# Development and Character of Gothic Architecture/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
POINTED CONSTRUCTION IN GERMANY, ITALY, AND SPAIN
I.— Germany
Pointedforms in architectural design were not adopted in Germany at so early a period as they were in England, nor was their progress so rapid after they began to be employed. In fact, so far as regards structural modifications the pointed arch had little effect here until the fully developed Gothic of France began to be imperfectly copied about the middle of the thirteenth century.
Germany possessed, in the twelfth century, a Romanesque architecture which, especially in the important buildings along the Rhine, was of a very admirable character, and with it the people were apparently content. This architecture was derived from that style of Northern Italy which had been developed under the Lombard influence out of the older round arched styles, and it was hence largely a German art. It was therefore natural that the country should be slow to yield to the influence of the Gothic movement, notwithstanding that this movement was active in its near neighbourhood and among a people with whom it had intimate relations. During the early Gothic development in France the German art of building remained wholly unchanged. Even so important an edifice as the Cathedral of Speyer, the erection of which was contemporaneous with that of the choir of the Cathedral of Paris, was constructed in the almost unmodified Romanesque style. The central ​aisle of this church, for instance, is vaulted with round arched quadripartite vaults in square compartments, each compartment embracing two bays of the side aisles, in FIG. 93. accordance with the form that had been established in Lombardy. These vaults have transverse ribs of square section, but they have no groin ribs. The piers are square in section, and have single engaged shafts which start from the pavement, and which, in the main piers, carry the transverse ribs, and in the intermediate piers carry the first order of the lower clerestory arches. In each double bay there are two large clerestory windows, the crowns of whose arches rise very little above the springing of the vaults, and thus a wide space of wall is left between them and the arch of the vault, while high up in the middle of this wall is a third but very small window. There are no triforium openings, and the aisles are lighted by small windows high in their walls. Fig. 93, a geometric elevation of one bay, will illustrate the internal structure of this church. There is an apse at each end of the building—an arrangement peculiar to Germany—covered with a semi-dome; and at the crossing of the nave and transept is an octagonal dome on pendentives.
In the Cathedral of Bamberg, built near the end of the twelfth century, the vaults assume the pointed form, and are provided with light groin ribs. They are still, however, in square compartments—one bay of the nave (Fig. 94) embracing two bays of the aisles. The ground-story arches ​also are pointed, and the piers are square, with edge shafts answering in form to the moulding of the archivolt. FIG. 94. The triforium space is a vast surface of plain wall without openings, and there is no string-course to mark the division between the triforium and the clerestory. Externally the clerestory has neither buttresses nor pilaster strips, and the windows of both aisles and clerestory are small, plain, and round arched. In plan this church, also, retains features that are almost peculiar to the German-Romanesque, namely, an apse at each end, so that the main entrance is at the side.
In the Cathedral of Magdeburg, begun in 1212, the pointed arch replaces the round arch throughout. This building has been considered as the first German imitation of the Gothic of France; but its likeness to French design is rather apparent than real, though its apse, in plan and elevation, bears some marked points of resemblance to the French type. The vaults of the nave are constructed on Gothic principles so far as concerns their rib systems; they are quadripartite in oblong compartments, though the piers and the transverse ribs are on the alternate principle—that is to say, they are alternately massive and slender. The building would thus seem to have been originally intended for sexpartite vaulting, or perhaps rather—since the intermediate pier has no connection with the vaulting—for quadripartite vaults in square compartments, in accordance with the usual German form. The main pier has a ​continuous group of vaulting shafts rising from the pavement; but this pier is not compact and well developed—its main body being merely a strip of flat wall. In fact, the nave may be considered as separated from the aisles by plain walls, pierced on the grounds-tory by a row of wide pointed arched openings, and in the clerestory by narrow ones. There are no openings in the triforium, and externally, though there are pier buttresses of considerable projection, there are no flying buttresses. The Gothic system is thus by no means carried out in this building, though in date it is nearly contemporaneous with the Cathedral of Amiens.
