THE RENAISSANCE : IDEAL AND FAD

View of an Ideal City, ca. 1490s, by an anonymous artist

of the Central Italian School.

In Ihe years afte r the fall of Granada, Spain

set out to complete it s exorcism of those
monuments that testified to the wonder of
the long-lived Muslim culture, now permanently displaced. An unobtrusive Gothic
chapel had al ready been inserted into the
mosque of C6rdoba toward the end of the
century. I" 1523 the clerics extracted from
King Charles V the authorization to build a
sizable cathedral in the middle of the Muslim sanctuary. When they were done , the
arcades of the multiaisled interior and the
reverberating vistas they afforded were
rudely cut off. Without. the crucifo rm
domed mass tore its way through the lowpitched roofs that rippled like a gentl e swel l
across Ihe building, from the court to the
mihrab wall. (Fig. 17.1) The new church was
everywhere overlaid by a wealth of ornamen t that comb ined Gothic and Classical
motifs with the Plateresque- a florid, animated convention perhaps inspired by
Moorish taste and as close to a native style
as Spain was to field after the reconquest
of the peninsula. On his first visit to C6rdoba in 1525, Charles was shocked. "If t had
known what you wished to do," he is s~p
posed to have said to the bishop's people,
" you would not have done it , for what you
are carrying out here is to be found everywhere and what you had formerly does not
exist anywhere else in the world."
At the Alhambra, the king's in lervention
was much more considerate. His palace,
which was never finished, stands to the
south of the patios and honeycomb halls of
the Nasrids, set askew, and communicat-

ing with them at one corner of the Myrtle

Cour1. (Fig . 16.31 , top) The forms are severely Classical. A circular courtyard, ringed
by a two-storey portico, is placed within a
square that encases a block of rooms. (Fig.
17.2) On Ihe ground floo r , Tuscan columns
with a continuous entablatu re take the
thrust of an annular vaul t behind. Above,
Ihe o rder is Ionic. This academic tas te is a
far cry from the late Gothic and Plateresque ardor of the cathedral at Cordoba or,
for that matter, the majority of Spanish
buildings undertaken in the opening decades of the sixteenth century.

The Fi rst Advance

Three different architectu ral styles, then,
were abroad in Spain around 1500: the international language of Gothic at the end
of its long sojo urn , a hybrid local concoction of ornamental motifs app lied without
regard to the structure of the building, and
the newly fashionable design that unearthed
and modernized the tradition of ancient
Rome.
The sou rce of this third alternative was
Italy; its patrons were the courts of Europe, which came to regard it as a means
of projectin g an enligh tened prestige. The
sixteenth cen lUry was the critical time of
tran sition. The old ways died hard. It had
taken generations of architects, patrons, and
craftsmen to spread the lure of Gothic,
compound its early formulations, and w ork
out local variants that the common people

403

could take to heart. By now a church meant

Gothic vaul ts and tracery; a cast le meant
hooded turrets, crenellations, tall multilighted windows with lancets and oriels.
These were the things the building trades
could do. A l l the sk ills involved, the architect' s included, had been nurtured and institutionalized in the guilds. In these quarters resi st ance to the Classical wave was
strong, and among the common people,
too, who do not take 10 foreign looks
easily.

Leon Battista Alberti

The fountainhead of the new archi tecture,
of thi s new way of thinking, had been Florence. There, the rich me rchants and bankers who guided the co ntentious but brilliant republiC had been willing to support
Filippo 8runellesc hi 's experiments in the
opening decades of th e fifteenth ce ntury,
The buildings that were to become the
generating force of an international movement could not have gone up without thi s
backing. But it was a two-way street. Like
good businessmen, the Pazzi, the Medici,
the Pilli saw the advanlage of a style that
allied them with the mood of reawakening ,
of redefining l ife, which scholars and artists of their ci ty had put in motion. The excitemenl, the optimism was palpable, There
was a past you cou ld detach yourself from
and look at critically. O r rather, there were
two kind s of past. the glorious and the
mean, and the study of the humanities
could help people to recover the strength
of the first. 11 could lead them to a modern

...

