Character of Renaissance Architecture/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE
While it was in church edifices that the neo-classic ideas in architecture were first embodied, it was in vast palatial houses, that they were most extensively carried out. Early in the fifteenth century luxurious living began to prevail among the upper classes of society, and sumptuous private dwellings on an unprecedented scale were now erected in Florence. Magnificent palaces had, indeed, been built in the later Middle Ages which were among the chief ornaments of the mediæval towns; but those were civic monuments expressive of the communal spirit and artistic culture of their time. Such buildings as the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, the Ducal Palace of Venice, and many others were the material manifestation of a state of municipal pride, and popular love of beauty and propriety in public monuments. Upon these buildings the best craftsmanship was lavished, while the dwellings of the most wealthy citizens were modest in scale, though often beautiful in design.
Plate IV
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PALAZZO RICCARDI
Florence
string courses marking off the stories, and windows in some cases wholly round arched, in others having the extrados pointed with an ogee curve (Fig. 57).
But early in the fifteenth century vast structures for private use began to arise which rivalled in scale, and in costly splendour, the great civic monuments of the former time. The first of these larger palaces in Florence is the one now known as the Riccardi, designed by the architect Michelozzi for Cosimo de' Medici in 1430. It is a princely edifice, and though comparatively plain in general aspect, it is in many ways superior in architectural character to all of those which followed it. Like other buildings of its class it is in plan a survival of the ancient Roman house, having the form of a rectangle enclosing an open court. In elevation (Plate IV) it has two stories over
.jpg) Fig. 56. |
.jpg) Fig. 57. |
a high basement, and is grandly simple in design, and fine in its proportions. In buildings of this class there is no peculiar internal system which requires attention before the outside can be understood. The apartments have generally flat wooden ceilings, and where vaulting occurs, as usually in the basement and sometimes in the upper stories, it is of a kind that calls for no buttresses against the wall, the thrusts being met by the thickness of the walls, and by the weight of the upper stories. The façades of the Riccardi have no engaged orders, but the great cornice has classic profiling, and its bed mouldings have dentils and other classic details, while modillions of semi-classic form support the corona. The window openings are of thoroughly mediæval character in their larger features, and are each composed of a round arch embracing two smaller arches with a central shaft and jamb shafts, but the shafts have the tapering form with entasis, and the congé, of classic design. The capitals are of nondescript form, with a channelled bell, an ovolo with egg and dart ornament, reversed Corinthianesque leafage depending from its angles, and a Corinthian abacus in each. The openings are uniform in each story, and their archivolts are treated in the mediæval Italian manner, the extrados being struck from a higher centre than the intrados. The graduated heights of the stories, and the varied treatment of the wall surfaces by rough-faced rustication in the basement, smooth-faced rustication in the principal story, and smooth close-jointed masonry in the top story, add much to the beauty of this finest of early Renaissance palaces. It is worthy of notice that here, as in the Italian domestic architecture of the Renaissance generally, the roof is not visible in a near view of the building, and no dormers or chimney-stacks appear. The conditions of climate did not call for a high-pitched roof, nor for any of those features that are naturally developed in the architecture of more northern countries. The general outline of the edifice is thus severely simple, and its agreeable effect is due to its fine proportions and arrangement of parts. It is noticeable, too, that the reveals are shallow on the outside, in marked contrast to the deep reveals of the later Renaissance architecture. This is not only conducive to quietness of effect, but it has the advantage of giving to the interior the maximum of light—since the farther out the glass is placed the less will be the shadow thrown upon it, while the internal reveal, especially when it is splayed, reflects light into the interior.
The interior court of the Renaissance palace has a vaulted arcade on each of its four sides beneath the overhanging upper stories. These arcades are, in the Riccardi (Fig. 58), supported on columns of classic form with capitals of a composite type, but of no great beauty. The arches spring directly from these capitals, and have classic profiles, while two string courses, with an interval forming a semblance of a frieze, give the effect of an entablature passing over the crowns of the arches.