The nave of the Cathedral of Limburg| on the Lahn, which was consecrated in 1235, has much more structural Gothic character than either of the preceding buildings. It too, however, exhibits some inconsistencies, and retains many of the peculiarities of the German-Romanesque. The interior of this building, in the disposition of its piers, the mode of its vaulting, and the divisions of its stories, bears such strong likeness to that of the nave of Noyon as to justify the inference that its designer was directly influenced by that building. Like Noyon it has a vaulted triforium gallery and a second triforium consisting of an open-shafted arcade. All the lower openings have the pointed arch, but, as at Noyon, the clerestory openings are round arched. A peculiarity of the sexpartite vaulting of this building is that the springing of the intermediate transverse rib is situated at a higher level than that of the main ribs. This rib and the branches of the longitudinal ribs which are grouped with it are carried on three short and slender shafts, which are supported by a single shaft rising from the triforium ledge (Fig. 95). This raising of the point of springing is a logical arrangement, since the doming of the vaults brings the crowns of the intermediate ribs much higher than those of the main ribs; but the single shaft, stopping on the triforium ledge, is not so logical, as I have already remarked in connection with its frequent use in England. With this exception, however, this nave is very largely Gothic in character, especially since the main pier is reinforced by ​a good flying buttress of the early French form over the aisle roof, supplemented by a second one under the roof. FIG. 95 In the aisles and in the triforium gallery the tenacity with which the German builders held on to their Romanesque traditional methods of construction is singularly marked. In these parts of the building the vaults have no Gothic rib systems—the groins having no ribs, and the transverse ribs being of the heavy Romanesque type. The external character of this edifice is very far from Gothic. The openings are few and small, and in them the round arch mingles with the pointed arch. As the nave comprises but two double bays, two of the main piers are naturally abutted by the transept and tower walls respectively, and thus but one flying buttress is necessary, that which is brought to bear upon the central main pier. There are no other buttresses of any kind on this portion of the building, either on the walls or on the towers; but against the vaults of the apse flying buttresses, like those of the nave, are brought to bear.
Even after the middle of the thirteenth century such a building as the Cathedral of Freiburg, which was completed in 1270, is still very imperfectly Gothic, though it has a continuous vaulting system, including a system of flying buttresses. Its vaulting conoids are not narrowed against the pier, and the pier itself is not distinctly developed above the ground-story. The triforium space is, in each bay, an unbroken wall surface, and the clerestory opening occupies but a portion of the space between the piers.
​The nave of the Cathedral of Strasburg, too, begun in 1277, though more consistently Gothic in character, is far removed from Gothic in the design and adjustment of its west end, which shall be more particularly referred to a little farther on.
In the Kreuzkirche at Breslau (Fig. 96) the pointed arch is employed exclusively, though the design differs widely from French models. This edifice was completed as it now exists
FIG. 96
before the close of the thirteenth century, and it affords a good illustration of the distinctively German taste at this period. The vaults of the nave are in square compartments, while those of the aisles, which are of equal height with the nave, are so curiously and awkwardly mixed in form as to be difficult to describe in words. They may, however, be understood by reference to the illustration (Fig. 96 bis}, a plan of one bay as given by Forster. The vault ribs spring from corbels, and the piers are therefore entirely devoid of vaulting shafts. They are of rectangular section, ​and have no capitals, the impost being continuous. The walls are plain and unbroken save by tall narrow lancets, one in each bay of the aisles. Externally there are buttresses of considerable projection which rise, with four set-offs, to the wall cornice. FIG. 96 bis. In the chief monument of German mediæval art, the Cathedral of Cologne|, the Gothic structural system is, indeed, complete. The great French models—Amiens and Beauvais, which directly prompted the erection of this building—were closely followed as regards their mechanical principles. The vaults have all the functional ribs that are peculiar to France, and their cells exhibit those twisted surfaces which generally distinguish Gothic vault construction. The upright supports are functionally designed, compactly grouped, and are continuous from the pavement, while a complete and logical system of buttresses is brought to bear upon the vault thrusts. But Cologne is a late construction, the greater part of it dating from the fourteenth and subsequent centuries. Even the choir, the oldest part, was not begun till 1248, and it was not consecrated till 1322. It is in no sense a development of anything German, but is, in its structural system, strictly an importation from France. It is a copy made in a spirit, not so much of appreciation as of emulation. It shows a faithful study and an intelligent apprehension of the mechanism of Gothic, but it reveals no inventive freedom, no spontaneous exercise of native genius. In the whole range of pointed architecture in Germany there is no ​evidence of any new growth out of the borrowed forms; but just as in England some of the features of French art, modified by Anglo-Norman taste, were ingrafted upon the Norman-Romanesque without materially changing its structural character, so in Germany were the same features, modified by local taste, ingrafted upon the Romanesque of the country with little change in its structural character,—an instance like that of Cologne, where a structural system,
FIG. 97.
radically different from the native one, is fully carried out, being exceptional.
