Transcriber's Note

A considerable number of the page references in the index are incorrect; however, they have been preserved as printed. The transcriber has, as far as possible, linked to the correct place in the text.

ILLUSTRATED TEXT-BOOKS OF ART
EDUCATION

EDITED BY EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A.

ARCHITECTURE
GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE

BY T. ROGER SMITH, F.R.I.B.A.

P. [114]

THE CERTOSA, NEAR PAVIA. From the Cloisters.
Begun by Marco di Campione, A.D. 1393.

TEXT-BOOK OF ART EDUCATION, EDITED BY
EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A.

ARCHITECTURE
GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE

BY T. ROGER SMITH, F.R.I.B.A.

Occasional Lecturer on Architecture at University College, London

NEW YORK
SCRIBNER AND WELFORD.

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET
1880

(All rights reserved.)

LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
BREAD STREET HILL, E. C.

PREFACE.

THE history, the features, and the most famous examples of European architecture, during a period extending from the rise of the Gothic, or pointed, style in the twelfth century to the general depression which overtook the Renaissance style at the close of the eighteenth, form the subject of this little volume. I have endeavoured to adopt as free and simple a mode of treatment as is compatible with the accurate statement of at least the outlines of so very technical a subject.

Though it is to be hoped that many professional students of architecture will find this hand-book serviceable to them in their elementary studies, it has been my principal endeavour to adapt it to the requirements of those who are preparing for the professional pursuit of the sister arts, and of that large and happily increasing number of students who pursue the fine arts as a necessary part of a complete liberal education, and who know that a solid and comprehensive acquaintance with art, especially if joined to some skill in the use of the pencil, the brush, the modelling tool, or the etching needle, will open sources of pleasure and interest of the most refined description.

The broad facts of all art history; the principles which underlie each of the fine arts; and the most precious or most noteworthy examples of each, ought to be familiar to every art student, whatever special branch he may follow. Beyond these limits I have not attempted to carry this account of Gothic and Renaissance architecture; within them I have endeavoured to make the work as complete as the space at my disposal permitted.

Some portions of the text formed part of two courses of lectures delivered before the students of the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, and are introduced here by the kind permission of Sir John Stokes. Many of the descriptive and critical remarks are transcripts of notes made by myself, almost under the shadow of the buildings to which they refer. It would, however, have been impossible to give a condensed view of so extended a subject had not every part of it been treated at much greater length by previous writers. The number and variety of the books consulted renders it impossible to make any other acknowledgment here than this general recognition of my indebtedness to their authors.

T. R. S.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL WORDS.

Abacus.—The upper portion of the capital of a column, upon which the weight to be carried rests.

Aisle (Lat. ala).—The side subdivision in a church; occasionally all the subdivisions, including the nave, are called aisles.

Apse.—A semicircular or polygonal termination to, or projection from, a church or other public building.

Arcade.—A range of arches, supported on piers or columns.

Arch.—A construction of wedge-shaped blocks of stone, or of bricks, of a curved outline, and spanning an open space. The principal forms of arch in use are Semicircular; Acutely-pointed, or Lancet; Equilateral, or Less Acutely-pointed; Four-centred, or Depressed Tudor; Three-centred, or Elliptic; Ogival; Segmental; and Stilted. (Figs. [a to f].)

Architrave.—(1) The stone which in Classic and Renaissance architecture is thrown from one column or pilaster to the next. (2) The moulding which in the same styles is used to ornament the margin of a door or window opening or arch.

Ashlar.—Finely-wrought masonry, employed for the facing of a wall of coarser masonry or brick.

Attic (In Renaissance Architecture).—A low upper story, distinctly marked in the architecture of the building, usually surmounting an order; (2) in ordinary building, any story in a roof.

Bailey (from vallum).—The enclosure of the courtyard of a castle.

Ball-flower.—An ornament representing a globular bud, placed usually in a hollow moulding.

Baluster.—A species of small column, generally of curved outline.

Balustrade.—A parapet or rail formed of balusters.

Fig. a.—Semicircular Arch.

Fig. b.—Stilted Arch.

The Semicircular and the Stilted Semicircular Arch were the only arches in use till the introduction of the Pointed Arch. Throughout the Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular periods they occur as exceptional features, but they were practically superseded after the close of the 12th cent.

Fig. c.—Equilateral Arch.

Fig. d.—Lancet Arch.