The spacious apartments of these early Florentine palaces are generally fine in their proportions and simple in their architectural treatment. They are, however, rarely well lighted. The ceilings are at a great height above the comparatively low windows, and the windows are disposed for external effect, rather than for convenience within. Thus while these apartments are stately, they rarely adapted to cheerful indoor life, and in a northern climate they would be intolerably gloomy. When used, as they now often are, as galleries for the display of works of art, they do not serve well, very small portions of their vast wall spaces being well lighted, and the disposition of the openings often such as to produce embarrassing cross lights and reflections..jpg)
Fig. 58.—Court of the Riccardi.
Vasari tells us that "after Brunelleschi, Michelozzi was held to be the most consistent architect of his time, and the one who with best judgment planned either palaces, monasteries or houses." And concerning the Riccardi he adds, "All the more praise is due him since this was the first palace in Florence built in the modern manner, and which has a disposition of apartments both useful and beautiful."[1] He does not explain in what the superior planning of the Riccardi consists, and it is doubtful whether these remarks were based on any definite idea. But however this may be, the building is indeed a stately and magnificent one, of quiet aspect, and for the most part free from meaningless features.
Hardly any other one of the Florentine palaces of the Renaissance equals the Riccardi in beauty and dignity. That part of the Pitti which was begun by Brunelleschi in 1435, though equally free from meaningless features, is almost too bald to be called an architectural design. Each story of its long façade is as monotonous as the Claudian aqueduct which it closely resembles.
The front of the small palace called the Strozzino is in the style of the Riccardi, and is attributed to the same architect. It has but one story above the high basement, and the treatment is even more mediæval in character, the window arches having the pointed form.
The Palazzo Strozzi, begun in 1489 by Benedetto da Majano, follows the same general scheme as the Riccardi, but is less admirable in its proportions. Vasari tells us that Majano carried the exterior almost to completion, but that the court and the great cornice were the work of Simione Pollaiuolo, called II Cronaca. This cornice, he says, was copied from an ancient model in Rome which the architect had drawn and measured with great exactness, but he had here enlarged the scale to suit the proportions of the building.[2] I think it may be said that he enlarged it too much, and that, in common with the cornices of most of these Renaissance palaces, it is too heavy. The Strozzi, more than any other of the palatial houses of its time, has the fortress-like character which indicates the turbulent condition of Florence in the fifteenth century. The vast basement of ponderous masonry, with no window openings near the ground, gives a gloomy and forbidding aspect to the front, and marks a survival of the savage habits of feudal life in this epoch of advanced Italian civilization and culture.
The Palazzo Pazzi, now known as the Quaratesi, is attributed to Brunelleschi, and. has the marks of his style in the details of the windows. It has the same general scheme of design as the foregoing houses, and its stories are proportioned with the same pleasing gradation in their heights that we have noticed in the Riccardi; but the wall surfaces are different, being uniformly overlaid with stucco. A series of small circular openings, with mouldings over the windows of the topmost full story, resembling those of the drum of the Pazzi chapel, seem to give further evidence of Brunelleschi's hand. Still another building in this style, though of even plainer external character, having small undivided openings, is the Palazzo Gondi, designed by Guiliano da San Gallo toward the close of the fifteenth century. The arcades of the court of the Gondi, have Corinthian columns of great elegance, and the arches have ornamental keystones.
Another type of Florentine palace of the early Renaissance is exemplified in the Palazzo Guardagni, attributed to Simone Pallaiuolo. It has an open loggia at the top, and the portals and windows have the round arched form with the extrados pointed. This is a thoroughly reasonable and appropriate Italian style of domestic building, and if it had been consistently adhered to, without any admixture of the classic elements that were soon introduced, the domestic architecture of Florence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries might have merited our unqualified admiration. On the simple and appropriate scheme of the Palazzo Guardagni there was opportunity for such variations of disposition, proportion, and details as utility and taste might call for, without any resort to neo-classic elements.
The foregoing buildings, though larger and more elegant than the private houses of the Middle Ages, are still in their main features largely mediæval in character. But before the later buildings of this class were erected, another phase of design in palatial architecture arose in which the spirit of the Renaissance is more manifest in the application of the classic orders to the walls of the façades. This application, as is well known, occurs first in the Palazzo Rucellai, designed by the architect Alberti and built just after the middle of the fifteenth century. We have already (pp. 35-42) seen something of Alberti's use of classic orders in church architecture, and we have now to consider further the influences which were guiding the public taste as they are reflected in the works of the man who on the whole did most at this early epoch to establish the new architectural ideas. Alberti was a scholar and a man of high social station. Like most men of culture in Florence he had a taste for the fine arts, but, as Vasari tells us, he "applied himself not only to discover the principles and the proportions of antiquity, but also, being naturally so inclined, much more to writing than to practice."[3] The moving purpose with him was thus primarily archaeological and literary, rather than artistic.
