PART II.—CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.Continued.

FRONTISPIECE TO PART II.(Continued.)

FRONTISPIECE TO PART II.(Continued.)

FRONTISPIECE TO PART II.

FRONTISPIECE TO PART II.

(Continued.)

(Continued.)

VIEW OF COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.(From Rosengarten.)

VIEW OF COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.(From Rosengarten.)

VIEW OF COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.(From Rosengarten.)

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.

PART II.—CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.Continued.

BOOK II.ITALY.—Continued.

CHAPTER VII.CONTENTS.

Circular churches—Towers at Prato and Florence—Porches—Civic buildings—Town-halls—Venice—Doge’s palace—Cà d’Oro—Conclusion.

Thereare very few specimens in Italy of circular or polygonal buildings of any class belonging to the Gothic age. As churches, none are to be expected. Baptisteries had passed out of fashion. One such building, at Parma, commenced in 1196, deserves to be quoted, not certainly for its beauty, but as illustrating those false principles of design shown in every part of every building of this age in Italy. Externally the building is an octagon, six storeys in height, the four upper ones being merely used to conceal a dome, which is covered by a low-pitched wooden roof. The lowest and the highest storeys are solid, the others are galleries supported by little ill-shaped columns. It is probable that this was not the original design of the architect, Antelami. No doubt he intended to conceal the dome, or at all events to cover it, as was the universal practice in Italy; but instead of a mere perpendicular wall, as here used, the external outline should have assumed a conical form, which might have rendered it as pleasingas it is now awkward. We have no instance of a circular building carried out by Italian architects according to their own principles sufficiently far to enable us to judge what they were capable of in this style, unless perhaps it be the tombs of the Scaligers at Verona. These take the circular or polygonal form appropriate to tombs, but are on so small a scale that they might rather be called crosses than mausolea; and though illustrating all the best principles of Italian design, and evincing an exuberance of exquisite ornament, they can hardly be regarded as important objects of high art. It is only from small buildings like these that we may recover the principles of this art as practised in Italy. Not being, like the Northern styles, a progressive national effort, but generally an individual exertion, if the first architect died during the progress of a larger building, no one knew exactly how he had intended to finish it, and its completion was entrusted to the caprice and fancy of some other man, which he generally indulged, wholly regardless of its incongruity with the work of his predecessor.

513. Baptistery, Parma. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

513. Baptistery, Parma. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

513. Baptistery, Parma. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

514. Baptistery at Parma, half Section, half Elevation. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

514. Baptistery at Parma, half Section, half Elevation. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

514. Baptistery at Parma, half Section, half Elevation. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The Italians in the age of pointed architecture were hardly more successful in their towers than in their other buildings, except that a tower, from its height, must always be a striking object, and, if both massive and high, cannot fail to have a certain imposing appearance, of which no clumsiness on the part of the architect can deprive it. Such towers as the Asinelli and Garisenda at Bologna possess no more architectural merit than the chimneys of our factories. Most of those subsequently erected were better than these, but still the Italians never caught the true idea of a spire.

Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages they retained their affection for the original rectangular form, making their towers asbroad at the summit as at the base. With very few exceptions, they are without buttresses, or any projection on the angles, to aid in giving them even an appearance of support. In consequence, when a spire was placed on such an edifice it always fitted awkwardly. The art by which a tower was prepared for its termination, first by the graduated buttresses at its base, then by the strongly marked vertical lines of its upper portion, and above all by the circle of spirelets at the top, out of which the central spire shot up as an absolute necessity of the composition—this art, so dear and so familiar to the Northern builders, was never understood by the Italians. If they, on the contrary, placed an octagon on their square towers, it looked like an accident for which nothing was prepared, and the spire was separated from it only by bold horizontal cornices, instead of by vertical lines, as true taste dictated.

