Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/534

 476 COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE. ii. Geological. — Venice has the appearance of a floating city founded in the sea, churches, palaces, and houses being set upon piles in a shallow lagoon, a structural formation having an important influence on its art. iii. Climate. — This favours out-door life, the heat in summer being great, though tempered by sea breezes. Open top stories, called belvederes, exist in many houses. The northern position renders chimneys more prominent than in other Italian cities. iv. Religion. — Venice continued to maintain a semi-independ- ence of the Pope, due to her political necessities in those days of growing temporal power. Strong loyalty to the State even among the clergy was manifested during the attempted interdict of Paul v., the learned theologian Paolo Sarpi (1552- 1623) being the adviser of the State during this crisis (1607). The tolerance of Venetian policy is shown by the erection of the Greek church, an interesting example of the local Renaissance. V. Social and Political. — During the whole of the fifteenth century, Venice was engaged in conquering the surrounding towns, to which Venetian nobles were appointed governors. The government of Venice was republican, and the rivalry of the leading families led to the erection of fine and lasting monu- ments, such as the palaces which line the Grand Canal ; these however were not fortresses, as at Florence, but the residences of peaceable citizens and merchant princes. vi. Historical. — In the middle of the fifteenth century (1453) Constantinople was taken by the Turks, and the supremacy of Venice in the East was undermined. By the discovery of the new route round the Cape to India by Diaz in i486, its commerce was diverted to the Portuguese. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Venetians were at constant war with the Turks, and eventually in 1715 the whole of her posses- sions, except in North Italy, were taken from her. Yet " the arts which had meanwhile been silently developing shed a glorious sunset over the waning glory of the mighty republic." 2. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER. The Renaissance movement had a very different effect upon the architecture of Venice from that which it produced upon the architecture of Florence, owing to the previously existing circum- stances of the two cities. The Venetians had a beautiful type of Gothic architecture of their own, and, being farther from Rome, were not so much under the influence of that city as was Florence. Therefore, between the periods of Gothic and fully-developed Renaissance, there was a period of transition, the earlier buildings