Venice

But it is in the domestic architecture of Venice that we find the most striking and characteristic examples of Gothic. The intro duction of that style coincided with the consolidation of the Venetian constitution and the development of Venetian com merce both in the Levant and with England and Flanders.

The finest example of the ogival style is undoubtedly the Ca' d'Oro, so-called from the profusion of gold employed on its façade. It was built for Marino Contarini in 1422-40, a comparatively late date. With a fine collection of pictures and furniture, it was given to the State by Baron Franchetti in 1916.

Contarini was to some extent his own architect. He had the assistance of Marco d' Amadeo, a master-builder, and of Matteo Reverti, a Milanese sculptor, who were joined later on by Giovanni Buon and his son Bartolomeo. By the year 1431 the façade was nearly completed, and Contarini made a bargain with Martino and Giovanni Benzon for the marbles to cover what was yet unfinished. But Contarini was not content to leave the marbles as they were. He desired to have the façade of his house in colour. The con tract for this work, signed with Master Zuan de Franza, conjures up a vision of the Ca' d' Oro ablaze with colour and gleaming with the gold ornamentation from which it took its name.

Other notable examples are the Palazzo Ariani at San Raffaelle, with its handsome window in a design of intersecting circles; the beautiful window with the symbols of the four Evangelists in the spandrils, in the façade of a house at San Stae ; the row of three Giustinian palaces at S. Barnaba; the Palazzo Priuli at San Severo, with a remarkably graceful angle-window, where the columnar mullion carries down the aligle of the wall; the flam boyant balconies of the Palazzo Contarini Fasan; the Palazzo Bernardo on a side canal near S. Polo, a late central Gothic build ing (1380-1400).

Early Renaissance.

Towards the close of the 15th century Venetian architecture began to feel the influence of the classical revival ; but, lying far from Rome and retaining still her connec tion with the East, Venice did not fall under the sway of the classical ideals either so quickly or so completely as most Italian cities. Indeed, in this as in the earlier styles, Venice struck out a line for herself and developed a style of her own, known as Lombardesque, after the family of the Lombardi (Solari) who came from Carona on the Lake of Lugano. The essential point about the style is that it is intermediary between Venetian Gothic and full Renaissance. We find it retaining some traces of Byzan

tine influence in the decorated surfaces of applied marbles, and in the roundels of porphyry and verde antico, while it also retained certain characteristics of Gothic, as, for instance, in the pointed arches of the Renaissance façade in the courtyard of the ducal palace designed by Antonio Rizzo Churches.—The most perfect example of this style in eccle siastical architecture is the little church of S. Maria dei Miracoli begun by Pietro Lombardo in 1481. The church is without aisles, and has a semicircular roof, and the choir is raised twelve steps above the floor of the nave. The walls, both internally and ex ternally, are encrusted with marbles. The façade has the char acteristic circular pediment with a large west window surrounded by three smaller windows separated by two ornamental roundels in coloured marble and of geometric design. Below the pediment comes an arcade with flat pilasters, which runs all round the ex terior of the church. Two of the bays contain round-headed windows; the other three are filled in with white marble adorned by crosses and roundels in coloured marble.

Similar results are obtained in the magnificent façade of the Scuola di San Marco, at SS. Giovanni e Paolo, which has six semi circular pediments of varying size crowning the six bays, in the upper order of which are four noble Romanesque windows. The lower order contains the handsome portal with a semicircular pediment, while four of the remaining bays are filled with quaint scenes in surprisingly skilful perspective. The façade of San Zaccaria (1458-1515), the stately design of Anton Marco Gam bello and Mauro Coducci, offers some slight modifications in the use of the semicircular pediment, the line of the aisle roof being indicated by quarter-circle pediments abutting on the façade of the nave. San Salvatore, the work of Tullio Lombardo (153o), is severer and less highly ornamented than the preceding examples, but its plan is singularly impressive, giving the effect of great space in a comparatively small area. In this connection we must mention the Scuola of S. Giovanni Evangelista at the Frani, with its fore-court and screen adorned by pilasters delicately decorated with foliage in low relief, and its noble staircase whose double flights unite on a landing under a shallow cupola. This also was the work of Pietro Lombardo and his son Tullio.