Renaissance architecture was developed from the study of classical antiquities and, to some extent, of classic literature. It was adapted to conditions of society which became increasingly elegant and luxurious. It was created, no longer by gilds of craftsmen, but by individual designers, whose names are recorded and identified with their respective works. We are also prepared to find that as the study of classic examples lost the freshness of its early inspiration, it led to a growing formalism in the use of the classic details; and that, as the temper of the time declined in taste and grew in grossness, the architectural style reflected the decadence in increasing pretentiousness and extravagance of forms. The Renaissance proper, in so far as the term New-birth is justified, occupies the fifteenth century, the period called by the Italians the Quattrocento. To the first half of the sixteenth century, the Cinquecento, belongs the more formally classic style, after which appeared the decline of the latter half of the century, known as the Baroque style, followed during the seventeenth century by the further degeneration into the Rococo. [Illustration: PAZZI CHAPEL BY BRUNELLESCHI: IN S. CROCE, FLORENCE. P. 343] [Illustration: SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE BY ALBERTI. EARLIEST EXAMPLE OF FLARING CONSOLES. P. 345] [Illustration: STROZZI PALACE, FLORENCE BY CRONACA. A FORTRESS TYPE OF CITY RESIDENCE. P. 345] [Illustration: CAPRAROLA PALACE BY VIGNOLA. EXAMPLE OF COUNTRY VILLA. P. 348] [Illustration: GVIMANE PALACE, VENICE BY SAMMICHELE. P. 355] [Illustration: BASILICA VICENZA BY PALLADIO. TWO-STORIED CLASSICAL ARCADES SURROUNDING THE OLD GOTHIC EDIFICE. P. 351] [Illustration: DOGE’S PALACE, VENICE RENAISSANCE PORTAL ADJOINING THE GOTHIC ARCADES. BY GIOV. AND BART. BUON. P. 353] [Illustration: S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE BY BALDASSARE LONGHENA. P. 356] The decline of taste may have been hastened by the fact that Renaissance architecture involved no new principles of construction. It was essentially a product of adaptation, and with less consideration for structural problems than for external appearances. There was a change in the status of the architect: he ceased to be pre-eminently the master-builder; he became a designer, specifically interested in what one may perhaps call, the pictorial aspects of his building. He was occupied with the composition of his façade, as a painter is with the composition of his picture. He designed it on paper, as an organised arrangement of lines, masses, details, and patterning of light and shade. The days of working out the structural problems in the course of construction and of employing the co-operation of skilled craftsmen, to create the details of decoration had ceased with the passing of the mason-gilds. In their place were workmen, who followed implicitly the drawings of the designer.