Character of Renaissance Architecture

by Charles Herbert Moore

Fig. 73.

But in domestic and civic architecture Palladio was more prolific than Vignola, and his work has had a correspondingly wider influence. Among the earlier civic buildings by him is the well-known portico of the town hall of his native city, Vicenza. This portico of two stories covers three sides of a building of oblong rectangular plan, dating from the Middle Ages, and consisting of a great hall over a low basement. Palladio’s scheme (Fig. [72]) for this portico is plainly derived from the town hall of Padua to which he refers in his book as a most notable edifice.[100] But while basing his design on that of Padua, he modifies it by features drawn from other sources. In place of the simple arcades of the mediæval Paduan model, he has substituted a complicated combination of arches with large and small orders, in which the inspiration of Sansovino’s Library of St. Mark in Venice is apparent. The free-standing column under the archivolt of Sansovino’s upper story (Fig. [65], p. 120) is reproduced by Palladio in both stories of the portico of Vicenza. But instead of a single column, he has inserted a pair on each side of the arch, ranged in the direction of the thickness of the wall, as shown in the plan (Fig. [73]). The intervals between the columns of the great orders are very wide, because they had to conform with the spacing of the openings in the mediæval structure enclosed; but the arches within the intervals are necessarily of narrower span, since their crowns could not rise above the soffit of the entablature. Thus the free-standing columns of the small order which support these arches are set farther away from the pier than they are in Sansovino’s scheme. This free-standing column supporting the archivolt is often spoken of as an innovation of Sansovino and Palladio. It is worthy of notice, however, that instances of it occur in the Græco-Roman architecture of Syria, as in S. Simeon Stylites (Fig. [74]); but the arch in these cases is not framed in with the useless order. In the ground story arcade of Padua the spandrels have circular perforations, and these are reproduced by Palladio in both stories of his portico.

Fig. 74.—Arch of St. Simeon Stylites.

From a structural point of view Palladio’s scheme is an improvement on that of Padua. For in Padua, as in Vicenza, both stories of the portico are vaulted, and the slender columns which alone bear the vaulting are too weak to withstand the thrusts of this vaulting, and thus both transverse and longitudinal tie-rods are inserted to maintain the stability of the fabric. But Palladio’s massive and heavily weighted piers are strong enough to bear the thrusts without the aid of ties, and it may be added that the great orders have more function here than they usually have in Renaissance design, since their columns act somewhat as buttresses. The shaft of an order has not, indeed, a proper form for an abutment, and has no buttress expression. Its resistance to thrust is slight, but it is better than nothing at all. Following Sansovino, the architect has introduced a balustrade in each opening of the arcade, and a continuous one as a crowning feature of the cornice.

Palladio himself thought well of this work, and he does not hesitate to say in his book that it will bear comparison with the most beautiful buildings of antiquity. He tells us, also, that it is constructed in the best manner out of excellent cut stone.[101] The last remark is significant, for genuine stone masonry was not always employed by Palladio in buildings which had the appearance of stone construction. The use of brick and rubble with a revetment of stucco had not been uncommon with the builders of the early Renaissance, and such materials were extensively employed even by Bramante and Michael Angelo. But Palladio went further than his predecessors in the creation of architectural shams.

Fig. 75.—Loggia Bernarda.

Palladio was an earnest devotee of his art as he understood it, but he had what may be called a theatrical ideal of architecture. The superficial appearance was what chiefly concerned him. He had great versatility in scenic and structurally meaningless composition, and his numerous palace fronts in Vicenza are remarkable for their superficially varied character. The Palazzo Valmarana, with its colossal pilasters on a high podium overlapping a lesser order embracing the basement and mezzanine, while the great entablature is broken into ressauts over the pilasters; the Palazzo Colleone-Porta, with its basement wall rusticated over a plain dado and an Ionic order on the face of the superstructure; the Palazzo Porta-Barbarano, with its superimposed orders and elaborate ornamentation in stucco relief; and the Loggia Bernarda, with its gigantic composite order and balcony corbels in the form of Doric triglyphs (Fig. [75]), are sufficient illustrations of this. The skin of stucco with which many of these buildings were originally covered has broken off in many places, revealing the poor materials of which they are built.