GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY:CLIMATE AND TRADITION, EARLY BUILDINGS.

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CHAPTER XIX.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED; As before, Corroyer, Reber. Also, Cummings, A History of

Architecture in Italy. De Fleury, La Toscane au moyen âge. Gruner, The Terra Cotta

Architecture of Northern Italy. Mothes, Die Baukunst des Mittelalters in Italien.

Norton, Historical Studies of Church Building in the Middle Ages. Osten, Bauwerke der

Lombardei. Street, Brick and Marble Architecture of Italy. Willis, Remarks on the

Architecture of the Middle Ages, especially of Italy.

GENERAL CHARACTER. The various Romanesque styles which had grown up in

Italy before 1200 lacked that unity of principle out of which alone a new and

homogeneous national style could have been evolved. Each province practised its

own style and methods of building, long after the Romanesque had given place to the

Gothic in Western Europe. The Italians were better decorators than builders, and

cared little for Gothic structural principles. Mosaic and carving, sumptuous altars

and tombs, veneerings and inlays of colored marble, broad flat surfaces to be covered

with painting and ornament--to secure these they were content to build crudely, to

tie their insufficiently buttressed vaults with unsightly iron tie-rods, and to make

their church façades mere screen-walls, in form wholly unrelated to the buildings

behind them.

When, therefore, under foreign influences pointed arches, tracery, clustered shafts,

crockets and finials came into use, it was merely as an imported fashion. Even when

foreign architects (usually Germans) were employed, the composition, and in large

measure the details, were still Italian and provincial. The church of St. Francis at

Assisi (122853, by Jacobus of Meruan, a German, superseded later by an Italian,

Campello), and the cathedral of Milan (begun 1389, perhaps by Henry of Gmund),

are conspicuous illustrations of this. Rome built basilicas all through the Middle

Ages. Tuscany continued to prefer flat walls veneered with marble to the broken

surfaces and deep buttresses of France and Germany. Venice developed a Gothic

style of façade-design wholly her own. Nowhere but in Italy could two such utterly

diverse structures as the Certosa at Pavia and the cathedral at Milan have been

erected at the same time.

CLIMATE AND TRADITION. Two further causes militated against the

domestication of Gothic art in Italy. The first was the brilliant atmosphere, which

made the vast traceried windows of Gothic design, and its suppression of the wall-

surfaces, wholly undesirable. Cool, dim interiors, thick walls, small windows and the

exclusion of sunlight, all necessary to Italian comfort, were incompatible with Gothic

ideals and methods. The second obstacle was the persistence of classic traditions of

form, both in construction and decoration. The spaciousness and breadth of interior

planning which characterized Roman design, and its amplitude of scale in every

feature, seem never to have lost their hold on the Italians. The narrow lofty aisles,

multiplied supports and minute detail of the Gothic style were repugnant to the

classic predilections of the Italian builders. The Roman acanthus and Corinthian

capital were constantly imitated in their Gothic buildings, and the round arch

continued all through the Middle Ages to be used in conjunction with the pointed

arch (Figs. 149, 150).

FIG. 147.--DUOMO AT FLORENCE. PLAN.

a, Campanile.

EARLY BUILDINGS. It is hard to determine how and by whom Gothic forms were

first introduced into Italy, but it was most probably through the agency of the

monastic orders. Cistercian churches like that at Chiaravalle near Milan (120821),

and most of those erected by the mendicant orders of the Franciscans (founded

1210) and Dominicans (1216), were built with ribbed vaults and pointed arches.

The example set by these orders contributed greatly to the general adoption of the

foreign style. S. Francesco at Assisi, already mentioned, was the first completely

Gothic Franciscan church, although S. Francesco at Bologna, begun a few years

later, was finished a little earlier. The Dominican church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo

and the great Franciscan church of Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, both at Venice,

were built a little later. Sta. Maria Novella at Florence (1278), and Sta. Maria sopra

Minerva at Rome (1280), both by the brothers Sisto and Ristoro, and S. Anastasia at

Verona (1261) are the masterpieces of the Dominican builders. S. Andrea at Vercelli

in North Italy, begun in 1219 under a foreign architect, is an isolated early example

of lay Gothic work. Though somewhat English in its plan, and (unlike most Italian

churches) provided with two western spires in the English manner, it is in all other

respects thoroughly Italian in aspect. The church at Asti, begun in 1229, suggests

German models by its high side walls and narrow windows.

FIG. 148.--NAVE OF DUOMO AT FLORENCE.

FIG. 149.--ONE BAY, NAVE OF CATHEDRAL OF SAN MARTINO, LUCCA.

