A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Part 18

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 143.--PLAN OF ULM CATHEDRAL.]

More peculiarly German are the brick churches of North Germany, where stone was almost wholly lacking. In these, flat walls, square towers, and decoration by colored tiles and bricks are characteristic, as at Brandenburg (St. G.o.dehard and +St. Catherine+, 1346-1400), at +Prentzlau+, Tangermunde, Konigsberg, &c. Lubeck possesses notable monuments of brick architecture in the churches of +St. Mary+ and St.

Catherine, both much alike in plan and in the flat and barren simplicity of their exteriors. +St. Martin's+ at +Landshut+ in the South is also a notable brick church.

+LATE GOTHIC.+ As in France and England, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were mainly occupied with the completion of existing churches, many of which, up to that time, were still without naves. The works of this period show the exaggerated attenuation of detail already alluded to, though their richness and elegance sometimes atone for their mechanical character. The complicated ribbed vaults of this period are among its most striking features (see p. 239). Spire-building was as general as was the erection of central square towers in England, during the same period. To this time also belong the overloaded traceries and minute detail of the +St. Sebald+ and St. Lorenz churches and of several secular buildings at Nuremberg, the facade of Chemnitz Cathedral, and similar works. The nave and tower of St. Stephen at Vienna (1359-1433), the church of Sta. Maria in Gestade in the same city, and the cathedral of Kaschau in Hungary, are Austrian masterpieces of late Gothic design.

+SECULAR BUILDINGS.+ Germany possesses a number of important examples of secular Gothic work, chiefly munic.i.p.al buildings (gates and town halls) and castles. The first completely Gothic castle or palace was not built until 1280, at +Marienburg+ (Prussia), and was completed a century later. It consists of two courts, the earlier of the two forming a closed square and containing the chapel and chapter-house of the Order of the German knights. The later and larger court is less regular, its chief feature being the +Great Hall+ of the Order, in two aisles. All the vaulting is of the richest multiple-ribbed type. Other castles are at Marienwerder, Heilsberg (1350) in E. Prussia, Karlstein in Bohemia (1347), and the +Albrechtsburg+ at Meissen in Saxony (1471-83).

Among town halls, most of which date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may be mentioned those of Ratisbon (Regensburg), Munster and Hildesheim, Halberstadt, +Brunswick+, Lubeck, and Bremen--the last two of brick. These, and the city gates, such as the +Spahlenthor+ at Basle (Switzerland) and others at Lubeck and Wismar, are generally very picturesque edifices. Many fine guildhalls were also built during the last two centuries of the Gothic style; and dwelling-houses of the same period, of quaint and effective design, with stepped or traceried gables, lofty roofs, openwork balconies and corner turrets, are to be found in many cities. Nuremberg is especially rich in these.

+THE NETHERLANDS+, as might be expected from their position, underwent the influences of both France and Germany. During the thirteenth century, largely through the intimate monastic relations between Tournay and Noyon, the French influence became paramount in what is now Belgium, while Holland remained more strongly German in style. Of the two countries Belgium developed by far the most interesting architecture.

Some of its cathedrals, notably those of Tournay, Antwerp, Brussels, Malines (Mechlin), Mons and Louvain, rank high among structures of their cla.s.s, both in scale and in artistic treatment. The Flemish town halls and guildhalls merit particular attention for their size and richness, exemplifying in a worthy manner the wealth, prosperity, and independence of the weavers and merchants of Antwerp, Ypres, Ghent (Gand), Louvain, and other cities in the fifteenth century.

+CATHEDRALS AND CHURCHES.+ The earliest purely Gothic edifice in Belgium was the choir of +Ste. Gudule+ (1225) at Brussels, followed in 1242 by the choir and transepts of +Tournay+, designed with pointed vaults, side chapels, and a complete _chevet_. The transept-ends are round, as at Noyon. It was surpa.s.sed in splendor by the +Cathedral+ of +Antwerp+ (1352-1422), remarkable for its seven-aisled nave and narrow transepts.

It covers some 70,000 square feet, but its great size is not as effective internally as it should be, owing to the poverty of the details and the lack of finely felt proportion in the various parts. The late west front (1422-1518) displays the florid taste of the wealthy Flemish burgher population of that period, but is so rich and elegant, especially its lofty and slender north spire, that its over-decoration is pardonable. The cathedral of +St. Rombaut+ at Malines (choir, 1366; nave, 1454-64) is a more satisfactory church, though smaller and with its western towers incomplete. The cathedral of +Louvain+ belongs to the same period (1373-1433). +St. Wandru+ at Mons (1450-1528) and +St.

