CHAPTER XII.

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE AND NORTH EUROPE.

CHRONOLOGICAL SKETCH.

The revived classic architecture came direct from Italy, and did not reach France till it had been well established in the land of its origin. It was not however received with the same welcome which hailed its appearance in Italy. Gothic architecture had a strong hold on France, and accordingly, instead of a sudden change, we meet with a period of transition, during which buildings were erected with features partly Gothic and partly Renaissance, and on varied principles of design.

French Renaissance underwent great fluctuations, and it is less easy to divide it into broad periods than to refer, as most French writers prefer to do, to the work of each prominent monarch's reign separately.

Francis the First (1515-1547) made the architecture of Italy fashionable in his kingdom, and his name is borne by the beautiful transitional style of his day. This in most cases retains some Gothic forms, and the principles of composition are in the main Gothic, but the features are mostly of Italian origin, though handled with a fineness of detail and a smallness of scale that is not often met with, even in early Italian Renaissance. There are few buildings more charming in the architecture of any age or country than the best specimens of the style of Francis the First, and none that can bear so much decoration and yet remain so little overladen by the ornaments they carry. The finest example is the Chateau of Chambord, a large building, nearly square on plan, with round corner towers, capped by simple and very steep roofs, at the angles; and having as its central feature, a large and lofty mass of towers, windows and arcades, surmounted by steep roofs, ending in a kind of huge lantern. The windows have mullions and transoms like Gothic windows, but pilasters of elegant Renaissance design ornament the walls. The main cornice is a kind of compromise between an Italian and a Gothic treatment. Dormer windows, high and sharply pointed, but with little pilasters and pediments as their ornaments, occur constantly; and the chimneys, which are of immense mass and great height, are panelled profusely, and almost ostentatiously displayed, especially on the central portion. In the interior of the central building is a famous staircase; but the main attractions are the bright and animated appearance of the whole exterior, and the richness and gracefulness of the details.

The same architecture is to be well seen in the north side of the famous Chateau of Blois--a building parts of which were executed in three different periods of French architecture. The exterior of the _Francois premier_ part of Blois is irregular, and portions of the design are wildly picturesque; on the side which fronts towards the quadrangle, the architecture is more symmetrically designed, and beauty rather than picturesque effect has been aimed at. An open staircase is the part of the quadrangle upon which most care has been lavished. Throughout the whole block of buildings the character of each individual feature and of every combination of features is graceful and _piquant_. The elegance and delicacy of some of the carved decoration in the interior is unsurpassed.

In the valley of the Loire there exist many noblemen's chateaux of this date, corresponding in general character with Chambord and Blois, though on a smaller scale. Of these Chenonceaux, fortunate alike in its design and its situation, is the most elegant and the best known: yet many others exist which approach it closely, such, for example, as the Chateau de Gaillon--a fragment of which forms part of the Ecole des Beaux Arts at Paris--the Hotel de Ville of Beaugency, the Chateaux of Chateaudun, Azay-le-Rideau, La Cote, and Usse; the Hotel d'Anjou at Angers, and the house of Agnes Sorel at Orleans.

In the streets of Orleans houses of this date (Fig. 71) are to be found, showing the style cleverly adapted to the requirements of town dwellings and shops. Several of them also possess courtyards with arcades or other architectural features treated with great freedom and beauty, for instance, the arcades in the house of _Francois Premier_ (Fig. 72). An arcade in the courtyard of the Gothic Hotel de Bourgtherould at Rouen, is one of the best known examples of the style remaining, and instances of it may be met with as far apart as at Caen (east end of church of St. Pierre) and Toulouse (parts of St. Sernin).

One Paris church, that of St. Eustache, belonging to this transitional period claims mention, since for boldness and completeness it is one of the best of any date in that city. St. Eustache is a five-aisled church with an apse, transept, and lateral chapels outside the outer aisle. It is vaulted throughout, and its plan and structure are those of a Gothic church in all respects. Its details are however all Renaissance, but not so good as those to be found at Blois, nor so appropriately used, yet notwithstanding this it has a singularly impressive interior.