CATHEDRALS. The greatest monuments of Italian Gothic design are the cathedrals,

in which, even more than was the case in France, the highly developed civic pride of

the municipalities expressed itself. Chief among these half civic, half religious

monuments are the cathedrals of Sienna (begun in 1243), Arezzo (1278), Orvieto

(1290), Florence (the Duomo, Sta. Maria del Fiore, begun 1294 by Arnolfo di

Cambio), Lucca (S. Martino, 1350), Milan (13891418), and S. Petronio at Bologna

(1390). They are all of imposing size; Milan is the largest of all Gothic cathedrals

except Seville. S. Petronio was planned to be 600 feet long, the present structure

with its three broad aisles and flanking chapels being merely the nave of the intended

edifice. The Duomo at Florence (Fig. 147) is 500 feet long and covers 82,000

square feet, while the octagon at the crossing is 143 feet in diameter. The effect of

these colossal dimensions is, however, as in a number of these large Italian interiors,

singularly belittled by the bareness of the walls, by the great size of the constituent

parts of the composition, and by the lack of architectural subdivisions and multiplied

detail to serve as a scale by which to gauge the scale of the ensemble.

INTERIOR TREATMENT. It was doubtless intended to cover these large unbroken

wall-surfaces and the vast expanse of the vaults over naves of extraordinary breadth,

with paintings and color decoration. This would have remedied their present

nakedness and lack of interest, but it was only in a very few instances carried out.

The double church of S. Francesco at Assisi, decorated by Cimabue, Giotto, and

other early Tuscan painters, the Arena Chapel at Padua, painted by Giotto, the

Spanish Chapel of S. M. Novella, Florence, and the east end of S. Croce, Florence,

are illustrations of the splendor of effect possible by this method of decoration. The

bareness of effect in other, unpainted interiors was emphasized by the plainness of

the vaults destitute of minor ribs. The transverse ribs were usually broad arches with

flat soffits, and the vaulting was often sprung from so low a point as to leave no

room for a triforium. Mere bull's-eyes often served for clearstory windows, as in

S. Anastasia at Verona, S. Petronio at Bologna, and the Florentine Duomo. The

cathedral of S. Martino at Lucca (Fig. 149) is one of the most complete and elegant

of Italian Gothic interiors, having a genuine triforium with traceried arches. Even

here, however, there are round arches without mouldings, flat pilasters, broad

transverse ribs recalling Roman arches, and insignificant bull's-eyes in the clearstory.

The failure to produce adequate results of scale in the interiors of the larger Italian

churches, has been already alluded to. It is strikingly exemplified in the Duomo at

Florence, the nave of which is 72 feet wide, with four pier-arches each over 55 feet

in span. The immense vault, in square bays, starts from the level of the tops of these

arches. The interior (Fig. 148) is singularly naked and cold, giving no conception of

its vast dimensions. The colossal dome is an early work of the Renaissance. It is not

known how Fr. Talenti, who in 1357 enlarged and vaulted the nave and planned the

east end, proposed to cover the great octagon. The east end is the most effective part

of the design both internally and externally, owing to the relatively moderate scale of

the 15 chapels which surround the apsidal arms of the cross. In S. Petronio at

Bologna, begun 1390 by Master Antonio, the scale is better handled. The nave, 300

feet long, is divided into six bays, each embracing two side chapels. It is 46 feet wide

and 132 feet high, proportions which approximate those of the French cathedrals,

and produce an impression of size somewhat unusual in Italian churches. Orvieto has

internally little that suggests Gothic architecture; like many Franciscan and

Dominican churches it is really a timber-roofed basilica with a few pointed windows.

The mixed Gothic and Romanesque interior of Sienna Cathedral (Fig. 150), with its

round arches and six-sided dome, unsymmetrically placed over the crossing, is one of

the most impressive creations of Italian mediæval art. Alternate courses of black and

white marble add richness but not repose to the effect of this interior: the same is

true of Orvieto, and of some other churches. The basement baptistery of S. Giovanni,

under the east end of Sienna Cathedral, is much more purely Gothic in detail.

FIG. 150.--INTERIOR OF SIENNA CATHEDRAL.

In these, and indeed in most Italian interiors, the main interest centres less in the

excellence of the composition than in the accessories of pavements, pulpits, choir-

stalls, and sepulchral monuments. In these the decorative fancy and skill of the

Italians found unrestrained exercise, and produced works of surpassing interest and

merit.

