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merchants, the bridges, theatres, &c. This work appears to have been lost, the last possessor of it known having been the prince Ferdinand of Tuscany. Though in the higher refinement of finished details the Florentine school did not reach the extreme elegance of the Roman and Venetian schools, yet for bold imposing masses of architecture we think no city presents such a collection of highly picturesque architectural examples as Florence. The Pitti palace indeed, just mentioned, is more imposing by its broad parts than almost any other building with which we are acquainted, though it becomes poor when translated into French, as at the Luxembourg.

332. So late as 1454, we find in the Strozzi and other palaces semicircular-headed windows, wherein are half columns at the sides, and a column in the middle, resembling those in the Byzantine or Romanesque edifices. The two apertures thus formed are crowned by semicircular heads, which are circumscribed by the outer semicircle, and the spandrel formed by the three curves is occupied by a patera.

233. The period of the Florentine school, which must be taken as commencing with Brunelleschi, includes the names of Michelozzo, Leo Battista Alberti, Pollaiuolo (who obtained the soubriquet of Chronaca, from his constant recital of his travels), the architect of the Strozzi palace, Raffaelle Sanzio, Benedetto da Majano, Baccio d'Agnolo, Baccio Bandinelli, Buontalenti, Ammanati, and others: it extends from a. D. 1400 to a. p. 1600. The works of Michael Angelo, though a Florentine, do not belong to this school; neither do those of San Gallo and some others, who have been improperly classed as Florentine architects. 334. 2. Roman School. -Though the city of Rome, during the period of the rise and progress of the Roman school of architecture, was not altogether free from insurrectionary troubles, its palatial style is far less massive than that of Florence. None of its buildings present the fortress-like appearance of those in the last-named city. Indeed, the Roman palaces, from their grace and lightness, indicate, on the part of the people, habits of a much more pacific nature, and an advancing state of the art, arising from a more intimate acquaintance with the models of antiquity which were on every side. The introduction of columns becomes a favourite and pleasing feature, and great care and study appear to have been constantly bestowed on the façades of their buildings; so much so, indeed, in many, that they are but masks to indifferent interiors. In them the entrance becomes a principal object; and though in a great number of cases the abuses which enter into its composition are manifold, yet the general effect is usually successful. The courts in these palaces are most frequently surrounded with arcades, whence a staircase of considerable dimensions leads to the sala or principal room of the palace. The general character is that of grandeur, but devoid altogether of the severity which so strongly marks the Florentine school. The noblest example of a palace in the world is that of the Farnese family at Rome, to which we shall afterwards have occasion to return.

335. Bramante, born in 1444 at some place, but which is still in doubt, in the duchy of Urbino, must be considered the founder of the Roman school. Though educated as a painter under Fra Bartolomeo, and likely to have ranked in that occupation as a master of no ordinary powers, his great love of architecture induced him at an early period to quit painting as a profession. In Lombardy he wandered from city to city for the purpose of obtaining employment as an architect, but there is no evidence that his exertions in that part of Italy were rewarded with great success. The dry style which afterwards characterised his works has been said to have had its origin in his protracted stay at Milan, while the works of the Duomo were carrying on there under Bernardino di Trevi, a builder of such skill as to have gained the esteem of Leonardo da Vinci. Be this as it may, it was in this city his determination to follow our art became irrevocable. From Milan he went straightway to Rome; where, however, he was obliged to make himself known by some works in his first profession of a painter in the church of St. Giovanni Laterano. Naturally of hospitable and social disposition, and a lover of expense and luxury, so intense was his ardour to become great in the art he adopted that he refrained from all society, holding commerce only with the monuments of antiquity by which he was surrounded, studying with the utmost diligence, and drawing them for his future application of the principles upon which they were founded. He even extended his researches to Naples, losing no opportunity of noting all the ruins from which instruction in his art could be drawn. Oraffa (Cardinal of Naples), who had remarked his zeal, gave him his first commission in Rome, which was the construction of the cloister of the Convent della Pace; and this, from the intelligence and speed with which he executed the task, brought him at once into repute. At this period Rome could boast but of few architects, and those that were established there were of small account. The Florentine school seems to have sprung in the most decided manner from the habits of the people and the massiveness of their materials, modified by some knowledge of the buildings of the ancients: that of Rome seems to have been founded upon the principle of making the ancient architecture of Rome suit the more modern habits of a very different people, though living on the same spot. To explain more immediately our meaning, we cite the small circular chapel