515. View of the Duomo at Prato. (From Wiebeking.)

515. View of the Duomo at Prato. (From Wiebeking.)

515. View of the Duomo at Prato. (From Wiebeking.)

In fact, the Italians seem to have benefited less by the experience or instruction of their Northern neighbours in tower-building than in any other feature of the style, and to have retained their old forms in these after they had abandoned them in other parts of their churches.

The typical tower of its class is theTorracio of Cremona. It is a monumental tower commenced in 1296 to commemorate a peace made between Cremona and the neighbouring states after a long and tediouscontest for supremacy. It is not an ecclesiastical edifice, but partakes, therefore, like those of St. Mark, Venice, and of Modena, more of the character of a civic belfry than of a church tower, such as those previously mentioned. It is the highest and largest, and consequently, according to the usual acceptation of the term the finest, of Italian towers. Its whole height is 396 ft., about two-thirds of which is a square ungainly mass, without either design or ornament of any importance. On this is placed an octagon and spire, which, though in themselves perhaps the best specimens of their class in Italy, have too little connection either in design or dimensions with the tower on which they stand.

516. Torracio at Cremona. (From Gally Knight.)

516. Torracio at Cremona. (From Gally Knight.)

516. Torracio at Cremona. (From Gally Knight.)

The celebrated tower of the Ghirlandina at Modena is, perhaps, one of the best to enable us to compare these Italian towers with the Cis-Alpine ones, since it possesses a well-proportioned spire, which is found in few of the others. From its date it belongs to the second division of the subject, having been commenced in the 13th and finished in the 14th century; but, asbefore remarked, there is no line of distinction between the round-arched and pointed-arched styles in Italy, and though this campanile seems to be wholly without any pointed forms, we may describe it here.

517. Campanile, Palazzo Scaligeri, Verona. (From Street.)

517. Campanile, Palazzo Scaligeri, Verona. (From Street.)

517. Campanile, Palazzo Scaligeri, Verona. (From Street.)

Its whole height is about 315 ft., of which less than 200 are taken up in the square part—which thus bears a less predominant proportion to the spire than any other Italian example. It is evidently meant to rival the famous German spires which had become such favourites in the age in which it was built; and although it avoids many of the errors into which the excessive love of decoration and oftours de forceled the Germans, still the result is far from satisfactory. The change from the square to the octagon is abrupt and unpleasing, and the spire itself looks too thick for the octagon. Everywhere there is a want of those buttresses and pinnacles with which the Gothic architects knew so well how to prepare for a transition of form, and to satisfy the mind that the composition was not only artistically but mechanically correct. The Italians nevercomprehended the aspiring principle of the Gothic styles, and consequently, though they had far more elegance of taste and used better details, their works hardly satisfy the mind to a greater extent than a modern classical church or museum.

The same remarks apply to the towers of Siena, Lucca, Pistoja, and indeed to all in the North of Italy: all have some pleasing points, but none are entirely satisfactory. None have sufficient ornament, or display enough design, to render them satisfactory in detail, nor have they sufficient mass to enable them to dispense with the evidence of thought, and to impress by the simple grandeur of their dimensions.

518. Campanile, S. Andrea, Mantua. (From Street.)

518. Campanile, S. Andrea, Mantua. (From Street.)

518. Campanile, S. Andrea, Mantua. (From Street.)

The towers of Asti (1266) and Siena (rebuilt in 1389) are illustrated in Woodcuts Nos. 493 and 498. They certainly display but little art. A more pleasing specimen is the tower (Woodcut No.515) attachedto the Duomo at Prato (about 1312), which may be considered as a specimen of the very best class of Italian tower-design of the age, although in fact its only merit consists in the increase in the size of the openings in every storey upwards, so as to give a certain degree of lightness to the upper part. On this side of the Alps the same effect was generally attained by diminishing the diameter. When a spire is to be added, that is the only admissible mode; but when the building is to be crowned by a cornice, as at Prato, the mode there adopted is perhaps preferable.

