The century of ColumbusWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
History
The century of Columbus
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Renaissance
An excellent type of the ornate architecture of the Renaissance period
is the facade of the famous Certosa near Pavia. The designs for it
were prepared by Borgognone, a distinguished Milanese artist of that
time, one of whose pictures will be found reproduced in the chapter on
Secondary Italian Painters. He was much more essentially a painter
than an architect, and this the Certosa demonstrates. Many an
architect, with no ambition outside of his own department, would be
eminently well pleased, however, to have succeeded in producing so
beautiful and harmonious a design as may be seen in the façade of the
great Church of the Italian Carthusians.
The architectural monument of the century is St. Peter's at Rome,
designed originally by Bramante, whose design was developed and
harmonized very beautifully by Sangallo, but only after Raphael had
carried on Bramante's work for some six years and Baldassare Peruzzi
had succeeded him for an equal term, though without accomplishing
much. The defects so often noted come from this succession of
architects. Sangallo's design has been preserved for us and shows what
a magnificent conception he had. Michelangelo's dome might well have
taken its place in this design without any of the overpowering effect
that it has on the structure as completed. In spite of all the
criticism that may be made of St. Peter's, because, as the editor of
the recent edition of Fergusson's "History of Architecture" (Dodd,
Mead & Co., 1899) says, "the {118} big pulls away from the beautiful
and there must be a compromise," it is one of the most wonderful of
churches and one of the most marvellous structures that ever came from
the hand of man. Fergusson himself is severe in criticism, and yet he
says, "in spite of all its faults of detail, the interior of St.
Peter's approaches more nearly to the sublime in architectural effect
than any other which the hand of man has executed."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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