Meantime, and alongside the buildings resulting from this fusion of styles, others which were almost direct importations from Italy were rising; in some cases, if not in all, under the direction of Italian architects. Thus on Fontainebleau, which Francis I. erected, three or four Italian architects, one of whom was Vignola, were engaged. It may or may not have been this connection of the great architect with this work which gave him influence in France, but certainly almost the whole of the later French Renaissance, or at any rate its good time, was marked by a conformity to the practice of Vignola, in whose designs we usually find one order of columns or pilasters for each storey, rather than to that of Palladio, whose use of tall columns equalling in height two or more floors of the building has been already noticed.

Designs for the Louvre, the rebuilding of which was commenced in the reign of Francis the First (about A.D. 1544), were made by Serlio, an Italian; and though Pierre Lescot was the architect of the portion built in that reign, it is probable that the design obtained from Serlio was in the main followed. The part then finished, which, to a certain extent gave the keynote to the whole of this vast building, was unquestionably a happy effort, and may be taken to mark the establishment of a French version of matured Renaissance architecture. The main building has two orders of pilasters with cornices, &c., and above them a low attic storey, with short piers: at the angles a taller pavilion was introduced, and next the quadrangle arcades are introduced between the pilasters. The sculpture, some of it at least, is from the chisel of Jean Goujon; it is good and well placed, and the whole has an air of dignity and richness. The _Pavillon Richelieu_, shewn in our engraving (Fig. 73), was not built till the next century. The colossal figures are by Barye.

A little later in date than the early part of the Louvre was the Hotel de Ville, built from the designs of Pietro da Cortona, an Italian, and said to have been begun in 1549. The building had been greatly extended before its recent total destruction by fire, but the central part, which was the original portion, was a fine vigorous composition, having two lofty pavilions, with high roofs at the extremities, and a remarkably rich stone lantern of great height for a central feature.

In the reign of Charles IX. the Palace of the Tuileries was commenced (1564) for Catherine de Medicis, from the designs of Philibert Delorme. Of this building, that part only which fronted the garden was erected at the time. Our illustration (Fig. 74) shows the architectural character of a portion of it, and it is easy to detect that considerable alterations have by this time been introduced into the treatment of the features of Renaissance architecture. The bands of rustication passing round the pilasters as well as the walls, the broken pediments on the upper storey, surmounted by figures, and supported by long carved pilasters, and the shape of the dormer windows are all of them quite foreign to Renaissance architecture as practised in Italy, and may be looked upon as essentially French features. Similar details were employed in the work executed at about the same period, by the same and other architects, in other buildings, as may be seen by our illustration (Fig. 75) of a portion of Delorme's work at the Louvre. In these features, which may be found in the Chateau d'Anet and other works of the same time, and in the style to which they belong, may be seen the direct result of Michelangelo's Medici Chapel at Florence, a work which had much more effect on French than on Italian architecture. The full development of the architecture of Michelangelo (or rather the ornamental portions of it) is to be found in French Renaissance, rather than in the works of his own successors in Italy.

Much of the late sixteenth century architecture of France was very inferior, and the parts of the Louvre and Tuileries which date from the reign of Henry IV. are the least satisfactory portions of those vast piles.

Dating from the early part of the seventeenth century, we have the Palais Royal built for Richelieu, and the Palace of the Luxembourg, a building perhaps more correct and quiet than original or beautiful, but against which the reproach of extravagant ornament cannot certainly be brought.

With Louis the Fourteenth (1643 to 1715) came in a great building period, of which the most striking memorial is the vast and uninteresting Palace of Versailles. The architect was the younger Mansard (1647 to 1768), and the vastness of the scale upon which he worked only makes his failure to rise to his grand opportunity the more conspicuous. The absence of features to diversify the sky-line is one of the greatest defects of this building, a defect the less excusable as the high-pitched roof of Gothic origin had never been abandoned in France. This roof has been employed with great success in many buildings of the French Renaissance. Apart from this fault, the architectural features of Versailles are so monotonous, weak, and uninteresting that the building, though its size may astonish the spectator, seldom rouses admiration.