The tower which is attached to the palace of the Scaligeri at Verona (Woodcut No.517) is perhaps as graceful as any other, and as characteristic of the Italian principles of tower-building. The lower part is absolutely plain and solid, the upper storey alone being pierced with one splendid three-light window in each face, with a boldly projecting cornice over it marking the roof. On this is placed an octagonal lantern two storeys in height. Had the lower portion of the lantern been broken by turrets or pinnacles at the angles, the effect would have been greatly improved. As it is, it seems only a makeshift to eke out the height of the whole; though the octagon with its boldly projecting cornice is as graceful as anything of the kind in Italian architecture.

The campanile attached to the church of St. Andrea at Mantua (Woodcut No.518) is more nearly Gothic both in design and details. Its vertical lines are strongly marked, and the string-courses and cornices are of moulded brickwork, which is a pleasing and characteristic feature in the architecture of Lombardy.

The worst part of this design is the smallness of the octagon and spire, and the unconnected mode in which they are placed on the roof of the tower.

The typical example of the Italian towers is that erected close to the Duomo at Florence from designs by Giotto, commenced in 1324, and considerably advanced, if not nearly finished, at the time of his death, two years afterwards.

519. Campanile at Florence. (From Gailhabaud.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

519. Campanile at Florence. (From Gailhabaud.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

519. Campanile at Florence. (From Gailhabaud.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

Though hardly worthy of the praise which has been lavished on it, it is certainly a very beautiful building. Being covered withornament from the base to the summit, it has not that nakedness which is the reproach of so many others, and the octagonal projections at the angles give it considerable relief. Besides this, the openings are very pleasingly graduated. It is virtually solid for about one-third of its height. The middle division consists of two storeys, each with two windows, while the upper part is lighted by one bold opening on each face, as at Prato. All this is good. One great defect of the composition is its parallelism. The slightest expansion of the base would have given it great apparent stability, which its height requires. Another fault is its being divided by too strongly marked horizontal courses into distinct storeys, instead of one division falling by imperceptible degrees into the other, as in the Northern towers. It has yet another defect in common with the Duomo, to which it belongs, namely, the false character of its ornamentation, which chiefly consists of a veneer of party-coloured slabs of marble,—beautiful in itself, but objectionable as not forming a part of the apparent construction.

The tower now rises to a height of 269 ft., and it was intended to have added a spire of about 90 ft. to this; but unless it had been more gracefully managed than is usual in Italy, the tower is certainly better without it. There is nothing to suggest a spire in the part already executed, nor have we any reason to believe that Giotto understood the true principles of spire-building better than his contemporaries.

Another feature very characteristic of the Gothic style in Italy is to be found in the porches attached to the churches. Generally they are placed on the flanks, and form side-entrances, and in most instances they were added after the completion of the body of the building, and consequently seldom accord in style with it. One has already been illustrated as attached to the church at Asti (Woodcut No. 493); another (Woodcut No. 501), belonging to the church of Sta. Maria dei Fiori at Florence, is an integral and beautiful part of the design.

One of the most characteristic specimens of the class in all Italy is that attached to the northern flank of the church of Sta. Maria Maggiore at Bergamo (Woodcut No.520). The principal archway and the doorway within it are circular in form, although built in the middle of the 14th century, and are ornamented with trefoils and other details of the age. Above this are three trefoiled arches, the central one containing an equestrian statue of a certain Duke Lupus, at whose expense the porch was probably built, and above these is a little pagoda-like pavilion containing statues of the Virgin and Child.

The whole design is so unconstructive that it depends more on the iron ties that are everywhere inserted to hold it together than on any system of thrusts or counterpoises, which a true Gothic architect would certainly have supplied.

520. North Porch, Sta. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo. (From Street’s ‘Brick and Marble of the Middle Ages.’)

520. North Porch, Sta. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo. (From Street’s ‘Brick and Marble of the Middle Ages.’)

520. North Porch, Sta. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo. (From Street’s ‘Brick and Marble of the Middle Ages.’)

The two main pillars rest on lions, as is universally the case in these porches throughout Italy, though rarely found elsewhere.

