16th century art of Upper Italy - Preliminary remarks

1. Opening remarks

The blooming fields of Upper Italy with their large, rich trading cities and their small, art-filled residences of the rulers do not represent, in the historical and artistic sense, such a tightly knit area in the 16th century, like Rome, Tuscany and Umbria, inseparable from each other due to their diverse intercourse and borrowing. At least, the predominant art of Upper Italy, painting, developed in all major generases independently and in a peculiar way, while its more recent sculpture quickly became dependent on its Middle Italian sister, while Upper Italian architecture supported a lively exchange of artists with Tuscan-Roman art. Already Bramante was a living link between middle and upper Italy. The Roman successors of Michelangelo from Vignola to Lungi and Fontana were mostly Upper Italian by birth, and the most significant architects of high and late Renaissance in upper Italy were either natural middle Italians or spent their years in Rome. It was these Uchne-Italian architects who moved or returned to their homeland, although they mostly chose one city as the focus of their activities, still quite often devoted their strength to serving the neighboring communities, and it was thanks to this that they established a well-known artistic relationship.

1. The development of architecture in Upper Italy

The oldest among the prominent middle-Italian architects, Michele Sanmicheli (1484–1559) from Verona, developed in Rome in close union with Bramante and transferred to the upper Italy a strong, expressive style of the recent high renaissance of this master, and in Verona independently subjected him to further development under the direct influence of the Roman buildings preserved there. From the unfinished exterior of the Verona Amphitheater, he thought it possible to borrow pilasters into rustic, he took spiral columns, arched flat and triangular gables supported by semi-columns or pilasters for the frames of the semi-circular arches. He applied these particulars already in the rich facade of the Palazzo Bevilacqua in Verona, the first floor of which was dissected into rustic by Tuscan-Doric rustic pilasters, while the lush upper floor was exhausted by the motifs of a triumphal arch. A more relaxed impression is made by his Palazzo Canossa, despite its half-a-storey building inside two main floors. The lower floor of the rustic has absolutely no dividing pilasters, the upper floor is dissected by pairs of Corinthian pilasters, and the roof represents a powerful balustrade. The most severe and noble is its Palazzo Pompeii, which has one impressive floor with Tuscan-Doric half-columns over a more powerful lower floor in rustic. The gates of Verona Sanmicheli also turned into characteristic artistic buildings. In the field of church architecture, he added to his early central Italian churches of the central type in Montefiascone, still calm in inner finality, the church of Madonna di Campagna, near Verona itself. Outside, it appears to be a round building with a colonnade of 28 Doric columns enveloping it, and inside it is an octagon, divided by niches framed by Corinthian pilasters. His finest buildings combine strength and clarity with calm pomp.

Only two years younger than Sanmicheli was Jacopo Tatti, nicknamed Sansovino (1486–1570; a book about it was written by L. Pittoni), a Florentine by birth, who worked as a sculptor and architect in central Italy, until he moved to 1527 in Venice, which He took a brilliant way. From his Venetian church buildings the boring interior decoration of San Francesco della Viña (1534) shows a step back compared to San Marcello (1519) in Rome. The best impression is made by the internal view of its five-naved hall church with the dome “San Giorgio dei Greci”, if you mentally remove the Greek iconostasis. Its three-story facade returns, no doubt, to the fine motifs of the Quattrocento facades.

Fig. 39. San Giorgio dei Grechi

But the most flaming Jacopo is us in his beautiful Venetian palaces. His majestic palazzo Corner della Ca-Grande has above the lower, descending into the water floor, decorated in rustic, two upper - with windows, bordered by a semicircular arch, between the Ionic and Corinthian double semi-columns. His mint building, Tsekka, reveals its gloomy defensive character in arcades admitted to the walls of the lower floor, folded into rustic, and in the Doric and Ionic, also finished in rustic, semi-columns of the upper floors. Its main building, and at the same time the most ceremonial building of Venice is the marble Library of Sts. The brand, now belonging to the royal palace, the noble building on Piazzetta whose walls are turned into arched openings between the pillars with Doric protruding on the lower floor and the Ionic semi-columns in the upper floor. Characteristic are small solid columns in the embrasures of arcades, perfectly calculated frieze with triglyphs over Doric columns, lush frieze with garlands over the upper, ionic entablature, balustrades under the windows of the upper floor and over the entire crowning cornice, all in clean, delicate, full forms, all in light, white marble shine! Without this building Sansovino Venice would not be Venice. Of its buildings in the neighboring cities - the classical university courtyard in Padua (1552) belongs to the best of his works: it is still a two-story courtyard with columns, with a classical, even entablement, still a pure high renaissance, without a hint of baroque.

