The architecture of the renaissance in Italy
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| The architecture of the renaissance in Italy |
A general view for the use of students and others. The work has become a classic in the literature of architecture. Finely illustrated.
It may be desirable to state in a few words how I have made use of the opportunity of revision, afforded by the practical approval of this work which students of architecture have signified. In the interval that has elapsed since I first wrote on the subject, not only has my point of view changed, but the light from the study of kindred subjects has been shed upon it, so changing its aspect to myself that I felt inclined to rewrite the whole book, or at all events large parts of it.
To this temptation, I might have yielded, had there been a good reason to suppose that I would so make it more useful or interesting. It seemed to me, however, that it might then lose what value it possesses as an impression of the works of the period, written soon after I had studied and measured some of them ten years ago, having at the time small acquaintance with the large Continental literature of the subject. In this belief, I have thought it better not to reconstruct the book, but rather to confine the changes to rendering my meaning clearer than in the original, to the rectification of errors into which I had fallen, and to additions which tend to the more complete statement of my view of the matter.
The second chapter has undergone most alteration, as the account of Brunelleschi's work is rewritten and extended, while notes are added on the Badia Fiesolana and the Church of the Carceri at Prato. A table of the principal Renaissance buildings in Italy is appended; and it is hoped that this will render the book more useful to the student, especially perhaps the traveller, who may wish to examine the various works in a locality in something like their order of erection, and so learn infinitely more than can here be imparted regarding them.
From any such student, I should be glad to receive corrections or additions to the list, which cannot claim to be complete. Among the illustrations are several plans of churches, which with the exception of the largest (St. Peter's) and the smallest Florentine examples (pages 17 and 40), are drawn to a uniform scale; and all of them (except St. Peter's) are approximately "oriented," if the top of the page is taken to represent a direction somewhat East of North. I have pleasure in acknowledging Mr Bradley Batsford's valuable co-operation, and my appreciation of the enterprise of the publisher in enabling me to extend so largely the number of the illustrations, as well as in reproducing many of the originals a second time in order to obtain the best results possible on the necessarily small scale.
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