Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/146

114 front view. The scheme of the upper façade resembles that of the Rucellai very strikingly, save in the points just noticed; but the basement is different, having no order, its rusticated wall being unbroken except by the portals, of which there are two, and a series of small arched window openings. Only one of these portals belongs to the original design. This one, shown in the illustration, is of stately magnitude and fine proportions. Its jambs and lintel are profiled with severely classic mouldings, and it is crowned with a cornice on consoles with a frieze between it and the lintel. It is an amplification of Alberti's portals in the Rucellai, and is of almost Greek purity of design, though it differs from a Greek portal in the more pronounced character of its cornice, in the introduction of the frieze, in the greater development of the consoles, and in its vertical jambs, which in Greek design would incline inward. A comparison with the portal of the Erechtheum will illustrate the points of likeness and of difference. The other portal appears to be an interpolation of a later time. An order of Doric columns framing an arch is set against a double order of Doric pilasters, the whole supporting a balcony, and forming a scheme characteristic of the later Renaissance.

The court of the Cancelleria has an arcade of two vaulted stories. These arcades support the overhanging upper story and attic, both of which are embraced by a single order of pilasters not arranged in pairs, as in the external façade, but evenly spaced.

In Rome as in Florence many of the great palaces are without engaged orders dividing the wall surfaces into bays. The Palazzo Massimi, for instance, the next one of importance, designed by Baldassare Peruzzi, and dating from the early part of the sixteenth century, has an order on the basement story only, while the wall above is unbroken even by string courses. In conformity with the line of the street on which it stands, the façade of the Massimi is curved on plan. A wide recessed portico (Fig. 62) gives a reason for the introduction of a free-standing Doric order, and in continuation of this order, an order of engaged Doric pilasters is ranged along the basement wall on either side. Both columns and pilasters are here again placed in pairs, the narrow intervals being narrower than in the Cancelleria, and in the portico the interval on the axis, opposite