The Lancet Arch was characteristic of the Early English period, is never found earlier, and but rarely occurs later. The Equilateral Arch was the favourite arch of the architects of the geometrical Decorated, but is not unfrequently met with in the early part of the Perpendicular period.

Fig. e.—Ogival Arch.

Fig. f.—Depressed Tudor Arch.

The Depressed (or Four-centred) Tudor Arch is characteristic of the Perpendicular period, and was then constantly employed. The Ogival Arch is occasionally employed late in that period, but was more used by French and Italian architects than by those of Great Britain.

Band.—A flat moulding or projecting strip of stone.

Barrel-vaulting.—See Waggon-head vaulting.

Barge-board (or Verge-board).—An inclined and pierced or ornamented board placed along the edge of a roof when it overhangs a gable wall.

Base.—(1) The foot of a column; (2) sometimes that of a buttress or wall.

Fig. g.—Base of Early English Shaft.

Fig. h.—Base of Perpendicular Shaft.

Fig. i.—Base of Decorated Shaft.

Basilica.—(1) A Roman public hall; (2) an early Christian church, similar to a Roman basilica in disposition.

Bastion (in Fortification).—A bold projecting mass of building, or earthwork thrown out beyond the general line of a wall.

Battlement.—A notched or indented parapet.

Bay.—One of the compartments in a building which is made up of several repetitions of the same group of features; e.g., in a church the space from one column of the nave arcade to the next is a bay.

Bay-window.—A window projecting outward from the wall. It may be rectangular or polygonal. It must be built up from the ground. If thrown out above the ground level, a projecting window is called an Oriel. (See Bow window.)

Bead.—A small moulding of circular profile.

Belfry.—A chamber fitted to receive a peal of bells.

Belfry Stage.—The story of a tower where the belfry occurs. Usually marked by large open arches or windows, to let the sound escape.

Bell (of a capital).—The body between the necking and the abacus (which see).

Billet Moulding.—A moulding consisting of a group of small blocks separated by spaces about equal to their own length.

Blind Story.—Triforium (which see).

Boss.—A projecting mass of carving placed to conceal the intersection of the ribs of a vault, or at the end of a string course which it is desired to stop, or in an analogous situation.

Bow Window.—Similar to a Bay-window (which see), but circular or segmental.

Broach-spire.—A spire springing from a tower without a parapet and with pyramidal features at the feet of its four oblique sides (see Fig. [22]) to connect them to the four angles of the tower.

Broachead (Spire).—Formed as above described.

Buttress.—A projection built up against a wall to create additional strength or furnish support (see Flying Buttress).

Byzantine.—The round-arched Christian architecture of the Eastern Church, which had its origin in Byzantium (Constantinople).

Canopy.—(1) An ornamented projection over doors, windows, &c.; (2) a covering over niches, tombs, &c.

Campanile.—The Italian name for a bell-tower.

Fig. j.—Buttress.

Capital.—The head of a column or pilaster (Figs. [l to p]).

Cathedral.—A church which contains the seat of a bishop; usually a building of the first class.

Certosa.—A monastery (or church) of Carthusian monks.

Chamfer.—A slight strip pared off from a sharp angle.

Chancel.—The choir or eastern part of a church.

Chantry Chapel.—A chapel connected with a monument or tomb in which masses were to be chanted. This was usually of small size and very rich.

Chapel.—(1) A chamber attached to a church and opening out of it, or formed within it, and in which an altar was placed; (2) a small detached church.

Chapter House.—The hall of assembly of the chapter (dean and canons) of a cathedral.

Fig. l.—Early Norman Capital.

Fig. m.—Early English Capital.

Fig. n.—Later Norman Capital.

Fig. o.—Perpendicular Capital.

Fig. p.—Early French Capital.

Château.—The French name for a country mansion.

Chevron.—A zig-zag ornament.

Chevet.—The French name for an apse when surrounded by chapels; see the plan of Westminster Abbey (Fig. [6]).

Choir.—The part of a church in which the services are celebrated; usually, but not always, the east end or chancel. In a Spanish church the choir is often at the crossing.

Clerestory.—The upper story or row of windows lighting the nave of a Gothic church.

Cloister.—A covered way round a quadrangle of a monastic building.

Clustered (shafts).—Grouped so as to form a pier of some mass out of several small shafts.

Corbel.—A projecting stone (or timber) supporting, or seeming to support, a weight (Fig. [k]).

