South Ural State University
Faculty of service and light industry
REPORT Subject: «Italian late Gothic»
Chelyabinsk 2008
Contents Introduction_ 3
Italian late Gothic 4
Conclusion_ 11
Literature 12
Introduction Italy's contribution to Gothic great church architecture was not commensurate with its wealth and importance during the Middle Ayes. To some extent this was due to the cool reception accorded to the Gothic style by the Italians but a more fundamental factor was that very few of the numerous churches built in Italy during the Gothic period were great churches. At the roof of both these divergences from the Northern European pattern lay Italy's unique inheritance from pre-inedieval times. The sense of being the spiritual liars of die ancient Romans must provide most of the explanation for the general reluctance to abandon completely the concepts embodied in the basilican church type invented in the early 4th century; and there can be little doubt that atavistic feelings of tear and disdain towards the barbarian West were a contributory factor in die Italians' generally grudging response to what was clearly recognizable as a French style. A Roman legacy which hindered the formation of a tradition of great church architecture in any style was the large number of towns in northern and central Italy. After the barbarian invasions of the sell and 6th centuries the towns shrank to a fraction of their former size, yet the great majority were still in being when steady expansion began again in the late 10th century.
Since virtually all towns of any consequence had had a bishop from the 4th century, most Italian dioceses were small (and consequently poor) by comparison with the huge territorial dioceses centered on the tar tower important Northern European towns which laid managed to continue functioning after die collapse of die Roman Empire. In this situation it was inevitable chat responsibility for cathedral fabrics would pass from bishops and chapters to the city governments who were the leading powers in medieval Italy.
Italian late Gothic Alongside racial, political and economic factors there is one other cultural deference which helps explain Italy's failure to generate a tradition of great church architecture comparable to that of Northern Europe: the low prestige of architecture relative to the figural arts, particularly painting. To some extent this may have been another consequence of Italian fidelity to the basilica, in which the architect's contribution inevitably appeared less distinctive than that of the painter who not only enriched but transformed the uncirculated wall surfaces making up most of the interior elevations. When Architecture could be regarded as little more than a support for paintings, it is unlikely chat anyone thought it odd that painters should assume the role of architect, and it is equally unsurprising that the buildings designed by pander-architects owed astutely to Northern Gothic concepts as did the tradition of monumental fresco painting which emerged in central Italy during the late 13th century. Although Italian sculptors when receptive to die more obviously relevant achievements of Northerners in then» held, die buildings which they designed are not markedly closer to Northern ideas than those designed by painters. Despite the occasional disaster due to inadequate technical knowledge, die practice of architecture by figural artists continued into die Renaissance period, when it spread beyond Italy.
As in other parts of Europe, it was the Cistercians who introduced the aliments of Gothic architecture into Italy. In their two most important earl 13th century churches, those at Casaman (begun 1203) and its Tuscan daughter house S. Galgano (begun 1218), the Burgundian Romanesque scheme exemplified by Pontigny was retentively Gallicized by substituting ribs tor the pointed-arched groins of die vaults. This was not a purely Italian development for exactly the same revision laid achieved a wide diffusion in later 12‑th century French Cistercian churches, probably because it was viewed as a modernization which did not challenge the ascetic traditions of the order S. Galgano seems to have exerted important influences on the cathedral of nearby Siena, the only great church built in Italy during the first half of the 13‑th century. The Siena bay design is not a straightforward copy of the S. Galgano, but there is no other obvious source in Tuscany for its combination of Romanesque four-sliaft piers with Gothic crocket capitals, for its lack of angled members to receive the diagonal ribs, or the keeled profile of the latter.
The consistent use of round arches, the tallness of the main arcades and the lowness of the original clear storey (replaced when the vaults were rebuilt higher from с. 1369) can readily be understood is criticisms of the S. Galgano scheme made by a designer whose loyalties still lay partly with the traditional basilica form. In Tuscany by far the most impressive basilica was the huge Romanesque cathedral of Siena's pro-imperial and anti-Florentine ally, Pisa, and it seems reasonable to view the mutation of Pisa Cathedral's zebra-striped marble cladding as a demonstration of solidarity at a time when the bitter struggle between the emperor and the pope was test approaching its final crisis in 1240.
Apart from its striped livery, which overpowers the three-dimensional articulation of the bay design, the most memorable feature of Siena is its unique hexagonal crossing. ............