Jacques+ at Liege (1522-58) are interesting parish churches of the first rank, remarkable especially for the use of color in their internal decoration, for their late tracery and ribbed vaulting, and for the absence of Renaissance details at that late period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 144.--TOWN HALL, LOUVAIN.]

+TOWN HALLS: GUILDHALLS.+ These were really the most characteristic Flemish edifices, and are in most cases the most conspicuous monuments of their respective cities. The +Cloth Hall+ of +Ypres+ (1304) is the earliest and most imposing among them; similar halls were built not much later at +Bruges+, +Louvain+, +Malines+ and +Ghent+. The town halls were mostly of later date, the earliest being that of +Bruges+ (1377). The town halls of +Brussels+ with its imposing and graceful tower, of +Louvain+ (1448-63; Fig. 144) and of +Oudenarde+ (early 16th century) are conspicuous monuments of this cla.s.s.

In general, the Gothic architecture of Belgium presents the traits of a borrowed style, which did not undergo at the hands of its borrowers any radically novel or fundamental development. The structural design is usually lacking in vigor and organic significance, but the details are often graceful and well designed, especially on the exterior. The tendency was often towards over-elaboration, particularly in the later works.

The Gothic architecture of +Holland+ and of the +Scandinavian+ countries offers so little that is highly artistic or inspiring in character, that s.p.a.ce cannot well be given in this work, even to an enumeration of its chief monuments.

+SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.+ The beginnings of Gothic architecture in Spain followed close on the series of campaigns from 1217 to 1252, which began the overthrow of the Moorish dominion. With the resulting spirit of exultation and the wealth accruing from booty, came a rapid development of architecture, mainly under French influence. Gothic architecture was at this date, under St. Louis, producing in France some of its n.o.blest works. The great cathedrals of +Toledo+ and +Burgos+, begun between 1220 and 1230, were the earliest purely Gothic churches in Spain. +San Vincente+ at Avila and the +Old Cathedral+ at Salamanca, of somewhat earlier date, present a mixture of round- and pointed-arched forms, with the Romanesque elements predominant. +Toledo Cathedral+, planned in imitation of Notre Dame and Bourges, but exceeding them in width, covers 75,000 square feet, and thus ranks among the largest of European cathedrals. Internally it is well proportioned and well detailed, recalling the early French masterworks, but its exterior is less commendable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 145.--FAcADE OF BURGOS CATHEDRAL.]

In the contemporary cathedral of Burgos the exterior is at least as interesting as the interior. The west front, of German design, suggests Cologne by its twin openwork spires (Fig. 145); while the crossing is embellished with a sumptuous dome and lantern or _cimborio_, added as late as 1567. The chapels at the east end, especially that of the Condestabile (1487), are ornate to the point of overloading, a fault to which late Spanish Gothic work is peculiarly p.r.o.ne. Other thirteenth-century cathedrals are those of +Leon+ (1260), +Valencia+ (1262), and +Barcelona+ (1298), all exhibiting strongly the French influence in the plan, vaulting, and vertical proportions. The models of Bourges and Paris with their wide naves, lateral chapels and semicircular chevets were followed in the cathedral of Barcelona, in a number of fourteenth-century churches both there and elsewhere, and in the sixteenth-century cathedral of Segovia. In Sta. Maria del Pi at Barcelona, in the collegiate church at Manresa, and in the imposing nave of the +Cathedral+ of +Gerona+ (1416, added to choir of 1312, the latter by a Southern French architect, Henri de Narbonne), the influence of Alby in southern France (see p. 206) is discernible. These are one-aisled churches with internal b.u.t.tresses separating the lateral chapels. The nave of Gerona is 73 feet wide, or double the average clear width of French or English cathedral naves. The resulting effect is not commensurate with the actual dimensions, and shows the inappropriateness of Gothic details for compositions so Roman in breadth and simplicity.

+SEVILLE.+ The largest single edifice in Spain, and the largest church built during the Middle Ages in Europe, is the +Cathedral of Seville+, begun in 1401 on the site of a Moorish mosque. It covers 124,000 square feet, measuring 415 298 feet, and is a simple rectangle comprising five aisles with lateral chapels. The central aisle is 56 ft. wide and 145 high; the side aisles and chapels diminish gradually in height, and with the uniform piers in six rows produce an imposing effect, in spite of the lack of transepts or chevet. The somewhat similar +New Cathedral+ of Salamanca (1510-1560) shows the last struggles of the Gothic style against the incoming tide of the Renaissance.