Fig. k.—Early Renaissance Corbel.

Corbelling.—A series of mouldings doing the same duty as a corbel; a row of corbels.

Corbel Table.—A row of corbels supporting an overhanging parapet or cornice.

Cortile (Italian).—The internal arcaded quadrangle of a palace, mansion, or public building.

Column.—A stone or marble post, divided usually into base, shaft, and capital; distinguished from a pier by the shaft being cylindrical or polygonal, and in one, or at most, in few pieces.

Cornice.—The projecting and crowning portion of an order (which see) or of a building, or of a stage or story of a building.

Course.—A horizontal layer of stones in the masonry of a building.

Crocket.—A tuft of leaves arranged in a formal shape, used to decorate ornamental gables, the ribs of spires, &c.

Fig. q.—Decorated Crocket.

Fig. r.—Perpendicular Crocket.

Crossing.—The intersection (which see) in a church or cathedral.

Cross Vault.—A vault of which the arched surfaces intersect one another, forming a groin (which see).

Crypt.—The basement under a church or other building (almost invariably vaulted).

Cusp.—The projecting point thrown out to form the leaf-shaped forms or foliations in the heads of Gothic windows, and in tracery and panels.

Detail.—The minuter features of a design or building, especially its mouldings and carving.

Diaper (Gothic).—An uniform pattern of leaves or flowers carved or painted on the surface of a wall.

Fig. s.—Diaper in Spandrel, from Westminster Abbey.

Dogtooth.—A sharply-pointed ornament in a hollow moulding which is peculiar to Early English Gothic. It somewhat resembles a blunt tooth.

Dormer Window.—A window pierced through a sloping roof and placed under a small gable or roof of its own.

Dome.—A cupola or spherical convex roof, ordinarily circular on plan.

Domical Vaulting.—Vaulting in which a series of small domes are employed; in contradistinction to a waggon-head vault, or an intersecting vault.

Double Tracery.—Two layers of tracery one behind the other and with a clear space between.

Eaves.—The verge or edge of a roof overhanging the wall.

Eaves-course.—A moulding carrying the eaves.

Elevation.—(1) A geometrical drawing of part of the exterior or interior walls of a building; (2) the architectural treatment of the exterior or interior walls of a building.

Elizabethan.—The architecture of England in, and for some time after, the reign of Elizabeth.

Embattled.—Finished with battlements, or in imitation of battlements.

Enrichments.—The carved (or coloured) decorations applied to the mouldings or other features of an architectural design. (See Mouldings.)

Entablature (in Classic and Renaissance architecture).—The superstructure above the columns where an order is employed. It is divided into the architrave, which rests on the columns, the frieze and the cornice.

Façade.—The front of a building or of a principal part of a building.

Fan Vault.—The vaulting in use in England in the fifteenth century, in which a series of conoids bearing some resemblance to an open fan are employed.

Fillet.—A small moulding of square flat section.

Fig. t.—Perpendicular Finial.

Finial.—A formally arranged bunch of foliage or other similar ornament forming the top of a pinnacle, gablet, or other ornamented feature of Gothic architecture.

Flamboyant Style.—The late Gothic architecture of France at the end of the fifteenth century, so called from the occurrence of flame-shaped forms in the tracery.

Flèche.—A name adapted from the French. A slender spire, mostly placed on a roof; not often so called if on a tower.

Flying Buttress.—A buttress used to steady the upper and inner walls of a vaulted building, placed at some distance from the wall which it supports, and connected with it by an arch.

Fig. u.—Flying Buttress.

Foil.—A leaf-shaped form produced by adding cusps to the curved outline of a window head or piece of tracery.

Foliation.—The decoration of an opening, or of tracery by means of foils and cusps.

Fosse.—The ditch of a fortress.

François I. Style.—The early Renaissance architecture of France during part of the sixteenth century.

Frieze.—(1) The middle member of a Classic or Renaissance entablature; this was often sculptured and carved; (2) any band of sculptured ornament.

Gable.—The triangular-shaped wall carrying the end of a roof.

Gablet.—A small gable (usually ornamental only).

Gallery.—(1) An apartment of great length in proportion to its width; (2) a raised floor or stage in a building.

Gargoyle.—A projecting waterspout, usually carved in stone, more rarely formed of metal.

Geometrical.—The architecture of the earlier part of the decorated period in England.

Grille.—A grating or ornamental railing of metal.

