RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE Greece sprang from the seeds of Egyptian and Western Asiatic cultures; Rome, in its turn, from the seed of Greece. The Renais sance (q.v.) that started in Italy during the 14th century was a new phenomenon only in that it affected all Western Europe and, later, even the American colonies. This modern Renaissance, which we purposely call modern because the present is part of its growth, was literally a rebirth of the arts, science, refinements of living, culture in general. Centuries of gradual change in the spiritual and material environments of man had nurtured the cul tural seeds of the Roman empire. One, the Gothic, was carried so far afield and grew up in such alien soil that it flowered like a new species, distinctly separated from other architectural forms. An other for a time lay dormant in the south, particularly in Italy where something of the splendour and popular enlightenment of the ancient Roman civilization was perpetuated; it flowered in the Renaissance, carrying on the direct line of architectural develop ment where it had broken off with the downfall of the Western empire.
The invention of printing (1453) made classical literature, from which the Renaissance drew its chief impulse, more generally known throughout Western Europe. By taking an important func tion from the painter, the sculptor and, indirectly, the architect, it revolutionized art. Henceforth, lessons that had been taught through the mediums of sculpture, painting, stained glass and fresco could be brought more immediately before mankind by the printed page. This change, however, was not sudden and those in power continued to use buildings, monuments, etc., to demonstrate their importance. National governments became stabilized, ma terial interests increased and wealth grew. Nobles, vying in ma terial display even with the Church, became patrons of art. Scientists, philosophers, artists and scholars, whose individualities were again recognized, explored other than religious phases of life, diversifying thought. This was an age in which artist, crafts man and architect were one; artists were ready and able to ac complish whatever their patrons demanded. Michelangelo exe cuted paintings in the Sistine chapel, sculpture in the Medici Mausoleum and the final architectural design for St. Peter's. Leonardo da Vinci, judging from his letter of self-recommenda tion, seems to have been prepared for any undertaking in art, science or war.
Throughout the first two centuries of the Renaissance, archi tecture and the other arts as part and parcel of it, developed with the Roman influence paramount. The manuscript of Vitruvius, a Roman architect, was discovered about 1452; it admirably de scribes the building materials employed in his day (c. 25 B.C.) and gives the correct proportions of the various orders (q.v.) to gether with a series of rules for their use. None of the original illustrations of this manuscript were preserved, and when parts of it were published by Italian architects, among whom Vignola and Palladio were the more important, woodcuts representing their interpretations of the lost illustrations were inserted. Thus text books of the orders were established. The Roman orders them selves became the architectural alphabet, and definite forms be came the accepted fashion of the time.
The spirit of verticality so admirably developed by the Gothic ists was abandoned. The column was used in free-standing colon nades, as engaged columns partly buried in walls and as pilasters to decorate wall surfaces and to frame openings. A comparatively new form appeared in the interior of basilica churches, where the clerestory wall was sometimes supported on columns and a semi circular arch substituted for a lintel. Many of the palazzi show a treatment distinctly characteristic of the period. Erected in the congested centres of cities, they were built on the street line with relatively few windows and a great expanse of simple wall heavily rusticated. The ground floor was particularly solid in appearance; its windows, small and high above the street level, were protected by metal grilles as if the designers had to provide for defence against mobs or rival families. The interior courtyard was treated lightly and delicately with two or more storeys in the form of an open arcade on which the grandiose rooms about the central patio opened. The wall was capped with an imposing cornice whose projection was proportionate to the height of the building. The palazzi were invariably built on a magnificent scale; the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, for example, with only three apparent storeys, is z o4f t. from street level to top of cornice.
In the later Renaissance the dignity of the simple interior wall was somewhat diminished by adding rows of paired pilasters, cor nices and balustrades. Such decorative features occur in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the Palazzo Pietro Massimi and the Palazzo Farnese, all in Romc. In these, the proportion of window openings to wall spaces was much greater than in the Florentine palazzi ; pilasters were used as frames to windows and to give prominence to the central motif of the second storey. Most in teresting combinations of ancient Roman motifs were developed; the villa of Pope Julius, Rome, has, on the garden side, a semi circular facade reminiscent of forms used in Roman baths.
While dominant in Italy, the Renaissance swept throughout western Europe, and the rise of independent nations gave the general movement distinctive trends. The conceptions of its early period, when artists' imaginations were inspired by an oppor tunity to create in an environment not yet conventionalized, were fresh, pure, naive. As more knowledge of ancient Roman architecture, with its mechanically repeated motifs and im pressive scale, was acquired, the earlier charm of the Renais sance was supplanted by excessive standardization and a con sequent loss of intimate interest. But artists, seeking new means of expressing their ideas, ever revolt at rules, and the Baroque style resulted from their struggle at this time to give imagination freer rein (see BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE). Flam boyant and grotesque forms which distorted classic motifs ap peared in all countries. They produced little of lasting value because their inspiration was not due to a desire for structural improvement, but only for ornamentation and embellishment. Having broken his bonds, the artist found he had nowhere to go.
Fashion in architecture has generally been set by the coun try of greatest wealth and power, and during the 17th century forces were at work in England that were to take full form under the empire builders a hundred years later. English archi tecture showed the result of increasing prosperity, power and na tional consciousness. The Roman influence was as marked as it had been in Italy earlier, but it was somewhat differently ex pressed. A more stabilized society caused the city palace to be a building not of defence but of impressive elegance, and the growth of an imperial yet representative government necessitated great buildings to house its agencies. The work of Sir Christopher Wren in the latter part of the century inspired succeeding generations of architects, even influencing styles in America. Wren, working in the Renaissance spirit, adapted Roman forms to churches, which in northern countries had always been Gothic ; even the spire, an essentially Gothic element, was designed classically by Wren in a number of ecclesiastical structures which pierce the London sky line. In the 18th century government buildings, hospitals, palatial estates and university and college buildings gave evidence of the growing wealth and power of the State and the genius of English architects. (See also RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE.) Architecture was at a low ebb throughout the 19th century (see