Fig. 67.—Italian Shell Ornament.
As time went on the style was matured into one of great richness, not to say ostentation, with which the names of Sansovino, Sanmichele, Palladio, and Scamozzi are identified as the prominent architects of the latter part of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this city of palaces Sansovino, also a very fine sculptor, built the celebrated Library of St. Mark, facing the Ducal Palace,which has been followed very closely in the design of the Carlton Club, Pall Mall. Here, as in the splendid Cornaro Palace, the architect relied chiefly upon the columns and entablatures of the orders, combined with grand arcades enriched by sculpture, so arranged as to occupy the spaces between the columns; almost the whole of the wall-space was so taken up, and the basement only was covered with rustication, often rough worked, as at the beautiful Palazzo Pompeii, Verona, and the Grimani Palace, Venice.
“Sanmichele’s works are characterised chiefly by their excellent proportions, their carefully studied detail, their strength, and their beauty (qualities so difficult to combine). We believe that the buildings of this great architect and engineer at Verona are pre-eminent in their peculiar style over those of any other artist of the sixteenth century. In a different, but no less meritorious, manner are the buildings designed by Sansovino; they are characterised by a more sculptural and ornamental character; order over order with large arched voids in the interspaces of the columns producing a pictorial effect which might have led his less gifted followers into a false style, but for the example of the celebrated Palladio.”—M. D. W.
To the latest time of the Renaissance in Venice belongs the picturesque domed church of St. Maria della Salute, conspicuous in many views of the Grand Canal, a building which is a work of real genius in spite of what is considered its false taste. It dates from 1632. The architect is Longhena.
Fig. 68.—The Church of the Redentore, Venice. (1576.)
An almost endless series of palaces and houses can be found in Venice, all of them rich, but few of great extent, for every foot of space had to be won from the sea by laborious engineering. There are some features whichnever fail to present themselves, and which are consequences of the conditions under which the structures were designed. All rise from the water, and require to admit of gondolas coming under the walls; hence there is always a principal central entrance with steps in front, but this entrance never has any sort of projecting portico or porch,and is never very much larger than the other openings in the front. As a straight frontage to the water had to be preserved, we hardly ever meet with such a thing as a break or projection of any sort; but the Venetian architects have found other means of giving interest to their elevations, and it is to the very restrictions imposed by circumstances that we owe the great originality displayed in their earlier buildings. The churches do not usually front directly on to the water; and though they are almost all good of their kind, they are far more commonplace than the palaces. The system of giving variety to the façade of the secular buildings by massing openings near the centre, has been already referred to. Both shadow and richness were also aimed at in the employment of projecting balconies; in fact the two usually go together, for the great central window or group of windows mostly has a large and rich balcony belonging to it.
Not far from Venice is Vicenza, and here Palladio, whose best buildings in Venice are churches, such, for example, as the Redentore (Fig.68), enjoyed an opportunity of erecting a whole group of palaces, the fronts of which are extremely remarkable as designs; though, being executed in brick and plastered, they are now falling to ruin. There is much variety in them, and while some of them rely upon his device of lofty pilasters to include two storeys of the building under one storey of architectural treatment, others are handled differently. In all a singularly fine feeling for proportion and for the appropriate omission as well as introduction of ornament is to be detected. The worst defect of these fronts is, however, that they appear more like masks than the exteriors of buildings, for there is little obvious connection between the features of the exterior and anything which we may suppose to existinside the building. The finest architectural work left behind by Palladio in this city are, however, the great arcades with which he surrounded the Basilica, a vast building of the middle ages already alluded to. These arcades are two storeys high, and are rich, yet vigorous; they ornament the great structure, the roof of which may be seen rising behind, without overpowering it.
