Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/172

Rh 154 VENICE [ART. Church ofS.Stef- ano, &c. S. Gia- como dall Orio. S. Maria del Mir- acoli. Later Re naissance churches. or more chapels opening from the east of eacli transept. In the Venetian examples the choir and all the transept chapels have apsidal terminations. Both churches are built of brick, with rich marble traceried windows, and simple vaulting throughout. The details of the interior are plain, but the scale is large and the general design very noble and effective, showing a strong infusion of northern Gothic influence, which is one of the characteristics of the friars churches throughout Italy. The Dominican church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo was used as the chief burial place of the doges and other chief members of the Venetian republic j 1 it was built about the middle of the 1 3th century. - There is no foundation for Vasari s statement that Niccola Pisano was the architect of this or of any other building in Venice, although the influence of the Pisano school of sculpture was certainly very strong during the 14th cen tury. The magnificent collection of tombs in this church, of all dates from the 13th century downwards, is one of the finest in the world. Some of the recumbent effigies of the 14th century, and the reliefs and statuettes on the sarcophagi, are works of very great beauty, distinctly Florentine in character. The later monuments of the 16th and 17th centuries are in many cases very large, costly, and pretentious, of the worst possible taste, in striking contrast to the quiet simplicity of the 14th-century tombs. A remarkable feature in the Franciscan church is its fine marble rood-screen of the 14th century, one of the very few which still exist in Italy ; it is surmounted by two ambones or pulpits. The choir stalls, which extend rather more than one bay westwards of the crossing, are richly decorated with reliefs and tarsia work, executed in the later years of the loth century. This church is the largest in Venice, even exceeding St Mark s in size ; it also contains a number of fine tombs, some of them with large equestrian statues of Venetian generals. The tomb of Doge Francesco Dandolo in this church, now mutilated and removed from its place, is a very noble example of 14th-century sculpture. The sacristy, on the south of the south transept, still possesses over its altar one of Giovanni Bellini s finest pictures, signed and dated 1485, representing the Madonna En throned between Standing Figures of Saints, a picture of most ex traordinary beauty and perfect preservation, in its original richly carved retable-frame. 3 This church, though very similar in style, was built about half a century later than that of the Dominicans, and was not completed till after 1300. The influence of the chief orders of friars in the style of ecclesi astical architecture is strongly shown in many other churches, such as that of S. Stefano, especially in the frequent use of the apse as a termination both for choirs and side chapels. This church, built about 1360 by a monastery of Austin friars, has a rich west front, decorated with very delicate terra-cotta ornaments. The eastern apse extends over a small canal and is supported on a wide bridge- like arch. Of the same type are the church of S. Gregorio and that of S. Maria della Carita, both now desecrated. S. Gregorio has a very beautiful cloister, dated 1342, the columns of which support, not a series of arches, but flat wooden lintels. On the capital of each column rests a moulded wooden corbel to diminish the bear ing of the lintel ; this is a very characteristic Venetian mode of con struction, used, not only for cloisters, but also for ground floors of houses, upper loggias, and other places, especially during the 14th and 15th centuries. 4 One of the most interesting early churches is that of S. Giacomo dall Orio, built in the early part of the 13th century, with a com plicated many-columned plan, the aisles being carried along the transepts aa well as the nave. The roof is a very good example of the wooden coved type, of which the finest are at VERONA (q.v.). One of the columns in the south transept is a monolith of the precious verde antico, of wonderful size and beauty, probably brought from some Byzantine church. Venice contains some very beautiful ecclesiastical architecture of the Early Renaissance, about 1450 to 1500, with very delicate and refined detail, such as was designed by Fra Giocondo of Verona and various members of the Venetian Lombardo family. The most perfect example of this style is the little church of S. Maria dei Miracoli, so called because it was built to contain a miraculous picture of the Madonna. Very rich and varied marbles were used in its construction, and it is lavishly decorated with sculpture of wonderful refinement and beauty of detail ; it was built in 1481-89 from the designs of Pietro Lombardo. The court of the guild of St John the Evangelist is another fine example of the same style. In the 16th century and even later some very stately churches of the Later Renaissance style were built in Venice by Jacopo Sansovino, Andrea Palladio, and their school. One of Sansovino s 5 best works, the church of S. Geminiano, was destroyed at the 1 Andrea l)andolo, whose tomb is in the baptistery, date 1355, was the last doge buried in St Mark s, which up to that time had been the usual ducal burying-place. 