Identifier: historyofarchit02cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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panelling enriched with statues and reliefs.^ This facade had reacheda height somewhat above the first stage, when the work was discon-tinued, and remained in this unfinished condition until near the endof the sixteenth century, when, according to some authorities, it wastaken down by an ambitious architect of the Grand Duke ; accord-ing to others, it fell, with grievous destruction of its beautiful sculp-ture, and the bare wall of rough brickwork remained until past themiddle of the nineteenth century, when a richly ornamented butcommonplace design by the Chevalier Fabbris was adopted in com-petition and carried out, the ceremony of unveiling taking place in1887. The other exterior walls are treated in the Florentine man-ner, of which San Miniato, the baptistery, and Santa Croce areexamples, — with the love of varied surface-color which is character-istic of Tuscany. The walls are faced with marble, laid off in avertical panelling, minutely sub-divided, the high aisle walls having^
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Fiff. 375. Florence. Cathedral. six horizontal rows of panels, the borders being of dark green ser>pentine, enclosing narrow rectangles of white marble. The effect, inspite of its richness, is one of great monotony. (Fig. 375.) Theopenings are few, but are decorated with much profusion of carving. ^ Schnaase, vii., p. 180. 210 ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY The windows and doors are deeply splayed, with delicate twistedcolumns and gabled arches. But the treatment is far from satisfac-tory ; the high gables of the doorways, in j^articular, are extremelyawkward, and their lines are confused by the parti-colored panellingof the wall. These windows and doors are emphatic illustrationsof the Florentine genius for exquisite detail, combined with incom-petency in composition. The aisle walls finish with a beautifularched corbel-table, and a panelled balustrade above. The clerestoryis perhaps the weakest feature of the exterior, — the only reliefto the monotonous panelling being the small round w

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