RENAISSANCE (Architecture). The term Renaissance indicates the period of the Rcnral, when the classical began to be re-introduced after the medimval styles. The term is used alike in architecture, sculpture, and ornamental art : our:attention in the present article will be confined to architecture.
The Renaissance lined its origin in Italy, where at best Gothic archi tecture secured but ti precarious hold. As soon as the paesiou for the old Roman literature sprang up, there arose else a desire for the study of classic art, to be followed before long by the attempt to imitate it Traces of the imitation of Roman architectural forms are observable of as early a date as the middle of the 14th century. But the true Renaissance dates from the time of 13runelleschi (or the early part of the 15th century), in whose hands it assented character and consistency. Its full development, however, belongs to the century following. [Frames: ARCmmmTECTINuP.] Although ell were derived from that of Italy, each country had its peculiar Renaissance, described accordingly as French, German, English Renaissance [Ettiaturrirax AecnrrecToile], preserving a general family likeness, but each exhibiting traits exclusively its own. The lie naieseume in general is often spoken of as if it were nothing more than direct but unskilful imitation of the antique, previously to the orders being so well understood as they were afterwards when studied through the text of Vitruvius, and reduced to a methodical system of "bookish rules," by l'alLadio and Vignoln. 13ut in the first place it was founded only upon the Roman antique, and in the next, not upon the temple style of the Romans, but their triumphal nrchee, baths, and other was net either the ponies., or the continuous colonnade, where columniation displays itself in all its purity, that was taken as a model, but rather such structures as the Colosseum, where several small orders—that is, small in proportion to the general mass—are introduced for little more than decoration to it. And in the Renaissance and Cinque-cento (or 1500—as we should say, 16th century) styles, entire orders are used only as embellishment, and avowedly so. Where
columns are employed for actual support, as in open loggie, it is only in combination with arches springing from them, the columns per forming the office of piers to the arches. A great deal of Italian Renaissance is, however, astylar, with either a full entablature, or a cornicione crowning and proportioned to the entire mass. This large and simple mode of treatment was greatly affected by the Florentine and Roman architects of the period of the revival, and contrasts very strikingly with the Transalpine Renaissance in France and other countries, which is characterised by multiplicity of parts, and numerous divisions and breaks. It contrasts also with the contemporary practice of the Italian architects themselves when they employed the orders, in doing which they made their compositions snicrostylar, applying a separate small order to each floor or horizontal division of a facade, above the ground floor ; and they further reduced the height of the columns by giving a considerable proportion of each order to high pedestals beneath the columns.
In Transalpine Renaissance such application of the orders was greatly exaggerated, they being employed for the ground floor as well as the others, and the spaces between the columns being filled in, either entirely or nearly so, with large windows, so that the columns or pilasters between them show only as accessories to the windows them selves, and as narrow piers between them. Fenestration completely predominates, both as to the quantity of surface the openings occupy, and the architectural character occasioned by it. One of the earliest importations of the Renaissance into this country, Longleat House, Wilts, erected by John of Padua, 1567, is an instance of such mode of composition, and shows how greatly the borrowed style was transformed in its general physiognomy, even when treated faithfully with regard to details.