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of St. Pietro in Montorio, wherein we find a jump at once in the adaptation of the circular peripteral temple of the Romans to the purpose of Christian ceremonies. And again, it is impossible to look at the Palazzo della Cancelleria without being struck by the basement and two orders, which would be suggested by a contemplation of the Colisseum, though afterwards the Roman architects had the good sense to see that the orders of architecture placed against the walls of a building where the use was not required by the interior distribution was a tasteless and useless application of them. The architect of the Palazzo Farnese only uses them for the decorations of his windows. In this respect we hope good sense is once more returning to this country; and that the absurd practice in almost every case of calling in the orders to aid the effect of a façade, will be abandoned for the better plan of obtaining an imposing effect from the simplicity and arrangement of the necessary parts. We must, however, return to Bramante, whose other employment we pass over to come to his great work,—one which, after the continued labour upon it of his successor Michael Angelo, seems to have exhibited the great canons of art; one which has regulated all the modern cathedrals of Europe, for they are, in fact, but repetitions of it; and one, therefore, which requires a lengthened notice in this place, as intimately connected with the rapid progress of the Roman school. The ancient Basilica of St. Peter had become so ruinous that Pope Nicholas V., a man who delighted in magnificent undertakings, a lover of architecture, and of more than ordinary genius, had conceived the project of rebuilding it, and under the designs of Bernardo Rosellini had actually seen a portion of the design rise from the ground before his death. The project seemed then to be forgotten and abandoned, until Michael Angelo Buonarroti, seeking a place for the erection of the mausoleum of Julius II., upon which he was engaged, thought that the tribune of Rosellini's projected new basilica would be well suited for its reception, and accordingly proposed it to the pontiff. Julius, pleased with the suggestion, immediately sent for San Gallo and Bramante to examine into it. In these cases, one project generally suggests another, and the rearing a new St. Peter's became a fixed object in the mind of Julius II. The tribune of Nicholas V. was no longer thought of, except as a space to be included within the new works. He consulted several architects upon the subject; but the fact is, that the only real competition lay between Giuliano di San Gallo and Bramante. The last was the successful artist; and from a great number of projects the pope at last chose that upon which St. Peter's was afterwards commenced. The real design of Bramante can scarcely be traced in the basilica of the Vatican as executed. The changes it was doomed to undergo before completion, more than perhaps any other building was ever subjected to, have been drawn into a history by the Jesuit Bonanni. When Bramante died, his designs, if indeed he made any, were dispersed ; and for what we do know of them we are indebted to Raffaelle, who took much pains in collecting the ideas of our architect, as they afterwards appeared in Serlio's Treatise on Architecture. The original plan of Bramante was simple, grand, and in its parts harmonious, and would doubtless have been effective, far beyond the edifice as executed. It has been well observed by Q. de Quincy, in his Life of Bramante, "Le Saint Pierre d'aujourd'hui parait moins grand qu'il ne l'est en effet. Le Saint Pierre de Bramante aurait certainement été plus grand encore en apparence qu'en réalité." There would moreover have been an accordance between the interior and exterior. The peristyle was to have three ranks of columns in depth, which would have necessarily had unequal intercolumniations. The cupola was rather that of the Pantheon, ornamented exteriorly with an order of columns. Bramante carried his imitation even to the steps round the springing of that monument. From the medals of the design struck about the period, it seems that the façade was to have been decorated at its extremities with two campanili; but the authority of a medal may be doubtful. The idea, therefore, which is said to have originated with Michael Angelo, of placing the dome of the Pantheon upon the vaulting of the Temple of Peace emanated from Bramante, though the honour of actually carrying such a project into execution belongs to Michael Angelo da Buonarroti. It is not, however, probable that if Bramante had lived he could have strictly executed the design he produced; for it has been well proved that the piers which carry the dome would not have been sufficiently substantial for the weight to be placed upon them, inasmuch as Bramante's cupola would have been much heavier than that executed by Michael Angelo, and that architect considered it necessary to make his piers three times as thick as the foriner had proposed for his cupola. Bramante's general design having been adopted by Julius II., was imme diately commenced with a boldness and promptitude of which few but such men as Julius and Bramante were capable. One half of the ancient basilica was taken down; and on the 18th of April, 1506, the first stone of the new fabric was laid by the pope in the pier of the dome, commonly called that of Sta. Veronica. The four piers soon rose; the centres were prepared for connecting them by vaults, which were actually turned. The weight and thrust of the vaults, however, bent the piers, and cracks and fissures made their appearance in every direction. Thus, without more than their own weight, much less that of the cupola, the works threatened ruin. The great haste used in carrying on the

