Architecture: Gothic and Renaissance

by T. Roger Smith

The finest Gothic cathedral in North Italy, if dimensions, general effectiveness, and beauty of material be the test, is that of Milan. This building is disfigured by a west front in a totally inappropriate style, but apart from this it is virtually a German church of the first class, erected entirely in white marble, and covered with a profusion of decoration. Its dimensions show that, with the exception of Seville, this was the largest of all the Gothic cathedrals of Europe. It has double aisles, transepts, and a polygonal apse. At the crossing of the nave and transepts a low dome rises, covered by a conical roof, and surmounted by an elegant marble spire.

The structure is vaulted throughout, and each of the great piers which carry the nave arcade is surmounted by a mass of niches and tabernacle work, occupied by statues—a splendid substitute for ordinary capitals. The interior effect of Milan Cathedral is grand and full of beauty. The exterior, though much of its power is destroyed by the weakly-designed ornament with which all the surfaces of the walls are covered, is endowed with a wonderful charm. This building was commenced in the year 1385, and consecrated in the year 1418. The details of the window-tracery, pinnacles, &c. (but not the statues which are of Italian character), correspond very closely to those of German buildings erected at the same period (close of the fourteenth century).

Milan possesses, among other examples of pointed architecture, one secular building, the Great Hospital, well known for its Gothic façade. This hospital was founded in 1456, and most of it is of later date and of renaissance character; the street front of two storeys in height, with pointed arches, is very rich. The church of Chiaravalle, near Milan, which has been more than once illustrated and described, ought not to be passed unnoticed, on account of the beauty of its fully developed central dome. It was built in the early part of the thirteenth century (1221).

Almost all the great cities of North Italy possess striking Gothic buildings. Genoa, for instance, can boast of her cathedral, with a front in alternate courses of black and white marble, dating from about the year 1300, and full of beauty; the details bearing much resemblance to the best Western Gothic work. Passing eastward, Verona possesses a wealth of Gothic work in the well-known tombs of the Scaligers, the churches of Sta. Anastasia, San Zenone, and several minor churches and campaniles; and at Como, Bergamo, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Cremona, Bologna, and many other cities and towns, good churches of pointed architecture are to be found.

Our illustration (Fig. [50]) of the ancient Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona, is a good specimen of the secular architecture of North Italy. Originally the lower storey was a loggia, or open arcaded storey, but the arches have been built up. Telling, simple, and graceful, this building owes its effect chiefly to its well-designed openings and a characteristic brick cornice. It is entirely without buttresses, has no spreading base, no gables, and no visible roof: some of these features would have been present had it been designed and erected north of the Alps.

Fig. 50.—The Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona.

Venice is the city in the whole of North Italy where Gothic architecture has had freest scope and has achieved the greatest success, not, however, in ecclesiastical, but in secular buildings. The great Cathedral of St. Mark, perhaps the most wonderful church in Europe, certainly the foremost in Italy, is a Byzantine building, and though it has received some additions in Gothic times, does not fairly come within the scope of this volume; and the Gothic churches of Venice are not very numerous nor, with the exception of the fine brick church of the Frari, extremely remarkable. On the banks of the Grand Canal and its tributaries, however, stand not a few Gothic palaces of noble design (see Fig. [9], p. 18), while the Ducal Palace itself alone is sufficient to confer a reputation upon the city which it adorns.

The Ducal Palace at Venice is a large rectangular block of buildings erected round a vast quadrangle. Of its exterior two sides only are visible from a distance, one being the sea front looking over the lagoon, and the other the land front directed towards the piazzetta. Rather less than one half the height of each front is occupied by two storeys of arcades; the lower storey bold, simple, and vigorous; the upper storey lighter, and ending in a mass of bold tracery. Above this open work, and resting upon it, rises the external wall of the palace, faced with marble in alternate slabs of rose-colour and white, pierced by a few large pointed windows and crowned by an open parapet. Few buildings are so familiar, even to untravelled persons, as this fine work, which owes its great charm to the extent, beauty, and mingled solidity and grace of its arcades, and to the fine sculpture by which the capitals from which they spring are enriched.