"originality in italian renaissance architecture": selwyn brinton lecture

"ORIGINALITY IN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE": SELWYN BRINTON LECTUREAuthor(s): R. A. CordingleySource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 96, No. 4758 (DECEMBER 19th, 1947), pp.57-68, 73-74Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41363516 .

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Dec. 19, 1947 ORIGINALITY IN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE 57

"ORIGINALITY IN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE"

By R. A. CORDINGLEY, M.A., F.R.I.B.A., M.T.P.I.

Professor of Architecture , Manchester University SELWYN BRINTON LECTURE

Fourth Ordinary Meeting, Wednesday, November 26th, 1947 Mr. W. H. Ansell, M.C., p.-p.R.i.B.A., in the Chair

The Chairman : This afternoon we are to hear Professor Cordingley, who occupies the Chair of Architecture at the Manchester University, talking to us on "Originality in Italian Renaissance Architecture". Many of you know that the old system of training architects in England, that of pupilage, has been considerably superseded by the school system and that architectural schools have been set up in London and various other cities up and down the country. Two of these are in Lancashire - at Manchester and Liverpool. Liverpool has, for various reasons, come into the pub lie eye rather more than Manchester, but Manchester has always refused to be overawed by its powerful neigh- bour and under Professor Dickie, and later under his successor, Professor Cordingley, its school of architecture has developed a method of designing rather characteristic of itself. It is a type of design which I would say is distinguished by its modernism while not neglecting tradition and yet infused with scholarship. Without more ado, I will call upon Professor Cordingley to deliver his lecture.

The following paper was then read:

The Renaissance of Architecture in Italy extended over more than four hundred years - from 1420 to c. 1850. Selwyn Brinton, the founder of the series of lectures of which this is the second, in his series of volumes under the title of "The Art of the Renaissance", adopts comprehending dates (1200-1800) which allow reasonable room for the full cycle of the architectural manifestation of that Art. Much ťnore commonly among historians, the Renaissance in Architecture is held to have terminated about 1600. The discrepancy is a matter which it is purposed here to examine.

Italian Renaissance Architecture has suffered singular misfortunes of interpretation in the last hundred years. Ruskin is largely to blame. To him the Renais- sance appeared an irreligious style, and one, therefore, to be abhorred. Undeniable aesthetic merit of individual works sometimes forced his reluctant admiration, but for the most part, he studiously ignored the style or blistered it with a passing phrase incidental to his adulation of the "Christian" medieval arts. His views, or views like his, have coloured in diminishing, yet still important, degree almost all estimates of the values of the style made up to recent times.

Thus, as views now stand, the earlier and formative phases of the style are universally admired; the later phases remain in high disrepute, except in the instance of a few famous monuments or among the more enlightened enquirers and writers. The two stages are distinguished by separate terms, the "Renaissance" for the first

stage and the "Baroque" for the second. In this way the part is made to appear as the whole ; and this is not accidental, for most writers on architecture are at pains to prove a high distinction between the two, discerning a sharp change of trend and character at the junction between them. The Renaissance, according to these writers, did indeed end at a given point, to be succeeded by another, related but clearly distinguishable, historical style. One, the "Renaissance" naturally,



58 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Dec. 19, 1947

is shown as of mostly admirable qualities; the other, the Baroque, as mostly dis- reputable and not infrequently vile. The date set for the division between the two varies considerably, but about 1580 is a usual choice.

