Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/352

336 336 ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part II. Had all this been done (and something very like it seems' certainly to have been intended), neither Cologne Cathedral, nor any church in Europe, ancient or modern, would have been comparable to ihis great and glorious apse. As it is, the plain, heavy, simple outlined dome of Brunelleschi acts like an extinguisher, crushing all the lower part of the composition, and both internally and externally destroying all harmony between the j^arts. It has de- prived us of the only chance that ever existed of witnessinor the effect of a great Gothic dome ; not indeed such a dome as might with the same di- mensions ha e been executed on this side of the Alps, but still in the spirit, and with much of the poetry, which gives such value to the con ceptions of the builders in those days. But for this change of plan, the ambition of the Florentines might have been in some measure satisfied, whose instructions to the architect were- ^^^"^^ *heir cathedral " should surpass everything that human in- dustry or human ^jower had conceived of great and beau- tiful." About a century later (1390), the Bolognese deter- 767. Plan of the part executed of St. Petrouio. mined on the erection of a Bologna. (From Wiebekiug.) i i i i • i Scale 100 ft. to 1 iu, monster cathedral, which, in so far as size went, would have been more than double that of Florence. According to the plans that have come down to us, it was to have been about 800 ft. long and 525 wide across the transepts ; at the intersection was to have been a dome 130 ft. in diameter, or only 6 ft. less than that of Florence, and the width of both nave and transepts was to have been 183 ft. : so that the whole would have covered about 212,000 ft., or nearly the same area as St. Peter's at Rome, and three times that of any French cathedral ! Of this vast design, only about one-third (Woodcut No. 767), or 74,000 sq. ft., was ever carried out; but that fragment is quite sufficient to enable us to judge of the merits or defects of this style