CHAPTER III

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE

The Pazzi chapel--Gothic character of its central vault--Architectural treatment of the interior--Impropriety of a classic order in such a building--Awkward result of an entablature passing through an arch impost--Incongruities of design and construction in the portico--Use of stucco--Sources from which the façade may have been derived--Other church architecture by Brunelleschi--San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito--Use of the entablature block in these churches--Survival of mediæval features and adjustments--Church architecture of Leon Batista Alberti--The façade of Santa Maria Novella--The façade of San Francesco of Rimini--The church of Sant’ Andrea of Mantua--Return to Roman models in the structural forms of this building--Sant’ Andrea foreshadows St. Peter’s at Rome--Its west front an adaptation of the Roman triumphal arch scheme--Such fronts peculiar to Alberti--The designers of the Renaissance worked unconsciously on a foundation of mediæval ideas 26