Like most of these Italian porches, this one will not stand criticism as a purely architectural object; but its details are so beautiful and its colours so fascinating that it pleases in spite of all its defects of design, and is more characteristic of the truly native feeling shown in the treatment of the pointed style of architecture than the more ambitious examples which were erected under direct foreign influence.

The free towns of Italy required civic buildings almost to the same extent as the contemporary cities in Belgium, though not quite of the same class. Their commerce, for instance, did not require trade halls, but no town was without its town-hall, orpalazzo pubblico, and belfry. The intrinsic difficulty of the designing of buildings of this class, as compared with churches, has already been pointed out. It cannot therefore be expected that the Italians, who failed in the easier task, should have succeeded in the harder. The town-hall at Siena is perhaps the best existing example, most of the others having been so altered that it is difficult to judge of their original effect. This must be pronounced to be a very poor architectural performance, flat and unmeaning, and without any lines or style of ornament to group the windows together into one composition, so that they are mere scattered openings in the wall.

That at Perugia seems originally to have been better, though now greatly disfigured. At Florence the Palazzo Vecchio is more of a feudal fortalice (required, it must be confessed, to keep the turbulent citizens in order) than the municipal palace of a peaceful community. In Ferrara and other cities thepalazzo pubblicois really and virtually a fortress and nothing else.

At Piacenza it consists of a range of bold pointed stone arches, supporting an upper storey of brick, adorned with a range of circular-headed windows, richly ornamented, and a pleasing specimen of the mode in which the Italians avoided the difficulty of filling the upper parts of their windows with tracery (which they never liked) and at the same time rendered them ornamental externally.

At Padua and Vicenza are two great halls supported on arcades, in intention like that of Piacenza, but far from possessing its beauty. That at Padua remains in all its pristine ugliness, as hideous an erection as any perpetrated in the Middle Ages. The hall is one of the largest in Europe, measuring 240 ft. in length by 84 in width (Westminster Hall is 238×67), but wholly without ornament or beauty of proportion. Externally the arcades that are stuck to itssides do not relieve its mass, and are not beautiful in themselves. That at Vicenza, though originally very similar, has been fortunate in having its outside clothed in one of Palladio’s most successful designs,—perhaps the only instance in which an addition of that age and style has improved a building of the Gothic period. Comparing this hall as it stands with that at Padua, it must be admitted that the Italians were perfectly correct in abandoningtheirGothic for the revived classical style, the improvement being apparent on the most cursory inspection.

521. Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona. (From Street.)

521. Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona. (From Street.)

521. Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona. (From Street.)

A number of the town-halls or Brolettos in the smaller towns still remain unaltered, or nearly so, and retain all the peculiarities of their original design. The Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona for instance (Woodcut No.521) only requires its lower arcades to be again opened to present all its original features, which resemble in almostevery respect those of the palazzo at Piacenza above mentioned, except that the latter has five arches below and six windows above, instead of two and three as here shown. This building is wholly of brick, like most other civic buildings in the North of Italy. Sometimes, as at Piacenza, they are of stone below and brick in the upper storeys. Sometimes, though rarely, they are entirely faced with party-coloured marbles like the Broletto at Como (Woodcut No.522), which, though not extensive, is a very beautiful specimen of the best form of civicarchitecture of the best age in the North of Italy, and standing as it does between the cathedral on the one hand and its own rude old belfry on the other, makes up an extremely pleasing group.[1]

522. Broletto at Como. (From Street.)

522. Broletto at Como. (From Street.)

522. Broletto at Como. (From Street.)

One of the most important buildings of this style is the Great Hospital, Milan. It was founded in the year 1456, and consequently belongs to an age when the style was dying out. It still retains more of the pointed style and of Gothic feeling than could have been found in any city farther south, or in any one less impregnated, as it were, with German blood and feeling.