One class of church buildings is, however, peculiar to Germany—that, namely, in which the three aisles are carried up to an equal height, as in the Kreuzkirche at Breslau just mentioned. Of this class are the Church of St. Elizabeth at Marburg, St. Sebaldus at Nuremberg, St. Mary at Mühlhausen, and others. It would be difficult to produce a more ill-proportioned figure than the cross section (Fig. 97) of such a building presents. The only parallel to it is, I believe, that which is afforded by the grouping of the west portals of the Cathedral ​of Peterborough in England. An arrangement of this kind is not to be found in France, the nearest approach to it being found in some of the churches of Southern Gaul and of Poitou, as in the Cathedral of Poitiers (Fig. 98), where, though the side aisles are so high that there is no clerestory to the nave, yet they are enough lower than the nave to secure an agreeable proportional relationship of the parts. In St. Elizabeth, which dates from about the middle of the
FIG. 98.
thirteenth century, though the building consists of but one story, the walls are divided externally into two stories, each of which is pierced with a row of windows. It is hardly necessary to say that such a violation of expressional integrity is distinctly opposed to Gothic principles.
In regard to façades, east ends, transept ends, and towers ​and spires in Germany there is no need of prolonged remark. The west façade retains, for the most part, its Romanesque features until after the middle of the thirteenth century, and the changes that were afterward introduced did not, save in a few exceptional cases like that of the façade of Cologne, result in anything that can be properly called Gothic design. One of the best and grandest early pointed west ends is that of the Cathedral of Limburg on the Lahn. It consists of a central compartment corresponding to the nave, flanked by square towers which terminate the aisles. The central compartment is divided into three stories, exclusive of the gable, which correspond with the internal divisions. It is a perfectly logical as well as a picturesque façade, but, notwithstanding the pointed arches that are mixed with the round ones in its openings, it has no real Gothic character. In St. Elizabeth of Marburg the same general scheme assumes a more Gothic expression by the addition of strongly-marked buttresses, pointed openings with tracery, and tall stone spires.
In the Cathedral of Strasburg the west façade has in its horizontal divisions no correspondence whatever with the building of which it is the front. It is, for the most part, a false screen, though, in so far as concerns the ground-plan, the central compartment and the towers are the true terminations of the nave and aisles respectively. Of the three stories of the central-compartment the uppermost one rises from a level above the apex of the timber roof of the nave.
The west end of the Cathedral of Cologne is of fourteenth century design, and most of it is of even much later construction—the south tower, which was completed only as high as the bell story in 1437, having been, at that time, its most advanced portion. Though for the most part logical enough in general arrangement, the hard rectilinear character of its details is in striking contrast to the subtle beauty of the early French art, to which it owes every good quality that it possesses.
The east end in the German pointed style is usually apsidal, either a semicircle or a polygon, in imitation, more or less direct, of the French chevet, as at St. Elizabeth of Marburg and Cologne. A curious earlier form is that of ​Limburg, where the choir is covered with one sexpartite vault, the eastern half of which is on a semicircular plan,
FIG. 99. FIG.100.
and the elevation of the hemicycle consists of three bays like the longitudinal ones, with exception of their curved plan.
Transept ends are apsidal, as at St. Elizabeth of Marburg, ​or square, as at Limburg and Cologne. They present no peculiarities of structure that call for particular remark.
German west towers of pointed design differ in no important structural points from French towers, except that the earlier examples, like those of St. Elizabeth, retain larger wall spaces, and are hence more largely Romanesque.
The characteristic German spire was of very late development. It is not a roof at all, but is a mere skeleton of fanciful open stonework, as at Strasburg, Freiburg, and Cologne. Earlier stone spires in Germany are often, if not always, ill adjusted to the towers from which they rise, as at Breslau (Fig. 99), where the base is square, while the section becomes octagonal at a short distance above the base, the transition being managed as in a chamfer. Moreover, the square of the spire is too small for that of the tower, and the cornice and parapet which surmount the tower break that continuity which is essential to Gothic structure and expression. Still more unsatisfactory is the adjustment of the spires of St. Elizabeth of Marburg (Fig. 100), where the square tower is surmounted by a truncated octagonal pyramid with unequal sides, crowned by a parapet within which—its base not nearly covering the area on which it rests—rises an octagonal spire, whose sides are all set obliquely to the sides of the substructure. The pinnacles on the angles of the tower do not agree in form with the buttresses which they surmount, and the whole arrangement is thus conspicuous for abrupt transitions which are objectionable, both from a structural and from an artistic point of view.
II.—Italy
During the twelfth century Gothic architecture had no marked influence upon Italy. The Church of S. Andrea of Vercelli, which is said to have been begun in 1219, gives evidence, in its Gothic vaulting system, of transalpine influence; but it is an exceptional instance, and it was not before the middle of the thirteenth century that Italy began really to yield, in some measure, to the taste for pointed design which had become so general in the north of Europe. The monastic orders in Italy continued to take a prominent part in building for a much longer time than ​north of the Alps; and in the middle of the thirteenth century the Dominicans and Franciscans were instrumental in introducing into the country a variety of pointed architecture that was chiefly derived from German sources, and which continued largely to conform to German models.