The Rucellai is in form substantially like the Riccardi and other buildings of its class, but in place of the plain wall sur-
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Fig. 59.—Façade of the Rucellai.
faces which are appropriate for a building that has no structural framework, we have an order of classic pilasters dividing the face of each story into bays answering to nothing in the real system of construction (Fig. 59). We thus have here in domestic architecture an instance of that false use of the orders which in church architecture was first introduced in the chapel of the Pazzi. Alberti's classic tendencies are here shown further in the introduction of a diminutive entablature passing through the smaller arches of the windows, and these arches are merely cut in relief on a solid tympanum (Fig. 59). It is worthy of notice, too, that the rustication of the masonry of this façade does not mark the true joints. The blocks of stone are in many cases much larger than they appear, channels being cut upon them to simulate joints. The arch of one window, for instance, which by the rustication would appear to be made up of fourteen voussoirs, has in reality only three. The same lack of conformity of the simulated jointing with the true masonry joints is noticeable also in many parts of the façade of the Riccardi, and I know not how general this treatment may be in the architecture of the Renaissance.[4]
The initiative thus given by Alberti was not at once universally followed. The orders did not come into general use in the façades of domestic architecture until the period of the later Renaissance. The most important Florentine palaces of the latter part of the fifteenth century have, as we have seen in the Strozzi, no classic orders. The classic elements of these buildings are confined to details such as the profiling of cornices, and the introduction of dentils and other kindred ornaments, and to the capitals of court arcades.
Early in the sixteenth century a further innovation in the treatment of palace fronts was made in Florence by the Architect Baccio d' Agnolo, whose design for the campanile of Santo Spirito we have already noticed (p. 82), in the Palazzo Bartolini. This consisted in framing the windows with small orders crowned by pediments (Fig. 60). Milizia thus refers to this innovation: "This was the first palace with windows adorned with frontispieces and with columns at the doorway carrying architrave, frieze, and cornice. A novelty, like most others, at first disapproved and then idolized. The Florentines all ridiculed Baccio for this new style of architecture, not only with words, but with sonnets, and with jesting devices attached to the building, taunting taunting him with having made a church of a palace."[5] For the rest, though Baccio d'Agnolo has not adorned the walls of this building with orders, he has marked the stories with entablatures, and placed rusticated pilasters at the angles..jpg)
Fig. 60.—Window of the Bartolini.
As time went on the spirit of display in domestic architecture increased. Buildings like the Riccardi owe their admirable character largely to their moderation. The well-known remark of Vasari[6] that Cosimo de' Medici had rejected a scheme for that building which had been prepared by Brunelleschi on the ground that so sumptuous a dwelling for a private citizen might excite envy, indicates the more modest feeling and sense of fitness, which as yet held in check the spirit of ostentation. But the boast of Filippo Strozzi that he would make his great palace excel all others in magnificence betrays the ambition that governed the later builders of the great houses of the Renaissance.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century the vigour of the Florentine Republic was spent, and its artistic ascendency was declining. Lorenzo de' Medici had died, and the chief seat of artistic activity was, as we have already seen, transferred to Rome where the conditions were very different from what they had been in Florence during the earlier time. Ideals and aspirations were further changed, and the quest of material splendour was more than ever stimulated under the mundane ambitions of a luxurious and profligate society. Thus it was that in connection with the later neo-classic church architecture already considered there arose a corresponding movement in the erection of sumptuous palatial houses, though still for some time palatial architecture retained much of the earlier moderation in design. The great Roman houses of the early part of the sixteenth century have a dignity and grandeur that go far to redeem their incongruities. It was not, as we shall see in the next chapter, until men like Sansovino, Vignola, and Palladio appeared that the Roman influences bore their full fruit.