The sharp distinction - a false one, it is hoped to show - is made almost exclusively upon grounds of external character and effect, and the Renaissance is deemed to last just so long as ancient Roman precedent is followed in matters of decorative detail. This is a too narrow, and, under the special circumstances, unstable a basis for a proper evaluation. The normal historical kind of review is much to be preferred; but there is partial justification for the standpoint in that the Renaissance architects, like the Greek, themselves had adopted the aesthetic objective; just as, on the other hand, the Romans and the medievais absorbed themselves outstandingly in practical, constructive endeavours. But too much room is left for the vagaries of taste and further deliberate judgment depends too importantly on accurate attribution of the origin of the decorative elements used. There is no kind of doubt that the Renaissance drew considerably ирод ancient Rome for its stock of decorative motifs, but this dependence frequently is exaggerated and attributions of origin quite often are at fault. In archaeological ignorance sometimes, but quite consciously at others, the Renaissance borrowings were from the Early Christian or Romanesque, quite apart from the perpetuation of Italian medieval practices as the foundation of the Renaissance style. Too readily it is taken for granted that Renaissance classic is of the Roman kind. Sometimes, in recent days, Renaissance motifs have been used inferentially, as evidence of Roman architectural methods, but this is a most unsafe proceeding. As will be shown, there was much that was quite distinctive in the Renaissance usage of the decorative elements. They did not copy direct, but adapted and developed their own systems. They invented too, and combined the classical > old and new, with motifs derived from other architectures of intermediate times.

A true evaluation necessitates consideration of the movement as a whole, and the Baroque was a part of that whole. At the outset of the Renaissance, and for long thereafter, ancient Rome provided a stimulus, but this did not endure at the same intensity throughout. In fact, during the Baroque phase, it was so slight as to be negligible. Renaissance character must not, therefore, be measured, in any sense, by the degree of its dependence upon ancient Roman architecture. This must have been merely incidental to it. It emerged from that dependence and reached maturity as a style, conditioned by circumstances yet to be examined; though it is unnecessary to decide at what particular point in its evolution it reached its finest œsthetic expression. Seen in this light, the so-called i ' Renaissance' ' phase was a stage of experimentation and development, not, by any means, an evolution in itself. Instead, the culmination, in the historical sense, lies in the Baroque stage.

This is quite different from the usual interpretation, which would represent the onset of the Baroque, about 1580, as a revolt against academic purism in the deploy- ment of the time-honoured classical elements, which, it is said, had come to be used with too meticulous and deadly a formality. Yet it has never yet been shown in what group of buildings this particular kind of rigidity exists. Nor are architects instanced, though sometimes we are told, almost in the same breath, that Palladio (especially) and Vignola were the ultimate purists- perhaps because they were authors of the most famous of the literary codes on the use of the classical elements- and yet that




neither held strictly to his own precepts. They were, if we compound the typical but contradictory statements made about them, archaeologically-minded, hide- bound pedants and free-thinking, original, inventive practising architects. That they were academic in written theory and emancipated in their practice is not the explanation, for the universal popularity of their writings is attributed to the originality of the ideas expressed in them and the fitness of those ideas for contemporary use. However, there is this unanimity in modern writings ; there was little or no further reference made to ancient Roman architecture, once the Baroque was fully under way. The independence of the Baroque, all admit, was virtually complete. The occasion to invent a "revolt" against pedantry and the observance of "strict classical precepts" arises from the common interpretation of the course of the Renaissance up to that point as a regular progression towards the complete recovery of latin architectural ideals and methods. Unfortunately for this contention, it is notorious that the ancient Romans had very low artistic taste, and no better than rule-of-thumb decorative methods.

For convenience of review, the architectural manifestations of the Renaissance need suitable sub-division. The common use of the term, in architectural circles at least, for a part of the whole is to be regretted, but it would be even more confusing here to attempt to substitute a new one. One may accept then, the "Renaissance" as the precursor of the "Baroque", though not admitting a break of logical development between them. In Italy of these times, accurate chronological subdivision is even more than normally impracticable, for the political severance between part and part occasioned developments at varying rates and the formulation of local schools with markedly individual practices. The dates to be given here, then, are highly generalised, and are stated in round figures.