Far better is the eastern block of the Louvre (the portion facing the Place du Louvre), though here also we find the absence of high roofs, and the consequent monotony of the sky-line--a defect attaching to hardly any other portion of the building. Bernini was invited from Italy for this work, and there is a curious story in one of Sir Christopher Wren's published letters of an interview he had with Bernini while the latter was in Paris on this business, and of the glimpse which he was allowed to enjoy of the design the Italian had made. The building was, however, after all, designed and carried out by Perrault, and, though somewhat severe, possesses great beauty and much of that dignity in which Versailles is wanting.

The best French work of this epoch to be found in or out of Paris is probably the Hotel des Invalides (Fig. 76), with its fine central feature. This is crowned by the most striking dome in Paris, one which takes rank as second only in Europe to our own St. Paul's, for beauty of form and appropriateness of treatment. The two domes are indeed somewhat alike in general outline.

The reign of Louis XIV. witnessed a large amount of building throughout France, as well as in the metropolis, and to the same period we must refer an enormous amount of lavish decoration in the interior of buildings, the taste of which is to our eyes painfully extravagant. Purer taste on the whole prevailed, if not in the reign of Louis XV. certainly in that of Louis XVI., to which period much really good decorative work, and some successful architecture belongs. The chief building of the latter part of the eighteenth century is the Pantheon (Ste. Genevieve), the best domed church in France, and one which must always take a high rank among Renaissance buildings of any age or country. The architect was Soufflot, and his ambition, like that of the old Gothic masons, was not only to produce a work of art, but a feat of skill; his design accordingly provided a smaller area of walls and piers compared with the total floor space than any other Renaissance church, or indeed than any great church, except a few of the very best specimens of late Gothic construction, such for example as King's College Chapel. The result has been that the fabric has not been quite stout enough to bear the weight of the dome, and that it has required to be tied and propped and strengthened in various ways from time to time. The plan of the Pantheon is a Greek cross, with a short vestibule, and a noble portico at the west, and a choir corresponding to the vestibule on the east. It has a fine central dome, which is excellently seen from many points of view externally, and forms the principal feature of the very effective interior. Each arm of the building is covered by a flat domical vault; a single order of pilasters and columns runs quite round the interior of the church occupying the entire height of the walls; and the light is admitted in a most successful manner by large semicircular windows at the upper part of the church, starting above the cornice of the order.

One other work of the eighteenth century challenges the admiration of every visitor to Paris and must not be overlooked, because it is at once a specimen of architecture and of that skilful if formal arrangement of streets and public places in combination with buildings which the French have carried so far in the present century. We allude to the two blocks of buildings, occupied as government offices, which front to the Place de la Concorde and stand at the corner of the Rue Royale. They are the work of Gabriel (1710-1782), and are justly admired as dignified if a little heavy and uninteresting. As specimens of architecture these buildings, with the Pantheon, are enough to establish a high character for French art at a time when in most other European countries the standard of taste had fallen to a very low level.

The hotels (_i.e._ town mansions) and chateaux of the French nobility furnish a series of examples, showing the successive styles of almost every part of the Renaissance period. The phases of the style, subsequent to that of Francis the First, can however, be so well illustrated by public buildings in Paris, that it will be hardly necessary to go through a list of private residences however commanding; but the Chateau of Maisons, and the Royal Chateau of Fontainebleau, may be named as specimens of a class of building which shows the capacity of the Renaissance style when freely treated.

Renaissance buildings in France are distinguished by their large extent and the ample space which has been in many instances secured in connection with them. They are rarely of great height or imposing mass like the early Italian palaces. For the most part they are a good deal broken up, the surface of the walls is much covered by architectural features, not usually on a large scale, so that the impression of extent which really belongs to them is intensified by the treatment which their architects have adopted.