Together with the architects who were born already in the splendor of the XVI century, and in upper Italy, a new understanding of forms began, but here, as in Rome, it did not immediately turn into Baroque, but gave intermediate forms that can be called “late Renaissance” here . It was expressed simultaneously by two significant architects who joined it, Galeazzo Alessi and Andrea Palladio, but in a completely different, almost opposite way.

Galeazzo Alessi of Perugia (1512–1572) developed in Rome under the influence of Michelangelo. His early and late works in Umbria and Bologna were collected by Gurlitt. We will focus on its main buildings in Genoa and Milan, which arose after 1550. Genoa owes him not only its old port buildings and their stern-looking gates, with Doric columns facing outwards into the rustic, but also its famous, painted and published by Rubens “New Street” (Strada Nuova, now Garibaldi Street), a number of palaces of which became exemplary for Genoa residential buildings. Alessi was surprisingly able to adapt his Genoese urban and rural houses to the rise of the soil, which required the construction of stairs and terraces, but from the Roman early Baroque he used only what matched the tastes of a business, fun seaside town. On the main street, he placed the houses one against the other in such a way that the portico of the other was visible from the front portico of one. In the courtyards and galleries of the column still represent the Roman pillars. The facades of the two main floors, above which lower half-floors rise (mezzanines - mezzanini), are further divided by pilasters or half-columns of two orders as a general rule. The main charm is the new way of arranging and forming graceful porticoes, often close columnar courtyards, comfortable staircases and spacious front halls adapted to new needs. Some forms of Alessi still lack the impressiveness produced by the Baroque, although in many fancifully invented particulars, next to which old square wave or wavy ribbons are found, it is possible, however, to trace the initial steps of the Baroque in them. At the same time window gables with a break themselves are implied.

The main houses of Alessi on Novaya Street were subsequently partly rebuilt. Palazzo Cataldi Karega, who completed the construction of Castelli, still represents an elegant dismemberment through marble pilasters. In the Palace of Spinola, it subsequently underwent a change, turned into a painted decoration. On the three-story Palazzo Lercari, the middle part of which is hidden behind a graceful courtyard with columnar arcades, the side outbuildings above the faceted lower floor become almost open loggias with columns corresponding to the lower middle loggia in front of the courtyard. Palazzo Cambiaso, however, was first dissected only by close windows to each other. Excellent villa Sauli, the finest of his rural houses, unfortunately, has not been preserved. Villa Pallavicini in Pegli, near Genoa, with a grand house high on mountain terraces, demonstrates his ability to use the conditions of the soil, and Villa Imperiali in Sant Pierre d'Arena, located at the foot of the rising terraces, shows it from the garden artist laying new of the way.

2. Milan buildings, Andrnl Palladio

More majestic and freer than the Genoese city buildings of Alessi, its Palazzo Marini is deployed in Milan (1558), the current town hall. In his majestic courtyard in the lower floor, the method of joining paired columns alternately, either by an arch or by a simple mold, brought by Giulio Romano to Mantua and quickly spread in upper Italy, and the most magnificent and baroque motifs have already been taken. The external facades of this building are similarly rich, from which it undoubtedly follows that the overly luxurious, although not reduced to complete unity, the magnificent facade of the church of Santa Maria near San Chelso in Milan belongs to Alessi. His main church building is Santa Maria di Carignano (1552–1588) in Genoa, for which, apparently, he could only give a plan. He meets Michelangelo’s plan for the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome. The church inside is a very impressive, lively Corinthian pilasters five-dome building. Outside, below the high dome, on the sides of the main facade, quadrangular towers and an disproportionately high triangular pediment above its middle part dominate.