The "Early Renaissance" (1420-1500) was followed by the "High Renais- sance" (1500-1550). A stage of "Transition" ensued (1550-1600), and introduced the "High Baroque" (1600-1700) within which lay the culmination of the style, at aboi^t 1650. The "Late Baroque" (1700-1750), wherein there is a trend towards the "Rococo" (a lighter version of the Baroque), might be taken as the closure of the Renaissance proper, since thereafter the Italian is no longer an important originating source, but reflects instead developments taking place in France and countries elsewhere. The cycle of the movement was not then, however, completed, as in Northern Europe and England an "Antiquarian" Phase of some complexity followed (1750-1800), largely classical and tending increasingly towards the "Neo- Grec". The latter, the Neo-Grec, might be embraced roundly in the dates 1800- 1850. It was the dominant though not the exclusive manifestation throughout the greater part of that time.

The Renaissance masters were activated almost exclusively by aesthetic ideals. They were most able too in constructive science, but this to them was a means to the aesthetic end, and not an end in itself. Here lies a mighty distinction between them and their Roman forbears, whom they purposed to emulate. Old Roman greatness lay in their political and economic system, not, certainly, in any decisive way in their arts. They were colossal and progressive builders, but this was the incidental outcome of their dominant political position and the vastness of their domain. They were builders by need rather than by inclination. Primarily they built for utility;



6o JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Dec. 19, 1947

secondarily, to exhibit to all the crushing magnitude of their power. Ordinarily, their buildings were severe; where needed for display, they were pompous, coarse, or dispiritedly monotonous.

Thus it could not be artistic guidance which the Renaissance sought of Rome; nor, as can readily be shown, was there much relevance to fifteenth century need surviving in Roman constructive methods. What the Renaissance masters found in the ruins of Rome was heady, intoxicating inspiration, a formal axial system of disposition and a mine of carven or modelled decorative "novelties", which they might adjust and improve by their superior art craftsmanship, using them then in their own distinctive ways in contemporary buildings with a discretion which far surpassed the ancient Roman. The mouldering monuments of Rome, their crudities of ornamentation, where it survived, softened by the passage of centuries of time, more potently conveyed the mysterious power of a master race than thely had ever done when rawly new. Grandeur survived, and was magnified by the exercise of sympathetic imagination.

Yet close comparisons show that, in the Renaissance, Roman precedent was followed just so far as it suited contemporary needs and tastes. Beyond elements of architectural ornament, direct imitation was rare, and, in the main, limited to the acceptance of a quite small range of selected "motifs" - i.e., assemblages of standard details, themselves resolved into standard arrangements as a whole - of which a notable example is the so-called "Roman Order", which means an arch enforced between columns or pilasters of one or other of the Orders. Exact copying was rarely, if ever, attempted, and this was not only because it was usually impracticable in the light of the essential difference between the old and the new buildings, but also because the ancient arts were found to be inferior. Whatever was borrowed was in greater or less degree re-designed and re-cast to suit the new terms and tastes. Despite the fulsome praise accorded, Renaissance architects paid no greater tribute to latinism than their artistic integrity allowed. Ancient authority was needful, but deference to latinism meant no more than that their buildings should have the classical air, or that currently supposed to be classical.

Thus then, even in matters of outward effect, not to speak of inner spatial arrangements and constructive methods, the Renaissance debt to old Rome was but partial. In artistic quality the later architecture was far superior. The mode of using such detail as was borrowed was fresh and original, and the details themselves were re-cast. With these Roman elements too, as has been said, others were associ- ated which had been a legacy from the intervening historical phases; and some Were new inventions. If this degree of independence of the antique can be established for external character, the case for the integrity of the Renaissance style is already well made, for in all other architectural respects the connection is slender indeed. Buildings are different in type, in spatial organisation, in the structural devices employed and in the constructive methods used. Materials differ too. In all these matters there was no break in continuity of development between medieval and Renaissance. Medieval practices were not abandoned, although the pointed arch was seen no more. Palace, house and Christian church remained of the medieval types and con- tinued to fill all principal needs. In Italy, and especially in Florence, where the style took its rise, medieval architecture was a compound already, of the native Early



Dec. 19, 1947 ORIGINALITY IN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE 6l

Christian and Romanesque succession to the Roman on the one hand, and of the kindred Byzantine on the other. These ingredient styles were each important to the eventual character of the Renaissance style. Once launched, there is no further contribution of importance made to the Renaissance from any external source, so far as fabric and structural method are concerned. It proceeded on its own impetus, and in these connections followed a consistent course clear through to the Baroque and beyond.