523. Ornamental Brickwork from the Broletto at Brescia. (From Street.)

523. Ornamental Brickwork from the Broletto at Brescia. (From Street.)

523. Ornamental Brickwork from the Broletto at Brescia. (From Street.)

Almost all the windows in the part originally erected are pointed in form and divided by mullions. Their principal ornament consists of garlands of flowers interspersed with busts and masks and figures of Cupids, which surround the windows, or run along the string-courses. The whole of these are in terra-cotta, and make up a style of ornamentation as original as it is beautiful. It is besides purely local, and far superior to the best copies of Northern details, or to the misapplied forms of Gothic architecture which are so common in Italy.

There is perhaps nothing in the North of Italy so worthy of admiration and study, as the way in which moulded bricks of various kinds are used for decoration, especially in the civic buildings, and also occasionally in the churches. Sublimity is not perhaps to be attained in brickwork; the parts are too small; and if splendour is aimed at, it may require some larger and more costly material to produce the desired effect; but there is no beauty of detail or of design on a smallscale that may not be obtained by the use of moulded bricks, which are in themselves far more durable, and, if carefully burnt, retain their sharpness of outline longer, than most kinds of stone.

The most common way in which the Italians used this material was by repeating around their openings or along their cornices small copies of Gothic details, as in this example from a circular window in the Broletto at Brescia (Woodcut No.523). Where the details are small and designed with taste, the effect is almost equal to stone; but where the details are themselves on a large scale, as is sometimes the case, the smallness of the materials becomes apparent. Even in this example the semi-quatrefoils of the principal band are too large for the other details, though not sufficiently so to be offensive.

524. Window from the Cathedral of Monza. (From Street.)

524. Window from the Cathedral of Monza. (From Street.)

524. Window from the Cathedral of Monza. (From Street.)

Though not so rich, the effect is almost equally pleasing where the brick is merely moulded on its edge, without any very direct repetition of Gothic details, as in the upper part of the window shown in Woodcut No.524, from the cathedral of Monza. Where great depth is given so as to obtain shadow, and long tiles are used for the upper arch, as was done by the Romans, an appearance of strength and solidity is given to the construction unsurpassed by that obtained in any other material.

Perhaps the most pleasing application of terra-cotta ornaments is where bricks of different colours are used so as to produce by variety of pattern that relief which cannot so well be given by depth of shadow—a perfectly legitimate mode of ornament when so small a material is used, and when beauty only, not sublimity, is aimed at.

This is sometimes produced in Italy by introducing stone of a different colour among the bricks, as in the two examples from Verona (Woodcuts Nos.525,526); and where this mode of ornamentation is carried throughout the building, the effect is very pleasing. It is difficult, however, so to proportion the two materials as to produce exactly the effect aimed at, and seldom that the objection does notpresent itself of too much or too little stone being used. The want of shadow in brick architecture is most felt in the cornices, where sufficient projection cannot be obtained. The defect might be easily and legitimately got over by the employment of stone in the upper members of the cornice, but this expedient seems never to have been resorted to.

525. Windows from Verona. (From Street.) 526.

525. Windows from Verona. (From Street.) 526.

525. Windows from Verona. (From Street.) 526.

There are few of these brick buildings of the North of Italy which are not open to just criticism for defects of design or detail, but this may arise from the circumstance that they all belong to an age when the Italians were using a style which was not their own, and employing ornaments of which they understood neither the origin nor the application. The defects certainly do not appear to be at all inherent in the material, and, judging from the experience of the Italians, were we to make the attempt in a proper spirit, we might create with it a style far surpassing anything we now practise.

The most beautiful specimens of the civil and domestic architecture of Italy in the Gothic period are probably to be found in Venice, the richest and most peaceful of Italian cities during the Middle Ages. It is necessary to speak of the buildings of Venice, or more correctly, of the Venetian Province, by themselves, since its architecture is quite distinct both in origin and character from any other found in Northern Italy. It was not derived from the old Lombard Round Gothic, but from the richer and more graceful Byzantine. True to its parentage, it partook in after ages far more of the Southern Saracenic style than of the Northern Gothic; still it cannot be classed as either Byzantine or Saracenic, but only as Gothic treated with an Eastern feeling, and enriched with many details borrowed from Eastern styles.

