, gives the composition an unpleasantly telescopic effect.

Our consideration of St. Peter’s has led us to an advanced phase of the church architecture of the Roman Renaissance, and we must now go back and examine a few of the earlier structures in Rome and elsewhere that were produced under the distinctly Roman influence.