Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/203

Rh effect is of evenly spaced pairs of columns in each of the upper stories. It is not until we examine the composition closely that we perceive the narrower proportions of the three middle openings. The same is true of the façade of the Palazzo Grimani by Sanmichele, though in this case the grouping is different, the columns being set in pairs in the lateral bays only. Even in the still later and heavy rococo design of the Palazzo Pesaro by the architect Longhena, which is based on the scheme of the Library of St. Mark, the unequal main divisions of the Venetian palace type are still preserved.

Among examples of north Italian Renaissance palace architecture outside of Venice the well-known Palazzo del Consiglio of Verona (Plate VIII) presents a mediæval broletto scheme dressed out in Renaissance details which it would be better without. The building has but one story over an open arcaded basement. The arcade is in two divisions of four arches each, the arches springing from short columns raised on square pedestals, and the pedestals connected by a balustrade. A central pier and a pier at each end enclose these divisions, and on the face of each pier is a shallow pilaster supporting a narrow entablature which extends across the whole front, with a corbelled capital over the central column of each division to support the entablature in the long intervals between the pilasters. The upper story is divided into four equal parts by pilasters set over the pilasters and corbels of the basement. These pilasters are on ressauts of a podium over corresponding ressauts in the entablature below, and the crowning entablature is likewise broken with ressauts. A twin-arched opening with central colonnette, flanked by pilasters and crowned with an entablature and curved pediment, occupies the middle of each division of this story, and the walls are incrusted with elaborate marble inlay. The general form and proportions of this monument are exceedingly fine, but in respect to these qualities it belongs to the Middle Ages and not to the Renaissance. To the simple arcade and plain walled superstructure the neo-classic details are inappropriate and meaningless.

Another northern Renaissance building of the broletto type is the Palazzo Comunale of Brescia, in which we have a basement arcade of three arches on heavy piers, with an engaged Corinthian order adjusted in the Roman manner, and over this