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

villas, of which the most important is the Massimi Palace. It is significant of the esteem in which Peruzzi was held by his contemporaries that at his death in 1536 he was buried by the side of Raphael in the Pantheon.

Ant. da Sangallo.—Antonio da Sangallo the Younger was one of the five members of a Florentine family, distinguished variously in architecture, engineering, sculpture, and painting. Coming to Rome when very young he became a pupil of Bramante, whose style he closely followed. Among his most notable works are the church of S. Maria di Loreto, near Trajan’s Column, and the Farnese Palace. The latter, completed by Michelangelo by the addition of a grand cornice, is regarded by some experts as the finest example of a Roman palace.

Vignola.—Distinguished among the upholders of the purity of the Classic style was Giacomo Barocchio or Barozzi, better known as Vignola, from the name of the place in which he was born, in 1507. After practising for some time in Bologna, Piacenza, Assisi, and Perugia, he was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius III, and built the villa Pope Julius, which is now the Etruscan Museum. But the principal example of his style is the Palace of Caprarola, erected some thirty miles from Rome for the Pope’s nephew, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. It has a pentagonal plan enclosing a circular court. Above the ground story the façades consist of two stories, which have rusticated quoins at the angles and are composed of an order of Ionic, superimposed upon Doric. Situated on a craggy projection, overlooking the little town of Caprarola and commanding wide vistas that reach to the Volscian Hills and the Apennines, with the dome of St. Peter’s in the middle distance, this palace is embellished with beautiful gardens, the whole representing one of the most magnificent palace-villas of the Renaissance.

Vignola was one of the artists invited to Fontainebleau by Francis I. After the death of Michelangelo he was appointed architect of S. Peter’s and erected the cupolas. He also furnished the design of Il Gesu, the Jesuit church in Rome, which was one of many erected along the lines of S. Peter’s. His fame further rests on his writings, which include “The Five Orders of Architecture” and a work on perspective. He died in 1573.

Michelangelo.—At this date Michelangelo had been dead nine years, but it is convenient to consider him as the last great architect of the Roman School, for he introduced new elements of design, which in the hands of smaller men contributed to the decadence of the Renaissance style. Architecture played a relatively small part in his titanic and tempestuous career, which through the political confusion of the times and changes of popes, oscillated between Florence and Rome. In the former city he designed, as additions to Brunelleschi’s Medici church of S. Lorenzo, the Laurentian Library and the New Sacristy or Mausoleum which contains the tombs of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino.

In Rome, as early as 1505, Julius II had entrusted Michelangelo with the commission of erecting his tomb. The ambition of the patron and the imagination of the artist united in a project so colossal that S. Peter’s was to be rebuilt to serve as a mausoleum for it. Unfortunately for Michelangelo and perhaps for art, the death of Julius interfered with the project. His heirs desired a less expensive monument and succeeding popes were interested only in the rebuilding of S. Peter’s. After forty years all that had been accomplished of the tomb were the statues of Moses and the “Bound Captives.” “My youth has been lost,” cried the sore-afflicted artist, “bound hand and foot to this tomb.”

Even in the lifetime of Julius the planning of S. Peter’s had been taken from Michelangelo and given to Bramante, and it was not until his seventy-second year that Michelangelo was called in to supervise the work. He adhered to Bramante’s plan and added the supreme feature of the dome, which was completed after his death. Meanwhile, he finished, as we have noted, the Farnese Palace and remodelled the Palaces of the Capitol, the latter being his most characteristic work in architecture.

For in the novel design of these he introduced the so-called “one-order” treatment, abandoning the horizontal lines that mark the stories and carrying up through them a colossal order of pilasters. The effect lends grandeur and unity to the design, but at the expense of a violation of the principle of fitting the character of the exterior to the constructive character of the interior. It was a sacrifice of parts to the whole such as Michelangelo employed in sculpture and by his genius justified. When, however, his example was followed by others who had not his genius, it led to the degradation of style of the Baroque that alike in sculpture and architecture resulted in pretentiousness and extravagance.

The gradual decline from the purity of the Classic style to the showy and meretricious magnificence of the so-called “Baroque” period, was encouraged by the wealthy order of the Jesuits. It was characterised by a growing lack of architectural propriety, an increasing use of heavy and ill-applied ornament, and a general tendency to profusion of details for the sake of display—seen in broken and distorted pediments, huge scrolls, sham marble, excessive gilding, and a general riot of sculpture, often hysterical in its excess of emotional expression. The chief promoters of this decadence were Carlo Maderna (1556-1629), and Borromini (1599-1667), although the latter was an architect, capable also of finer achievement, as is proved by his colonnade enclosing the Piazza of S. Peter’s.

Palladio.—In some degree a contributor to this decadence, through the misuse of his example by others, was Andrea Palladio (1518-1580), a native of Vicenza, where his most characteristic work is to be seen. In youth he studied the writings of the Roman author, Vitruvius, and of Alberti, and familiarised himself with the classic style by study in Rome. His own work, “The Four Books of Architecture,” which contains measured drawings of antique buildings many of which have since disappeared, had a wide and great influence upon architectural development throughout Europe. In England, for example, it was translated and furnished with notes by Inigo Jones, whose own style was largely based on Palladio’s.