Groin.—The curved line which is made by the meeting of the surfaces of two vaults or portions of vaults which intersect.

Group.—An assemblage of shafts or mouldings or other small features intended to produce a combined effect.

Grouping.—Combining architectural features as above.

Hall.—(1) The largest room in an ancient English mansion, or a college, &c.; (2) any large and stately apartment.

Half Timbered Construction.—A mode of building in which a framework of timbers is displayed and the spaces between them are filled in with plaster or tiles.

Hammer Beam Roof.—A roof peculiar to English architecture of the fifteenth century, deriving its name from the use of a hammer beam (a large bracket projecting from the walls) to partly support the rafters.

Head (of an arch or other opening).—The portion within the curve; whether filled in by masonry or left open, sometimes called a tympanum.

Hip.—The external angle formed by the meeting of two sloping sides of a roof where there is no gable.

Hôtel (French).—A town mansion.

Impost.—A moulding or other line marking the top of the jambs of an arched opening, and the starting point, or apparent starting point, of the arch.

Inlay.—A mode of decoration in which coloured materials are laid into sinkings of ornamental shape, cut into the surface to be decorated.

Intersection (or Crossing).—The point in a church where the transepts cross the nave.

Intersecting Vaults.—Vaults of which the surfaces cut one another.

Interpenetration.—A German mode of treating mouldings, as though two or more sets of them existed in the same stone and they could pass through (interpenetrate) each other.

Jamb.—The side of a door or window or arch, or other opening.

Fig. v.—Plan of a Jamb and Central Pier of a Gothic Doorway.

Keep.—The tower which formed the stronghold of a mediæval castle.

King Post.—The middle post in the framing of a timber roof.

Lancet Arch.—The sharply-pointed window-head and arch, characteristic of English Gothic in the thirteenth century.

Lantern.—A conspicuous feature rising above a roof or crowning a dome, and intended usually to light a Hall, but often introduced simply as an architectural finish to the whole building.

Lierne (rib).—A rib intermediate between the main ribs in Gothic vaulting.

Light.—One of the divisions of a window of which the entire width is divided by one or more mullions.

Lintel.—The stone or beam covering a doorway or other opening not spanned by an arch. Sometimes applied to the architrave of an order.

Loggia (Italian).—An open arcade with a gallery behind.

Loop.—Short for loophole. A very narrow slit in the wall of a fortress, serving as a window, or to shoot through.

Lucarne.—A spire-light. A small window like a slender dormer window.

Moat (or Fosse).—The ditch round a fortress or semi-fortified house.

Mosaic.—An ornament for pavements, walls, and the surfaces of vaults, formed by cementing together small pieces of coloured material (stone, marble, tile, &c.) so as to produce a pattern or picture.

Moulding.—A term applied to all varieties of contour or outline given to the angles, projections, or recesses of the various parts of a building. The object being either to produce an outline satisfactory to the eye; or, more frequently, to obtain a play of light and shade, and to produce the appearance of a line or a series of lines, broad or narrow, and of varying intensity of lightness or shade in the building or some of its features.

The contour which a moulding would present when cut across in a direction at right angles to its length is called its profile.

The profile of mouldings varied with each style of architecture and at each period (Figs. [w to z]). When ornaments are carved out of some of the moulded surfaces the latter are technically termed enriched mouldings. The enrichments in use varied with each style and each period, as the mouldings themselves did.

Mullion.—The upright bars of stone frequently employed (especially in Gothic architecture) to subdivide one window into two or more lights.

Nave.—(1) The central avenue of a church or cathedral; (2) the western part of a church as distinguished from the chancel or choir; (3) occasionally, any avenue in the interior of a building which is divided by one or more rows of columns running lengthways is called a nave.

Necking (of a column).—The point (usually marked by a fillet or other small projecting moulding) where the shaft ends and the capital begins.

Newel Post.—The stout post at the foot of a staircase from which the balustrade or the handrail starts.

Fig. w.—Arch Moulding. (Gothic, 12th Century.)

Fig. y.—Arch Moulding. (Decorated, 14th Century.)

Fig. z.—Arch Moulding. (Gothic, 13th Century.)

Niche.—A recess in a wall for a statue, vase, or other upright ornament.

Norman.—The architecture of England from the Norman Conquest till the latter part of the twelfth century.

Ogee.—A moulding or line of part concave and part convex curvature (see Fig. [e], showing an ogee-shaped arch).