In Milan two buildings at least belong to the early Renaissance. These are the sacristy of Sta. Maria presso San Satiro, and the eastern portion of the church of Sta. Maria delle Grazie; Bramante was the architect of both. The last-named work is an addition to an existing Gothic church; it is executed in the terra-cotta and brick of Lombardy, materials which the Renaissance architects seemed to shun in later times, and is full of the most profuse and elegant ornaments. The design consists of a dome, treated externally a little like some of the Lombard domes of earlier date; and three apses forming choir and transepts. It is divided into several stages, and abundantly varied in its panelling and arcading, and is full of vigour. By Bramante is also the very beautiful arcaded quadrangle of the great hospital at Milan, the Gothic front of which has been already noticed. There are many Renaissance buildings of later date in Milan, but none very remarkable.
Fig. 69.—The Certosa near Pavia. Part of the West Front. (Begun by Borgognone 1473.)
To the early period belongs the design of the façade of the Certosa near Pavia, part of which is shown (Fig.69). This was begun as early as 1473, by Ambrogio Borgognone, and was long in hand. It proceeded on the lines settled thusearly, and is probably the richest façade belonging to any church in Christendom; it is executed entirely in marble. Sculpture is employed to adorn every part that is near the eye, and especially the portal, which is flanked by pilasters with their faces panelled and occupied by splendidalti relievi. The upper part is enriched by inlays of costly marbles, but the two systems of decoration do not thoroughly harmonise; for the upper half looks coarse, which it in reality is not, in contrast with the delicate richness of the carving near the eye. The great features, such as the entrance, the windows, and the angle pinnacles are thoroughly good, and an arcade of small arches is twice introduced,—once running completely across the front at about half its height, and again near the top of the central portion,—with excellent effect (seeFrontispiece).
Turning now to Genoa we find, as we may in several great cities of Italy, that very great success has been achieved by an artist whose works are to be seen in no other city, and whose fame is proportionally restricted. Just as the power of Luini as a painter can only be fully understood at Milan, or that of Giulio Romano at Mantua, so the genius of Alessio (1500 to 1572) as an architect can only be understood at Genoa. From the designs of this architect were built a series of well planned and imposing palaces. These buildings have most of them the advantage of fine and roomy sites. The fronts are varied, but as a rule consist of a very bold basement, with admirably-treated vigorous mouldings, supporting a lighter superstructure, and in one or two instances flanked by an open arcade at thewings. The entrance gives access, through a vaulted hall, to the cortile, which is usually planned and designed in the most effective manner; and in several instances the state staircase is so combined with this feature that on ascending the first flight the visitor comes to a point of sight for which the whole may be said to have been designed, and from which a splendid composition of columns and arches is seen. The rooms and galleries in these palaces are very fine, and in several instances have been beautifully decorated in fresco by Perino del Vaga.
Alessio was also the architect of a large domical church (il Carignano) in the same city; but it is far inferior in merit to his series of palaces. Genoa also possesses a famous church (the Annunziata) of late Renaissance, attributed to Puget (1622-1694). It is vaulted, and enriched with marbles, mosaics, and colour to such an extent that it may fairly claim to be the most gaudy church in Italy, which is unfortunate, as its original undecorated design is fine and simple.
Turin in the north, and Naples in the south, are chiefly remarkable for examples of the latest and more or less debased Renaissance, and we therefore do not propose to illustrate or describe any of the buildings in either city.
Fig. 70.—Villa Medici—On the Pincian Hill near Rome. By Annibale Lippi (now theAcadémie Française). (A.D.1540.)
As the ancient Roman patrician had his villa, which was his country resort, the Italian of the revival followed his example, and, if he was wealthy enough, built himself a pleasure house, which he called a villa, either in the immediate suburbs of his city, or at some little distance away in the country. These buildings occur throughoutItaly. Many of them are excellent examples of Renaissance architecture of a more modest type than that of the palaces. The Villa Papa Giulio, built from the designs of Vignola, and the Villa Medici, designed by Annibale Lippi, but attributed, for some unknown reason, to Michelangelo, may be mentioned as among the most thoroughly architectural out of some twenty or more splendid villas in the suburbs of Rome alone. Many of these buildings were erected late in the Renaissance period, and are better worth attention for their fine decorations and the many works of art collected within their walls than as architectural studies—but this is not always the case; and as they were mostly designed to serve the purpose of elegant museums rather than that of country houses as we understand the term, they usually possess noble interiors, and exhibit throughout elaborate finish, choice materials, and lavish outlay.