Next in age was the most classical of the classical architects of the third quarter of the 16th century, Andrea Palladio of Vicenza (1518–1580), by birth, again, an upper Italian, but thanks to repeated visits to Rome, he developed artistically as a Roman. Imitation of Roman art of antiquity in the spirit of Vitruvius was a guiding star, thanks to which he wrote “Four Books on Architecture” and built his buildings. In contrast to the Michelangean subjective understanding and processing of the ancient forms of Palladio, he was only concerned about transmitting them, in general and in particular, correctly and in accordance with their internal laws; and he superbly knew how to force his new, independent understanding of space to serve new tasks. Palladio’s preference for a “general unity” encompassing several floors through high pilasters passing through them is characteristic for achieving the majestic appearance of the structure than, however, Alberti, this true predecessor of Palladio in Sant Andrea in Mantua, Bramante, used to decorate Cathedral of St. Peter, Michelangelo in various buildings.

Fig. 40. House "Basilica" Vicenza

By the early works of Palladio (since 1546) belongs to the arched two-story gallery surrounding the ancient city house "Basilica" Vicenza. In the lower floor, the arcades are covered by Doric, in the upper Ionic semi-columns carrying the eaves, while they themselves rest on smaller double columns of the same orders that are free-standing and moved inward from the dividing pilasters. From among the widely celebrated private palaces of Palladio in Vicenza, the powerful Palazzo Tiene, dressed in rustic style, like the late constructions of Bramante, only has pilasters on the main floor. From its palaces, decorated in the style of two orders one above the other, Palazzo Kieregati (now Pinacoteca) turns into a lower Doric floor into a solid open gallery, and in the upper Ionic only a part. The best example of his palaces with one stately, Corinthian-composite order, is the magnificent Palmazo Valmarana.

Of the Palladian villas, the most famous “Rotunda” is near Vicenza: on a square plan there is a cross with a rounded middle dome and corner rooms, then four identical facades with an antique portico of six Ionic columns in front of each, a motif that does not fit the style of the villas, although it was used for centuries and used by Palladio himself richer and more diverse in his Barbaro villa in Madera.

Palladian "Olympic Theater" in Vicenza is important as a great success story of the revival of ancient theatrical architecture. Its most important churches, with the noble use of “common unity,” are in Venice. For the church of San Francesco della Vigna Sansovino, he erected a spectacular facade, and at the same time in San Giorgio Maggiore performed the interior and exterior decoration of the three-nave basilica on poles, with a dome, with a facade made up of columns supported by gables and semi-gables. But even more organically, Palladio merged all these motifs into the magnificent single-nave church of the Savior (Il Redentore) with its chapels, the choir of which is furnished with columns. Its facade is a model of the Palladian in the antique style of church facades. Only half-pilasters serving as a support for corner pilasters are here as a concession to the Roman baroque style. Already Goethe wrote about the Palladio palaces in Vicenza: “There is, indeed, something divine in its architectural creations, perfect just like the form of a great poet, from fiction and truth creating a third being that charms us.”

3. The development of architecture in Bologna, Genoa and Venice

In addition to the architectural creations of these four main masters, who gave a new look to the Italian cities of the XVI century, several others should be mentioned.

Bologna, a rich and learned university city, longer than other major cities, retained an early-Renaissance effect at close range. We should not forget, however, that the “great theorist” Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1552), whose direction in the spirit of high and late Renaissance seems to be more clear from his writings on architecture, than from his surviving works, was born in Bologna, which is related according to his spirit, Vignola acquired a name for himself in Bologna with buildings with “baroque” features, like the Bocci-Piella palace (1547), and that the Bologna transitional master Andrea Marquese and Formigine, although starting in the spirit of the early Renaissance, had already clearly and independently represented The style of the XVI century in such buildings as the Palazzo Fantuzzi with its two floors, decorated with Doric and Ionic semicolumns, divided into a rustic design. Antonio Morandi, nicknamed Terribilia (died in 1568) and Bartolommeo Triakini (1500–1565) is more resolutely imbued with the classic spirit of the high renaissance. In his palazzo Malvezzi Medici, three orders of columns were bored and measured one above the other, and in the Palazzo Ranuzzi, the upper floors lack pilasters and have baroque forked windows on the windows. In parallel with Palladio, however, the painter Pelegrino Tibaldi (from 1527, according to Bolognini, approximately to 1592) did not develop as consistently as he did in Bologna in the second half of the century. The main building in his hometown is magnificent, with early baroque features a university courtyard. In the noble classical style of the late Renaissance, its single-nave dome church of San Fedele in Milan was built with some baroque details. Even richer is his church San Gaudenzio in Novara. Its classical church façades, however, are still two floors high, like the Romans, and not the same as Palladio’s.

