How to Study ArchitectureCaffin, Charles H. (Charles Henry)
History
How to Study Architecture
Caffin, Charles H. (Charles Henry)
Architecture -- History
=Vignola.=--Distinguished among the upholders of the purity of the Classic
style was Giacomo Barocchio or Barozzi, better known as Vignola, from
the name of the place in which he was born, in 1507. After practising
for some time in Bologna, Piacenza, Assisi, and Perugia, he was summoned
to Rome by Pope Julius III, and built the villa Pope Julius, which is
now the =Etruscan Museum=. But the principal example of his style is the
=Palace of Caprarola=, erected some thirty miles from Rome for the Pope’s
nephew, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. It has a pentagonal plan enclosing
a circular court. Above the ground story the façades consist of two
stories, which have rusticated quoins at the angles and are composed of
an order of Ionic, superimposed upon Doric. Situated on a craggy
projection, overlooking the little town of Caprarola and commanding wide
vistas that reach to the Volscian Hills and the Apennines, with the dome
of St. Peter’s in the middle distance, this palace is embellished with
beautiful gardens, the whole representing one of the most magnificent
palace-villas of the Renaissance.
Vignola was one of the artists invited to =Fontainebleau= by Francis I.
After the death of Michelangelo he was appointed architect of =S. Peter’s=
and erected the cupolas. He also furnished the design of =Il Gesu=, the
Jesuit church in Rome, which was one of many erected along the lines of
S. Peter’s. His fame further rests on his writings, which include “The
Five Orders of Architecture” and a work on perspective. He died in 1573.
=Michelangelo.=--At this date Michelangelo had been dead nine years, but
it is convenient to consider him as the last great architect of the
Roman School, for he introduced new elements of design, which in the
hands of smaller men contributed to the decadence of the Renaissance
style. Architecture played a relatively small part in his titanic and
tempestuous career, which through the political confusion of the times
and changes of popes, oscillated between Florence and Rome. In the
former city he designed, as additions to Brunelleschi’s Medici church of
S. Lorenzo, the =Laurentian Library= and the =New Sacristy= or Mausoleum
which contains the tombs of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke
of Urbino.
In Rome, as early as 1505, Julius II had entrusted Michelangelo with the
commission of erecting his tomb. The ambition of the patron and the
imagination of the artist united in a project so colossal that =S.
Peter’s= was to be rebuilt to serve as a mausoleum for it. Unfortunately
for Michelangelo and perhaps for art, the death of Julius interfered
with the project. His heirs desired a less expensive monument and
succeeding popes were interested only in the rebuilding of S. Peter’s.
After forty years all that had been accomplished of the tomb were the
statues of Moses and the “Bound Captives.” “My youth has been lost,”
cried the sore-afflicted artist, “bound hand and foot to this tomb.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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