Early renaissance corbel. From a door in Santa Maria, Venice
FOOTNOTES:[31]An entablature is the superstructure which ordinarily is carried by a column, and which it is usual to divide into architrave (or beam), frieze, and cornice.[32]An order consists of a column (or pilaster) with its distinctive base and capital, its entablature, and the appropriate decorations. There are five orders, differing in proportions, in the degree of enrichment required, and in the design of the base and capital of the column or pilaster, and of the entablature.
[31]An entablature is the superstructure which ordinarily is carried by a column, and which it is usual to divide into architrave (or beam), frieze, and cornice.
[31]An entablature is the superstructure which ordinarily is carried by a column, and which it is usual to divide into architrave (or beam), frieze, and cornice.
[32]An order consists of a column (or pilaster) with its distinctive base and capital, its entablature, and the appropriate decorations. There are five orders, differing in proportions, in the degree of enrichment required, and in the design of the base and capital of the column or pilaster, and of the entablature.
[32]An order consists of a column (or pilaster) with its distinctive base and capital, its entablature, and the appropriate decorations. There are five orders, differing in proportions, in the degree of enrichment required, and in the design of the base and capital of the column or pilaster, and of the entablature.
Ornament by Giulio Romano
THE revived classic architecture came direct from Italy, and did not reach France till it had been well established in the land of its origin. It was not however received with the same welcome which hailed its appearance in Italy. Gothic architecture had a strong hold on France, and accordingly, instead of a sudden change, we meet with a period of transition, during which buildings were erected with features partly Gothic and partly Renaissance, and on varied principles of design.
French Renaissance underwent great fluctuations, and it is less easy to divide it into broad periods than to refer, as most French writers prefer to do, to the work of each prominent monarch’s reign separately.
Francis the First (1515-1547) made the architecture of Italy fashionable in his kingdom, and his name is borne by the beautiful transitional style of his day. This in most cases retains some Gothic forms, and the principles of composition are in the main Gothic, but the features are mostlyof Italian origin, though handled with a fineness of detail and a smallness of scale that is not often met with, even in early Italian Renaissance. There are few buildings more charming in the architecture of any age or country than the best specimens of the style of Francis the First, and none that can bear so much decoration and yet remain so little overladen by the ornaments they carry. The finest example is the Château of Chambord, a large building, nearly square on plan, with round corner towers, capped by simple and very steep roofs, at the angles; and having as its central feature, a large and lofty mass of towers, windows and arcades, surmounted by steep roofs, ending in a kind of huge lantern. The windows have mullions and transoms like Gothic windows, but pilasters of elegant Renaissance design ornament the walls. The main cornice is a kind of compromise between an Italian and a Gothic treatment. Dormer windows, high and sharply pointed, but with little pilasters and pediments as their ornaments, occur constantly; and the chimneys, which are of immense mass and great height, are panelled profusely, and almost ostentatiously displayed, especially on the central portion. In the interior of the central building is a famous staircase; but the main attractions are the bright and animated appearance of the whole exterior, and the richness and gracefulness of the details.
The same architecture is to be well seen in the north side of the famous Château of Blois—a building parts of which were executed in three different periods of French architecture. The exterior of theFrançois premierpart of Blois is irregular, and portions of the design are wildly picturesque; on the side which fronts towards the quadrangle, the architecture is more symmetrically designed, and beauty rather than picturesque effect has been aimed at.An open staircase is the part of the quadrangle upon which most care has been lavished. Throughout the whole block of buildings the character of each individual feature and of every combination of features is graceful andpiquant. The elegance and delicacy of some of the carved decoration in the interior is unsurpassed.
Fig. 71.—Window from a House at Orleans. (Early 16th Century.)
