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CONTENTS
Chapter III | ||
| Church Architecture of the Florentine Renaissance | ||
The Pazzi chapel—Gothic character of its central vault—Architectural treatment of the interior—Impropriety of a classic order in such a building—Awkward result of an entablature passing through an arch impost—Incongruities of design and construction in the portico—Use of stucco—Sources from which the façade may have been derived—Other church architecture by Brunelleschi—San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito—Use of the entablature block in these churches—Survival of mediæval features and adjustments—Church architecture of Leon Batista Alberti—The façade of Santa Maria Novella—The façade of San Francesco of Rimini—The church of Sant' Andrea of Mantua—Return to Roman models in the structural forms of this building—Sant' Andrea foreshadows St. Peter's at Rome—Its west front an adaptation of the Roman triumphal arch scheme—Such fronts peculiar to Alberti—The designers of the Renaissance worked unconsciously on a foundation of mediæval ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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Chapter IV | ||
| The Dome of St. Peter's | ||
Bramante in Rome—His early training—Character of the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio—Its likeness to a Roman temple of Vesta—Bramante's project for St. Peter's—Uncertainty as to his scheme for the whole building—His design for the great dome—Sources of his inspiration—Comparison of his dome with that of the Pantheon—Structural merits and defects—The architect's probable intention to use a great order for the interior of the church—Michael Angelo's appointment as architect—His scheme for the great dome—Its statical defects—Its supposed Gothic character—Comparison with the dome of Salamanca—Its illogical buttress system—Its ruptures and the alarm which they occasioned—Commission appointed to examine the fabric and report on its condition—Poleni's opinion and his binding chains—The grandiose character of the dome—In following Brunelleschi, Michael Angelo went farther in a wrong direction—Such a scheme cannot be safely carried out without resort to extraneous means of support—The proper mode of constructing a dome settled by the ancient Roman and the Byzantine builders—Condition of the dome ignored by recent writers—The ruptures attributed by the early Italian writers to carelessness on the part of Bramante—The beauty of the dome exaggerated—Its violation of structural propriety incompatible with the highest architectural beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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Chapter V | ||
| Church Architecture of the Roman Renaissance | ||
Other parts of the church of St. Peter—Beauty of its plan—This plan could not be carried out with a good result in classic Roman details—Awkward makeshifts to which Michael Angelo was led—The colossal order of the interior—The magnitude of the structural parts of the church unavoidable—The real character of the building contradicted by the external order—Makeshifts which this order necessitated—The real character of St. Peter's has been rarely analyzed—Its grandeur due to its magnitude and to what it derives from the design of Bramante—Its incongruity and extravagance—Use of stucco in the ornamentation of the interior—Extravagant laudation of the building by the earlier Italian writers—Antonio San Gallo's project for St. Peter's—Earlier examples of Roman Renaissance church architecture—Sant' Agostino a mediæval building with Renaissance details—Its façade—Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi—Its attribution to Bramante—Irrational treatment of its interior—Merit of the exterior in its larger features—San Biagio at Montepulciano—The order of the interior—The Renaissance use of a pilaster coupled with a column on the corner of a building—Roman treatment of the corner—Instance of the use of a corner pilaster described by Serlio—The exterior of San Biagio—Its campanile and lantern—The evolution of this form of tower—System of Santissima Annunziatta at Arezzo—Vignola, and Milizia's remarks on him—His book of architecture—His advocacy of ancient Roman art and his disregard in practice of its principles—His design for Sant' Andrea di Ponte Molle—Its derivation from the Pantheon—Vignola's design for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli at Assisi—His design for the Gesù at Rome—Aberrations of design in this work—The façade by Della Porta—Palladio, and his great influence on modern art—His book of architecture—His design for the church of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice—The Redentore and San Francesco della Vigna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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