EXTERNAL DESIGN. The greatest possible disparity generally exists between the

sides and west fronts of the Italian churches. With few exceptions the flanks present

nothing like the variety of sky-line and of light and shade customary in northern and

western lands. The side walls are high and flat, plain, or striped with black and

white masonry (Sienna, Orvieto), or veneered with marble (Duomo at Florence) or

decorated with surface-ornament of thin pilasters and arcades (Lucca). The clearstory

is low; the roof low--pitched and hardly visible from below. Color, rather than

structural richness, is generally sought for: Milan Cathedral is almost the only

exception, and goes to the other extreme, with its seemingly countless buttresses,

pinnacles and statues.

The façades, on the other hand, were treated as independent decorative

compositions, and were in many cases remarkably beautiful works, though having

little or no organic relation to the main structure. The most celebrated are those of

Sienna (cathedral begun 1243; façade 1284 by Giovanni Pisano; Fig. 151) and

Orvieto (begun 1290 by Lorenzo Maitani; façade 1310). Both of these are

sumptuous polychromatic compositions in marble, designed on somewhat similar

lines, with three high gables fronting the three aisles, with deeply recessed portals,

pinnacled turrets flanking nave and aisles, and a central circular window. That of

Orvieto is furthermore embellished with mosaic pictures, and is the more brilliant in

color of the two. The mediæval façades of the Florentine Gothic churches were never

completed; but the elegance of the panelling and of the tracery with twisted shafts in

the flanks of the cathedral, and the florid beauty of its side doorways (late 14th

century) would doubtless if realized with equal success on the façades, have

produced strikingly beautiful results. The modern façade of the Duomo, by the late

De Fabris (1887) is a correct if not highly imaginative version of the style so applied.

The front of Milan cathedral (soon to be replaced by a new façade), shows a mixture

of Gothic and Renaissance forms. Ferrara Cathedral, although internally transformed

in the last century, retains its fine 13th-century three-gabled and arcaded screen

front; one of the most Gothic in spirit of all Italian façades. The Cathedral of Genoa

presents Gothic windows and deeply recessed portals in a façade built in black and

white bands, like Sienna cathedral and many churches in Pistoia and Pisa.

FIG. 151.--FAÇADE OF SIENNA CATHEDRAL.

Externally the most important feature was frequently a cupola or dome over the

crossing. That of Sienna has already been mentioned; that of Milan is a sumptuous

many-pinnacled structure terminating in a spire 300 feet high. The Certosa at Pavia

(Fig. 152) and the earlier Carthusian church of Chiaravalle have internal cupolas or

domes covered externally by many-storied structures ending in a tower dominating

the whole edifice. These two churches, like many others in Lombardy, the Æmilia

and Venetia, are built of brick, moulded terra-cotta being effectively used for the

cornices, string-courses, jambs and ornaments of the exterior. The Certosa at Pavia is

contemporary with the cathedral of Milan, to which it offers a surprising contrast,

both in style and material. It is wholly built of brick and terra-cotta, and, save for its

ribbed vaulting, possesses hardly a single Gothic feature or detail. Its arches,

mouldings, and cloisters suggest both the Romanesque and the Renaissance styles by

their semi-classic character.

FIG. 152.--EXTERIOR OF THE CERTOSA, PAVIA.

FIG. 153.--PLAN OF CERTOSA AT PAVIA.

PLANS. The wide diversity of local styles in Italian architecture appears in the plans

as strikingly as in the details In general one notes a love of spaciousness which

expresses itself in a sometimes disproportionate breadth, and in the wide spacing of

the piers. The polygonal chevet with its radial chapels is but rarely seen; S. Lorenzo

at Naples, Sta. Maria dei Servi and S. Francesco at Bologna are among the most

important examples. More frequently the chapels form a range along the east side of

the transepts, especially in the Franciscan churches, which otherwise retain many

basilican features. A comparison of the plans of S. Andrea at Vercelli, the Duomo at

Florence, the cathedrals of Sienna and Milan, S. Petronio at Bologna and the Certosa

at Pavia (Fig. 153), sufficiently illustrates the variety of Italian Gothic plan-types.

FIG. 154.--UPPER PART OF CAMPANILE, FLORENCE.

ORNAMENT. Applied decoration plays a large part in all Italian Gothic designs.