In the valley of the Loire there exist many noblemen’s châteaux of this date, corresponding in general character with Chambord and Blois, though on a smallerscale. Of these Chénonceaux, fortunate alike in its design and its situation, is the most elegant and the best known: yet many others exist which approach it closely, such, for example, as the Château de Gaillon—a fragment of which forms part of the École des Beaux Arts at Paris—the Hôtel de Ville of Beaugency, the Châteaux of Châteaudun, Azay-le-Rideau, La Cote, and Ussé; the Hôtel d’Anjou at Angers, and the house of Agnes Sorel at Orleans.
In the streets of Orleans houses of this date (Fig.71) are to be found, showing the style cleverly adapted to the requirements of town dwellings and shops. Several of them also possess courtyards with arcades or other architectural features treated with great freedom and beauty, for instance, the arcades in the house ofFrançois Premier(Fig.72). An arcade in the courtyard of the Gothic Hôtel de Bourgtherould at Rouen, is one of the best known examples of the style remaining, and instances of it may be met with as far apart as at Caen (east end of church of St. Pierre) and Toulouse (parts of St. Sernin).
One Paris church, that of St. Eustache, belonging to this transitional period claims mention, since for boldness and completeness it is one of the best of any date in that city. St. Eustache is a five-aisled church with an apse, transept, and lateral chapels outside the outer aisle. It is vaulted throughout, and its plan and structure are those of a Gothic church in all respects. Its details are however all Renaissance, but not so good as those to be found at Blois, nor so appropriately used, yet notwithstanding this it has a singularly impressive interior.
Fig. 72.—Capital from the House of Francis I., Orleans. (1540.)
Meantime, and alongside the buildings resulting fromthis fusion of styles, others which were almost direct importations from Italy were rising; in some cases, if not in all, under the direction of Italian architects. Thus on Fontainebleau, which Francis I. erected, three or four Italian architects, one of whom was Vignola, were engaged. It may or may not have been this connection of the great architect with this work which gave him influence inFrance, but certainly almost the whole of the later French Renaissance, or at any rate its good time, was marked by a conformity to the practice of Vignola, in whose designs we usually find one order of columns or pilasters for each storey, rather than to that of Palladio, whose use of tall columns equalling in height two or more floors of the building has been already noticed.
Designs for the Louvre, the rebuilding of which was commenced in the reign of Francis the First (aboutA.D.1544), were made by Serlio, an Italian; and though Pierre Lescot was the architect of the portion built in that reign, it is probable that the design obtained from Serlio was in the main followed. The part then finished, which, to a certain extent gave the keynote to the whole of this vast building, was unquestionably a happy effort, and may be taken to mark the establishment of a French version of matured Renaissance architecture. The main building has two orders of pilasters with cornices, &c., and above them a low attic storey, with short piers: at the angles a taller pavilion was introduced, and next the quadrangle arcades are introduced between the pilasters. The sculpture, some of it at least, is from the chisel of Jean Goujon; it is good and well placed, and the whole has an air of dignity and richness. ThePavillon Richelieu, shewn in our engraving (Fig.73), was not built till the next century. The colossal figures are by Barye.
A little later in date than the early part of the Louvre was the Hôtel de Ville, built from the designs of Pietro da Cortona, an Italian, and said to have been begun in 1549. The building had been greatly extended before its recent total destruction by fire, but the central part, which was the original portion, was a fine vigorous composition, having two lofty pavilions, with high roofs at theextremities, and a remarkably rich stone lantern of great height for a central feature.
Fig. 73.—Pavillon Richelieu of the Louvre, Paris.
In the reign of Charles IX. the Palace of the Tuileries was commenced (1564) for Catherine de Médicis, from the designs of Philibert Delorme. Of this building, that part only which fronted the garden was erected at the time. Our illustration (Fig.74) shows the architectural character of a portion of it, and it is easy to detect that considerable alterations have by this time been introduced into the treatment of the features of Renaissance architecture. The bands of rustication passing round the pilasters as well as the walls, the broken pediments on the upper storey, surmounted by figures, and supported by long carved pilasters, and the shape of the dormer windows are all of them quite foreign to Renaissance architecture as practised in Italy, and may be looked upon as essentially French features. Similar details were employed in the work executed at about the same period, by the same and other architects, in other buildings, as may be seen by our illustration (Fig.75) of a portion of Delorme’s work at the Louvre. In these features, which may be found in the Château d’Anet and other works of the same time, and in the style to which they belong, may be seen the direct result of Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel at Florence, a work which had much more effect on French than on Italian architecture. The full development of the architecture of Michelangelo (or rather the ornamental portions of it) is to be found in French Renaissance, rather than in the works of his own successors in Italy.
