DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29899#0022
2
ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE.
Paet II.
as it is now awkward. We have no instance of a circular building
carried out by Italian architects according to their own principles
sufficiently far to enable us to
judge what they were capable of
in this style, unless perhaps it be
the tombs of the Scaligers at
Verona. These take the circular
or polygonal forrn appropriate to
5i3. Baptistery, Parma. Scaie îoo ft. to i in. tombs, but are on so small a scale
that they might rather be called
crosses than mausolea ; and though
illustrating all the best principles
of Italian design, and evincing an
exuberance of exquisite ornament,
they can hardly be regarded as
important objects of high art. It
is only from small buildings like
these that we may recover the
principles of this art as practised
in Italy. Not being, like the
Northern styles, a progressive
national effort, but generally an
individual exertion, if the first
architect died during the progress
of a larger building, no one knew
exactly how he had intended to
finish it, and its completion was
5H. Baptîstery at Parma, haif Section, half entrusted to the caprice and fancy
Elevation. Scale 50 ft. to 1 m. c J
of some other man, which he gene-
rally inclulged, wholly regardless of its incongruity with the work of
his predecessor.
Towers.
The Italians in the age of pointed architecture were hardly more
successful in their towers than in their other buildings, except that
a tower, from its height, must always be a striking object, and, if
both massive and high, cannot fail to have a certain imposing appear-
ance, of which no clumsiness on the part of the architect can deprive
it. Such towers as the Asinelli and Garisenda at Bologna possess no
more architectural merit than the chimneys of our factories. Most of
those subsequently erected were better than these, but still the Italians
never caught the true idea of a spire.
Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages they retained their
affection for the original rectangular form, making their towers as
ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE.
Paet II.
as it is now awkward. We have no instance of a circular building
carried out by Italian architects according to their own principles
sufficiently far to enable us to
judge what they were capable of
in this style, unless perhaps it be
the tombs of the Scaligers at
Verona. These take the circular
or polygonal forrn appropriate to
5i3. Baptistery, Parma. Scaie îoo ft. to i in. tombs, but are on so small a scale
that they might rather be called
crosses than mausolea ; and though
illustrating all the best principles
of Italian design, and evincing an
exuberance of exquisite ornament,
they can hardly be regarded as
important objects of high art. It
is only from small buildings like
these that we may recover the
principles of this art as practised
in Italy. Not being, like the
Northern styles, a progressive
national effort, but generally an
individual exertion, if the first
architect died during the progress
of a larger building, no one knew
exactly how he had intended to
finish it, and its completion was
5H. Baptîstery at Parma, haif Section, half entrusted to the caprice and fancy
Elevation. Scale 50 ft. to 1 m. c J
of some other man, which he gene-
rally inclulged, wholly regardless of its incongruity with the work of
his predecessor.
Towers.
The Italians in the age of pointed architecture were hardly more
successful in their towers than in their other buildings, except that
a tower, from its height, must always be a striking object, and, if
both massive and high, cannot fail to have a certain imposing appear-
ance, of which no clumsiness on the part of the architect can deprive
it. Such towers as the Asinelli and Garisenda at Bologna possess no
more architectural merit than the chimneys of our factories. Most of
those subsequently erected were better than these, but still the Italians
never caught the true idea of a spire.
Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages they retained their
affection for the original rectangular form, making their towers as