Inlaid and mosaic patterns and panelled veneering in colored marble are essential

features of the exterior decoration of most Italian churches. Florence offers a fine

example of this treatment in the Duomo, and in its accompanying Campanile or bell-

tower, designed by Giotto (1335), and completed by Gaddi and Talenti. This

beautiful tower is an epitome of Italian Gothic art. Its inlays, mosaics, and veneering

are treated with consummate elegance, and combined with incrusted reliefs of great

beauty. The tracery of this monument and of the side windows of the adjoining

cathedral is lighter and more graceful than is common in Italy. Its beauty consists,

however, less in movement of line than in richness and elegance of carved and inlaid

ornament. In the Or San Michele--a combined chapel and granary in Florence dating

from 1330--the tracery is far less light and open. In general, except in churches like

the Cathedral of Milan, built under German influences, the tracery in secular

monuments is more successful than in ecclesiastical structures. Venice developed the

designing of tracery to greater perfection in her palaces than any other Italian city

(see below).

MINOR WORKS. Italian Gothic art found freer expression in semi-decorative works,

like tombs, altars and votive chapels, than in more monumental structures. The

fourteenth century was particularly rich in canopy tombs, mostly in churches, though

some were erected in the open air, like the celebrated Tombs of the Scaligers in

Verona (13291380). Many of those in churches in and near Rome, and others in

south Italy, are especially rich in inlay of opus Alexandrinum upon their twisted

columns and panelled sarcophagi. The family of the Cosmati acquired great fame for

work of this kind during the thirteenth century.

The little marble chapel of Sta. Maria della Spina, on the Arno, at Pisa, is an

instance of the successful decorative use of Gothic forms in minor buildings.

FIG. 155.--UPPER PART OF

PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE.

TOWERS. The Italians always preferred the square tower to the spire, and in most

cases treated it as an independent campanile. Following Early Christian and

Romanesque traditions, these square towers were usually built with plain sides

unbroken by buttresses, and terminated in a flat roof or a low and inconspicuous

cone or pyramid. The Campanile at Florence already mentioned is by far the most

beautiful of these designs (Fig. 154). The campaniles of Sienna, Lucca, and Pistoia

are built in alternate white and black courses, like the adjoining cathedrals. Verona

and Mantua have towers with octagonal lanterns. In general, these Gothic towers

differ from the earlier Romanesque models only in the forms of their openings.

Though dignified in their simplicity and size, and usually well proportioned, they

lack the beauty and interest of the French, English, and German steeples and towers.

SECULAR MONUMENTS. In their public halls, open loggias, and domestic

architecture the Italians were able to develop the application of Gothic forms with

greater freedom than in their church-building, because unfettered by traditional

methods of design. The early and vigorous growth of municipal and popular

institutions led, as in the Netherlands, to the building of two classes of public halls--

the town hall proper or Podestà, and the council hall, variously called Palazzo

Communale, Pubblico, or del Consiglio. The town halls, as the seat of authority,

usually have a severe and fortress-like character; the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence is

the most important example (1298, by Arnolfo di Cambio; Fig. 155). It is especially

remarkable for its tower, which, rising 308 feet in the air, overhangs the street

nearly 6 feet, its front wall resting on the face of the powerfully corbelled cornice of

the palace. The court and most of the interior were remodelled in the sixteenth

century. At Sienna is a somewhat similar structure in brick, the Palazzo Pubblico. At

Pistoia the Podestà and the Communal Palace stand opposite each other; in both of

these the courtyards still retain their original aspect. At Perugia, Bologna, and

Viterbo are others of some importance; while in Lombardy, Bergamo, Como,

Cremona, Piacenza and other towns possess smaller halls with open arcades below,

of a more elegant and pleasing aspect. More successful still are the open loggias or

tribunes erected for the gatherings of public bodies. The Loggia dei Lanzi at Florence

(1376, by Benci di Cione and Simone di Talenti) is the largest and most famous of

these open vaulted halls, of which several exist in Florence and Sienna. Gothic only

in their minor details, they are Romanesque or semi-classic in their broad round

arches and strong horizontal lines and cornices (Fig. 156).

PALACES AND HOUSES: VENICE. The northern cities, especially Pisa, Florence,

Sienna, Bologna, and Venice, are rich in mediæval public and private palaces and

dwellings in brick or marble, in which pointed windows and open arcades are used

with excellent effect. In Bologna and Sienna brick is used, in conjunction with details

executed in moulded terra-cotta, in a highly artistic and effective way. Viterbo,

nearer Rome, also possesses many interesting houses with street arcades and open

stairways or stoops leading to the main entrance.

The security and prosperity of Venice in the Middle Ages, and the ever present

influence of the sun-loving East, made the massive and fortress-like architecture of

the inland cities unnecessary. Abundant openings, large windows full of tracery of

great lightness and elegance, projecting balconies and the freest use of marble

veneering and inlay--a survival of Byzantine traditions of the 12th century--give to

the Venetian houses and palaces an air of gayety and elegance found nowhere else.