Much of the late sixteenth century architecture of France was very inferior, and the parts of the Louvre and Tuileries which date from the reign of Henry IV. are the least satisfactory portions of those vast piles.
Fig. 74.—Part of the Tuileries, Paris. (Begun 1564.)
Dating from the early part of the seventeenth century, we have the Palais Royal built for Richelieu, and the Palace of the Luxembourg, a building perhaps more correct and quiet than original or beautiful, but against which the reproach of extravagant ornament cannot certainly be brought.
Fig. 75.—Capital from Delorme’s work at the Louvre. (Middle of 16th Century.)
With Louis the Fourteenth (1643 to 1715) came in a great building period, of which the most striking memorial is the vast and uninteresting Palace of Versailles. The architect was the younger Mansard (1647 to 1768), and the vastness of the scale upon which he worked onlymakes his failure to rise to his grand opportunity the more conspicuous. The absence of features to diversify the sky-line is one of the greatest defects of this building, a defect the less excusable as the high-pitched roof of Gothic origin had never been abandoned in France. This roof has been employed with great success in many buildings of the French Renaissance. Apart from this fault, the architectural features of Versailles are so monotonous, weak, and uninteresting that the building, though its size may astonish the spectator, seldom rouses admiration.
Far better is the eastern block of the Louvre (the portion facing the Place du Louvre), though here also we find the absence of high roofs, and the consequent monotony of the sky-line—a defect attaching to hardly any other portion of the building. Bernini was invited from Italy for this work, and there is a curious story in one of Sir Christopher Wren’s published letters of an interview he had with Bernini while the latter was in Paris on this business, and of the glimpse which he was allowed to enjoy of the design the Italian had made. The building was, however, after all, designed and carried out by Perrault, and, though somewhat severe, possesses great beauty and much of that dignity in which Versailles is wanting.
The best French work of this epoch to be found in or out of Paris is probably the Hôtel des Invalides (Fig.76), with its fine central feature. This is crowned by the most striking dome in Paris, one which takes rank as second only in Europe to our own St. Paul’s, for beauty of form and appropriateness of treatment. The two domes are indeed somewhat alike in general outline.
The reign of Louis XIV. witnessed a large amount of building throughout France, as well as in the metropolis, and to the same period we must refer an enormous amountof lavish decoration in the interior of buildings, the taste of which is to our eyes painfully extravagant. Purer taste on the whole prevailed, if not in the reign of Louis XV. certainly in that of Louis XVI., to which period much really good decorative work, and some successful architecture belongs. The chief building of the latter part of the eighteenth century is the Pantheon (Ste. Geneviève), the best domed church in France, and one which must always take a high rank among Renaissance buildings of any age or country. The architect was Soufflot, and his ambition, like that of the old Gothic masons, was not only to produce a work of art, but a feat of skill; his design accordingly provided a smaller area of walls and piers compared with the total floor space than any other Renaissance church, or indeed than any great church, except a few of the very best specimens of late Gothic construction, such for example as King’s College Chapel. The result has been that the fabric has not been quite stout enough to bear the weight of the dome, and that it has required to be tied and propped and strengthened in various ways from time to time. The plan of the Pantheon is a Greek cross, with a short vestibule, and a noble portico at the west, and a choir corresponding to the vestibule on the east. It has a fine central dome, which is excellently seen from many points of view externally, and forms the principal feature of the very effective interior. Each arm of the building is covered by a flat domical vault; a single order of pilasters and columns runs quite round the interior of the church occupying the entire height of the walls; and the light is admitted in a most successful manner by large semicircular windows at the upper part of the church, starting above the cornice of the order.