The latter’s work is chiefly associated with Vicenza, where his most important example, considered also his best, is seen in the double-storied arcades, added to the Mediæval Basilica. In the lower story he introduced the Doric order; in the upper, the Ionic; and, in both instances, supported the arches on small columns, while large engaged columns, acting as buttresses, occupy the centre of the spaces between the arches. This treatment has been known since as the Palladian motive. These imposing and beautiful arcades were executed in fine stone, whereas through no fault, it is believed, of the architect, his palaces in Vicenza are mostly of brick, with stucco front that has suffered from decay. They include the Palazzo Capitania and the Palazzo Barbarano, and the Villa Rotonda which was freely imitated by the English amateur architect, Lord Burlington (1695-1753) in his villa at Chiswick on the Thames. Palladio’s design of the Villa Rotonda is a square building fronted on all four sides by a portico, surmounted by a pediment, the roofing of the square sloping up to a low dome which crowns the central rotunda. At the end of his life he designed the Teatro Olympico of Vicenza, which was completed after his death by Scamozzi. In this he followed the directions of Vitruvius, but introduced features of his own, among which is the interesting one of an architectural background to the stage, built in perspective. Palladio executed work also in Venice, the churches of Il Redentore and S. Giorgio Maggiore being from his design, though the façade of the latter was by Scamozzi.

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECTS OF THE VENETIAN RENAISSANCE.

The Venetians had developed a beautiful type of Gothic, touched, through their relations with the East, by Byzantine influence. It was admirably suited to the social requirements and taste of a community of merchant princes and wealthy middle-class, comparatively removed by geographical position from the confusion of the times. For the wars of Venice, conducted on foreign soil, left her unscathed, and during the fifteenth century she reached the zenith of her commercial glory. But the decline set in, when her trade with the Levant was blocked by the Turkish occupation of Constantinople in 1453, and it was confirmed by the passing of her Eastern commerce to the Portuguese, following Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the Cape of Good Hope route to India (1497-1503). But during the sixteenth century, though menaced both by the Emperor Charles V and the French king, Francis I, and engaged in almost perpetual struggle with the Turks, Venice maintained a splendid isolation and reached the height of her artistic development.

The gradual modification of the Gothic style was effected by the introduction of Classic features, especially at first of a decorative character. One of the earliest examples of this transition is the fine Portal of the Doge’s Palace, adjoining S. Marco, which was erected by Giovanni and Bartolommeo Buon, who share with the Lombardi the chief place in the early Venetian Renaissance.

The Lombardi.—This celebrated family of architects became known in the person of a certain Martino who had two sons, Moro and Pietro (1435-1515), and two grandsons by the latter, Antonio and Tullio. To Martino belongs the façade of S. Zaccaria, the design of which was developed in Pietro’s treatment of the beautiful little church of S. Maria dei Miracoli. Its plan is an oblong, terminating in a square chancel which is elevated considerably above the nave and is crowned by a dome. The façade is decorated with two stories of engaged columns, dividing the surface into panels which are encrusted with coloured marbles, while the whole is surmounted by a semicircular pediment. The carved details are of exquisite refinement. This choiceness of decorative treatment reappears in the façade of the Scuolo de S. Marco, which was also by Pietro, who further proved himself to be the most accomplished member of the Lombardi by his façade of the Vendramini Palace.

Sansovino.—The full development of the Renaissance style in Venice is chiefly associated with Jacopo Sansovino (1477-1570). A pupil of the Florentine sculptor, Andrea Sansovino, from whom he took his name, he was at first employed by Julius II to restore antique statues and also to make the bronze reproduction of the Laocoön group, which is now in the Uffizi. After working in Florence and again in Rome, from which city he fled when it was sacked by the Germans, Sansovino reached Venice in 1527 and was welcomed by Titian and Pietro Aretino. Here from time to time he still produced indifferent sculpture, but became distinguished as an architect, his most important works being the Library of S. Marco, the Zecca or Mint, the Cornaro Palace, and the Church of S. Giorgio del Greci—the last-named, erected by the Greek residents, being a remarkable evidence of the tolerant spirit of the Venetians in the matter of religion. In 1545 the roof of Sansovino’s library collapsed and he was fined, imprisoned, and deprived of his office of chief architect of S. Marco. He was, however, reinstated through the intercession of Titian, Aretino, and other powerful friends and in the course of his duties reinforced the domes with bands of iron.

The free invention with which Sansovino used the Classic orders and the vigour and richness of his façades set the fashion for a sumptuousness of style that in his hands had an imposing magnificence, but in his followers degenerated into excess.

Sammichele.—Since Michele Sammichele (1484-1559) designed the Gvimane Palace in Venice, considered his masterpiece, and was also employed by the Signoria to construct the fortifications of the Lido, he may be mentioned here, but