Orders are frequently introduced and usually correspond with the storeys of the building. However this may be the storeys are always well marked. The sky-line also is generally picturesque and telling, though Versailles and the work of Lescot at the Louvre form an exception. Rustication is not much employed, and the vast but simple crowning cornices of the Italian palaces are never made use of. Narrow fronts like those at Venice, and open arcades or loggias like those of Genoa, do not form features of French Renaissance buildings; but on the other hand, much richness, and many varieties of treatment which the Italians never attempted, were tried, and as a rule successfully, in France.

Much good sculpture is employed in external enrichments, and a cultivated if often luxuriant taste is always shown. Many of the interiors are rich with carving, gilding, and mirrors, but harmonious coloured decoration is rare, and the fine and costly mosaics of Italy are almost unknown.

BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS.

These countries afford but few examples of Renaissance. The Town Hall at Antwerp, an interesting building of the sixteenth century, and the Church of St. Anne at Bruges, are the most conspicuous buildings; and there are other churches in the style which are characteristic, and parts of which are really fine. The interiors of some of the town halls display fittings of Renaissance character, often rich and fanciful in the extreme, and bearing a general resemblance to French work of the same period.

GERMANY AND NORTHERN EUROPE.

Buildings of pure Renaissance architecture, anterior to the nineteenth century, are scarce in Germany, or indeed in North-east Europe; but a transitional style, resembling our own Elizabethan, grew up and long held its ground, so that many picturesque buildings can be met with, of which the design indicates a fusion of the ideas and features of Gothic with those of classic art. This architectural style took so strong a hold that examples of it may be found throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in almost every northern town.

That part of the Castle of Heidelberg, which was built at the beginning of the seventeenth century, may be cited as belonging to this German transitional style. The front in this case is regularly divided by pilasters of the classic orders, but very irregular in their proportions and position. The windows are strongly marked, and with carved mullions. Large dormer windows break into the high roof; ornaments abound, and the whole presents a curiously blended mixture of the regular and the picturesque. Rather earlier in date, and perhaps rather more Gothic in their general treatment, are such buildings as the great Council Hall at Rothenberg (1572), that at Leipzig (1556), the Castle of Stuttgart (1553), with its picturesque arcaded quadrangle, or the lofty and elaborate Cloth Hall at Brunswick.

Examples of similar character abound in the old inns of Germany and Switzerland, and many charming features, such as the window from Colmar (Fig. 77), dated 1575, which forms one of our illustrations could be brought forward. Another development of the same mixed style may be illustrated by the Zeug House at Dantzic (1605), of which we give the rear elevation (Fig. 78). Not altogether dissimilar from these in character is the finely-designed Castle of Fredericksberg at Copenhagen, testifying to the wide spread of the phase of architecture to which we are calling attention. The date of this building is 1610. A richer example, but one little if at all nearer to Italian feeling, is the Council House at Leyden, a portion of which we illustrate (Fig. 79). This building dates from 1599, and bears more resemblance to English Elizabethan in its ornaments, than to the architecture of any other country.

Simultaneously with these, some buildings made their appearance in Germany, which, though still picturesque, showed the dawn of a wish to adopt the features of pure Renaissance. The quadrangle of the Castle of Schalaburg (Fig. 80), may be taken as a specimen of the adoption of Renaissance ideas as well as forms. It is in effect an Italian cortile, though more ornate than Italian architects would have made it. It was built in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and seems to point to a wish to make use of the new style with but little admixture of northern ornament or treatment.

When architecture had quite passed through the transition period, which fortunately lasted long, the buildings, not only of Germany, but of the north generally, became uninteresting and tame; in fact, they present so few distinguishing features, that it is not necessary to describe or illustrate them. Russia, it is true, contains a few striking buildings belonging to the eighteenth century, but most of those which we might desire to refer to, were built subsequent to the close of that century.