------------------ -----I I I[ RFI\..,\ISS,\(\;CE. IDL\L \ND

r \lJ

Fig. 17.1 C6rdob,j 1Sp,l i,,). G reat Mo,que, e l~hth _

I('nlh ((> nltl rie" with the sixtccnlh ' ll'lllury churc h
iI1 ~f'rll'rl inln t hl' p r" Yl'r h.lll, JcriJI Vil 'W (rUfII th e
ea,t. I hf' mn"Cj ll f' w.1' (;,,1 convened inlU ~
Christian ('alhedral in 111<1. Th e pl"nted CQUrlUIl
Ihe soulh _Ide is the ratio df' lo~ NMJnio_ ("'Court
of

Fill. 17.3 Po!!;gio a Caiano (Florence , Italy), V

Medici , 1480- 97(1). Giuliano da Sangallo: 10
c nlranlc purch. The vil la wa s dCSil!Jlcd for
rcnl.U dc' Medici (the Magniflccnt).

Or'-lIlge~ ") .

life as fu ll and civi lized as that of ancient

times. Knowledge wa s not the gift of revelatio n, but an objective source to be tapped
and used. A handful of extraordinary men
now sought to breathe life into the dimmed
legacy of Greece and Rome, a legacy Ihat
was locked in the texts and monuments of
these germane cu ltures. The humanists
ransacked libraries everywhere fo r the
written wisdo m of Classical antiquity. They
worked hard to resurrect the forgotten language of Creek and to restore the purity of
Latin .
Th e renewal of the arts was part of th e
same effort. Practitioners and scholars alike
hunted for gems, coin s, and sculpture ; they
deciphered inscriptions; they measured and
drew the strewn relics of the Roman empire. Trips to Rome were now as much for
the sake of gazing on ruins as they were to
honor Christian martyrs. The popes, rid at
last of schism and dissension , sought to
harvest this revivali st crop for their own
plans of a triumphant Holy See. There were
even explora tory visits to Creece. Ciriaco
of Anco na trave led in the Creek East just
before it w as closed off by the Ottoman
conque st, copying countless inscriptio ns
and recordin g buildings and art work s. At
the Medici villa o f Poggio a Caiano, a portico in the form of a Classical temple front
recall s his drawing of the west front o f the
Partheno n . (Fig. 17.3) At the same lime, the
arts were aided by a mathematical humanism. Research in o p tics and geo metry en-

throned linear perspective as the modern

muse. She appears among the arts and sciences that surround the bronze effigy of
Pope $ixt us IV (1 471-84) on hi s to mb in St.
Pete r' s.
Brune lleschi's application of these antiqua rian and scientific studies 10 the practice of architecture proved d ecisive. In thirty
years he had worked out and demonstrated a fu ll-fled ged substi tute for Gothic
design. Let us remember that a late Gothic
building was sp un from arcane geometric
formu lae jealously guarded by the lodge.
Gothic architecture functioned accordin g to
an abstract system of proportion s. Ind ividual elements of the building had no fixed
ra tios wi thin themselves, or with re spect to
the ove rall measurements, but rath er depended on internal correlation s that followed fro m the in itial geometric cho ices. A
cursory sketch plan wa s enough to record
these cho ices. All details wou ld be d esigned on the site and executed individually. The architect supervised every step ;

Fig. 17.2 Granada (Spain), the Alhambra, palace

of Charles V, 1527-68, I'edro Mach uca; view of
the courtyard. The palace i s no. I) in Fig. 16.31.
Machuca's design wa s inspired by the Roman
work of Raphael , whose student he apparently
was, and o f Bramante. (See Fig. 17.14.)

404

he provided templates fo r every twis t o f

tracery. Improvisation and on-the-spot reversal du ring the building process were no t
uncommon .
These entrenched Gothic habits were now
thrown oul. The arc hitect conceived Ihe
building and put it down on a unitary plan ,
drawn to measure. from this , a building
force could proceed to erect the st ru ctu re
wi thout the architect's supervision. This was
so because, first, the ra tios were simple and
keyed to a fixed module of so many braccia, the Italian unit of measurement; and ,
second , the bu ilding pa rt s were standardized and could b e assembled in a rational ,
predictable way, much as they were, say,
in Creek templ es. These parts were of
Classi cal derivation-columns, pilasters,
moldings, pediments, round-headed o r
segmental ni ches . The ir design and correspondence, how they shaped the arch itectural space or composed the elevations,
were learned matters, not workshop ski lls.
The narrow specialization of the guilds