One of the earliest of their buildings is the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, which was completed in 1253. In form and principle of construction this church is very little like a Gothic edifice. The building is in two stories—an upper and a lower church—the one distinct from the other. The lower church is, in fact, a crypt; though there is a second crypt, of small proportions, beneath it. St. Francis is built against a hillside, and the pavement of the lower story is, toward the north, on a level with the ground without, so that it could be conveniently lighted, and reached by a sloping path to the portal on the north side. The upper church is in one story without aisles, with a transept across the east end, and an apse of segmental form. The vaults, like those of the same period in Germany, are quadripartite in square compartments. They are provided with transverse and diagonal ribs, but are devoid of longitudinal ribs. All the vaulting arches spring from the same level, and hence the lateral cells have not the forms which secure that concentration of thrusts which distinguishes Gothic. There being no aisles, there are, of course, no piers; but the vaults are supported by shafts, five in a group, which rise against the walls, unbroken from the pavement to the springing of the arches. Narrow pointed windows, one in each bay, and each divided by a mullion, are the only openings. The apse has a Gothic vault and traceried openings; but the general character and aspect of the building, especially of the exterior, is little removed from that of a Romanesque structure.
Another example of these pointed monastic edifices is the important Church of Sta. Maria Novella in Florence, which was founded in 1278. Like St. Francis of Assisi and many other Italian churches, it has a transept across the east end, but instead of an apse it has a rectangular eastern arm which is used as the choir. The nave is provided with side aisles, and the structure is vaulted throughout. In ​common with nearly all other so-called Italian Gothic churches the piers of Sta. Maria Novella are so disposed as to produce square vaulting compartments in the nave, and oblong ones in the aisles. Here again (and we shall
FIG. 101.
find it invariably so in Italy) all the arches of the vaults spring from the same level. The transverse and diagonal arches have strong ribs, but the longitudinal arches are without ribs. There is no triforium, and the crowns of all the arches of the pier arcades reach far above the level of the springing of the vaults. The clerestory opening ​is but a small circle far up near the crown of the arch of the vault. No adequate buttress system is apparent
FIG. 102.
externally, and yet the vaults are not tied by iron rods as they generally are in Italy, where the buttress is never developed on the outside beyond the form of a pilaster ​strip of greater or less projection. But an examination of the structure above the vaults of the aisles reveals the existence of powerful abutments in the form of solid walls built upon the transverse ribs, and reaching up to the rafters of the timber roof (Fig. 101). A deep pilaster buttress rising against the clerestory wall, and a similar one reinforcing the wall of the aisle, augment the stability of the structure. This certainly cannot be called Gothic construction, but the hidden wall over the aisle vault is practically a flying buttress, though an exceedingly clumsy one, and there is therefore something approaching the principle of Gothic in it. I know not how far this mode of hidden abutment may be carried out in Italian pointed buildings generally, but the presence of the iron tie in many cases shows that the stone abutments, if they exist, are not adequate. It may be added that the piers of Sta. Maria Novella are light for an Italian edifice, and are thoroughly functional in form and adjustment to the superstructure (Fig. 102).
Perhaps the next Italian pointed building of importance is the Franciscan Church of Sta. Croce at Florence, which was designed towards the close of the thirteenth century. It consists in plan of a broad nave with side aisles, a transept across the east end with square eastern chapels, and a polygonal apse of five sides. The apse and chapels only are vaulted, all the rest of the structure being covered by open timber roofs. The roofs of the aisles are a series of gables, set with their ridges perpendicular to the axis of the nave. These roofs rest upon walls carried on transverse arches of stone, and as the feet of their rafters abut each other, they are not trussed. There is of course no triforium, and the pier arches reach high up into the aisle gables. The piers are simple octagonal columns of coursed masonry, with bases and capitals of corresponding form. The archivolts are of two orders of plain square section. Shallow pilasters rise in the nave, one from each of the pier capitals, to the cornice of the wall. At the level of the sills of the clerestory lights a narrow passage way, carried on corbels, runs around the whole interior. This passage way rises in a flight of steps, on each side, to pass over the great arches of the transept. The windows are tall and narrow with pointed arches, divided by mullions into two ​lights, each with a circle above. There is one. such window in each bay of the aisles and of the clerestory. The vault of the apse has a Gothic character, but its ribs are stopped upon corbels, below which are plain walls pierced by tall mullioned lancets, one in each bay. Well-developed buttresses rise against the external angles of this apse, and the walls between them terminate in gables. The walls of the aisles and clerestory are furnished with the usual pilaster strips. The construction of Sta. Croce is thus of the simplest kind, involving few other principles than are exemplified in an ordinary barn. With exception of its apse there is nothing Gothic about it, and were it divested of its frescoes by Giotto and Gaddi—which indeed make it one of the most impressive interiors in Europe—it would become a singularly bald and uninteresting edifice.