+LATER MONUMENTS.+ These all partake of the over-decoration which characterized the fifteenth century throughout Europe. In Spain this decoration was even less constructive in character, and more purely fanciful and arbitrary, than in the northern lands; but this very rejection of all constructive pretense gives it a peculiar charm and goes far to excuse its extravagance (Fig. 146). Decorative vaulting-ribs were made to describe geometric patterns of great elegance. Some of the late Gothic vaults by the very exuberance of imagination shown in their designs, almost disarm criticism. Instead of suppressing the walls as far as possible, and emphasizing all the vertical lines, as was done in France and England, the later Gothic architects of Spain delighted in broad wall-surfaces and multiplied horizontal lines. Upon these surfaces they lavished carving without restraint and without any organic relation to the structure of the building. The arcades of cloisters and interior courts (_patios_) were formed with arches of fantastic curves resting on twisted columns; and internal chapels in the cathedrals were covered with minute carving of exquisite workmans.h.i.+p, but wholly irrational design. Probably the influence of Moorish decorative art accounts in part for these extravagances. The eastern chapels in Burgos cathedral, the votive church of +San Juan de los Reyes+ at Toledo and many portals of churches, convents and hospitals ill.u.s.trate these tendencies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 146.--DETAIL, PORTAL S. GREGORIO, VALLADOLID.]

+PORTUGAL+ is an almost unknown land architecturally. It seems to have adopted the Gothic styles very late in its history. Two monuments, however, are conspicuous, the convent churches of Batalha (1390-1520) and +Belem+, both marked by an extreme overloading of carved ornament.

The +Mausoleum of King Manoel+ in the rear of the church at Batalha is, however, a n.o.ble creation, possibly by an English master. It is a polygonal domed edifice, some 67 feet in diameter, and well designed, though covered with a too profuse and somewhat mechanical decoration of panels, pinnacles, and carving.

+MONUMENTS+: GERMANY (C = cathedral; A = abbey; tr. = transepts).--13th century: Transitional churches: Bamberg C.; Naumburg C.; Collegiate Church, Fritzlar; St. George, Limburg-on-Lahn; St. Castor, Coblentz; Heisterbach A.;--all in early years of 13th century. St. Gereon, Cologne, choir 1212-27; Liebfrauenkirche, Treves, 1227-44; St. Elizabeth, Marburg, 1235-83; Sts. Peter and Paul, Neuweiler, 1250; Cologne C., choir 1248-1322 (nave 14th century; towers finished 1883); Strasburg C., 1250-75 (E. end Romanesque; facade 1277-1365; tower 1429-39); Halberstadt C., nave 1250 (choir 1327; completed 1490); Altenburg C., choir 1255-65 (finished 1379); Wimpfen-im-Thal church 1259-78; St. Lawrence, Nuremberg, 1260 (choir 1439-77); St.

Catherine, Oppenheim, 1262-1317 (choir 1439); Xanten, Collegiate Church, 1263; Freiburg C., 1270 (W. tower 1300; choir 1354); Toul C., 1272; Meissen C., choir 1274 (nave 1312-42); Ratisbon C., 1275; St. Mary's, Lubeck, 1276; Dominican churches at Coblentz, Gebweiler; and in Switzerland at Basle, Berne, and Zurich.--14th century: Wiesenkirche, Sost, 1313; Osnabruck C., 1318 (choir 1420); St. Mary's, Prentzlau, 1325; Augsburg C., 1321-1431; Metz C., 1330 rebuilt (choir 1486); St. Stephen's C., Vienna, 1340 (nave 15th century; tower 1433); Zwette C., 1343; Prague C., 1344; church at Thann, 1351 (tower finished 16th century); Liebfrauenkirche, Nuremberg, 1355-61; St. Sebaldus Church, Nuremberg, 1361-77 (nave Romanesque); Minden C., choir 1361; Ulm C., 1377 (choir 1449; nave vaulted 1471; finished 16th century); Sta. Barbara, Kuttenberg, 1386 (nave 1483); Erfurt C.; St. Elizabeth, Kaschau; Schlettstadt C.--15th century: St.

Catherine's, Brandenburg, 1401; Frauenkirche, Esslingen, 1406 (finished 1522); Minster at Berne, 1421; Peter-Paulskirche, Gorlitz, 1423-97; St. Mary's, Stendal, 1447; Frauenkirche, Munich, 1468-88; St. Martin's, Landshut, 1473.

