Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Aram, Eugene" to "Arcueil" / Volume 2, Slice 4

by Various

In the styles hitherto described a chronological order has been followed, as far as possible, in order to show the gradual development of the style; that course is adopted here to a certain extent, when dealing with the Renaissance, though the introduction of the personal element, to which reference has been made, brings in a change of some importance. Henceforth the career of the individual has to be taken into consideration, and at times it may be an advantage when describing a building by an architect of eminence to mention other works by him, and so depart from the chronological sequence.

Ecclesiastical.—The classic revival in Italy, though foreshadowed in other branches of art, as in painting and sculpture, and also to a marked degree in literature, was virtually introduced by one great man, Filippo Brunelleschi of Florence, who, trained as a sculptor, and disappointed with his want of success in the competition held in 1403 for the bronze gates of the baptistery at Florence, determined to devote himself to architecture, possibly in the hope that he might some day be able to solve the great problem of erecting over the crossing of Arnolfo di Lapo’s great cathedral the dome projected by the latter but never executed. Having spent some years in Rome, Brunelleschi returned to his native town about 1410, with a profound knowledge of classic architecture and of Roman construction, as shown in the Pantheon, the thermae, Colosseum and other remains, then in much better preservation than at the present day. Some years passed in the production of various schemes and in deliberations with the council of Florence, but eventually in 1420 the completion of the cathedral was entrusted to him, and he undertook to construct the dome without centreing, and to raise it on a drum so as to give it greater importance than Arnolfo had contemplated, as shown in the fresco of the Spanish chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. The dome as projected by Brunelleschi was of considerable size, being 130 ft. in diameter and 135 ft. from the cornice to the eye of the dome, including the drum on which it was raised; it was octagonal in plan, and built with an inner and outer casing partly in brick, with angle and two intermediate ribs on each face, which were in stone. The construction of the dome was completed in 1434; but the lantern, built on the basis of the model he had made, was not carried out till 1462, some years after his death. Brunelleschi’s other works in Florence consisted of the church of San Lorenzo, which he rebuilt in 1425 after a fire, and the church of Santo Spirito (1433), a very remarkable building, the design of which was based on the medieval basilicas of Rome, with such modifications in plan and section as his knowledge of ancient Roman work suggested. This church consists of nave, transept and choir, with aisles all round, the centre or crossing being covered with a dome on pendentives, which henceforth became the chief characteristic in all the Renaissance churches. Brunelleschi’s earliest work was the Pazzi chapel, an original conception which is more remarkable for the pure classic feeling and refinement in all its details than for the design. The weakness of the archivolt round the central archway, and the mass of panelled wall carried on columns (far too slight in their dimensions), detract seriously from the effect of the façade; internally the structural function of the pilasters is not sufficiently maintained, and instead of a simple hemispherical dome, as in the cathedral, a quasi-Gothic type was built, with twelve ribs and scalloped cells, which destroys its dignity.

Brunelleschi was followed by another great Florentine architect, Leon Battista Alberti, who was also a great mathematician and a scholar, and further promoted the study of classic architecture by writing a treatise in Latin, Opus praestantissimum de re aedificatoria, which was based partly on that of Vitruvius and was published in 1485, after his death, accompanied by illustrations. The first building with which he was connected was the church of San Francesco at Rimini, to which in 1440 he added the front. In this he was evidently inspired by the Roman triumphal arch in that city, and his interpretation of it, to meet the requirements in its façade which were imposed upon him by the existing nave, was admirable. Unfortunately the principal front was never completed, but on the south side he designed a series of recesses to hold the sarcophagi containing the remains of the friends of his client, Sigismondo Malatesta, the effect of which is simple and grand. Alberti’s largest work, the church of Sant’ Andrea at Mantua (1472), in which the nave, transept and choir are all covered with barrel vaults, recalls the vaulted corridors of the Colosseum. There are no aisles, but a series of rectangular chapels on each side, the division walls of which act as buttresses to resist the thrust of the great vault. The lofty arched openings to the chapels, separated by Corinthian pilasters with entablature supporting the coffered vault and a central dome (since rebuilt), complete the structure, which has served since as the model for all the Renaissance churches of the same type. The principal front is not satisfactory, as it takes no cognizance of the width of the nave, and the side doors have no use or meaning; here Alberti seems to have been led astray in his triumphal arch treatment, which is inferior to his scheme for the church at Rimini.

