The eastern principal facade of the Louvre was begun in 1664 by Claude Perrault after lie had contrived to put aside all other plans—even that of Bernini. It is so sober, yet withal so magnificent with its grand col onnades, which rise high above the ground-floor, that it in fact approaches the works of ancient Rome more nearly than do the works of Bernini and all his Roman contemporaries.
Chrt'sioftber Wren: SI. Pail's, London.—What St. Peter's was for Rome, the new Church of St. Paul's was to be for London, which perpet ually rose in importance as a metropolis of the first rank. Christopher Wren began the edifice in 1675 and completed it in 171o. The chief feature, as at St. Peter's, was an immense dome, to which a nave and an elongated choir, both with three aisles, as well as a short three-aisled transept, were added. The west front consists of a double range of colon nades between two towers. Though the structure is somewhat sober (y5/. 48, .fig. 6), the beautiful lines of the dome, which rises aloft like a tower from the centre of the group, impart to it a truly artistic importance.
Carlo Fontana built the Palazzo del Monte Citorio, the Grimani and Bolognetti palaces, and the Fountain of Sta. Maria in Trastevere, the Library della Minerva, the churches of S. Michele a Ripa Grande, Sta. Martina, and S. Marcell° in the Corso at Rome, the Visconti Villa at Frascati, and the cathedral at Montefiascone.
The tendency to a greater liberty of caprice inaugurated by Bernini and Borromini was felt most in church-architecture, where, in union with the yet greater degeneracy of interior decoration, it gave room for the play of the most inconceivable caprices so far as the Catholic cult was con cerned. Even Germany, after the war of the first half of the seventeenth century had destroyed so many churches, found opportunity to re-erect a series of such edifices in city and country—or, at least, to put others, par tially ruined, into serviceable condition—and without distinction of creed the same degenerate forms were employed for the exterior. A very noticeable trait of greater sobriety distinguished the Protestant from the Catholic churches, but in the interior the use of galleries, which were essential to Protestant requirements, as well as the more sober spirit which grew out of a simpler ceremonial and liturgy, often resulted in extreme and inartistic plainness, which was carried still farther by the puritanical Northern spirit that excluded all externals from divine service. This
severer and more earnest manner was apparent also in secular buildings, just as the same trait was evident in Palladio's works.
There is in this soberness a manifestation of the pride and exclusive ness affected by self-conscious rulers that they might give the rein more freely to luxury and fancifulness in the interior decoration, which was hidden from the eyes of their subjects. Thus we see by the side of the prevalent proclivity to exaggeration of every kind a mon-, sober tendency present even in the Versailles of Louis XIV., and principally followed by French architects in opposition to the extravagant Italians. During the entire eighteenth century this latter influence gained upon the first. One of the noblest examples of these severely symmetrical palace-facades exhibiting the sober tendency of the North is the arsenal at Berlin, be gun by Nehring in 1685. Here also we have to notice the curved lines of the upper part, already employed at Versailles.
The Italians had placed upon the upper quarter of the cornice, which is finished with a parapet, a number of statues, obelisks, and flower-vases, corresponding to pilasters and columns arranged over one another, and so exhibiting a certain verticality; as, for example, in the Library of St. Mark's (pl. 42, fig. 4) and in the arcades of the Palazzo Borghese (fi7. 41, fig. 5). This kind of decoration was gradually developed into groups of figures, generally allegorical, and then into trophies of arms, which nat urally would be more in place in an arsenal than at the Palace of Ver sailles. Allegorical figures constituted an essential integral part of the architectonic forms, and soon groups of banners, cannon, shields, and cuirasses became cherished adornments which were placed over entrances and wherever they could be introduced. In sonic cases in secular struc tures these decorations overpowered the proper architectural members, just as the clouds and the trumpet-blowing angels dominated the inte rior architecture of the churches.