The cathedrals of pointed design in Italy, no less than the monastic churches, show how little of Gothic spirit, or of sympathy with Gothic design, there was in the Italian genius. Of these cathedrals Siena and Orvieto are among the most important and characteristic. They differ little, however from other vaulted pointed buildings in Italy except in general proportions, and in their peculiar western façades which shall be noticed presently.
The great crowning monument of Italian pointed architecture is the Cathedral of Florence. In this building are exhibited at once most of the merits and the defects of the Italian style. Of the structure begun by Arnolfo at the close of the thirteenth century nothing remains externally visible. And even of the interior it is doubtful whether any part of his work was left after the remodelling to which the building was subjected in the fourteenth century. In plan this building consists of a nave and aisles, with apsidal projections north and south forming a kind of transept, an eastern apse, and a vast central octagonal space surrounded by these several parts. The piers, according to the usual custom in Italy, are so disposed as to divide the nave into square compartments, and the aisles into oblong ones. In elevation there are as usual but two stories, though the height of the central vault is but about ten feet less than that of Cologne. The pier arches are enormously high, reaching nearly to the great corbelled gallery which, like the little gallery in Sta. ​Croce, passes entirely around the interior just below the springing of the vaults. The piers have the section shown in Fig. 103, of which the members a and b are the supports of the transverse and diagonal ribs from which they derive FIG. 103. their sections. The vault supports are thus complete and continuous from the pavement, and this constitutes the principal merit of the design, which in other respects is not only far from Gothic in principle, but is, in some important points, singularly illogical. The want of logic is seen, for instance, in the elevation of the piers (Fig. 104). Not only are there no true bases or capitals to these piers—they being merely banded at the bases and at various levels above with groups of mouldings,—but the most prominent groups of these mouldings, those which take most nearly the forms of capitals, are situated neither at the springing of the great arches nor at the springing of the vaults. They are, on the contrary, placed at considerable distances below these points,—the piers rising through them to the springings, where they are again merely banded by smaller and more simple groups of mouldings. The vaulting arches are all pointed, but only the transverse and diagonal arches have functional ribs, the longitudinal arches being provided with mouldings only. These arches all spring from the same level, and the forms of the vaults are hence not at all Gothic. The arch sections are square, as is usual in Italy; and the pier arches are provided with hood moulds which break around the pier. These are, however, rather survivals of the top mouldings of the classic Roman archivolt than true hood moulds like those of the North. The openings are small everywhere. In the aisles and in the apses they are narrow lancets—one in each bay—and in the clerestory they are small circles. Notwithstanding that the building is vaulted throughout, and that the vaults are of very wide span, there are no external buttresses other than shallow pilasters. The lateral pressures are sustained by enormous strength of wall, aided by the usual iron ties. It is uncertain ​whether it was FIG. 104. a part of Arnolfo's design to cover the octagon with a dome; but no part of the existing dome nor of the existing east end is of his construction. Domical apses, too, may have been originally intended, and the existing arrangement and construction may be substantially like the original scheme, though on a much larger scale. It is perhaps needless to say that there is nothing whatever of Gothic character in any part of this east end. The enormous buttresses required to support the dome are, for the most part, internal, as in ancient Roman constructions; and the dome itself is, of course, a feature which, on account of its continuous thrusts, is constructively far removed from Gothic.
Another important, though a late example of Italian pointed design is that of S. Petronio of Bologna, which was founded in 1390. The scale of this building is gigantic, though of the original project the nave and aisles only were executed. The internal system is closely similar to that of the Cathedral of Florence. The piers have nearly the same form and section, and the bases and capitals have the same general character of mouldings rather than of bearing members. The capitals, however, have the merit of being properly placed at the springing of the arches and vaults respectively. The only other features in this building which call for special notice are the solid buttresses that rise through the aisle roofs, and are carried on walls built over the transverse ribs, as in S. Maria Novella. It is curiously in ​keeping with the Italian constructive spirit thus to employ a massive and inert member in this situation, in place of the Gothic flying buttress.
It may be worth while to notice several smaller and earlier buildings, such as Sta. Anastasia of Verona, the Church of the Frari in Venice, and S. Martino of Lucca, which present some points of difference from the prevailing types.