In 1462 Michelozzo, another Florentine architect, built the chapel of St Peter at the east end of the church of Sant’ Eustorgio, Milan. Externally it has little attraction, but internally the dome, with its magnificent frieze of winged angels in relief with a painted background of arcades and other accessories, is the most beautiful composition of the Renaissance. Michelozzo’s first work was the Dominican monastery and church of San Marco at Florence (1439-1452), but he is better known for his secular work, to which we shall return.

The next great architect chronologically is Bramante d’ Urbino, to whom was entrusted the commencement of the church of St Peter at Rome. His first important work was the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi (1472), which consists of a square nave with immense semicircular apses, one on each side. The nave is covered with a dome raised on a drum, and carried on pendentives, and the apses with hemispherical vaults butt against the nave walls and form externally a very fine group. Bramante was the architect of the chapel in the cloisters of San Pietro-in-Montorio, Rome (1472), a small circular building covered with a dome and surrounded with a peristyle of columns of the Doric order; and of the dome of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, as also of the three apses, which are decorated with pilasters and baluster shafts with circular medallions enclosing busts, all in terra cotta. Before passing to his work at St Peter’s there are some other early churches we must notice. The Certosa, near Pavia, was begun in 1396, and in one sense suggests the revival of classic architecture, in that all its arches have semicircular heads. The magnificent façade of the church was commenced in 1473 from the designs of Borgognone, a Milanese architect: it is one of the few examples in Italy of large size in which the transition is noticeable, for although there are no Gothic details the design follows that of the middle ages, and instead of great pilasters of the Corinthian order, buttresses with niches containing statues divide the façade and accentuate the internal divisions of the church; the open galleries above the entrance doorway crossing the upper storey of the central portion are all derived from well-known Lombardic features. The upper part of the façade is inferior to the lower, Borgognone’s design having been departed from. The enrichment of the whole front, from the lower plinth to the string course under the first gallery, with bas-reliefs, panelled pilasters, niches, medallions and other decorative accessories, all in white marble, so completely covers the whole surface that scarcely any portion is left plain, which to a certain extent detracts from its effect as a whole; but there is an endless variety of design, and the baluster or candelabrum shafts dividing the windows and the friezes and cresting above their cornices, are of great beauty. The circular rose window above, with its enclosing frontispiece of later date, shows the coming influence of the later Italian style. The cloisters adjoining are surrounded with a light arcade, with enrichments in the spandrils and frieze, all in terra cotta.

The cathedral of Como is also a transitional example, where buttresses are employed all round the church, and it is only in the finials which surmount them, the great projecting cornice which crowns the structure, and the doorways and windows, that we find classical details; the doorways recall the porches of the Lombard churches, and are of great beauty in design, the south doorway being said to be by Bramante. Another example, remarkable for its elaborately carved front and porch, is the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli at Brescia (1487-1490) by Ludovici Beretta, which both externally and internally is one of the richest specimens of the early Italian Renaissance. The church dedicated to Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice (1481-1489), by Pietro Lombardo, is another transitional example in which the Byzantine influence of St Mark’s is recognizable in the semicircular pediments of its façade and of the exterior of the chancel, and Lombardic influence in its external decorations with pilaster strips and blind arcades. The interior is one of the gems of the Renaissance, on account of its splendid decoration with marble linings and fine cinque-cento carving. Similar semicircular pediments are found in the façade of the church of San Zaccharia at Venice (1515), but are purely decorative because the roof behind is not semicircular like that of the Miracoli. The decoration of the main front, here all in marble, is of an entirely different design, and is subdivided into a series of storeys, the lower panelled, the first storey with arcades and the upper ones with pilasters. An earlier example (1461) in San Bernardino at Perugia is of a far higher standard, and its enrichment with bas-reliefs by the Florentine sculptor Agostino di Duccio (c. 1418-c. 1490) gives it the first place for its conception and execution. Among others, the church of Spirito Santo, Bologna, in terra cotta; the church of Santa Giustina, Padua (1532); the sacristy of San Satiro, Milan (1479), by Bramante; and the sacristy of the church of Santo Spirito, Florence (1489-1496), by Sangallo, are all interesting examples of the early Renaissance in Italy.

Fig. 51.—Plan of St Peter’s at Rome.

