Character of Renaissance Architecture

by Charles Herbert Moore

Fig. 61.—Façade of the Cancelleria, Rome.

The façade of the Cancelleria has a feature that is not common in Italian architecture, that of a slight advance of the wall at each end, so as to form projecting bays, as in the pavilions of the French Renaissance châteaux. The salience of these bays is very slight, however, and is hardly noticeable in a general front view. The scheme of the upper façade resembles that of the Rucellai very strikingly, save in the points just noticed; but the basement is different, having no order, its rusticated wall being unbroken except by the portals, of which there are two, and a series of small arched window openings. Only one of these portals belongs to the original design. This one, shown in the illustration, is of stately magnitude and fine proportions. Its jambs and lintel are profiled with severely classic mouldings, and it is crowned with a cornice on consoles with a frieze between it and the lintel. It is an amplification of Alberti’s portals in the Rucellai, and is of almost Greek purity of design, though it differs from a Greek portal in the more pronounced character of its cornice, in the introduction of the frieze, in the greater development of the consoles, and in its vertical jambs, which in Greek design would incline inward. A comparison with the portal of the Erechtheum will illustrate the points of likeness and of difference. The other portal appears to be an interpolation of a later time. An order of Doric columns framing an arch is set against a double order of Doric pilasters, the whole supporting a balcony, and forming a scheme characteristic of the later Renaissance.

The court of the Cancelleria has an arcade of two vaulted stories. These arcades support the overhanging upper story and attic, both of which are embraced by a single order of pilasters not arranged in pairs, as in the external façade, but evenly spaced.

Fig. 62.—Portico of the Massimi, Rome.

In Rome as in Florence many of the great palaces are without engaged orders dividing the wall surfaces into bays. The Palazzo Massimi, for instance, the next one of importance, designed by Baldassare Peruzzi, and dating from the early part of the sixteenth century, has an order on the basement story only, while the wall above is unbroken even by string courses. In conformity with the line of the street on which it stands, the façade of the Massimi is curved on plan. A wide recessed portico (Fig. [62]) gives a reason for the introduction of a free-standing Doric order, and in continuation of this order, an order of engaged Doric pilasters is ranged along the basement wall on either side. Both columns and pilasters are here again placed in pairs, the narrow intervals being narrower than in the Cancelleria, and in the portico the interval on the axis, opposite the portal, is wider than the other wide ones, while at each end a column is necessarily paired with a pilaster. The plain wall of the upper stories is uniformly rusticated and smooth-faced. The windows of the principal story are framed with mouldings of quiet classic profiling, have simple cornices on consoles, and are ranged on a podium with a ressaut under each window. Above are two tiers of small oblong rectangular windows with cartouche frames. The details of this façade have great refinement, and show the influence of Alberti. The Roman Doric order of the portico has much simple beauty. The entasis of the columns is more moderate than is common in later Renaissance design, and the light falls on their rounded surfaces, as they stand relieved against the dark void of the porch, with admirable effect. The façade as a whole is monotonous, but it has an expression of architectural reserve that is worthy of praise.

The façade of the Palazzo Farnese, by Antonio da San Gallo the younger, the grandest of these Roman palaces, again has its wall surfaces unencumbered with orders. The basement is comparatively low, and all three stories are in effect of nearly equal height. The walls are of brick with rusticated quoins of stone, and a rusticated stone portal in relief, of the simple early Florentine type, occupies the centre of the basement. The quoins suggest the influence of the rusticated pilasters on the angles of the Bartolini palace in Florence, and San Gallo has followed Baccio d’Agnolo, the architect of the Bartolini, further by introducing small orders with pediments to frame the windows of the upper stories. But for pilasters he has substituted engaged colonnettes on high pedestals, and in the principal story has made angular pediments alternate with curved ones. This mode of designing doors and windows has since become so common that it generally passes without question of its propriety. It is, however, justifiable only on the principle, universally accepted by the architects of the Renaissance, that structural members may be used for ornamental purposes without any structural meaning or expression in harmony with the character of the building to which they are applied. But this is a principle which finds no support in any thoroughly noble system of architecture—Greek, Byzantine, or Gothic. Structural members may be used properly enough with a primarily ornamental purpose when they have a character in keeping with the real structural system in which they are used. The blind arcades, and shafted archivolts of the portals, of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, are largely of this nature;[93] but to surround the windows of a walled structure, like the Farnese, with columns and entablatures applied to the surface of the wall, is an architectural solecism. A further barbarism occurs in the windows of the top story, which are said to have been designed by Michael Angelo, and the fact that they are like the upper windows of the church of St. Peter lends support to the attribution. These windows of the Farnese are arched, and the crowns of the arches rise above the capitals of the flanking colonnettes so that an entablature resting on these capitals cannot pass over them. Complete entablatures are therefore omitted, entablature blocks being set upon the capitals to support the raking cornices of the pediments (Fig. [63]). This makes a bad composition, because the structural system simulated would in reality be an insecure one in consequence of the absence of a tying member which the entablature should form in such a scheme. The eye instinctively feels that the pediment cornices are tending to thrust so as to overthrow the supporting colonnettes. It is true that in the windows of the principal façade (the figure is taken from a window on the side of the building) the cornice of the entablature block is returned against the wall over the arch; but this is so far in retreat, and so inconspicuous, that it does not properly complete the pediment triangle. Precedents for many of these Renaissance aberrations of design may be found in ancient Roman art, and this particular one is foreshadowed at Baalbek, where in the pediment already noticed (p. [95]) the entablature, as well as the raking cornice, is broken, the middle part being set back in the plane of the wall, and the parts over the supporting pilasters forming ressauts. But I know of no ancient instance in which the entablature is completely removed between the ressauts, unless the one figured by Serlio[94] (reproduced in Fig. 64) be ancient. He does not say that it is, but he describes it among other things that he calls ancient, and says that he found it between Foligno and Rome, and that it exhibits an architectural license because the architrave is broken by the arch.

Fig. 63.—Window of the Farnese.