405

Fig. 17.4 Naples (Italy) , the Arch of Alfonso

Aragon, ca. 1453- 65. Thi s classical triumphal f
was inserted into the northwest co rner of
Cas tel Nuovo, a thirteenth-centu ry cas tle reb
by Alfonso from 1443 onward. The relief over
main arch rep resents the king'S ent ry into
pies in 1442.

would no longer crea te the ilrchitecl. He

must hJVC a bro"d education. "Arc hiteeIUfe is a very nohle ~cie nce," Leon Battista
Alberl i wro te, "nol fit for every head. He
ough t 10 be ,1 man of a fine geni us, of a
grf'al application , of the best education .
that presu mes to d eclare hi m se lf an architect. "
Albe rti (1404 - 72) was describing him self.
He wa s as crucial fo r the dissemination of
Renais san ce architecture in the second half
of the fifteenth century as Brunelleschi had
been for its inception in the first half. But
unlike I3runelleschi who had risen through
the guild system and condu cted his eyeopening search as a practitioner, Alberti was
a d istinguished scholar who turned to architecture in the latter part of a versatile
career as a cla ssi cist, playwright, papal secretary, art theori st. grammMian, and social
commen tator. He hOld studied at the universities of Padua and Bologna , and moved
freely as advise r in a half dozen princely
courts in Italy.
In 1452 Albe rti completed an early version of Ten Boo ks on Architecture. It was
the fir st majo r archite<.tural treatise since
tha t of Vitruviu s, on whi ch it was loosely
modeled. Vitruviu s had sU!Tlmarized for his
contemporarie s the cumulative building
knowledge of the Greek s; he had been a
codifier of past usage. Alberti's interest was
with architecture a~ a component of the new
learning. He wrot e not so much as a practitioner spcOlking to other practitioners , but
as a humanist explaining to the important
and rich people of his day about the exalted profession of architpcture and its place
in public life.
This was the only class of p.,trons worth
cultivating. 1 would have you, if possible ," he advises the would-be architect ,
" concern yourself with none but persons
of the highest rank and quality, and those
too such as are truly lovers of these arts,
because your work loses its dignity by being
done for mean pe rsons." Such patrons are
not only better iudges of taste, they can also
afford the bes t material s. Alberti preferred
that they be good people. As a man of his

fig. 11.5 I'ienza !former ly Corsignano. lI aly ), Ih('

~quar(' of Pop e Pi u s 11 . 14 ,"1 62. Rf>rnJ rdo Ro~
,,'llIno; pl,ms: top. gem'r.11 ~i l (' pl.m; oouom Ipit.
Iht' arCJ oi the sq uare in the Middl e Ages; botIOm right. the same Mea as redesign ed under
rlu~.

,,

,, ,/
4

".r~j/

G~[~~
L~> ' Lj
=

. . _--.j

!. Church of Sonla Moria

?:. Hall of Priors

~ . Son F rancesco

4. Medieval Houses S Gardens

5 . Market
6 . Town Wall (approximate)

7. Cathedral
8 . PaJazzo Plccolomini
9 . Town Hall

10 Bishop's Palace
IJ Polazzo Ammannoti

F O~:~~:OO
~'~~,~'OO
~,~::::::::=200
~'~::="::C--"==
300
~~,
MO

406

25

Fig. 17.6 Pierlla; vi ew of the square tooking

northeast toward th e town hall.

DO

407

Fig. 17.7 1'",,1/<1 ; VIt'W 01 Ih(' ~qUJr(', ,h(),, 'n~ Ihe

cath.... d r<ll licit) ,1 11<1 the f'a lal w f'ir mlom ill i (" ~ h 1J.

