Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/92

* GOTHIC ARCHITECTUKE. 70 GOTHIC ARCHITECTUKE. culiarities. The true jiroportions of the inte- riors, the true constructive functions of the parts, are given better than in any English build- ings, except Westminster; purest of all is the choir of Cologne (finished 1320), built long be- fore the nave. In these Rhenish cathedrals there is a superb wealth of figured sculpture, which at Strassburg e(|uals the finest French work. This school also produced most exquisite stone tracery, dillcrent from anything of the kind else- where, embodied in the fagade and spire of Strassburg and the spire at Freiburg, like deli- cate lace openwork. The cathedral of Halbcr- stadt and the abbey churches of Altenberg and Xanten belong to the same style. The great cathedrals inlluenced a multitude of eonstriictinn, especially throughout the l^hineland, and led to the formation of a German version of Gothic, much less pure, much less artistic, but interesting as a national expression. The Franciscans and Dominicans were active. Local schools grew up, as in the Upper Rhine (Oppenheim), in Swabia, and Bavaria. The guilds of architects sent out masters from the main lodges. With the middle of the fourteenth century the territory occupied by Gothic architecture had immensely increased. Nuremberg had become a great centre ( Saint Laurence; Saint Sebald: Frauenkirche) . Great cathedrals were undertaken at Regensburg and at Ulra ; also in Austria ( Saint Stephen, Vi- enna ) . Although great pains were taken with the decorative work, it was decidedly lacking in artistic quality. The decorative ribs are not so pleasing as the English; the foliage- work on capitals, friezes, etc.. is stiff and unnatural : the proportions are not happy. One of the least happy phases was the brick architecture of the north in the Baltic provinces and North Prussia, though interesting for marked peculiarities. Con- sult the authorities referred to under RoMAN- ESQTTE Akt; also Moore, Gothic Architecture, Its Development avd Character (London, 1899) ; Dehio and Bezold, Die kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandcs (Stuttgart, 1892-1901); Lubke, £'c- clesia.itical Art in Germanij Diirinfi the Middle Ages, translated by Wheatley (Edinburgh. 1870). Belgix'M and Holland. The Gothic of Flem- ish towns partook of both French and German characteristics. At first French influence was paramount, as at Sainte Gudule in Brussels- and at Tournai. In the fourteenth century by the side of such great cathedrals as Antwerp, al- ready corrupt in taste, are those special Flemish creations the guild halls and town halls of Ypres, Bi-uges, Louvain, Mechlin, Ghent, Brussels, and Oudenarde. Italt. We can speak of a Gothic age but not of a Gothic style in Italy, for the Italians never mastered or cared to master the principles underlying Gothic construction, but adopted at their good pleasure, and with modifications to suit their genius, a good proportion of Gothic forms. The first Gothic inroads naturally appear to be by the hand of Frenchmen, such as the Cistercian monasteries of Fossanova, Casaniari. San Gal- gano. and San ^lartino: as well as the gem Sant' Andrea at Vercelli, all belonging to the primitive transitional style. Then, at the mother church of the Franciscan Order, San Francesco at Assisi, the Gothic type was accepted by these monks as it was by the Dominicans. These two Orders were the main agents for diffusing Gothic forms throughout Italy ; for, strange to say, while Northern Europe was replacing monastic archi- tects by lay giiilds in imitation of what Italy had done earlier, Italy meanwhile veered about, and nearly all her architects during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were monks. It is the churches of these two Orders at Bologna (San Francesco, San Domenico), Florence (Santa Maria Novella. Santa Croce), Venice (Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Santa Maria dei Frari), Rome (Santa Maria, Sopra Minerva), Trevisn, etc., in which the type of Italian Gothic churches is de- veloped, and the necessity with these preaching Orders of having an interior suitable as an audi- torium, determined largely their artistic char- acter. Nowhere else are there so many liall- churehes of a single nave or with aisles nearly as lofty as the nave. There is some good tracery, but usually the southern proclivity to exclude light and the inability to understand the constructive laws of equilibrium that would make possible the elimination of wall-spaces, led to the use of al- most as small windows as in the Romanesque period. Many so-called Gothic buildings, such as the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Lucca, are round-arched or wooden-roofed, or have col- umns in place of grouped piers, so that wc miss every Gothic element. Even where groin-vaulting is iised, as at Santa JMaria Novella, at Florence, and Sant' Anastasia at Verona, two of the most beautiful examples in Italy, one misses the moldings of the grouped piers connecting struc- turally with the arcades and vaults, or with piers so widely spaced. For this reason it is that amid all the provincial differences there are cer- tain traits common to most Italian churches. The wide spacing of the piers or columns, the height of the aisles, and the lack of detail make the interiors look much smaller than they are. The old simple apse was never abandoned for the rich polygonal choir with radiating chapels. Then, in place of sculpture, we find either a marble veneer in different colors (Tuscany) or terra-cotta ornaments ( Lombardy ). In most parts of Italy this is a sterile period. There was little building in Sicily and the south. Rome suffered fiom the Papal exile. The Lombard cities lost their freedom under tyrants. Only Venice, Flor- ence, Siena, and neighboring cities produced much that was notable. In the fourteenth century cathedral architecture had adopted Gothic fea- tures from the monastic churches, as at San Petronio in Bologna, and in the most pretentious and un-Italian of cathedrals, that of Milan, in which so many French and German architects were employed. The bareness of the Italian inte- riors was occasionally redeemed by fresco-paint- ings, as in San Francesco at Assisi. It was in civil architecture that the Italians excelled. The pleasure jialace of Venice, beginning as a Byzan- tine and Romanesque type, developed during the Gothic period into a beautiful creation, whose climax is the Cil d'Oro. and the Doge's Palace. The type spread to the mainland at Padua, Vicenza, Udine. and elsewhere. The fortress- palace is a different type, especially well developed at Florence, with its heavy bossed-work and stern aspect. The communal palaces were monuments rivaling the cathedrals: those at Florence (Pa- lazzo Vecchio. Bargello, etc.), Siena. Perugia, Gubbio. and those farther north at Brescia, Ber- gamo. Cremona. Milan, Padua, etc., are superb compositions. Consult: Mothes, Die Baukunst des Mittelalters in Italien (Jena, 1884) ; Street,