In 1505, on the advice of Michelangelo, Bramante was instructed to prepare designs for a new church in Rome dedicated to St Peter, to take the place of the early basilica, which, built in haste, began to show serious signs of failure. Already, fifty years earlier, Pope Nicholas V. had commenced a new building, the erection of which was stopped by his death in 1454. The scheme was revived by Julius II., and the foundation stone of the new structure was laid in 1506. On Bramante’s death in 1514, Raphael, Peruzzi and Sangallo were successively appointed, and the last named prepared a new design, which, however, was not carried out, as he found it necessary first to strengthen the piers of the dome provided by Bramante and to remedy the defects of his successors. In 1546 Michelangelo, then seventy-two years of age, was entrusted with the continuance of the work, and he made radical changes, chiefly in the design of the dome. Comparison of the plans of Bramante and Sangallo with that actually carried out by Michelangelo shows that he not only increased the size of the piers to carry his dome, but the outer walls of the north, south and west apses, and omitted the aisles which surrounded the latter (fig. 51). He would seem to have availed himself of the foundation walls already built and of Bramante’s piers to carry the dome, which had been raised up to the cornice, but otherwise the architectural features of the whole building externally and internally were carried out from Michelangelo’s own designs. Sangallo had suggested for the exterior a series of superimposed orders with three storeys; Michelangelo elected to have one order only with an attic storey. The building gained thereby in dignity, but it lost in scale, for the huge pilasters of the Corinthian order (87 ft. high) look considerably smaller, in spite of the two storeys of windows between them. These windows also, which from their design are apparently about 10 to 12 ft. high, actually measure 20 ft. in height. The same defect exists in the interior, where the Corinthian order, over 100 ft. in height to the top of the cornice (Plate III., fig. 69), calls for a similar increase in the dimensions of all the sculptured decorations; the figures in the spandrils being 20 ft. high, and the cherubs supporting the holy water spouts 10 ft. Otherwise the scheme realizes the conception which Bramante proposed from the first, viz. to raise the dome of the Pantheon on the top of the basilica of Constantine; the latter being represented by the magnificent barrel vault (75 ft. in span) of the nave, transepts and choir; the former by the great hemispherical dome, 140 ft. in diameter, which, including the drum, is 162 ft. from the top of the cornice above the pendentives to the soffit of the dome. The dome is built in two shells with connecting ribs on the same principle as Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence, and was nearly completed before Michelangelo’s death in 1563, and the lantern in 1590 from the model which he had made. In 1605 the east end of the old basilica was taken down, and three more bays were added, thus converting the Greek cross of Michelangelo’s design into the Latin cross originally conceived by Bramante. The nave and the eastern vestibule were completed in 1620, and the great semicircular portico was added by Bernini in 1667. The immense height of the east façade, and its prolongation in front of Michelangelo’s chief feature, the dome, hides the design of a great portion of the latter, so that it can only be seen either from a great distance (Plate III., fig. 68), or from behind the western apse, where the relative grouping with the great apses can be properly appreciated. A second well-known work by Michelangelo is the new sacristy of the church of San Lorenzo, Florence (1523-1529), designed to contain the monuments of Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici, the architectural design of which is poor.

Antonio di Sangallo was the architect of the church of San Biagio at Montepulciano (1518), with a cruciform plan, and dome in the centre, and a campanile at the south-west angle somewhat similar to those of Wren in London.

The church of Santa Maria-di-Carignano (1552) at Genoa, by Galeazzo Alessi, is finely situated but unsatisfactory in its design, the lower part being stunted in its proportions and its order to a different scale from that in the campanile towers and the dome. The most beautiful interior is that of the Annunziata in the same town, by Giacomo della Porta (1587); the arches of its nave arcade are carried on Corinthian columns of marble, of fine proportion, and the nave is covered with a barrel vault with penetrations admitting the light from clerestory windows. The churches of San Giorgio Maggiore (1556-1579), San Francesco della Vigna (1562), and II Redentore (1577), all in Venice, were designed by Palladio, the interior of the latter being the finest; the façade of the first named is the best-proportioned, but whether its design is due to Palladio, or to Scamozzi, who built it in 1610, is not known. A far finer church in its picturesque grouping and the originality of its design is that of Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal (1631), by Baldassare Longhena; the church is octagonal on plan, with aisles round, giving access to six recesses with altars and to an important eastern chapel with central dome. The central octagon is covered with a lofty dome with immense corbel buttresses of vigorous and fine design. The entrance portal of the west front is perhaps the best example of the period in Italy. Longhena also designed the Santa Maria degli Scalzi (1680), completed by Sardi in 1689, the latter being responsible for the heavy front of San Salvatore (1663), as also of the rich but somewhat debased church, in the Jesuit style, Santa Maria Zobenigo (1680-1683).