To our northern eyes, attuned to a Gothic of a very different kind to the Italian, the very earliest of the Renaissance churches appear at first sight to have been transformed into classical character with almost miraculous speed and completeness. Yet in such as Brunelleschi's S. Lorenzo (1425), there is very little that is of direct Roman inspiration. The plan and disposition, so far from reverting to the ancient prototypes, are closely similar to those of S. Croce in the same city, a building

Fig. i. - This demonstrates the development of the Renaissance balustrade

founded only in 1295, though the later church is much the smaller. Its vaults, such as there are, are light vaults of Byzantine form with no resemblance whatsoever to the massive coverings the ancients had used, and the preponderating arcades, graceful arches poised on column caps, repeat a motif endlessly reiterated in Tuscan medieval churches, but of which there are almost no ancient Roman instances. Similar arcades adorn eleventh century S. Miniato and the baptistry of the cathedral, both of them revered monuments in the city.

The western front is featureless and blank, toothed in brick for a sumptuous marble façade which it never received. Such independent conception of the frontispiecè, a concentration of emphasis effected at the expense of the flanks and rear of a church, which, comparatively, remain arid, is another non- Roman practice - not new with the Renaissance by any means, as the elaborate marble "Gothic" frontages of the Siena and Orvieto cathedrals go to show7, but one which persisted throughout the Renaissance from first to last. Witness, for example, the



6 2 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Dec. 1 9, 1 947

absurdly pretentious, early-period frontage of the Certosa at Pavia, dating mostly from the end of the fifteenth century, and the late-Baroque cathedral at Syracuse, of 1728-37. Incidentally, we have here countered one of the discriminatory charges of insincerity often levelled against the Italian Baroque. The delightfully delicate arcade of the S. Lorenzo type too persisted, and although not antique, became a regular part of the Renaissance stock-in-trade. So distinctive indeed is the type, that it is commonly known as the "Renaissance Arcade' * to distinguish it from the classic " Roman* ' arcade to which reference has been made before.

The easterly parts of S. Lorenzo follow the medieval traditional arrangements» and among them is a galleried cupola over the "crossing" of the latin-cross plan. Byzantine influence occasioned this tradition, but it is one to which the Renaissance gave clearer definition. Byzantine inspiration almost exclusively is responsible for the initiation of that second kind of church arrangement to which the Renaissance became heir - that in which the space enclosed is highly centralised beneath a dominant dome, this being attended by subservient uniform wings, and the whole assuming a "greek-cross" (equal-armed) pyramidal disposition. A whole series of chapels and churches of this kind, beginning with Brunelleschi's Pazzi chapel at Florence (1420), extends through the Renaissance to its latter end, beyond the Baroque. The development of the dome, whether for the crossing of the latin-cross church or for the culmination of the greek-cross plan, is the most notable of Renaissance achievements. Gothic modes of light, exquisitely-poised structure are wedded to the use of Byzantine constructive devices, and the wedding produces an extensive and comely progeny. The first fruits are seen not alone in small churches and chapels such as that of the Pazzi, or of S. Maria delle Carceri at Prato, but too in the grand monumental dome of Florence Cathedral, Brunelleschi's mightiest and most skilful creation. Here, however, the Byzantine contribution is limited to the fact of the use of the dome as the culminating element, and perhaps, too, the manner of use of ribbed construction. For the rest, in so far as the dome is derivative at all, it is Gothic.