Ogival.—Ogee-shaped (see Fig. [54]).

Open Tracery.—Tracery in which the spaces between the bars are neither closed by slabs of stone nor glazed.

Order.—(1) In Classical and Renaissance architecture a single column or pilaster and its appropriate entablature or superstructure; (2) a series of columns or pilasters with their entablature; (3) an entire decorative system appropriate to the kind of column chosen. In Renaissance architecture there are five orders—the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. Each has its own proper column, and its proper base, shaft, and capital; and its own entablature. The proportions and the degree of enrichment appropriate to each vary. The Tuscan being the sturdiest and plainest, the Composite the most slender and most small, and the others taking place in the succession in which they stand enumerated above. Where more than one order occurs in a building, as constantly happens in Classic and Renaissance buildings, the orders which are the plainest and most sturdy (and have been named first) if employed, are invariably placed below the more slender orders; e.g. the Doric is never placed over the Corinthian or the Ionic, but if employed in combination with either of those orders it is always the lowest in position.

Oriel.—A window projecting like a bay or bow window, not resting on the ground but thrown out above the ground level and resting on a corbel.

Palladian.—A phase of fully developed Renaissance architecture introduced by the architect Palladio, and largely followed in England as well as in Italy.

Panel.—(1) The thinner portions of the framed woodwork of doors and other such joiner’s work; (2) all sunk compartments in masonry, ceilings, &c.

Panelling.—(1) Woodwork formed of framework containing panels; (2) any decoration formed of a series of sunk compartments.

Parapet.—A breastwork or low wall used to protect the gutters and screen the roofs of buildings; also, perhaps primarily, to protect the ramparts of fortifications.

Fig. a a.—Open Parapet, late Decorated.

Fig. b b.—Battlemented Parapet, Perpendicular.

Pavilion.—A strongly marked single block of building; most frequently applied to those blocks in French and other Renaissance buildings that are marked out by high roofs.

Pedestal.—(1) A substructure sometimes placed under a column in Renaissance architecture; (2) a similar substructure intended to carry a statue, vase, or other ornament.

Pediment.—(1) The gable, where used in Renaissance buildings; (2) an ornamental gable sometimes placed over windows, doors, and other features in Gothic buildings.

Pier.—(1) A mass of walling, either a detached portion of a wall or a distinct structure of masonry, taking the place of a column in the arcade of a church or elsewhere; (2) a group or cluster of shafts substituted for a column.

Fig. c c.—Early English Piers.

Fig. d d.—Late Decorated and Perpendicular Piers.

Pilaster.—A square column, usually attached to a wall; frequently used in Classic and Renaissance architecture in combination with columns.

Pinnacle (in Gothic architecture).—A small turret, or ornament, usually with a pointed top, employed to mark the summit of gables, buttresses, and other tall features.

Pitch.—The degree of slope given to a roof, gable, or pediment.

Plan.—(1) A map of the floor of a building, showing the piers, if any, and the walls which inclose and divide it, with the openings in them; (2) the actual arrangement and disposition of the floors, piers, and walls of the building itself.

Plane.—The imaginary surface within which a series of mouldings lies, and which coincides with the salient and important points of that series. Mouldings are said to be on an oblique plane when their plane forms an angle less than a right angle with the face of the wall; and in receding planes, when they can be divided into a series of groups of more or less stepped outline, each within and behind the other, and each partly bounded by a plane parallel with the face of the wall.

Plaster.—The plastic material, of which the groundwork is lime and sand, used to cover walls internally and to form ceilings. Sometimes employed as a covering to walls externally.

Plinth.—The base of a wall or of a column or range of columns.

Portal.—A dignified and important entrance doorway.

Portico.—A range of columns with their entablature (and usually covered by a pediment), marking the entrance to a Renaissance or Classic building.

Prismatic Rustication.—In Elizabethan architecture rusticated masonry with diamond-shaped projections worked on the face of each stone.

Profile.—The contour or outline of mouldings as they would appear if sawn across at right angles to their length.

Porch.—A small external structure to protect and ornament the doorway to a building (rarely met with in Renaissance).

Quatrefoil.—A four-leaved ornament occupying a circle in tracery or a panel.

Rafters.—The sloping beams of a roof upon which the covering of the roof rests.

Ragstone.—A coarse stone found in parts of Kent and elsewhere, and used for walling.