Padua, no less a scholarly, albeit less industrial university sister of Bologna, received in the XVI century two more large domed churches, Santa Giustina and the Cathedral, partly built by local forces. Their appearance remained unfinished, meanwhile inside they belong to the most powerful creations of the classical art of spatial style. The Padua architecture of the palaces indicated new paths, however, the Veronese painter, Giovanni Maria Falconetto (1458–1534), whose construction activities took place mainly in Padua. His powerful columnar portal Palazzo del Capitanio and the charming Palazzo Giustiniani, built in 1524 for Luigi Cornaro, who loved the wide life, are the creatures of a pure high renaissance.

В Генуе, пышном, нагорном и приморском городе, где ученик Микеланджело Монторсоли руководил постройкой знаменитого палаццо Андреа Дория с его террасами, галереями, стенами, предназначенными для живописи, действовал рядом с Алесси живописец Джованни Баттиста Кастелло, совместивший на фасадах и внутри своих построек, каковы дворцы Чентурионе (дель Подеста) и Империали, не только благородство общего расположения, но и пышную живописную и стуковую декорацию, барокко которой уже приближается к рококо. Но самый значительный последователь Алесси в Генуе был Рокко Лураго. Его величественно распланированный палаццо Дориа-Турси (теперь ратуша), в свое время приводившийся Буркгардтом, как пример проникающего даже в Геную одичания языка форм, уже Гурлиттом по праву был провозглашен самым мощным и несомненно самым эффектным зданием «Страда нуова». Во всяком случае, он стал образцом для тех красивых по расположению дворцовых вилл, украшенных более живописными террасами и более обширными колончатыми дворами, которые в XVII столетии выросли на почве Генуи. В церковном зодчестве Генуя также более долгое время оставалась верной колоннадам, чем какой бы то ни было другой город Италии. Даже Джакомо делла Порта выстроил здесь, в Аннунциате базилику с колоннами старого типа, а к ней примыкают такие благородные и своеобразные по расположению двойных колоннад церкви, как Сан Сиро (1576) и Мадонна делле Винье (1586).

Наконец, в Венеции, победоносной сопернице Генуи, зодчество в XVI столетии, вплоть до Якопо Сансовино совершенно не процветало. Вполне XVI столетию принадлежит Джованни да Понте (1512–1597), перекинувший через Канале-гранде мощную арку Понте Риальто, а своей тюрьмой (Carceri) давший менее суровое соответствие к Цекке Сансовино. Алессандро Витториа (1525–1608), ученик Сансовино, показавший себя в своем палаццо Бальби искусным в духе своего времени архитектором, жил до XVII столетия. Этот ряд заканчивает последний из «великих теоретиков», Виченцо Скамоцци (1552–1616), земляк и почитатель Палладию, оказавший без сомнения больше влияния сочинением «Всеобщая архитектура», чем своими постройками. Гурлитт приписывает ему великолепный сансовиновский палаццо Корнер делла Ка гранде в Венеции, Паули же вернее считает его произведением палаццо Контарини Сериньи, стоящий в зависимости от первого. Достоверно известно, что Скамоцци является строителем «Новых Прокураций», вытянутого в длину здания правительственных учреждений, продолжающего вдоль площади Святого Марка Библиотеку Сансовино и по стилю так тесно примыкающего к ней, насколько это позволяет его барочный третий этаж. Задача XVII-века искать более массивные и живописные архитектурные эффекты прослеживается и в Венеции.