That which in Germany and the rest of the North led to the vagaries of Late Gothic led in Italy to the conscious re-adoption of antique forms, since the Italian people readily took up the antique spirit. Not, indeed, the entire people, for a culture which depends upon elements that can be transmitted only through knowledge can never reach the entire people directly; as soon as learning attains to actual importance in -the culture life of a people, that people no longer stand on a common level of culture, and the feelings and tastes which are active in the circle into which learn ing penetrates are not identical with those which are active in the circle from which it is absent.
Inception of the iVezc' may have been hard to point out in the chain of French architectural development the first link that can be called "Gothic," while its predecessor must be styled " Romanesque ;" but it is as impossible to designate the first " Renaissance" structure in Italian architectural development. Survivals of the antique had always remained in Italian architecture, brought about by the employment of antique fragments and by the direct impressiveness of the grand art monuments that still remained. We can therefore only say that at the commencement of the fifteenth century the eye turned in a most compre hensive manner to the remains of the antique.
lUorks of Brunelleschi: Florence Florentine Filippo Brunelleschi has been designated the founder of the new style, since he first systematically labored to understand the Roman structures and con sciously applied his studies. The cathedral at Florence had remained uncompleted until 142o, when Brunelleschi was entrusted with the execu tion of the dome according to a new design by which he proved himself a skilful constructor, even though the groundwork of the new style does not appear very distinctly in this part of his work. Brunelleschi had to adapt his project to the existing part of the work, and this he did in such a manner that the cupola towers in harmonious proportions out of the cross (bl. 41, fig. 1); but the decoration of the exterior, and also the lantern, were after his death completed by Giuliano da Majano in 146t. Apart from the technical idea of the construction—which, in fact, is ex tremely ingenious—it was only the artistic idea of Brunelleschi to allow the vaulted form of the dome to appear externally, thus going back to such ancient models as the Pantheon and Sta. Sophia, that could have dis
tinguished his project from the unknown projects of Arnolfo and Giotto.
The Dome. —Orcagua had already made use of the dome in the altar of Or San Michele; and iu the wall-paintings and miniatures of the Mid dle Ages, even in the North, the display of cupola-shaped roofs is not infrequent and baldachins of stone had brought this form into application. St. Mark's at Venice, S. Antonio at Padua, the baptistery at Pisa (the upper part of which is adorned with Gothic ornament), the cupola of Siena Cathedral, etc., show that this idea was not absent from the medi eval architecture of Italy—that probably Arnolfo had already prepared something similar, but that when the time for execution came Brunelleschi was a man who technically as well as artistically could put it into practice. In 425, Brunelleschi built S. Lorenzo at Florence, a columned basilica with groined side-aisles and niche-like chapels. Here a decoration in antique fashion, with pilasters and cornices, is employed, and the antique fragment of an entablature is again set upon the columns; a cupola rises over the intersection and the choir has a square end. S. Spirito is built similarly after Brunelleschi's plans; here the side-aisles with their rows of chapels are continued around the transept and square-ended choir. The small Cappella de' Pazzi, in the Convent of Sta. Croce—a Greek cross with barrelled vaults and a cupola, the walls adorned with Corinthian pilasters —goes still farther back toward an antique model (SS. Nazario e Celso at Ravenna).
The Abbey of Fiesole, which Cosimo de' Medici commissioned Brtmelles chi to build, has the same arrangement in its church. The open loggia in the pleasant court, the refectory, etc., form a picture which presents the greatest possible contrast to the German conventual structures of the same date, but bears a close resemblance to those of Italy, though it allows the conscious borrowing from antique elements to be more con spicuous than they are in allied structures of the same date; yet it does not fully correspond in its entire design to the antique spirit, nor do its ornate details aspire to the grand solemnity of the antique.