SECULAR MONUMENTS. Schloss Marienburg, 1341; Moldau-bridge and tower, Prague, 1344; Karlsteinburg, 1348-57; Albrechtsburg, Meissen, 1471-83; Na.s.sau House, Nuremberg, 1350; Council houses (Rathhauser) at Brunswick, 1393; Cologne, 1407-15; Basle; Breslau; Lubeck; Munster; Prague; Ulm; City Gates of Basle, Cologne, Ingolstadt, Lucerne.

THE NETHERLANDS. Brussels C. (Ste. Gudule), 1226-80; Tournai C., choir 1242 (nave finished 1380); Notre Dame, Bruges, 1239-97; Notre Dame, Tongres, 1240; Utrecht C., 1251; St. Martin, Ypres, 1254; Notre Dame, Dinant, 1255; church at Dordrecht; church at Aerschot, 1337; Antwerp C., 1352-1411 (W. front 1422-1518); St.

Rombaut, Malines, 1355-66 (nave 1456-64); St. Wandru, Mons, 1450-1528; St. Lawrence, Rotterdam, 1472; other 15th century churches--St. Bavon, Haarlem; St. Catherine, Utrecht; St.

Walpurgis, Sutphen; St. Bavon, Ghent (tower 1461); St. Jaques, Antwerp; St. Pierre, Louvain; St. Jacques, Bruges; churches at Arnheim, Breda, Delft; St. Jacques, Liege, 1522.--SECULAR: Cloth-hall, Ypres, 1200-1304; cloth-hall, Bruges, 1284; town hall, Bruges, 1377; town hall, Brussels, 1401-55; town hall, Louvain, 1448-63; town hall, Ghent, 1481; town hall, Oudenarde, 1527; Standehuis, Delft, 1528; cloth-halls at Louvain, Ghent, Malines.

SPAIN.--13th century: Burgos C., 1221 (facade 1442-56; chapels 1487; cimborio 1567); Toledo C., 1227-90 (chapels 14th and 15th centuries); Tarragona C., 1235; Leon C., 1250 (facade 14th century); Valencia C., 1262 (N. transept 1350-1404; facade 1381-1418); Avila C., vault and N. portal 1292-1353 (finished 14th century); St. Esteban, Burgos; church at Las Huelgas.--14th century: Barcelona C., choir 1298-1329 (nave and transepts 1448; facade 16th century); Gerona C., 1312-46 (nave added 1416); S. M.

del Mar, Barcelona, 1328-83; S. M. del Pino, Barcelona, same date; Collegiate Church, Manresa, 1328; Oviedo C., 1388 (tower very late); Pampluna C., 1397 (mainly 15th century).--15th century: Seville C., 1403 (finished 16th century; cimborio 1517-67); La Seo, Saragossa (finished 1505); S. Pablo, Burgos, 1415-35; El Parral, Segovia, 1459; Astorga C., 1471; San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, 1476; Carthusian church, Miraflores, 1488; San Juan, and La Merced, Burgos.--16th century: Huesca C., 1515; Salamanca New Cathedral, 1510-60; Segovia C., 1522; S. Juan de la Puerta, Zamorra.

SECULAR.--Porta Serranos, Valencia, 1349; Casa Consistorial, Barcelona, 1369-78; Casa de la Disputacion, same city; Casa de las Lonjas, Valencia, 1482.

PORTUGAL. At Batalha, church and mausoleum of King Manoel, finished 1515; at Belem, monastery, late Gothic.

CHAPTER XIX.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED; As before, Corroyer, Reber. Also, c.u.mmings, _A History of Architecture in Italy_. De Fleury, _La Toscane au moyen age_. Gruner, _The Terra Cotta Architecture of Northern Italy_. Mothes, _Die Baukunst des Mittelalters in Italien_.

Norton, _Historical Studies of Church Building in the Middle Ages_. Osten, _Bauwerke der Lombardei_. Street, _Brick and Marble Architecture of Italy_. Willis, _Remarks on the Architecture of the Middle Ages, especially of Italy_.

+GENERAL CHARACTER.+ The various Romanesque styles which had grown up in Italy before 1200 lacked that unity of principle out of which alone a new and h.o.m.ogeneous national style could have been evolved. Each province practised its own style and methods of building, long after the Romanesque had given place to the Gothic in Western Europe. The Italians were better decorators than builders, and cared little for Gothic structural principles. Mosaic and carving, sumptuous altars and tombs, veneerings and inlays of colored marble, broad flat surfaces to be covered with painting and ornament--to secure these they were content to build crudely, to tie their insufficiently b.u.t.tressed vaults with unsightly iron tie-rods, and to make their church facades mere screen-walls, in form wholly unrelated to the buildings behind them.

