How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (free reads .txt) 📕

A corresponding freedom from subservience to antique forms and a truly creative adaptiveness characterised the architecture of the period. It was during the Quattrocento that what is most original in Renaissance architecture was achieved, and the old methods of construction and old details of decoration were successfully applied to the new problems imposed by changed conditions of living and habits of thought. It is by the actual creativeness with which the readjustment was accomplished, as well as by the discretion and refinement of taste, exhibited in the whole and every part of the design, that the architecture of this period is distinguished.

The qualities which it exhibits are a direct reflection of the influence of the classic literary revival. The latter encouraged mental qualities of logic and orderliness and an appreciation for beauty that was characterised by precise taste and exacting refinement. And, just as Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Ariosto on their foundation of classic learning built the beginnings of a literature in the native tongue—the first natural expression of the Italian genius, liberated by the study of antiquity to new ideals of their own modern life—so it was with the artists. Having graduated from the school of the past, they applied what they had learned to meeting the needs and conditions of their own day.

Perfection of Detail.—Again, just as Petrarch and Boccaccio and their followers in literature devoted themselves to perfection of expression, so the architects of the Renaissance were distinguished by the exquisiteness of the details they introduced into their designs. They were, in the first analysis, individualists, so that the great ones—and they were numerous—created individual styles. But, further, they brought the keenness of their Italian intellect and the consummate refinement of their taste to the disposition and actual execution of the details. It has been said—and one may believe the truth of it—that “the layman is not capable of appreciating the refinements and the clearness of their mouldings, and the vigour and strength their virile natures put into their silhouettes.”

Individualism being the characteristic of the Italian architects of the Renaissance, we will enumerate the most important personalities.

Brunelleschi.—Among the first of these deliberate students of antiquity was the architect Brunelleschi. He was born in Florence in 1379 and displayed early a talent for mechanical construction. Accordingly his father apprenticed him to the Gild of Goldsmiths. He quickly became a skilled workman and acquired a knowledge of sculpture, perspective, and geometry. During a visit of some five years to Rome, the chief repository of classic remains, he made a profound study of architectural construction, especially as illustrated in the dome of the Pantheon, the vaulted chambers of the baths, and the use of successive orders of columns in the exterior of the Colosseum.

Returning to Florence, he entered into deliberation with the city council to erect the Dome of the Cathedral. It crowns, like his Milan cathedral dome, an octagonal plan. A design for it, which is pictured in a fresco in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, had already been prepared by Arnolfo di Cambio, the first architect of the cathedral and the designer of the Palazzo Vecchio. Brunelleschi deviated from it by raising the dome upon an octagonal drum, pierced with circular windows, thereby securing the impressiveness of additional height, while preserving the lightness of effect. He undertook to erect the dome without the great expense of timber centerings, and accomplished the feat, it is said, by placing voussoirs one above another with horizontal joints.

The dome is composed of an inner and an outer shell of brickwork, reinforced by eight main and eight intermediate ribs. It is 138 feet wide, with a height from the spring of the drum to the eye of the dome of 135 feet. The lantern was added after Brunelleschi’s death, from the design he had prepared. This dome is not only a monument to the genius of its creator, but scarcely rivalled in beauty by any other work of the Renaissance. That of St. Peter’s may be a prouder and more imposing structure, but it is more sophisticated in its use of classic details lacking the grand simplicity of Brunelleschi’s—the natural nobility, if one may say so, of a thing that has grown to life. It may be less stately, but is more companionable; less imposing, but more intimately inspiring. The contrast between the two domes reveals in a remarkable way the difference between the dawn of the Renaissance and its high noon.

Brunelleschi’s churches in Florence include S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito, both of which are on a basilican plan, with elevations that involve modifications of Roman construction. The former is barrel vaulted in the Roman manner, but the nave ceiling of S. Spirito is of wood and flat. The dome of the latter is erected upon pendentives which henceforth were employed on all Renaissance domes. Brunelleschi’s choicest ecclesiastical design, however, is the Pazzi Chapel in S. Croce—a dome over a square compartment, entered through a colonnade. He introduced columned arcades into cloisters and palace courts and used them also as features of the arcade in the Loggia S. Paolo and the Ospedale degli Innocente or Foundling Hospital.

The two lower stories of the main front of the Pitti Palace were designed by Brunelleschi, who also carved the fine crucifix in the Santa Maria Novella. He died in 1446 and was buried in the Cathedral of Florence.

Michelozzo.—Michelozzo, born in Florence in 1391, was the son of a tailor and became a pupil of Donatello. He worked in marble, bronze, and silver, one of the examples of his sculpture being the young S. John over the door of the cathedral. As an architect he enjoyed the friendship and patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, for whom he built the Riccardi Palace, which was the earliest example of stately domestic architecture in Florence and proved a model for subsequent Tuscan palaces. During a temporary exile of his patron he accompanied him to Venice, where he designed the Library of San Giorgio. When in 1437 Cosimo bestowed the Monastery of San Marco on the Dominican monks of Fiesole, Michelozzo was employed to remodel it, erecting, among other features, the beautiful arcaded cloisters, which no doubt inspired the architectural details in Fra Angelico’s picture of “The Annunciation.” At his death, which appears to have occurred in 1472, he was buried in San Marco.