2 It was founded about 1234, but not completed till some years later. 3 Mr Ruskin, Shrine of the Slaves, p. 38, calls this one of the two finest pictures in the world, the second being another Madonna by Gian. Bellini in the church of S. Zaccaria in Venice. 4 A fine loggia of this class exists in the ducal palace, opening on to the upper loggia of the Piazzetta facade. 5 For others of his works in Venice, see SANSOVINO. S. Maria della Salute, built by Baldassare Longhena in 1632, ank-offering of the Venetian senate for the cessation of the beginning of the 19th century in order to complete the west side of the square of St Mark (see fig. 3). The large church of S. Giorgio Maggiore, on an island opposite the ducal palace, was built by Palladio, and is a good example of the faults and merits of his style. as a thank great pi ague in 1630, is one of the most conspicuous churches in Venice owing to its magnificent site near the mouth of the Grand Canal. Though dull and heavy in detail, it has a well-designed dome, and the general mass of the building is very skilfully arranged. Most of the 17th and 18th century churches in Venice are in the worst possible taste, and extravagantly pretentious in style. A large number still possess fine campanili, lofty square brick towers, in general form not unlike the 12th-century campanili of Home. These in Venice range from the llth to the 16th century, those of the 1 4th century being specially beautiful. Palaces. In the beauty and interest of its domestic architecture Palaces. Venice ranks before any other city in the world. Fine examples of all dates from the 12th century downwards still exist, and many even of the earlier palaces are still externally in a very perfect state of preservation. The most notable specimens of 12th-century Byzantine palaces are those of Loredano (now municipal offices), Farsetti, and Da Mosto, all on the Grand Canal. The foiida-co of the Turks (now the Correr Museum) was once the finest of this date, but it has been ruined first by neglect and then by wholesale restora tion. 6 The general design of these Byzantine palaces appears to have been very similar in all cases ; fig. 5 shows a typical example. rv//i 12th cer tury B&amp;gt; zantiue palaces. CANAL. J.H.M. Fir,. 5. Typical faQade and plan of a 12th-century Byzantine palace, with a tower at each end. No perfect example now exists, owing to the rebuilding of the upper stories with central part equal in height to the ends; but in many cases traces of this arrangement can be distinguished.? The canal facade usually had a tower at each end, with a row of arches in the centre opening into a long vestibule or porch, behind which was a large hall. Along the first floor a long range of window arches extended from end to end, forming a continuous arcade ; in the fondaco of the Turks this upper range consisted of no less than twenty-six arches. Very beautiful sculpture was used to decorate all these arches, which were of stilted semicircular form, and also the capitals on which they rested. Mr Ruskin has shown how these round arches developed into other forms, first a simple pointed ogee, and then a cusped ogee of several different varieties. In the 13th century the introduction of window -tracery led Venetu gradually to the development of a special form of architecture, Gothic usually called Venetian Gothic, which was unrivalled for combined palaces magnificence of material and design. The design of about the year 1300 adopted for the facade of the ducal palace had a very exten sive and prolonged influence on the private palaces of Venice. A very large number of these, built in the 14th and first half of the 15th century, still exist and are among the most beautiful and well-preserved examples of medireval architecture which can any where be seen. The climax of this magnificent style was towards the end of the 14th century, to which date belongs the wonderful Ca d Oro or &quot;golden house,&quot; as it is usually called, from the pro fusion of gilding which once covered its sculptures and mouldings. 6 A very beautiful fragment of an early palace in the Rio Foscari lias been well illustrated by Mr Ruskin in his plates to Stones of Venice, 188(3. 7 Mr Ruskin has shown (in Stones of Venice, vol. ii.) that in these Byzantine palaces there are subtle variations in the width of the arches, forming a regular gradation of sizes, hardly perceptible without actual measurement.