The Ideal ill existing edifices as a rule show us that the Italian masters were well aware that an ideal instead of a material expression was essential in a church, and to realize this expres sion they employed ingeniously-combined spaces of the most varying con formation, constructing, according to their individuality, lofty, broad, dome-covered spaces or long-drawn-out perspectives. During the medi eval ages, especially in the Gothic period, a certain practical ideal was aimed at, and each single school reached the mark not only ideally, but in the later period also believed that it had discovered a church equally corresponding to practical needs.
In the same manner it rested with each individual master to discover a new ideal—not for a practical church-building, but for an artistic and ideal space in which God could be worshipped. The various combina tions recall the animated movement in the period of classical Christian antiquity when mankind strove to attain an ideal for a Christian church. That which they had in common, besides the individual freedom, was the living taste for a truly simple yet vigorous grouping; for the attainment of vistas from darkness into light, from narrow into broader and from lower into higher spaces; for contrasts of lighting, and for the apposition of straight and curved surfaces, and the play of contour arising therefrom. What both periods had in common was the love for a light and judicious construction. Such construction as the Italian architects of the close of the fifteenth century employed is commonly denominated "bold." This expression is entirely false, and would be doubtful praise. Against a bold construction—that is, one approaching danger even in the slightest degree —any builder might reasonably guard himself, and the architect attempt ing it would show unpardonable recklessness; but it is otherwise with a construction of intelligent lightness in which the master employs the minimum of the necessary masses and gives the construction strength only where it is really needed; and this was the case with the masters of this period.
have still to mention a series of conspicuous buildings without noticing the less important or even exhausting the important —the Palazzi Cerchi, Casamurata, Incontri, Giugni-Carigiani, and Ma guani in Florence; the archbishop's palace, with its porticoes, at Pisa; the Palazzo del Magnifico, the Palazzo Ciaga, and the Loggia del Papa at Siena; the Palazzi Fava, Bevilacqua, and that of the podesta at Bologna; the Palazzo Roverella, the Palazzo de' Diamanti (1492), with its ashlar-work ornamented with facettes, as well as the Palazzi de' Leoni, Schifanoja, Bevilacqua, and Rondinelli at Ferrara; the Palazzo del Consiglio of Fra Giocondo at Verona; the Palazzo Schio and the rear-elevation of the Palazzo Tiene at Vicenza; the great and small Venetian palaces at Rome; the ducal palaces at Urbino, Gubbio, and Pesaro (pi. 42, fig. 6); the court of the Palazzo Buonsignori at
Orvieto; and the Palazzo Gravina of Gabriele d'Agnolo at Naples.
the churches we must name the facade of Madonna delle Nevi, the oratory of Sta. Catarina, and the Fontegiusta Church at Sienna, the last the work of Francesco Fedeli of Como; the sacristy of the Madonna di S. Satiro, Sta. Maria presso S. Celso, by Bramante, at Milan; the Churches of Madonna di Campagna, S. Sepolcro, and S. Sisto at Pia cenza; S. Giovanni Evangelista and Madonna della Steccata at Parma; S. Francesco (1495), S. Benedetto (1500), added to in the sixteenth cen tury, and S. Cristoforo (1498) at Ferrara; the choir of the cathedral (1499), a work of Biagio Rosetti, the campanile of the same (1505), S. Giovanni Battista, S. Spirito (1512), and the facade of S. Pietro at Modena; Sta. Maria del Carmine at Padua; S. Maurizio at Milan (r497) by Dolcebnono; S. Felice and S. Salvatore at Venice; Sta. Maria de' Miracoli at Brescia; S. Agostino and Sta. Maria del Popolo at Roine; S. Pietro and Sta. Maria della Pace at Montorio; and the churches of Madonna della Catena and Madonna di Porto Salvo at Palermo. All these structures dis play a great freedom of design, a suitable variety, a delicacy and refinement of taste, a wonderful naivete in the imitation of antique forms, a subordi nation of the details to the whole, which cause the translation of antique forms to appear somewhat as a foreign element, since they stand in varied relations and are made to serve new purposes.
Structures of the Sixteenth beginning of the sixteenth century also presents us with some edifices in which the mouldings are but little prominent and refinement of taste and delicacy of ornamentation are most conspicuous, as in the crypt of the Cathedral of Naples, built by Tommaso Malvito of Coino in 15o4; S. Benedetto at Ferrara, of which Giambattista and Alberto Tristani were appointed architects in 1553, but which was commenced in 15oo; the Church of S. Giovanni Battista, built by Francesco Marighella, in the same city; S. Felice, S. Fantino, S. Sal vatore, and the Fondaco de' Tedeschi at Venice, all dating from about 1506, and the last built by a German architect entirely in the Italian style; the Palazzo Comunale at Brescia, built in r5oS by Formentone, with later additions by Palladio and Sansoviuo; the octangular Church of Madonna dell' Umilta at Pistoja, built by Ventura Vitoni in 1509, with a cupola erected by Vasari; and S. Spirito at Ferrara, founded by Alfonso II. in 1512. Surpassing all in nobility and elegance are the choir and transept of Como Cathedral, commenced in 1513 by Tommaso Rodari; the Scuola di San Rocco, commenced in 1517, but not finished until some time after; the porticoes of the Fabbriche Vecchi, finished in 1522 by Scarpagnino; and the Palazzo de' Camerlinghi, built in 1525 by Gugliehno Bergamasco, at Venice.