Much false colour has been lent to the circumstances of this structure by the assumption that, because Brunelleschi studied so assiduously among the ruins of Rome, he must have secured key ideas from them. He got nothing towards this particular structure except a collossal ambition to equal or outdo the achievements of the ancients. The Pantheon may well have stirred his imagination, but it offered no clue towards the solution of the Florence cathedral problem. The essential principle is entirely different. The Pantheon vault, like all Roman vaults, is massively buttressed; the Florence dome is tied together by bands about its base. This was a wholly new idea which opened up endless avenues for new endeavours in structural design, an idea which was elaborated and exploited to the full by later Renaissance masters. The need for buttressing obviated, or very much minimised, the dome could be raised aloft to allow the insertion of fully adequate windows in a "drum" interposed below it, and the whole could then be exploited for grand external as well as internal visual effect. In other domes, more sightly than Brunelleschi's, the incorporation of further structural devices (pendentives) permitted the use of the domical termination over any kind of regular base plan, not only round or elliptical (for domes even of this shape came to be used), but square, octagonal and




rectilinear too. Due to Brunelleschi's invention, the dome came to be the almost inevitable crowning feature of every church or chapel, and the dominant, and not infrequently the exclusive, form of covering used. The experimental stages of development of this magnificent feature were traversed in the Early and High Renaissance stages of the style; St. Peter's, on the threshold of the Baroque, is the first major instance of thoroughly mature design. Afterwards, Baroque Rome became a city of splendid domes.

The first onset of the Renaissance produced little outward change in palace design, and at no time do external influences importantly affect the established or developing modes of living or methods of use. On the other hand, medieval constructive character, protracted into the Renaissance, contributed an initial suggestion for a fresh range of decorative techniques, which, thereafter, the Renaissance masters infinitely exploited. The new range was that of rustication. Now there are endless instances of Roman rock-faced masonry, yet these are in no case deliberately designed to be decorative. They occur in the Roman idea as an incidental economy in constructive works outside the architectural pale. Nor do the Roman instances occur on those parts of buildings embellished with columns or their decorative adjuncts ; except in one or two instances such as the Porta Maggiore at Rome where however, the structures manifestly were never completed. The rustications here were intended to be dressed off, but the work was never wholly done. The ancient Romans never came nearer to the deliberate use of rusticated decoration than the occasional chisel-drafting along the joint-lines in the otherwise smooth masonry of certain temple cells. This is not to say that the old Roman instances, accidental though they are, did not offer suggestions to Renaissance enthusiasts.

Renaissance initiative in this direction begins at once, in Florence again, with the first domestic building in the new style - the Riccardi Palace (1430). Every centre in the country in due course developed its local variants; the stones left rough and characterful, or bossed and facetted in high artificiality. At first restricted to wall surfaces, rustication soon came to be applied too to the Orders themselves, as, notably, in the work of Sanmichele in the Verona region (e.g., Porta Nuova, 1532) or of Alessi and Lurago (Porta Pila) in ornamental town gateways at Genoa. Palladio imitated it in stucco ; Vignola expanded its range of use to the enframing of masonry panelling and to the embellishment of garden ornaments. In stucco, and in a variety of extravagant forms, it became the dominant decorative motif of the garden grotto and the artificial waterfall and cascade. It invaded the surrounds to windows and doors, and was used even on balustrades, stringmoulds and cornices. In short, rustication took its important place among the Renaissance decorative resources. French, English and German, as well as Italian Baroque art would be much the poorer without it. At certain phases in the development of the several national styles, rustication is sometimes almost the sole decorative device employed.

Whilst on this point, another purely Renaissance decorative invention may be instanced - that of the baluster. Roman parapets, if not solid, were commonly of palisade character, patterned with interlacings in the panels, imitating wooden prototypes. The Byzantines used these too, but also developed a distinctive practice in which the panel is a carved or pierced slab, supported between posts. Italian




medieval practice varied, in part it followed the Byzantine, but more characteris- tically, tiny columns of simplified classical design carried miniature arches, which, in turn, supported the parapet rails. Both the Italian medieval usages survived into the Renaissance. Instances may be found in the chapel screens in Albertus re-modelled S. Francesco at Rimini. The true baluster, as we know it to-day, is first traceable in the Colleoni Chapel at Bergamo (c. 1470-6). Hereabouts in the Milan region, there had been proceeding an exhaustive series of experiments with candela- bra-like forms of ornament, applied as architectural decoration, and a wide range