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works had doubtless much contributed to this catastrophe. Bramante in the meantime dying, Raffaelle, Giocondo, and Giuliano di San Gallo, and afterwards Baldazzare Peruzzi and Antonio San Gallo, were engaged on the edifice, and severally used the proper means for remedying the defects that had arisen, and for fortifying the great piers of the dome. To do this, as well as to push forward its completion, Michael Angelo was employed; and the rest of that great man's life was chiefly devoted to carrying on, under his own designs, the works of the fabric. From the death of Bramante in 1513 to 1546, when Antonio San Gallo died, the architects above named, all of whose names are almost sacred, had been more or less employed upon it. It was during this period that Bramante's original plan of a Latin was changed into a Greek cross by Peruzzi. The works had at this time become the source of much jobbing; every body that had any employment on them seemed bent on providing for himself, when Michael Angelo consented, for he was far from desirous of being employed, to superintend the future progress of the fabric. The first use made of his authority by Michael Angelo was that of discharging all the agents and employés of the place; he may be said to have again driven the money-lenders out of the temple. That he might have more moral power over this worthless race, he set the example of declining to receive the salary of 600 crowns attached to his appointment as architect, and gratuitously superintended the works during the period of seventeen years,—a disinterestedness that afterwards found a parallel in one of the greatest architects that this or any other country ever saw : we need scarcely mention the name of Inigo Jones. Michael Angelo began by undoing what his predecessor San Gallo had executed; and after having accomplished that, his whole powers were directed towards carrying on the structure to such a point that no change could possibly be made in his plans; so that after having strengthened the great piers, vaulted the naves, and carried up the exterior pedestal of the cupola, at the death of Paul III. in 1549 the form of these parts of the basilica was unchangeably fixed. Under Julius III., the successor of Paul, the intrigues which had always been carried on against Michael Angelo were renewed. He was accused of having contrived the arrangement without sufficient light, and of having changed every thing his predecessors had done. Thus proceeded this great work; but notwithstanding the severe trials he had to undergo from the envy of his contemporaries, rivals he could not encounter, -Buonarroti steadily pursued his course. He felt that his own destiny and that of the fabric were identical; and, notwithstanding all the disgusting treatment to which he was exposed, determined to stand to his post while life remained. Writing to Vasari, he says, For me to leave this place would be the cause of ruin to the church of St. Peter, which would be a lamentable occurrence, and a greater sin. As I hope to establish it beyond the possibility of changing the design, I could first wish to accomplish that end; if I do not already commit a crime, by disappointing the many cormorants who are in daily expectation of getting rid of me." And in another letter to Messer Lionardo Buonarrotti, in reply to the pressing instance of the grand duke to have him at Florence, he says, "I would prefer death to being in disgrace with the duke. In all my affairs I have endeavoured to adhere to the truth; and if I have delayed coming to Florence as I promised, the promise should have been construed with this condition, that I would not depart hence until the fabric of St. Peter's was so far advanced as to prevent its being spoiled by others, and my design altered; nor to leave opportunity for those thieves to return and plunder, as has been their custom, and as is still their hope. Thus placed by Divine Providence, I have exerted myself to prevent those evils. As yet, however, I have not been able to succeed in advancing the building to that point which I desire, from want of money and men; and being old, without any one about me to whose care I could leave the work, as I serve for the love of God, in whom is all my hope, I cannot abandon it." At this period, with the letter, to which we have not done sufficient justice in the translation, it is impossible not to sympathise, nor to be unaffected by the simple and unbending honesty of this honour to the race of man, independent of all our admiration of his stupendous power as an artist. At the age of eightyseven, the pedestal being then ready for the reception of the cupola, he made a small model in clay for that important feature of his work, which was afterwards, to a scale, accurately under his direction, executed in wood; but deficiency in the funds prevented the progress of the building. To the height of upwards of 28 ft. above the exterior attic the cupola is in one solid vault, whose diameter is near 139 ft. at its springing, at which place its thickness is near 10 ft. exclusive of the ribs. As the inner and outer vaults are not concentric, the interval between them increases as they rise. Where they receive the lantern they are 10 ft. 7 in. apart. The construction of this dome proves the profundity of the architect's knowledge as a scientific builder to have equalled his superiority as an architect. 336. After the death of Michael Angelo, this cupola with its lantern was rigorously executed, upon the model he had left, by Jacopo della Porta and Domenico Fontana. His intentions were religiously respected, in the completion of the fabric, until the time of Pirro Ligorio, whom Pius IV. deprived of his situation for attempting to swerve from the model and substitute his own work.

