Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/213

Rh keeping with the Italian constructive spirit thus to employ a massive and inert member in this situation, in place of the Gothic flying buttress.

It may be worth while to notice several smaller and earlier buildings, such as Sta. Anastasia of Verona, the Church of the Frari in Venice, and S. Martino of Lucca, which present some points of difference from the prevailing types.

The Church of Sta. Anastasia of Verona, begun in 1260, differs from the vaulted churches already noticed, in having no continuous vaulting system, its lower piers being plain round columns. It has also the peculiarity of a very small circular opening in the triforium. In the Church of the Frari at Venice, which was designed by Niccola Pisano about 1250, the ground-story piers are likewise plain round columns, from whose capitals the vaulting supports rise in form like those of Florence and S. Petronio, consisting of a broad pilaster in each pier to carry the transverse rib, and small lateral shafts for the diagonals. S. Martino of Lucca, the upper portions of which date from about 1308, is exceptional in having a fully developed triforium arcade of the Northern type. The arches of this triforium are round, however, as are also those of the pier arcade.

The typical pointed Italian façade is designed with little regard to the form of the building except in its lateral divisions, which usually answer to those of the nave and aisles. Such façades as those of Siena (Fig. 105), Orvieto, and S. Croce of Florence have steep gables over the nave and aisles respectively, while the roofs behind them are all of low pitch. More logical façades are those of St. Francis of Assisi and the Cathedral of Prato, where, in the one case, the single-aisled interior is faced by a plain wall which follows the form of the section of the building, and in the other the front corresponds with the three-aisled interior in an equally truthful manner, the lateral divisions being marked by projecting buttresses.

A peculiar and yet a characteristic façade is that of the very small Church of Sta. Maria della Spina at Pisa, where two acute gables, embracing the whole width of the church, are surmounted by a third less acute one which cuts their sloping sides in a highly awkward manner. Gables in a façade are naturally and properly understood to be the