The Church of Sta. Anastasia of Verona, begun in 1260, differs from the vaulted churches already noticed, in having no continuous vaulting system, its lower piers being plain round columns. It has also the peculiarity of a very small circular opening in the triforium. In the Church of the Frari at Venice, which was designed by Niccola Pisano about 1250, the ground-story piers are likewise plain round columns, from whose capitals the vaulting supports rise in form like those of Florence and S. Petronio, consisting of a broad pilaster in each pier to carry the transverse rib, and small lateral shafts for the diagonals. S. Martino of Lucca, the upper portions of which date from about 1308, is exceptional in having a fully developed triforium arcade of the Northern type. The arches of this triforium are round, however, as are also those of the pier arcade.
The typical pointed Italian façade is designed with little regard to the form of the building except in its lateral divisions, which usually answer to those of the nave and aisles. Such façades as those of Siena (Fig. 105), Orvieto, and S. Croce of Florence have steep gables over the nave and aisles respectively, while the roofs behind them are all of low pitch. More logical façades are those of St. Francis of Assisi and the Cathedral of Prato, where, in the one case, the single-aisled interior is faced by a plain wall which follows the form of the section of the building, and in the other the front corresponds with the three-aisled interior in an equally truthful manner, the lateral divisions being marked by projecting buttresses.
FIG. 105.
The east end of the Italian church, which is sometimes rectangular, as at Siena, but is more commonly polygonal, as in the Frari in Venice, is always a heavily walled structure, though its effect is occasionally lightened by the introduction of large windows, divided by mullions and tracery. Its roof is sometimes a portion of a polygonal (dome, as at Florence, and sometimes consists of a nearly true Gothic vault, as at Sta. Croce. The apsidal aisle never occurs, and the apse is never provided with really Gothic buttresses.
Transept ends are usually square with plain walls, as in S. Maria Novella, though the apsidal form occurs, as we have seen, in the Cathedral of Florence.
The towers of the Italian pointed style do not differ in structural character from those of the Lombard-Romanesque, from which they are derived. They are rarely incorporated with the church edifice, and they never form parts of the western façades as similar towers do north of the Alps. At Prato ​the tower, a particularly fine one, rises through the wall of the south aisle close to the west transept; but generally, as at Florence, the tower is placed at a little distance from the west façade. In form it is a simple storied edifice, rising without set-offs to a considerable height, and crowned either with a low FIG. 106. pyramidal roof of timber, as in the Duomo of Florence and in that of Prato, or with a stone spire, as at S. Maria Novella (Fig. 1 06), and at the Badia in Florence. The magnificent campanile of the Florentine Duomo, though in many respects unique, may yet be taken as characteristic of these buildings generally. It consists of five stories of finely proportioned heights, with octagonal buttresses at the angles reaching from the pavement to the coping. The openings are exquisitely proportioned with pointed arches, and are divided by mullions and tracery. These openings increase in magnitude in the successive stories, the highest one of all being of vast proportions for Italy, and one of the most beautiful windows in the world. The walls are crowned by a deep and rich cornice, carried on corbels, and continued around the buttresses. In place of the low roof which now surmounts it, a spire, probably much like that of S. Maria Novella, is said to have been originally intended. But this tower, though a consistent and beautiful structure, can hardly be called a Gothic one.
The Italian poverty of structural invention is especially marked in those towers of Northern Italy which are crowned by octagonal lanterns. Of these the tower of the Scaligeri at Verona (Fig. 107) and that of S. Andrea of Mantua are conspicuous examples. In these erections no attempt whatever is made to prepare the square base for the superposed octagons; but, on the contrary, the walls are finished ​with a heavy cornice, within which the lantern rises abruptly. FIG. 107. The windows of Italian pointed buildings are always small, usually very small; when large enough for subdivisions, they are provided with mullions, above which are pierced tympanums, or simple geometric tracery. Both the pierced tympanum and the tracery seem to occur at all periods during the continuance of the style, and they sometimes appear together in the same building, and apparently of the same date, as in Sta. Croce of Florence, two of the aisle windows of which are shown in Fig. 108. Of the two forms that of the pierced tympanum is rather the more frequent, being variously modified by cuspings and featherings, and often very richly subdivided, as in Or San Michele of Florence.
The portals of these buildings present no important peculiarities except in the placing of their sculpture, which shall be referred to further on.
There is little more of importance to notice regarding the structural principles of Italian pointed buildings. Throughout the whole length and breadth of Italy, so far as the pointed influence extended, which was, with few exceptions, not far south of Naples, the same general characteristics prevail, the same lack of real Gothic principles may be remarked. The only conspicuous exception is that of the almost purely German Cathedral of Milan, which is, however, in many respects, but a travesty of Gothic. From the time of the building of St. Francis of Assisi to that of the building of S. Petronio of Bologna, a period of nearly a century and a half had elapsed without bringing about any material departure from the structural principles of Roman antiquity. Structural invention in architecture was, as a general thing, not a gift of the Italian genius in the Middle Ages.