time, albeit a flore n ti ne , he ha~ no objec

tions to authori tarian ism, but he draws th e
line at tyranny, The diffe rence is between
a prince who rul es thro ugh justice and wi s
dom over willing subjects, and o ne who is
guided by the appetite "to continue his
dominion over them, let them be ever so
uneasy under it." It is hard for us toda y to
see how some of Alberti' s patrons could be
called anythin g other than tyrants , and yet
the moralistic tone of the architects was self
propagating. However evil you were in
reality, your espousal of the new style made
you respectable. There is an aspect of pub
lic relations in the popularity of Classical
design among the ruling classes o f Europe.
Architecture for A lberti , as we said, wa s
not a mere skill or service. Function and its
accommodation are mundane things that
can easily be taken care of by a builder. The
archit ect, armed with the science of linear
perspective and the new mathematics,
steeped in the kn owledge o f ancient
sources, becomes the master of a universal
law that applies as much to the frame of his
buildings as it does to the structure of the
natural world. And since nature in Alberti 's
thought is synonymous with God, the ar
chitect in hi s pursuits approaches the di
vine. This kind of talk made lodge masons
eXlremely uneasy. They were being de
mated by a bookish breed of men who
knew Latin and Greek and had gone to
Rome to look al ruins overgrown with veg
elation, but wh o could not dress sto ne or
turn a vault. And the contempt was mu
tual.
But for all his high sounding rhetoric, AI
berti does not rush to repudiate medieval
things, nor d oes he see a world of ideal
RenaiSSance cities. The (irst half of the fif
teenth century, the time of Alberti's matu

~t<.>ne age relics M C prehistoric rl,(;orus of how

hu,n,lns configur!!d th eir environmcnt. Although
the fu ll ra nge of meanings encoded ill thC')' sit5
is no longer retrievable, our movement among
their stones physically reiterates ancient spatial
experiences. Right. deSigns carved into the sur

Fig. 17.8 Picnza; the I'alazza Piccolomini from the

sou th. The cathedral is on the right.

408

[,KC of J paSSdge tomb (third millennium 6.C.) at

Newgrange, Ireland. Below, some of the more
than 3,000 upended stones, or menhirs, aligned
into ~avenues ~ neJr the French villab'e of ( arnac
(third millennium RC.).

 I\\i" 'L'li~_I'U' I.IInp,Wnu, ul LlJ\or ,\Ild

n,l~ ,11 T hd.x.~ 1(1<.'\\ from mode~1 Luh temples
:l ie.lIed 10 Ih(' ~ull'l\vd AnJon. Righl. fllt",1
_n'~< ion~ ,11 IlI"or~ Nt\\ Kingrloll1telTlflk' 11.1
~O IU

IIW\('c! IIl/vugh .1 h\p",,,k- hJII

_porled h\ 'iOln(lf ',lnd"lone column" In thl'
11 Ol ;In open IM pyru~ pLlnl. Helow . ,\ ~i mil.tf
~mn ,11 K,unilk is d!'piclf'd in .1 nineteenth

'tury reconSlfllction.

,\Ill

"
"

.lpUjo\l'l OJ politi(,,1 inllll('nr('

",,~

..d ,11 tht' rl~on~lrllction 01 tht' P.ll1hl:'non

1('I('d III .jJ2 'I e Rt'lo\\, thf' tf'mplt' ch',
~th .. n.l P,lnhf'n{J~ 1O<l~ pnot to' pl"u'

"H'lrI riatf'<lU 01 the A~n'pob. K,."hl

I" l(lln~'<ll ~tdtu e oi Athen." {,ut'u "ith
"pl'\ dnd gold drollod " wwden LOf C. ",I) the
Wll1pll.") towering occupant. 1I i) ,hu wn he re in

("
1'\1

a n IH'IE'C'nl h-c ent ury rI.'Lon,lruction.

Rome's /hermi/e provided luxurious public facilities for bathing, swimming, exercising, and
dining, as welJ as a setting for a spectrum of social interaction ranging from intellectual 10 sexual. Eugene Viollel-Ie Due's meticulous drawing,
executed in 1867, focuses on Roman constru_
ction technique and is thought to have kindled
the late nineteenth-century enthusiasm for railroad stations in the form of Roman baths (see
color page 13).

New architectural forms heralded the transfm

mat ion of the provinCial Roman outpost c
Byzantium into the seat of a resuscitated empirf
left, located beside the 8yzantine empero r!
palace complex, the church of Hagia Sophia (,H
532-37) dissolves the Roman dome's solidity b
leaking sunlight through a perforated rim. ,
thous.and years later, as an architectural prototyp
for an Islamic renaissance, the church inspired
generation of Ottoman mosques. Above, Hagi
Sophia's neighboring 8yzantine palace was gon
by the Ottoman reign. It was replaced by
patchwork of pavilions and leafy courts that mad
up the sprawling royal residence of Topkapi, siteo
atop Byzantium's former Akropolis.