Fig. 76.—L’Église des Invalides, Paris. By J. H. Mansard. (BegunA.D.1645.)
One other work of the eighteenth century challenges theadmiration of every visitor to Paris and must not be overlooked, because it is at once a specimen of architecture and of that skilful if formal arrangement of streets and public places in combination with buildings which the French have carried so far in the present century. We allude to the two blocks of buildings, occupied as government offices, which front to the Place de la Concorde and stand at the corner of the Rue Royale. They are the work of Gabriel (1710-1782), and are justly admired as dignified if a little heavy and uninteresting. As specimens of architecture these buildings, with the Pantheon, are enough to establish a high character for French art at a time when in most other European countries the standard of taste had fallen to a very low level.
The hôtels (i.e.town mansions) and châteaux of the French nobility furnish a series of examples, showing the successive styles of almost every part of the Renaissance period. The phases of the style, subsequent to that of Francis the First, can however, be so well illustrated by public buildings in Paris, that it will be hardly necessary to go through a list of private residences however commanding; but the Château of Maisons, and the Royal Château of Fontainebleau, may be named as specimens of a class of building which shows the capacity of the Renaissance style when freely treated.
Renaissance buildings in France are distinguished by their large extent and the ample space which has been in many instances secured in connection with them. They are rarely of great height or imposing mass like the early Italian palaces. For the most part they are a good deal broken up, the surface of the walls is much covered by architectural features, not usually on a large scale, so that the impression of extent which really belongs to them isintensified by the treatment which their architects have adopted.
Orders are frequently introduced and usually correspond with the storeys of the building. However this may be the storeys are always well marked. The sky-line also is generally picturesque and telling, though Versailles and the work of Lescot at the Louvre form an exception. Rustication is not much employed, and the vast but simple crowning cornices of the Italian palaces are never made use of. Narrow fronts like those at Venice, and open arcades or loggias like those of Genoa, do not form features of French Renaissance buildings; but on the other hand, much richness, and many varieties of treatment which the Italians never attempted, were tried, and as a rule successfully, in France.
Much good sculpture is employed in external enrichments, and a cultivated if often luxuriant taste is always shown. Many of the interiors are rich with carving, gilding, and mirrors, but harmonious coloured decoration is rare, and the fine and costly mosaics of Italy are almost unknown.
These countries afford but few examples of Renaissance. The Town Hall at Antwerp, an interesting building of the sixteenth century, and the Church of St. Anne at Bruges, are the most conspicuous buildings; and there are other churches in the style which are characteristic, and parts of which are really fine. The interiors of some of the town halls display fittings of Renaissance character, often rich and fanciful in the extreme, and bearing a general resemblance to French work of the same period.
Fig. 77.—Window from Colmar. (1575.)
Fig. 78.—Zeughaus, Dantzic. (1605.)
Buildings of pure Renaissance architecture, anterior to the nineteenth century, are scarce in Germany, or indeed in North-east Europe; but a transitional style, resembling our own Elizabethan, grew up and long held its ground, so that many picturesque buildings can be met with, of which the design indicates a fusion of the ideas and features of Gothic with those of classic art. This architectural style took so strong a hold that examples of it may be found throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in almost every northern town.
That part of the Castle of Heidelberg, which was built at the beginning of the seventeenth century, may be cited as belonging to this German transitional style. The front in this case is regularly divided by pilasters of the classic orders, but very irregular in their proportions and position. The windows are strongly marked, and with carved mullions. Large dormer windows break into the high roof; ornaments abound, and the whole presents a curiously blended mixture of the regular and the picturesque. Rather earlier in date, and perhaps rather more Gothic in their general treatment, are such buildings as the great Council Hall at Rothenberg (1572), that at Leipzig (1556), the Castle of Stuttgart (1553), with its picturesque arcaded quadrangle, or the lofty and elaborate Cloth Hall at Brunswick.
Fig. 79.—Council-house at Leyden. (1599.)