​After the fourteenth century the pointed style in Italy fell rapidly into disuse. This was a natural result of the Renaissance movement, which in architecture was ushered in by Brunelleschi's dome to the Cathedral of Florence, and by his design for the Church of S. Lorenzo, in which the
FIG. 108.
basilican scheme with the classic column and entablature was re-established. Henceforth in Italy the structural forms and decorative motives of the Roman antique were to supply the elements of architectural design; and the arts of mediæval Christendom were to be regarded as obsolete and even barbarous.
III. Spain
In Spain, during the second half of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth, an interesting class of buildings was erected, in which the pointed arch occurs in the vaulting and in the main arcades, but which nevertheless remains strictly Romanesque in character—that is to say, these buildings are massive structures in which there is never any Gothic concentration of vault thrusts, nor any Gothic system of buttresses. Characteristic features of these buildings are the dome on pendentives at the crossing of nave and transept and the semicircular apse vaulted with a semi-dome. In some cases, however, the dome at the crossing gives place to a quadripartite vault, like those of French Gothic churches, and the vault of the apse assumes the form that is peculiar to the French chevet. The piers ​are, for the most part, intelligently designed, and consist of square members grouped with reference to the transverse ribs of the vaults and to the ground-story archivolts, accompanied by engaged shafts to support the sub-orders, where such occur, and sometimes to support the diagonal vaulting ribs. These piers frequently exhibit the peculiarity of coupled engaged shafts to carry a single rib or arch order. The main ribs and archivolts are of plain square section; and are usually, though not always, of two orders. The clerestory is low with heavy walls pierced by small and usually round-arched windows. The triforium space is narrow and without openings. These features appear in the old Cathedral of Salamanca, the Cathedral of Tudela, the Abbey Church of Veruela, the Cathedral of Lérida, and many others.
At the same time another and smaller class of buildings were erected with barrel vaults, strengthened by projecting transverse ribs over their central aisles, and with open triforium galleries. Examples of this class are the Cathedral of Santiago and the Church of S. Isidore at Leon.
It will be seen that these two classes of buildings exhibit characteristics that belong to various localities on the French side of the Pyrenees. The dome on pendentives over the crossing is characteristic of the style of Auvergne and its neighbourhood, as in the Churches of St. Stephen of Nevers, and Notre-Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand, as well as of the great Romanesque churches of the Rhine. The barrel vault with transverse ribs is also a feature of the style to which the Church of Notre-Dame du Port belongs. The quadripartite vaults in nearly square compartments are conspicuous in the early twelfth century architecture of Burgundy, though the rib systems with which, in Spain, these vaults are furnished belong to the style of the Ile-de-France. The composition of the pier, the absence of triforium openings, and the square arch section are, like the square compartment, chiefly Burgundian, while the coupled vaulting shafts are from Poitou, as may be seen at Fontevrault.
It thus appears that the early Christian architecture of Spain was by no means of local growth, but that it was almost wholly the result of influences derived from Gaul. And such influences may be naturally accounted for by the incoming at this period of the Cistercian order, bringing ​with them, as they did into other countries, the traditions and tastes of France. Interesting and even admirable as this early architecture of Spain is, it does not, as I have said, belong to the true Gothic style. Nevertheless, certain portions of some of these buildings are Gothic to a considerable degree. Such churches as Veruela and Lerida, for instance, possess in their chevets and vaulting ribs much likeness to Gothic. And in some cases even the dome at the crossing—a feature which ordinarily, on account of its continuous thrusts, is far removed from Gothic principle exhibits something of Gothic character, by being constructed on the principle—of the vault of the French chevet, as in the Cathedral of Tarragona. These are, however, exceptional features which do not change the general character of this architecture. Gothic in principle it certainly is not, even in its internal arrangements, while externally, in the entire absence of buttress systems, it has no Gothic expression whatever; nor does it show any signs of growth. Its various elements were imported ready-made, and the style is substantially the same from beginning to end.