Alberti.—Even in a higher degree than the two already mentioned, Alberti represented the versatility of the Renaissance, for besides being an architect he was also a painter, poet, philosopher, and musician. He was born in Venice in 1404 and at the age of twenty wrote a comedy in Latin verse, which in later years the publisher, Aldus Manutius II, printed under the impression that it was a genuine classic work. Alberti was appointed to a canonry in the Cathedral of Florence and there established a reputation for being the finest organist of his time. He wrote works on sculpture and painting but is most celebrated for his treatise on architecture, “De Re Ædificatoria,” which has been translated from the Latin into Italian, French, Spanish, and English. He was employed in Rome by Pope Nicholas V to restore the papal palace. At Rimini he was commissioned by Sigismondo Malatesta to remodel the Church of S. Francisco.

Its design, of which only the lower part of the façade was erected, was based on the Roman arch in Rimini, and along the south side Alberti constructed vaults to receive the bodies of his patron’s friends. Both these elements of design were introduced into his church of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua. Here the place of the side aisles is taken by successive chapels, separated by massive piers, which sustain the barrel vault of the nave. The piers are faced by coupled Corinthian pilasters, mounted upon pedestals. The intersection of nave and transepts is crowned by a dome, which was replaced by the present one in the eighteenth century. The façade of this church also is based upon the character of a triumphal arch, and Sant’ Andrea became a type that was followed in many subsequent churches. In Florence Alberti designed the marble-encrusted façade of S. Maria Novella, in which he connected the side aisles to the nave by means of flaring consoles, a device that was unfortunately imitated in later churches. He died in Rome in 1472.

Cronaca.—Cronaca is to be mentioned as the architect of the Strozzi and Guardagni Palaces.

The Renaissance of the Fine Arts in Rome may be dated from the pontficate of Nicholas V (1447-1455), who vied with the Medici as a patron of scholars and artists. Alberti—we have noted—was employed by him, for as yet there was no Roman architect approaching the talent of the Florentine. And the dearth continued until the accession of Julius II in 1503, by which time Bramante had arrived in Rome and there began the golden period of Roman architecture, identified particularly with him and Raphael and Michelangelo.

Bramante.—Bramante was born in Urbino about 1444 and as a young man studied painting as well as architecture, the latter presumably under Alberti. He travelled through Umbria and Lombardy, studying Roman antiquities and obtaining various commissions, and passed some years in Milan, where his work included the enlargement of the abbey church of S. Maria della Grazie, to which he added a choir, transepts, and dome, in a style that represents the transition between the Gothic and Classic. Then, settling in Rome, he was commissioned by Pope Alexander VI to erect the Cancellaria Palace, and shortly afterwards prepared designs for the Palazzo Giraud. In both of these the Classic tendency is developed. It is even more pronounced in the beautiful little church of S. Pietro in Montorio. Founded on the design of a small Roman circular temple, it consists of a circle the interior diameter of which is only fifteen feet, crowned by a dome and surrounded with a peristyle of columns of the Doric order.

By the advice of Michelangelo Julius II entrusted Bramante with the design of the new S. Peter’s, which the Pope intended as a mausoleum for his own tomb. The work, which will be discussed later, was interrupted by Bramante’s death, which occurred in 1514.

Raphael.—The continuation of S. Peter’s was officially assigned to Bramante’s nephew and pupil, Raphael (1483-1520), who, however, under the pressure of other engagements, did little to advance the work. Raphael’s architectural designs in Rome include the Façade of S. Lorenzo in Miranda, the Villa Madama with stucco decorations by his pupil Giulio Romano, and the Pandolfini Palace, which was erected ten years after his death.

Giulio Romano.—Giulio Romano (1492-1546) was the architect of buildings in Mantua, his masterpiece being the Palazzo del Te’, at Mantua.

Meanwhile, Bramante’s other pupils were Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536), and Antonio da Sangallo (1485-1546).

Peruzzi.—Peruzzi passed his early life in Siena, but while quite young moved to Rome and studied architecture and painting. His reputation was established when he built for the Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi, a villa on the banks of the Tiber, which is now known as the Farnesina, a design remarkable for its grace and the delicacy of its details. The interior is famous for the frescoes, representing the myths of Psyche and Galatea, executed by Raphael and his pupils, while Peruzzi himself decorated a loggia with frescoes of the story of Medusa.

He was appointed architect of S. Peter’s, though his design for its completion was never carried out. During the sack of Rome in 1527 by the troops of the Constable Bourbon, Peruzzi fled to Siena, where he was elected city architect, and, as the city was preparing to resist attack, planned the fortifications which still in part exist. Returning to Rome, he designed several