Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/837

 1869.] Minsters of England. 679 English work. But, apart from the over- shadowing; grandeur of its Cathedral, Lincoln has one great claim upon the curious in its being the residence of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, on the accession of whose son, Henry the Fourth, to the throne of England, his possessions, including the Castle on the hill opposite to the Cathedral, was merged in the crown, and now remains a part of the Duchy of Lancaster, the control of which of late days was in the hands of the illustrious Duke of Wel- ington, and after him was in the care of the late Prince Consort of Eng- land. How little did that singular man who founded this Duchy of Lancaster, ever dream of the changes his property would undergo, when he penned the following codicil to his will: " I, John of Gaunt, " Do will and do grant " To Johnny Burgoyne, " All Button and Pntton, " Till the world is rotten. " BIRTH OF THE ITALIAN STYLE. A T the period, when the Italian -<^_ Architecture, which we now so much admire, first made its appearance in the world, the manners and customs of that since so highly refined people who produced it, were very rude. For instance, a man and his wife ate off of the same plate; there were only forks; no knives, nor more than one or two drinking-cups in a house ; candles of wax or tallow were unknown ; a ser- vant held a torch during supper ; the clothes of men were leather jerkins, un- lined ; the common people ate meat but three times a week, and kept their cold meat for supper ; wine was seldom drank ; a small stock of corn seemed riches ; the dress of women was very simple ; the pride of the men was in horses and arms ; the ambition of the nobles was to have great castles, or houses, with lofty towers. It was in the thirteenth century, that the darkness, which enveloped Rome and her provinces, began to pass away, and the arts and sciences once more dawned upon the world. Italian genius now put forth its claim to recognition. Sculpture first, and Architecture next, through Bramante, and under the pa- tronage of Pope Julius II., continued to progress; and in the sixteenth century, during the pontificate of Leo X, flour- ished those great masters Michael An- gelo, Vignolo, Palladio, Scammozzi, and Serlio, whose palaces and villas are, and will long continue to be, the admiration of connoisseurs and men of taste. To the unremitted assiduity of these dis- tinguished artists, in the study of the Roman edifices, and to their invaluable publications, the world has been chiefly indebted, for the elucidation of the prin- ciples of ancient art, particularly to Palladio, who was born in 1518, and died in 1580. He has the exclusive glory of having collected, from the writings and ancient edifices, all that vast accumula- tion of sj'mmetry and proportion, we recognize to-day, and reducing Roman architecture, under all its forms, to a regular and complete s3 T stem. There are in all the edifices, erected underthe direc- tion, or according to the plans of Palla- dio, a noble simplicity, beauty, symmetry and majesty, that abundantly compen- sate for petty defects, and furnish all the ends of architecture, by producing great- ness of manner, and elegance of design. It was in the fifteenth century, that those public buildings and ducal palaces, Avhich still remain at Milan, Mantua and Venice, in Urbino, Rimini, Pesaro and Ferrara, were erected, besides those of Florence and Rome, where magnificence contended with elegance.
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