CHAPTER V

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMAN RENAISSANCE

Other parts of the church of St. Peter--Beauty of its plan--This plan could not be carried out with a good result in classic Roman details--Awkward makeshifts to which Michael Angelo was led--The colossal order of the interior--The magnitude of the structural parts of the church unavoidable--The real character of the building contradicted by the external order--Makeshifts which this order necessitated--The real character of St. Peter’s has been rarely analyzed--Its grandeur due to its magnitude and to what it derives from the design of Bramante--Its incongruity and extravagance--Use of stucco in the ornamentation of the interior--Extravagant laudation of the building by the earlier Italian writers--Antonio San Gallo’s project for St. Peter’s--Earlier examples of Roman Renaissance church architecture--Sant’ Agostino a mediæval building with Renaissance details--Its façade--Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi--Its attribution to Bramante--Irrational treatment of its interior--Merit of the exterior in its larger features--San Biagio at Montepulciano--The order of the interior--The Renaissance use of a pilaster coupled with a column on the corner of a building--Roman treatment of the corner--Instance of the use of a corner pilaster described by Serlio--The exterior of San Biagio--Its campanile and lantern--The evolution of this form of tower--System of Santissima Annunziatta at Arezzo--Vignola, and Milizia’s remarks on him--His book of architecture--His advocacy of ancient Roman art and his disregard in practice of its principles--His design for Sant’ Andrea di Ponte Molle--Its derivation from the Pantheon--Vignola’s design for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli at Assisi--His design for the Gesù at Rome--Aberrations of design in this work--The façade by Della Porta--Palladio, and his great influence on modern art--His book of architecture--His design for the church of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice--The Redentore and San Francesco della Vigna 66