337. Between the foundation of the church by Bramante, and its entire completion by

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Carlo Maderno, as seen in figs. 167. and 168., a century had elapsed, but during that century

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architectural as well as graphical and plastic taste had undergone great changes; and though the first was still far from the vicious point to which Borromini carried it, the great principles of order and authority, as founded on the models of antiquity, were passed away, and no longer occupied the attention of the architect. The spirit of innovation, too often mistaken for genius, had made such inroads, that regularity of plan, simplicity of form,

and the happy union of taste with common sense had altogether disappeared. The part added to the edifice by Maderno appears in the plan in a darker tint, by which it is seen that he added three arcades to the nave, in which the same ordonnance is continued.

338. Respecting the alteration in, or rather addition to the plan, it is, and is likely to continue, a moot point, whether this change by Maderno has injured the effect of the church. "There are," says De Quincy, "in the method of judging of works of architecture, so many different points of view from which they may be judged, that it is quite possible to approve of even contrary things." We are not ourselves disposed to censure the application of Maderno, though it cannot be denied that the symmetry of the fabric was in some measure destroyed by it. It is possible that the constant habit of seeing cathedrals with a prolonged nave, before we first saw St. Peter's, may have disposed us to look leniently at a point which so many better judges than ourselves have condemned. Michael Angelo's plan was, doubtless, one of great simplicity and unity. According to his intention, the cupola was the principal feature, the four arms of its cross being accessaries which would not interfere with or lessen the effect of its grandeur, whose points of view could not be much varied. On the other hand, the edifice, enlarged according to the first project of Bramarte, has acquired an immensity of volume, which, observes the author before quoted, one would be now sorry to see it deprived of. "Ce sont deux grandeurs voisines sans être rivales." In its exterior, however, it must be admitted that the prolongation of the nave has not improved the effect; and that arose from the necessity of strictly conforming to the forms that existed. It is manifest that the number of divisions which resulted from the mixtilinear plan of Michael Angelo would not well sort with the extended mass which the nave created. It was absolutely necessary that it should be conformable with what had been completed; and the effect of this was lessening the elevation of the cupola in an almost fatal manner. The façade of entrance cannot in any way be defended; and it is much to be regretted that the fine entrance designed by the great master was lost to the world.

339. St. Paul's is, perhaps, the only great instance in Europe wherein the design was made and wholly carried into execution by the same architect. Works of this nature usually exceed the span of man's life. St. Peter's was altogether a century and a half in building. The change of architects is not the least inconvenience of such a state of things; for during so long a period such a change of taste arises that the fashion and style of an art are from accident scarcely the same at its commencement and end. Thus the church of the Vatican, which was begun by Bramante in a comparatively pure style, was, in the end, defaced by the vicious bizarreries of Borromini. It was fortunate Michael Angelo, so far foreseeing accidents of this nature, had fixed unchangeably the main features of his composition.

340. That the first idea of this stupendous fabric owes its origin to Bramante cannot be disputed; but its greatness, as conceived by him, is confined to the boast of placing the cupola of the Pantheon upon the vaulting of the Temple of Peace. The sketch of it given by Serlio is nothing like the cupola which was executed. On the other hand, what was executed by Michael Angelo was scarcely new after what Brunelleschi had accomplished at Sta. Maria del Fiore. This, however, was a chef d'œuvre of construction; that of St. Peter's was a chef d'œuvre of construction and architecture combined. What was new in it was, that it was the loftiest and largest of all works, ancient or modern, uniting in its vast volume the greatest beauties of proportion to simplicity and unity of form; to magnificence and richness of decoration a symmetry which gives harmony to the whole, considered by itself, and not less so when considered in relation to the mass of which it is the crown. The great superiority of this cupola over all others is visible in another point of view, which we shall more particularly notice in the account of St. Paul's in a subsequent page: it is, that the same masonry serves for the exterior as well as the interior, whereby an immense additional effect is gained in surveying it from the inside. All is fair; there is no masking, as in other cupolas that followed it.

341. Whatever opinions may be formed on the other works of Michael Angelo, no difference can exist respecting the cupola of St. Peter's. "Si tout," observes De Quincy, "ce qui avait été fait et pensé, ou projeté avant lui, en ce genre, ne peut lui disputer le prix de l'invention et de l'originalité, et ne peut servir qu'à marquer la hauteur de son génie, il nous semble que les nombreuses coupoles élevées dans toute l'Europe depuis lui et d'après lui, ne doivent se considérer encore que comme autant d'échelons, propres à faire mieux sentir et mesurer sa superiorité." The bungling of Carlo Maderno at St. Peter's is much to be regretted. The arches he added to the nave are smaller in dimensions than those which had been brought up immediately adjoining the piers of the cupola; and, what is still more unpardonable, the part which he added to the nave is not in a continued line with the other work, but inclines above 3 ft. to the north: in other words, the church is not straight, and that to such an extent as to strike every educated eye. His taste, moreover, was exceedingly bad.

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