When, therefore, under foreign influences pointed arches, tracery, cl.u.s.tered shafts, crockets and finials came into use, it was merely as an imported fas.h.i.+on. Even when foreign architects (usually Germans) were employed, the composition, and in large measure the details, were still Italian and provincial. The church of St. Francis at a.s.sisi (1228-53, by _Jacobus of Meruan_, a German, superseded later by an Italian, Campello), and the cathedral of Milan (begun 1389, perhaps by _Henry of Gmund_), are conspicuous ill.u.s.trations of this. Rome built basilicas all through the Middle Ages. Tuscany continued to prefer flat walls veneered with marble to the broken surfaces and deep b.u.t.tresses of France and Germany. Venice developed a Gothic style of facade-design wholly her own (see p. 267). Nowhere but in Italy could two such utterly diverse structures as the Certosa at Pavia and the cathedral at Milan have been erected at the same time.

+CLIMATE AND TRADITION.+ Two further causes militated against the domestication of Gothic art in Italy. The first was the brilliant atmosphere, which made the vast traceried windows of Gothic design, and its suppression of the wall-surfaces, wholly undesirable. Cool, dim interiors, thick walls, small windows and the exclusion of sunlight, all necessary to Italian comfort, were incompatible with Gothic ideals and methods. The second obstacle was the persistence of cla.s.sic traditions of form, both in construction and decoration. The s.p.a.ciousness and breadth of interior planning which characterized Roman design, and its amplitude of scale in every feature, seem never to have lost their hold on the Italians. The narrow lofty aisles, multiplied supports and minute detail of the Gothic style were repugnant to the cla.s.sic predilections of the Italian builders. The Roman acanthus and Corinthian capital were constantly imitated in their Gothic buildings, and the round arch continued all through the Middle Ages to be used in conjunction with the pointed arch (Figs. 149, 150).

+EARLY BUILDINGS.+ It is hard to determine how and by whom Gothic forms were first introduced into Italy, but it was most probably through the agency of the monastic orders. Cistercian churches like that at Chiaravalle near Milan (1208-21), and most of those erected by the mendicant orders of the Franciscans (founded 1210) and Dominicans (1216), were built with ribbed vaults and pointed arches. The example set by these orders contributed greatly to the general adoption of the foreign style. +S. Francesco+ at +a.s.sisi+, already mentioned, was the first completely Gothic Franciscan church, although +S. Francesco+ at +Bologna+, begun a few years later, was finished a little earlier. The Dominican church of +SS. Giovanni e Paolo+ and the great Franciscan church of +Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari+, both at Venice, were built a little later. +Sta. Maria Novella+ at Florence (1278), and +Sta. Maria sopra Minerva+ at Rome (1280), both by the brothers _Sisto_ and _Ristoro_, and +S. Anastasia+ at Verona (1261) are the masterpieces of the Dominican builders. +S. Andrea+ at +Vercelli+ in North Italy, begun in 1219 under a foreign architect, is an isolated early example of lay Gothic work. Though somewhat English in its plan, and (unlike most Italian churches) provided with two western spires in the English manner, it is in all other respects thoroughly Italian in aspect. The church at Asti, begun in 1229, suggests German models by its high side walls and narrow windows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 147.--DUOMO AT FLORENCE. PLAN.

a, _Campanile_.]

+CATHEDRALS.+ The greatest monuments of Italian Gothic design are the cathedrals, in which, even more than was the case in France, the highly developed civic pride of the munic.i.p.alities expressed itself. Chief among these half civic, half religious monuments are the cathedrals of +Sienna+ (begun in 1243), +Arezzo+ (1278), +Orvieto+ (1290), +Florence+ (the +Duomo+, Sta. Maria del Fiore, begun 1294 by Arnolfo di Cambio), +Lucca+ (S. Martino, 1350), +Milan+ (1389-1418), and +S. Petronio+ at Bologna (1390). They are all of imposing size; Milan is the largest of all Gothic cathedrals except Seville. S. Petronio was planned to be 600 feet long, the present structure with its three broad aisles and flanking chapels being merely the nave of the intended edifice. The Duomo at Florence (Fig. 147) is 500 feet long and covers 82,000 square feet, while the octagon at the crossing is 143 feet in diameter. The effect of these colossal dimensions is, however, as in a number of these large Italian interiors, singularly belittled by the bareness of the walls, by the great size of the const.i.tuent parts of the composition, and by the lack of architectural subdivisions and multiplied detail to serve as a scale by which to gauge the scale of the _ensemble_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 148.--NAVE OF DUOMO AT FLORENCE.]