{Photo : Alinari) Fig. 2. - S. Franceso , Rimini ( L . B. Alberti, 1446)

Variant types of Early Renaissance balustrade

appears on this building. The use of the true baluster spread rapidly. It appeared both in Rome (Sistine Chapel) and Venice (Pal Corner- Spinelli) by about 1480. By the end of the century, the older forms of parapet had almost wholly disappeared. The initial simple baluster, symmetrical in its upper and lower halves, soon gave place to the familiar type, weighted heavily in the lower part of the sleeve; but many variants subsequently were invented, especially in the Baroque phase. The progress of balustrade design is a good index of the date of monuments.

Surprisingly little initiative was shown in ancient Rome in the exploitation of the decorative possibilities of the Orders of Architecture. The arrangements in common




use extended little beyond the simplest form of colonnade and arcade, and the combination of the two into that motif most typical of their architecture, the so-called "Roman Order". Richer and more complicated devices rarely were used, and, even so, in single units for the especial decoration of comparatively small monuments, or for the elaboration of special parts of the larger ones. Tombs and sepulchral monuments, triumphal arches and the scenai of theatres are practically alone the subjects of decorative variation from the universal monotonous themes. Pedestal, parapet and other adjuncts were used, and the "tabernacle" window or niche, but

( Photo : Alinari) Fig. 3. - Colleoni Chapel , Bergamo (G. A. Amadeo , 1470-6)

This affords perhaps the earliest instance of the true baluster {open arcade at top of facade)

none of these appears to have been an original invention on Italian soil. There are Greek Hellenistic precedents for each.

The Renaissance materially extended the range of standard decorative motifs in regular use. Mostly, the new themes were invented afresh, for all that a careful search may disclose an occasional Roman instance of each. Such dubious precedents would very likely be the outcome of accidental and not calculated combinations. How frequently, for instance, is the "coupled" colonnade used in Roman times in extension beyond a single bay, or that further type, in which the spacing of the Order is alternately wide and narrow ? These are very familiar dispositions in the



66 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Dec. IQ, 1947

Renaissance. As a common practice, the Renaissance masters employed three types of colonnade to the Romans* one; they used a similar range of variants for their own "Renaissance" arcade. Similarly they extended the "Triumphal Arch" combination into three or four alternatives and developed from it a still further range, indicated by that arrangement known later as the "Palladian Motif". Still further, Renaissance ingenuity developed formal systems in which one type is interwoven with another- a larger Order running with a smaller, colonnade with colonnade, arcade with colonnade, and so on. The full extent of these formalized devices would take too long here to enumerate.To all, or nearly all, rustication, too, might be applied in one of the many alternative forms. It becomes clear that the Renaissance identity is not only distinct but that the style is superior to the Roman in variety and range as well as in artistic quality. Even so, these are superficialities; more vital are the variations between the two rooted in the respective fabrics, the body of architecture itself.

Renaissance architecture of the fifteenth century, seen as a whole, is experimental. At the end of it, church and palace have developed in their vital dispositions, though not markedly, in the general direction of greater regularity and formality. Yet the several improvements of organisation have little otherwise to do with the antique ; they are modernisations emerging naturally from Italo-Byzantine medieval usages. Externally, the changes are more marked, for by successive modifications of individual details, architectural effects have acquired the classical air, many of the characteristic decorative motifs having beeil developed meantime.

In the next half-century, competence in the modern style has so advanced that architects display their facility not only in the discreet choice and use of the decorative elements, but also in the mass composition of buildings. Roman principles of axiality and formal relationship of parts are now thoroughly ingrained, and, as experience ripens, allow increasingly of building deliberately for effects precon- ceived in precise detail. Renaissance architects now were marching fast towards emancipation from Roman tutelage. Their scrutiny of the ancient ruins for novel details and ideas had become steadily more systematic, if less serious, and we can see in the architecture of the day that many fresh borrowings were made at this time. The well, however, was nearly dry, and by mid-century there were already some architects who had turned their backs on Roman art, confident now in their powers and competent to make original experiments. After more than a hundred years, the attitude towards ancient art had changed from respectful deference to tolerant patronage. Interest in it lay more with the connoisseur and collector than with the artist and architect.