Examples of similar character abound in the old inns of Germany and Switzerland, and many charming features, such as the window from Colmar (Fig.77), dated 1575, which forms one of our illustrations could be brought forward. Another development of the same mixed style may be illustrated by the Zeug House at Dantzic (1605),of which we give the rear elevation (Fig.78). Not altogether dissimilar from these in character is the finely-designed Castle of Fredericksberg at Copenhagen, testifying to the wide spread of the phase of architecture to which we are calling attention. The date of this building is 1610. A richer example, but one little if at all nearer to Italian feeling, is the Council House at Leyden, a portion of which we illustrate (Fig.79). This building dates from 1599, and bears more resemblance to English Elizabethan in its ornaments, than to the architecture of any other country.
Simultaneously with these, some buildings made their appearance in Germany, which, though still picturesque, showed the dawn of a wish to adopt the features of pure Renaissance. The quadrangle of the Castle of Schalaburg (Fig.80), may be taken as a specimen of the adoption of Renaissance ideas as well as forms. It is in effect an Italian cortile, though more ornate than Italian architects would have made it. It was built in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and seems to point to a wish to make use of the new style with but little admixture of northern ornament or treatment.
When architecture had quite passed through the transition period, which fortunately lasted long, the buildings, not only of Germany, but of the north generally, became uninteresting and tame; in fact, they present so few distinguishing features, that it is not necessary to describe or illustrate them. Russia, it is true, contains a few striking buildings belonging to the eighteenth century, but most of those which we might desire to refer to, were built subsequent to the close of that century.
Fig. 80.—Quadrangle of the Castle of Schalaburg. (Late 16th Century.)
Ornamental foliage pattern
IN England, as in France and Germany, the introduction of the Italian Renaissance was not accomplished without a period of transition. The architecture of this period is known as Elizabethan, though it lasted long after Elizabeth’s reign. Sometimes it is called Tudor; but it is more convenient and not unusual to limit the term Tudor to the latest phase of English Gothic.
Probably the earliest introduction into any English building of a feature derived from the newly-revived classic sources is in the tomb of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey. The grille inclosing this is of good, though late Gothic design; but when the tomb itself came to be set up, for which a contract was made with Torregiano in 1512, it was Italian in its details. The earliest examples of Renaissance features actually built into a structure, so far as we are aware, is in the terra-cotta ornamentation of Layer Marney House in Essex, which it is certain was erected prior to 1525. It is however long—surprisingly long—after thisperiod before we come upon the traces of a general use of Renaissance details. In fact, up to the accession of Elizabeth (1558) they appear to have been little employed. It is however said that early in her reign the treatises on Renaissance architecture of Philibert de l’Orme and Lomazzo were translated from Italian into English, and in 1563 John Shute published a book on Italian architecture.
John of Padua, an Italian architect, was brought to this country by Henry VIII. and practised here; and Theodore Havenius of Cleves was employed as architect in the buildings of Caius College, Cambridge (1565-1574). These two foreigners undoubtedly played an important part in a change of taste which, though not general so early, certainly did commence before Elizabeth’s death in 1603.
At the two universities, and in many localities throughout England, new buildings and enlargements of old ones were carried out during the long and prosperous reign of Elizabeth; and the style in which they were built will be found to have admitted of very great latitude. Where the intention was to obtain an effect of dignity or state, the classic principles of composition were more or less followed. The buildings at Caius College, Cambridge, Longleat, built between 1567 and 1579 by John of Padua, Woollaton, built about 1580 by Smithson, and Burleigh (built 1577), may be named as instances of this. On the other hand where a manorial or only a domestic character was desired, the main lines of the building are Gothic, but the details, in either case, are partly Gothic and partly modified Renaissance. This description will apply to such buildings as Knowle, Penshurst, Hardwick, Hatfield, Bramshill, or Holland House (Fig.81). In the introductory chapter some account has been given, in general terms, of the features familiar to most and endeared tomany, which mark these peculiarly English piles of buildings; those remarks may be appropriately continued here.
Fig. 81.—Holland House at Kensington. (1607.)