Nothing different appears in the Christian architecture of the country till about the second quarter of the thirteenth century, when the complete Gothic of France was taken as a model in the great Cathedrals of Burgos, Toledo, and Leon. The appearance of these buildings can be explained only on the assumption that they were, for the most part, directly copied from the nearly contemporaneous buildings of France, with more or less assistance from Frenchmen. Mr. Street supposes that they were designed, and perhaps even built, by Frenchmen almost exclusively. I can, however, hardly agree with this view, because they exhibit certain peculiarities that are not strictly Gothic—peculiarities such as men not fully imbued with Gothic principles, but habituated to the modes of design that had formerly prevailed in Spain, would naturally introduce. For instance, in the choir of the Cathedral of Burgos, which was begun in 1221, one year after the commencement of Amiens, the clerestory is almost as heavily walled as that ​of a Romanesque building. The opening is merely a window not more than half-filling the space between the piers, whereas, as we have seen, in the developed Gothic
FIG. 109.
of France, the clerestory opening is an intercolumniation rather than a window in a wall. Moreover, externally, in this same building there is no pier buttress, and consequently the heads of the flying buttresses are received ​directly against the face of the wall (Fig. 109.) just as they sometimes are in England, as in the Presbytery of Lincoln. The framework of Burgos is thus incomplete by the omission of one of the most important members, and the clerestory wall is therefore necessary to the stability of the structure. The clerestory of the inner apsidal aisle of Toledo is walled in even more completely, its openings being mere small circles, one in each bay.
In the nave of this building, however, the clerestory is perfectly Gothic, since the opening fills the whole space beneath the vault. At Leon, also, according to Mr. Street, it did so originally, though it was subsequently found necessary to partially wall-up the opening, in order to strengthen the piers, which had begun to show signs of weakness.
It is true, as Mr. Street remarks, that in a climate like that of Spain the large openings that are peculiar to Gothic would be unsuitable; but this is equivalent to saying that Gothic architecture is unsuitable in such a climate. And hence, as well as for other reasons, the pointed architecture of Spain is not Gothic with absolute strictness. Nevertheless, it must not only be admitted that such buildings as Burgos, Toledo, and Leon, though not of Spanish origin, are Gothic in the main, their vaults having the Gothic concentration upon the piers, the internal vaulting systems being completely developed, and their vault thrusts being met by systems of flying buttresses; but it may, I suppose, be said also that they are among the grandest edifices of the world.
A more detailed consideration of the forms of vaults, the composition of piers, the adjustment of flying buttresses, and the modes of enclosure, is unnecessary, as the Gothic of Spain in the thirteenth century follows more closely than the pointed architecture of any other country the ​structural principles of France. Nor, in a style in which there is so little either of original invention or of local modification, do we need to consider in particular the forms of fa9ades or of towers and spires. These, in so far as they belong to the original constructions, are little different from similar features in France. The west front of the Cathedral of Burgos, for example, exhibits the French scheme up as high as the foundations of the spires, except that the wall of the ground-story is unbroken by buttresses, and that above this story the wall is set back at some distance, so that the top of the lower wall forms a ledge from which, flush with its outer face, the tower buttresses rise. The spires are of later date; and are of the German open-work design like that of the spires of Freiburg and Cologne.
* ↑ The existing Cathedral of Speyer was, according to Forster, begun immediately after a fire which had in 1159 destroyed an earlier edifice.
* ↑ This figure, and those following as far as number 100, with exception of Fig. 98, are copied from Forster.
* ↑ In France the same result is sometimes reached, as at Paris, by stilting the intermediate rib; but it is more common to employ a more acutely pointed arch, as at Laon.
* ↑ Mr. Fergusson, History of Architecture in all Countries, vol. ii. p. 62, speaking of Cologne Cathedral, says : "We find it with all the defects of French vaulting—the ribs are few and weak, the ridge undulating, the surfaces twisted, etc."
* ↑ This figure is copied from Viollet-le-Duc.
* ↑ In a few exceptional instances something similar occurs, on a small scale, in the Ile-de-France as in the village churches of Vernouillet and Feucherolles (Seine-et-Oise) figured in M. de Bandot's Églises de Bourgs et Villages. Paris, 1867.
* ↑ Though M. Ramée, in his Hist. Générale de l'Architecture, vol. ii. p. 112, says: "Elle est dans le style ogival pur de France."
* ↑ A fresco in the Spanish Chapel of S. Maria Novella, which has domical apses, has been supposed to afford an illustration of the church as it was designed by Arnolfo; but this is now considered doubtful.
* ↑ Les Monuments de Pise, p. 99. Par M. Georges Rohault de Fleury. Paris, 1886.
* ↑ Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain, p. 422 and elsewhere. By George Edmund Street, A.R.A. London, 1869.
* ↑ This figure is copied from Street's Gothic Architecture in Spain.
* ↑ It is true, indeed, as we have seen in the second chapter, that walls remain, to some extent, in the clerestories of early Gothic buildings in France; but in these cases they are but survivals in a growing style which soon entirely frees itself from them. Moreover, though portions of wall still remain for a while, the pier is, at the same time, completely and independently developed, so that the wall might be removed without danger to the building. But when these Spanish churches were erected the perfect example of Gothic construction had been furnished in the French buildings, and the walls which they retain are inconsistent with developed Gothic principles.
* ↑ Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain, p. 112.