527. Central Part of the Façade of the Doge’s Palace, Venice. (From Cicognara.)

527. Central Part of the Façade of the Doge’s Palace, Venice. (From Cicognara.)

527. Central Part of the Façade of the Doge’s Palace, Venice. (From Cicognara.)

The largest and most prominent civic example of Venetian Gothic is the Doge’s Palace (Woodcut No.527), first built in the commencement of the 9th century, burnt down in 976 and 1106, rebuilt 1116, and restored and enlarged by Ziani, whose work was gradually pulled down between 1300 and 1424 to make way for the existing Palace (or at least the Gothic portion of it facing the sea and the Piazzetta). The earliest portion is the S.E. angle. The S.W. angle was built about 1340, down to the tenth column (ground storey); the remainder, including the Porta della Carta (about 1424), was erected by Bartolomeo Bon and his son, the architects of the Cà d’Oro. Though many people are inclined to consider its general effect unsatisfactory, an attempt has recently been made to exalt it above the Parthenon, and all that was great and beautiful in Greece, Egypt, or Gothic Europe. There are indeed few buildings of which it is so difficult to judgecalmly, situated as it is, attached to the basilica of St. Mark, facing the beautiful library of Sansovino, and looking on the one hand into the piazza of St. Mark’s, and on the other across the water to the churches and palaces that cover the islands. It is, in fact, the centre of the most beautiful architectural group that adorns any city of Europe, or of the world—richer than almost any other building in historical associations, and in a locality hallowed, especially to an Englishman, by the poetry of Shakespeare. All this spreads a halo around and over the building, which may furnish ample excuse for those who blindly praise even its deformities. But the soberer judgment of the critic must not be led astray by such feelings, and while giving credit for the picturesque situation of this building and a certain grandeur in its design, he is compelled wholly to condemn its execution. The two arcades which constitute the base are, from their extent and the beauty of their details, as fine as anything of their class executed during the Middle Ages. There is also a just and pleasing proportion between the simple solidity of the lower, and the airy—perhaps slightly fantastic—lightness of the upper of these arcades. Had what appears to have been the original design been carried out, the building would rank high with the Alhambra and the palaces of Persia and India; but in an evil hour, in 1480, it was discovered that larger rooms were required than had been originally contemplated, and the upper wall, which was intended to stand on the back wall of the arcades, was brought forward level with the front overpowering the part below by its ill-proportioned mass.[2]This upper storey too is far from being beautiful in itself: the windows in it are not only far too few, but they are badly spaced, squat, and ungraceful; while the introduction of smaller windows and circles mars its pretensions to simplicity without relieving its plainness. Its principal ornaments are two great windows, one in the centre of each face, which appear to have assumed their present form after the fire in 1578. These are not graceful objects in themselves, and having nothing in common with the others, they look too like insertions to produce an entirely satisfactory effect. The pierced parapet, too, is poor and flimsy when seen against the sky. Had it crowned the upper arcade, and been backed by the third storey, it would have been as pleasing as it is now poor. Had the upper storey been set back, as was probably originally designed, or had it been placed on the ground and the arcades over it; had, in short, any arrangement of the parts beenadopted but the one that exists, this might have been a far more beautiful building than it is. One thing in this palace is worth remarking before leaving it—that almost all the beauty ascribed to its upper storey arises from the polychromatic mode of decoration introduced by disposing pieces of different coloured marbles in diaper patterns. This is better done here than in Florence; inasmuch as the slabs are built in, not stuck on. The admiration which it excites is one more testimony to the fact that when a building is coloured, ninety-nine people in a hundred are willing to overlook all its faults, and to extol that as beautiful, which without the adjunct of colour they would have unanimously agreed in condemning.