While there are few Gothic churches of importance in Venice, the number of

mediæval houses and palaces is very large. Chief among these is the Doge's Palace

(Fig. 157), adjoining the church of St. Mark. The two-storied arcades of the west and

south fronts date from 1354, and originally stood out from the main edifice, which

was widened in the next century, when the present somewhat heavy walls, laid up in

red, white and black marble in a species of quarry-pattern, were built over the

arcades. These arcades are beautiful designs, combining massive strength and grace

in a manner quite foreign to Western Gothic ideas. Lighter and more ornate is the Ca

d'Oro, on the Grand Canal; while the Foscari, Contarini-Fasan, Cavalli, and Pisani

palaces, among many others, are admirable examples of the style. In most of these a

traceried loggia occupies the central part, flanked by walls incrusted with marble and

pierced by Gothic windows with carved mouldings, borders, and balconies. The

Venetian Gothic owes its success largely to the absence of structural difficulties to

interfere with the purely decorative development of Gothic details.

FIG. 156.--LOGGIA DEI LANZI, FLORENCE.

MONUMENTS. 13th Century: Cistercian abbeys Fossanova and Casamari, cir. 1208; S. Andrea,

Vercelli, 1209; S. Francesco, Assisi, 122853; Church at Asti, 1229; Sienna C., 124359

(cupola 125964; façade 1284); S. M. Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice, 125080 (finished 1388);

Sta. Chiara, Assisi, 1250; Sta. Trinità, Florence, 1250; S. Antonio, Padua, begun 1256; SS.

Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 1260 (?)-1400; Sta. Anastasia, Verona, 1261; Naples C., 12721314

(façade 1299; portal 1407; much altered later); S. Lorenzo, Naples, 1275; Campo Santo, Pisa,

127883; Arezzo C., 1278; S. M. Novella, Florence, 1278; S. Eustorgio, Milan, 1278; S. M.

sopra Minerva, Rome, 1280; Orvieto C., 1290 (façade 1310; roof 1330); Sta. Croce, Florence,

1294 (façade 1863); S. M. del Fiore, or C., Florence, 12941310 (enlarged 1357; E. end 1366;

dome 142064; façade 1887); S. Francesco, Bologna.--14th century: Genoa C., early 14th

century; S. Francesco, Sienna, 1310; San Domenico, Sienna, about same date; S. Giovanni in

Fonte, Sienna, 1317; S. M. della Spina, Pisa, 1323; Campanile, Florence, 1335; Or San

Michele, Florence, 1337; Milan C., 1386 (cupola 16th century; façade 16th-19th century; new

façade building 1895); S. Petronio, Bologna, 1390; Certosa, Pavia, 1396 (choir, transepts,

cupola, cloisters, 15th and 16th centuries); Como C., 1396 (choir and transepts 1513); Lucca C.

(S. Martino), Romanesque building remodelled late in 14th century; Verona C.; S. Fermo,

Maggiore; S. Francesco, Pisa; S. Lorenzo, Vicenza.--15th century: Perugia C.; S. M. delle Grazie,

Milan, 1470 (cupola and exterior E. part later).

FIG. 157.--WEST FRONT VIEW OF DOGE'S PALACE, VENICE.

SECULAR BUILDINGS: Pal. Pubblico, Cremona, 1245; Pal. Podestà (Bargello), Florence,

1255 (enlarged 133345); Pal. Pubblico, Sienna, 12891305 (many later alterations);

Pal. Giureconsulti, Cremona, 1292; Broletto, Monza, 1293; Loggia dei Mercanti,

Bologna, 1294; Pal. Vecchio, Florence, 1298; Broletto, Como; Pal. Ducale (Doge's

Palace), Venice, 131040 (great windows 1404; extended 142338; courtyard 15th and

16th centuries); Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, 1335; Loggia del Bigallo, 1337; Broletto,

Bergamo, 14th century; Loggia dei Nobili, Sienna, 1407; Pal. Pubblico, Udine, 1457;

Loggia dei Mercanti, Ancona; Pal. del Governo, Bologna; Pal. Pepoli, Bologna; Palaces

Conte Bardi, Davanzati, Capponi, all at Florence; at Sienna, Pal. Tolomei, 1205; Pal.

Saracini, Pal. Buonsignori; at Venice, Pal. Contarini-Fasan, Cavalli, Foscari, Pisani, and

many others; others in Padua and Vicenza.

Ebd

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