It is true, of course, that the face of Renaissance architecture was never more like the Roman than at this mid-sixteenth century time. Since the borrowings of ancient motifs were cumulative and ceased very soon, the point is obvious. Yet in general, the likeness was even now quite slight and certainly has not the significance usually attached to it. The kinship was less, not more,: strong than before. In the essentials of spatial organisation and structural method, the two architectures were at no time particularly close, and never more so than at the outset. The trend thereafter was increasingly divergent. The cause of the break was incompatibility, increasing, naturally, as the Renaissance individuality developed. There was no hiatus or violent distortion in the Renaissance growth at this or any other stage. It followed a natural




course and achieved a climax in its own right. The greatest debt due to Rome was that for the classic principles of formality; for the rest, as has been shown, certain details were acquired, but they were assimilated, not imitated, digested and trans- muted into decorative systems nearly always original in themselves, and always used in distinctive ways.

The assimilation of the borrowed elements took time, and in the degree appro- priate to the extent of the borrowings at any time, outward effects were more constrained to the antique than was representative of the inner arrangements. When the source failed, or was disused, the true character soon emerged. Thus,

Fig. 4. - Doria Tursi Palace, Genoa ( Rocco Lurago , 1564)

we have the spectacle of Genoa, a comparative i 'late-starter' ' in the Renaissance

race and standing a little aside from the ancient tradition, producing fully emanci-

pated and integrated architecture as early as the 'fifties and 'sixties of the century, whilst the Renaissance of Rome itself had scarcely entered upon a stage of easy transition towards the eventual Baroque. The Genoese Baroque, if it is proper to call it such, is built directly upon the foundation of the Early Renaissance of Florence and the north, thus short-circuiting that further schooling which Bramante, Perruzzi, and their fellows were taking from the antique in the first half-century. Hence, in the Dcria Tursi palace (1564) features are combined which would be




puzzling in Rome - the light, graceful Renaissance arcade and the slender, early form of baluster, and yet a bold and vigorous composition and certain inconsequencies of usage of the traditional elements which are traits of the mature Baroque.

In Rome in the later sixteenth century, architects go their several ways, some conservative and borrowing still from the old source, and others progressive moderns who chose now to give free rein to their own inventive faculties. For all that, there is no great difference of character in the output, whether of conservatives or moderns. The personality of the Renaissance is now so fully achieved - so fully mature - that it will not be denied. It exudes no less from the works of Palladio and Vignola than

( Photo : Alinari) Fig. 5. - Ducal Palace , Urbino - Sala degli Angeli {Laur ana? 1467-82)

This shows the fundamental form of typical Renaissance vault

from those of Michelangelo, Giacomo della Porta or Domenico Fontana. The first two perhaps are to be regarded as purists, but they are masters of form, and in the superb handling of their designs the independence of the Renaissance is triumphantly demonstrated, no matter in what category, conservative or modern, the complexion of the elevational detail may appear to place them. Palladio's famous Villa Capra at Vicenza, and Vignola's castle at Caprarola, are instances in point. What particular architect or architects were first responsible for the onset of the Baroque it is not really necessary to examine. In varying degree, the work of all the famous architects of the day shows evidences of the emancipation from the




leading strings of ancient Rome, and a tendency, therefore, towards that character known as Baroque.

Baroque character was fully established by the earlier part of the seventeenth century. It was at its height in mid -century. As the complete individuality of this later phase is universally acknowledged or, at any rate, not disputed, the present purpose is achieved and it is unnecessary to carry the historical sketch further.

For the most part, it is elevational character that has been discussed in the fore- going, since that is the aspect on which the estimation of Renaissance character usually has been based and from which the misinterpretations here dealt with have arisen. The evidence of the ultimate integrity of the style is much more strongly

From an etching by Geoffrey Wedgwood Fig. 6. - S. Pietro dei Banchi , Genoa ( Lurago , 1581)

An early instance , in the Renaissance , of the use of twin western towers

afforded^, however, by the structural and spatial dispositions, though this is much less easy to demonstrate.