528. Cà d’Oro, Venice. (From Cicognara.)

528. Cà d’Oro, Venice. (From Cicognara.)

528. Cà d’Oro, Venice. (From Cicognara.)

A better specimen of the style, because erected as designed, and remaining nearly as erected, is the Cà d’Oro (Woodcut No.528),[3]built in the first years of the 15th century, contemporary with the piazzetta part of the ducal palace. It has no trace of the high roofs or aspiring tendencies of the Northern buildings of the same age, no boldly-marked buttresses in strong vertical lines, but, on the contrary flat sky lines and horizontal divisions pervade the design, and everypart is ornamented with a fanciful richness far more characteristic of the luxurious refinement of the East than of the manlier appreciation of the higher qualities of art which distinguished the contemporary erections on this side of the Alps.

The blank space between the battlements (which belong to the first building) and the string-course would seem to have been decorated with a series of twenty-six cusped arches, forming niches (shown in a mezzotint drawing dated 1800)[4]and surmounted by an upper string-course projecting in front of the battlements, thus crowning the building in a more satisfactory way than at present. The house was built for Signor Marino Contarini, Procurator of Venice, its original title being the Palace of Sta. Sophia.

529. Angle Window at Venice. (From Street.)

529. Angle Window at Venice. (From Street.)

529. Angle Window at Venice. (From Street.)

The palaces known as the Foscari and Pisani are very similar in design to that of Cà d’Oro, though less rich and less happy in the distribution of the parts; but time has restored to them that colour which was an inherent part of the older design, and they are sobeautiful and so interesting that it is hard to criticise even their too apparent defects as works of art. Most of the faults that strike us in the buildings of Venice arise from the defective knowledge which they betray of constructive principles. The Venetian architects had not been brought up in the hard school of practical experience, nor thoroughly grounded in construction, as the Northern architects were by the necessities of the large buildings which they erected. On the contrary, they merely adopted details because they were pretty, and usedthem so as to be picturesque in domestic edifices, where convenience was everything, and construction but a secondary consideration. For instance, the window here shown (Woodcut No.529) cannot fail to give the building in which it occurs an appearance of weakness and insecurity quite inexcusable in spite of its external picturesqueness or its internal convenience.

530. Ponte del Paradiso, Venice. (From Street.)

530. Ponte del Paradiso, Venice. (From Street.)

530. Ponte del Paradiso, Venice. (From Street.)

The same remark applies to the screen (Woodcut No.530) above the Ponte del Paradiso, which, though useless and unconstructive to the last degree, by its picturesque design and elegant details arrests all travellers. Indeed it is impossible to see it without admiring it, though, if imitated elsewhere, it could hardly be saved from being ridiculous.

Both these examples are surrounded by a curious dentil moulding which is found throughout St. Mark’s, and the origin of which must be sought for in St. Sophia at Constantinople, though it is better known as the Venetian dentil.

There are, besides these, many smaller palaces and houses of the Gothic age, all more or less beautiful, and all presenting some detail or some happy arrangement well worthy of study, and usually more refined and more beautiful than those of the rude but picturesque dwellings of the burghers of Bruges or Nuremberg.

The mixed Gothic style which we have been describing appears to have exerted a considerable effect on the subsequent palatial architecture of Venice, even after classical details had become generally fashionable. The arrangement of the façades remained nearly the same down to a very late period; and even when the so-called return to classical forms took place, many details of the previous style were here retained, which was not the case in any other part of Europe.

Domestic work of similar character to that of Venice is found in some of the Dalmatian towns, and in the Islands of Quarnero. At Ragusa, in Dalmatia, is a palace built in 1430, according to Mr. Jackson, from the designs of Master Onofrio Giordani de la Cava, a Neapolitan, but altered and rebuilt by Michelozzo in 1464, after the fire and explosion in 1462. The arcade of the ground storey had originally pointed arches, but in the rebuilding these were replaced by circular arches, some of the earlier capitals being utilised in the later structure. Drawings are given in Mr. Jackson’s work. The courtyards of this palace and of the Sponza in the same town are interesting examples of domestic work.


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