The hall of Gothic houses was still retained, but only as one of a series of fine apartments. In many cases English mansions had no internal quadrangle, and are built as large solid blocks with boldly projecting wings. They are often of three storeys in height, the roofs are frequently of flat pitch, and in that case are hidden behind a parapet which is sometimes of fantastic design. Where the roofs are steeper and not concealed the gables are frequently of broken outline. Windows are usually very large, and with mullions and transoms, and it is to these large openings that Elizabethan interiors owe their bright and picturesque effects. Entrances are generally adorned with some classic or semi-classic features, often, however, much altered from their original model; here balustrades, ornamental recesses, stone staircases, and similar formal surroundings are commonly found, and are generally arranged with excellent judgment, though often quaint in design.
“This style is characterised by a somewhat grotesque application of the ancient orders and ornaments, by large and picturesquely-formed masses, spacious staircases, broad terraces, galleries of great length (at times 100 feet long), orders placed on orders, pyramidal gables formed of scroll-work often pierced, large windows divided by mullions and transoms, bay windows, pierced parapets, angle turrets, and a love of arcades. The principal features in the ornament are pierced scroll-work, strap-work, and prismatic rustication, combined with boldly-carved foliage (usually conventional) and roughly-formed figures.”—M. D. W.
Interiors are bright and with ample space; very richly ornamented plaster ceilings are common; the walls ofmain rooms are often lined with wainscot panelling, and noble oak staircases are frequent.
In the reign of James I., our first Renaissance architect of mark, Inigo Jones (1572-1652) became known. He was a man of taste and genius, and had studied in Italy. He executed many works, the designs for which were more or less in the style of Palladio. These include the addition of a portico to the (then Gothic) cathedral of St. Paul’s, and a magnificent design for a palace which Charles I. desired to build at Whitehall. A fragment of this building, now known as the Chapel Royal Whitehall, was erected, and small though it be, has done much by its conspicuous position and great beauty, to keep up a respect for Inigo Jones’s undoubted high attainments as an artist.
More fortunate than Inigo Jones, Christopher Wren (1632-1723) had just attained a high position as a young man of science, skill, and cultivation, and as the architect of the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, when in 1666 the great fire of London destroyed the Metropolitan Cathedral, the parochial churches, the Royal Exchange, the Companies’ Halls, and an immense mass of private property in London, and created an opportunity which made great demands upon the energy, skill, and fertility of design of the architect who might attempt to grasp it. Fortunately, Wren was equal to the occasion, and he has endowed London with a Cathedral which takes rank among the very foremost Renaissance buildings in Europe, as well as a magnificent series of parochial churches, and other public buildings. It is not pretended that his works are free from defects, but there can be no question that admitting anything which can be truly said against them, they are works of artistic genius, full of fresh and originaldesign, and exhibiting rare sagacity in their practical contrivance and construction.
St. Paul’s stands second only to St. Peter’s as a great domical cathedral of Renaissance architecture. It falls far short of its great rival in actual size and internal effect, and is all but entirely devoid of that decoration in which St. Peter’s is so rich. On the other hand, the exterior of St. Paul’s (Fig.82) is far finer, and as the English cathedral had the good fortune to be erected entirely from the plans and under the supervision of one architect, it is a building consistent with itself throughout, which, as we have seen, is more than can be said of St. Peter’s.
The plan of St. Paul’s is a Latin cross, with well marked transepts, a large portico, and two towers at the western entrance; an apse of small size forms the end of the eastern arm, and of each of the transepts; a great dome covers the crossing; the cathedral has a crypt raising the main floor considerably, and its side walls are carried high above the aisle roofs so as to hide the clerestory windows from sight.
The dome is very cleverly planted on eight piers instead of four at the crossing, and is a triple structure; for between the dome seen from within, and the much higher dome seen from without, a strong cone of brickwork rises which bears the weight of the stone lantern and ball and cross that surmount the whole. The skill with which the dome is made the central feature of a pyramidal composition whatever be the point of view, the great beauty of the circular colonnade immediately below the dome, the elegant outline of the western towers, and the unusual but successful distribution of the great portico, are among the most noteworthy elements which go to make up the charm of this very successful exterior.