The earlier dispositions in Renaissance church design have been touched upon. The prevalence of the Byzantine-derived domical forms of vault coverings persisted, and developed, together with others proceeding from the remote Roman source.

Among the latter was the barrel-vault, semi-circular or elliptical; a most popular type. The great departure in connection with the barrel-vault was the use of "penetrations", i.e. y interpénétrations of many lesser vaults into the greater, in an almost infinite variety of ways. The resultant already sufficiently complex shapes provided a basis for geometrical patterning worked in stucco ribs, the panels painted and the ribs lavishly ornamented. Vaults sometimes were framed in timber and formed in

stucco; if of masonry they were thin and light. Flat, coffered ceilings in timber were a frequent alternative in churches and palaces alike. There is a consistent

progression of development from the outset of these too.



74 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Dec. 1 9, 1 947

The barrel- vault with penetrations, or the flat timber ceiling, was usual over the naves of churches of latin-cross plan. For the greek-cross plan, the domical covering was almost universal. The vaults dominated the plan and importantly determined the disposition of supports. Mastery of design led to experiments in the interweaving of spatial shapes, as implied by the vaults and supports. The east end of Palladio's Redentore Church at Venice is an early, tentative attempt, wherein the choir is seen through a column screen supporting the apse. More complex is the fully Baroque S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (с. 1663) at Rome, where the whole interior has this kind of spatial objective.

The Campanile, at first detached as in medieval times, in the earliest Baroque had become duplicated and a part of the structure itself, appearing as twin towers flanking the western front and framing the central dome soaring beyond. One of the earliest instances is afforded by S. Pietro dei Banchi, at Genoa (1581), the whole a most charming design (by Lurago), and the forerunner of many famous churches of similar dispositions.

These are a few instances of the evidences afforded by structural organisation and arrangement, of the orderly progress of Renaissance development, its fresh and eventual independent character, and the originality of its forms, despite - or because of - the complexity of the early influences upon it, and the undoubted debt to the architecture of ancient Rome.

DISCUSSION The Chairman: I am told that at these Trust lectures it is not usual to have any

discussion. It takes a great deal, however, to silence a Chairman and I am sure you would not wish us to part without expressing our thanks for a very thoughtful lecture and the awakened memories which Professor Cordingley's slides have provided for so many of us. In speaking as he did, of course, on originality in Italian Renaissance architecture, I almost wished that he had begun earlier and included the work of Baldassare Peruzzi. The first time I went to Italy I knew quite a lot about the work of various architects but I felt that the work of some of them, particularly the work of Palladio, looked exactly what I expected it to look like. I received very little new enlightenment. The work of Peruzzi may not have been very original, but his two little palaces are most individual. Some people may not be very original but they may be very individual, and Peruzzi's use of elements, mouldings and profiles was, in his day, quite new.

I felt something of the same thing in the New Sacristy of Michelangelo in S. Lorenzo; that while there were no new elements there there was an individual manner which gave me a new impression of the work of this period. In the work there was undoubted originality. The same thing can be said with regard to Brunelleschi; but Brunelleschi did get something from Rome in the way of a study of Roman plans, because after his time Renaissance architecture planning changed from the medieval type of planning. The disposition of the buildings was influenced undoubtedly by Rome and I think that Renaissance architects learned a lot from Roman planning.

I am also wondering how the elaborate details in Baroque, such as the cathedral at Syracuse, were carried out. Did the architects draw full-sized details for the elaboration or was it, produced otherwise? I should certainly like to know whether small scale models were used to any great extent.

On your behalf and very much on my own, I offer grateful thanks to Professor Cordingley for the pleasure he has given us this afternoon.

The vote of thanks was carried with acclamation, and after a vote of thanks had been similarly accorded the Chairman, the meeting terminated.



"originality in italian renaissance architecture": selwyn brinton lecture

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