Character of Renaissance ArchitectureMoore, Charles Herbert
History
Character of Renaissance Architecture
Moore, Charles Herbert
Architecture, Renaissance
A more elaborate design by the same architect is that of the front of
the Palazzo Bevilacqua (Fig. 71). Here an order of rusticated Doric
pilasters, supporting an entablature with channelled consoles in
the place of triglyphs, and a cornice surmounted with a balustrade
forming a balcony to the story above, divides the basement wall into
alternately wide and narrow bays. A round-arched window in each bay
has a heavy keystone in the form of a sculptured bust, which forms
at the same time a corbel to the entablature. The unequal spacing of
the pilasters leads to an awkward irregularity in the spacing of the
channelled consoles which do duty as triglyphs in the frieze. One of
them is set over the centre of each pilaster, and the spaces over the
wide intervals each give place to three of them, while over the narrow
intervals there is too much room for one and not enough for two. The
designer has chosen to have but one, and the effect of the resulting
wider spacing over the narrow bays is both unpleasant and unclassic.
The upper story has a still more barocco character. A Corinthian order
with columns of alternately straight and spiral channelling, spaced in
conformity with the pilasters of the basement and raised on pedestals,
frames in a series of round-arched windows which are alternately large
and small in correspondence with the magnitudes of the intervals.
The window of each wide bay nearly fills the space enclosed by the
order, and a keystone in the arch forms a corbel to the entablature,
while the spandrels are adorned with sculptures in high relief after
the manner of those of the Roman triumphal arches. Over the smaller
arch in each narrow bay the spandrels are in relief and are crowned
with a pediment surmounted by a horizontal cornice on a shallow
ressaut corresponding to that of the spandrels, while over all this
a plain oblong rectangular opening lights a low top story which is
not otherwise expressed in the composition. In these narrow bays the
corbels are introduced under the entablature as in the wider ones, and
carved festoons fill the spaces between them and the capitals on either
side. It is a capricious scheme, by which the designer has sought to
quicken the jaded sensibilities of people surfeited with architectural
aberrations. Of course the arrangement of these elements is based on a
certain rhythmical order which often appears to be thought a sufficient
justification of such meaningless compositions; but order and rhythm do
not alone constitute a fine work of art.
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