DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26747#0612
548
LOMBARD ARCHITECTURE.
Book II.
some angle of tlie building, the favourite position being the western
angle of the southern transept. Sometimes we find one tower placed
at the angle of the fagade, but this is seldom the case when the tower
and the church are of the same age. It is so in the cathedral at Lucca,
and San Ambrogio at Milan; and in the latter instance a second tower
has been added at a later date to balance the older one. It does also
happen, as in the instance of Kovara, before quoted (woodcut No. 413),
that two towers are actually parts of the original design ; this, how-
ever, is certainly the exception, not the rule.
In design the Italian campaniles differ very considerably from
those on this side of the Alps. They never have projecting buttresses,
nor assume that pyramidal form which is so essential and so beautiful
a feature in the northern examples. In plan the campanile is always
square, and carried up without break or offset to two-thirds at least of
its intended height. This, which is virtually the whole design (for
the spire seems an idea borrowed from the north), is generally solid
to a considerable lreight, or with only such openings as serve to admit
light to the stairs or inclined planes. Above this solid part one round-
headed window is introduced in each face, and in the next story two ;
in the one above this three, then four, and lastly five, the lights being
merely separated by slight piers, so that the upper story is virtually
an open loggia. There is no doubt great beauty and propriety of
design in this arrangement; in point of taste it is unobjectionable, but
it wants the vigour and variety of the Northern tower.
So far as we can judge from drawings and such ancient examples
as remain, the original termination was a simple cone in the centre,
and a smaller one at each of the four angles.
At Yerona an octagonal lantern is added, and at Modena and Cre-
mona the octagon is crowned by a lofty spire, but these hardly come
within the limits of the epoch of which we are now treating. So
greatly did the Italians prefer the round arch, that even in their imita-
tion of the Northern styles they used the pointed shape only when
compelled. This circumstance makes it extremely difficrdt, particu-
larly in the towers, to draw the line between the two styles; for
though pointed arches were no doubt introduced in the 13th and 14th
centuries, the circular-headed shape continued to be employed from the
age of the Eomanesque to that of the Eenaissance.
One of the oldest, and certainly the most celebrated of the Gothic
towers of Italy, is that of St. Mark’s at. Yenice, commenced in the year
902; it took the infant republic 3 centuries to raise it 180 ft., to the
point at which the square basement terminates. On this there must
originally have been an open loggia of some sort, and no doubt with a
conical roof. The present superstructure was added in the 16th cen-
tury, and though the loggia is a very pleasing feature, it is overpowered
by the solid mass that surmounts, and by the extremely ugly square
extinguisher that crowns the whole. Its locality and its associations
have earned for it a great. deal of inflated laudation, but in point of
design no eampanile in Italy deserves it less. The base is a mere
unornamented mass of brickwork, slightly fluted, and pierced unsym-
LOMBARD ARCHITECTURE.
Book II.
some angle of tlie building, the favourite position being the western
angle of the southern transept. Sometimes we find one tower placed
at the angle of the fagade, but this is seldom the case when the tower
and the church are of the same age. It is so in the cathedral at Lucca,
and San Ambrogio at Milan; and in the latter instance a second tower
has been added at a later date to balance the older one. It does also
happen, as in the instance of Kovara, before quoted (woodcut No. 413),
that two towers are actually parts of the original design ; this, how-
ever, is certainly the exception, not the rule.
In design the Italian campaniles differ very considerably from
those on this side of the Alps. They never have projecting buttresses,
nor assume that pyramidal form which is so essential and so beautiful
a feature in the northern examples. In plan the campanile is always
square, and carried up without break or offset to two-thirds at least of
its intended height. This, which is virtually the whole design (for
the spire seems an idea borrowed from the north), is generally solid
to a considerable lreight, or with only such openings as serve to admit
light to the stairs or inclined planes. Above this solid part one round-
headed window is introduced in each face, and in the next story two ;
in the one above this three, then four, and lastly five, the lights being
merely separated by slight piers, so that the upper story is virtually
an open loggia. There is no doubt great beauty and propriety of
design in this arrangement; in point of taste it is unobjectionable, but
it wants the vigour and variety of the Northern tower.
So far as we can judge from drawings and such ancient examples
as remain, the original termination was a simple cone in the centre,
and a smaller one at each of the four angles.
At Yerona an octagonal lantern is added, and at Modena and Cre-
mona the octagon is crowned by a lofty spire, but these hardly come
within the limits of the epoch of which we are now treating. So
greatly did the Italians prefer the round arch, that even in their imita-
tion of the Northern styles they used the pointed shape only when
compelled. This circumstance makes it extremely difficrdt, particu-
larly in the towers, to draw the line between the two styles; for
though pointed arches were no doubt introduced in the 13th and 14th
centuries, the circular-headed shape continued to be employed from the
age of the Eomanesque to that of the Eenaissance.
One of the oldest, and certainly the most celebrated of the Gothic
towers of Italy, is that of St. Mark’s at. Yenice, commenced in the year
902; it took the infant republic 3 centuries to raise it 180 ft., to the
point at which the square basement terminates. On this there must
originally have been an open loggia of some sort, and no doubt with a
conical roof. The present superstructure was added in the 16th cen-
tury, and though the loggia is a very pleasing feature, it is overpowered
by the solid mass that surmounts, and by the extremely ugly square
extinguisher that crowns the whole. Its locality and its associations
have earned for it a great. deal of inflated laudation, but in point of
design no eampanile in Italy deserves it less. The base is a mere
unornamented mass of brickwork, slightly fluted, and pierced unsym-