Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/132

 CHAPTER VI

PALACE ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE

it was in church edifices that the neo-classic ideas in architecture were first embodied, it was in vast palatial houses, that they were most extensively carried out. Early in the fifteenth century luxurious living began to prevail among the upper classes of society, and sumptuous private dwellings on an unprecedented scale were now erected in Florence. Magnificent palaces had, indeed, been built in the later Middle Ages which were among the chief ornaments of the mediæval towns; but those were civic monuments expressive of the communal spirit and artistic culture of their time. Such buildings as the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, the Ducal Palace of Venice, and many others were the material manifestation of a state of municipal pride, and popular love of beauty and propriety in public monuments. Upon these buildings the best craftsmanship was lavished, while the dwellings of the most wealthy citizens were modest in scale, though often beautiful in design.

A fine example of an unostentatious, though dignified, house of a Florentine Patrician of the thirteenth century still extant is the Palazzo Mozzi. Its broad walled front of two stories over a high basement, with narrow string courses of simple profile and moderate projection, its well-faced and finely jointed masonry, and its plain window openings of the characteristic mediæval Florentine form in which the extrados is pointed while the intrados is round (Fig. 56), is a model of architectural simplicity, while it expresses the superior social station of its inmates. A few smaller houses of similar character as to quietness and simplicity of design, many of them suited to the needs of humbler citizens, have been preserved in some of the Italian towns. A few interesting examples of these may be found in Perugia. They have plain stone fronts, with simple 102