Political rule is a spatial reality. For the Renaissance prince, the route to power came through the control of his dominion. Moving out from the body of the monarch, the first concern was the protection of the sovereign; the palace extended his or her presence into the public realm. Cities and fortresses project the authority of the palace even further, and stand as a sign of political power to others. Political historians talk of this embodied authority, and in architectural terms all the buildings of political power are integral to the creation and maintenance of rule. The court was both a political organization as well as an architectural space.1 Within the court, complex rules of behaviour based on rank, favouritism, and family connections allowed for various levels of intimacy and physical proximity to the ruler. All these conventions and practices shaped the design of architecture, and buildings functioned as a constant reminder to adhere to protocol. We must see architecture in this context as an active participant in political rule, projecting the identity of those in power and standing in for their physical presence.2
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When Ferdinand II, King of Aragon and Sicily, married his cousin, Isabella of Castile, in 1469, they forged a political alliance that was also a union of the varied artistic heritages of Spain. Their emphasis on a strengthened monarchy, centralized administration, and religious conformity shaped their artistic patronage as well. Isabella was the more active patron, with a varied court entourage of scholars, artists, and architects from the Iberian peninsula and abroad. Isabella’s confessor, Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1436–1517), shaped the religious conservatism of the Catholic Monarchs. The rigid intolerance toward the Moors and Jews, especially those in the kingdom of Granada that Ferdinand and Isabella ultimately captured in 1492, reflected Cisneros’s austere religious policies. The imperial aspirations of Spain in the Americas and Africa were a further aspect of Cisneros’s fervour to support an ascendant Spanish monarchy. The court style of Ferdinand and Isabella’s architectural patronage was also imperial, taking elements from all aspects of the rulers’ own ancestry as well as elements from the territories they brought under Spanish rule.
Ferdinand and Isabella’s rule was challenged by the claims of Juana la Beltraneja, daughter of the previous King of Castile, Enrique IV. Isabella, Enrique IV’s sister, eliminated the challenge when her and Ferdinand’s forces defeated the Portuguese King Alfonso at the Battle of Toro (1476). In thanksgiving for the victory, Isabella founded the Franciscan monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo (1477–1504) that was intended to serve as the royal mausoleum [49].3
The plain, undecorated walls of the exterior reflect Cardinal Cisneros’s own stylistic preferences for austere architecture, with few external flourishes. That restraint, however, is not present in the decoration of the cloister or chapel at San Juan de los Reyes. The church has a wide central nave, with four chapels along each side, shallow transepts, and an octagonal apse. That relatively simple plan provides ample opportunity for the architect, Juan Guas, to glorify the patrons through lavish decoration and royal symbols.
The richest decoration is at the crossing between the nave and shallow transepts, under the lantern vault where the royal tombs would be placed. Throughout the church and cloister the vaulting is of a type that was used throughout Europe, combining Gothic forms in a regular and mathematically composed way. The cimborio has vaulting (parallel ribs) like that used at the domes of the great mosque in Cordoba. North and south, the walls of the transept are covered with the royal heraldry, the sheaf of arrows and the yoke, emblems of submission and control. Heraldry spoke a clear language to any visitor, and would have been supervised by a member of Isabella’s court. That responsibility may have fallen to the court humanist Antonio de Nebrija, who also composed the Queen’s motto Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando (‘As much as the one is worth, so is the other’), thus proclaiming that Isabella’s power was equal to that of her husband’s. Shaping the court image, through architecture, was an important part of politics.
49 Juan Guas, Chapel, San Juan de los Reyes, 1477–1504, Toledo, Spain
The simple, aisle-less church allows the rich carving and sculpture to take centre stage. Gothic tracery, treated as a balustrade, runs along the top of the entablature above the arches. The richest decoration is in the crossing with its very shallow arms. There sculpture including heraldry and inscriptions proclaim the glory and triumphs of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Juan Guas (c.1430–1496) was the Master of the Royal Works for Isabella, and principal architect at San Juan de los Reyes. He was born in Brittany (France), the son of a mason, and arrived in Spain at about the age of 10. His training in Spain gave him a first-hand understanding of the crafts of building and the coordination of teams of workers including sculptors, scholars, artists, and craftsmen.
The ornament at San Juan de los Reyes is a combination of forms and techniques from Islamic craftsmen who had been working in Spain even after it had been placed under Christian rule (called mudéjar), and Flemish late Gothic architecture, introduced through the strong ties to French culture. This Hispano-Flemish style is uniquely representative of the mix of cultures in Isabella’s political and cultural world. Craftsmen brought with them knowledge of building traditions from their own backgrounds, and these were combined in the construction and ornament at San Juan de los Reyes. Thus, the ceiling in the cloister is a traditional Islamic ceiling construction, called artesonado, composed of multiple interlocking pieces of wood, here with the emblems of the Catholic Monarchs [50]. This combination of traditions in Hispano-Flemish architecture should not be necessarily seen as a sign of tolerance but rather part of Ferdinand and Isabella’s policy of imperial assimilation, combining elements from the various cultures and entities under their rule. Much Renaissance court art takes a similar approach in creating a style fused from various sources as a mark of the ruler’s power to bring all his people into his domain. Here the combination may have been as part of a harsh political reality, yet the effect preserved the heritage of the Christian and Muslim origins of Ferdinand and Isabella’s dominions.
50 Juan Guas, Upper cloister, San Juan de los Reyes, 1477–1504, Toledo, Spain
One of Guas’s great skills was his ability to merge architectural traditions and techniques from the various cultures that inhabited the Iberian peninsula. Artesonado, a Spanish term for the intricately joined wooden ceilings, derived from North African and Spanish building traditions. In Islamic architecture, artesonado ceilings could represent the seven heavens of Islam. The technique continued to be used into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and often incorporated, as here, other decorative elements such as heraldry.
Having survived three marriages, the first to Charles VIII, King of France, when she was just an infant, Margaret of Austria (1480–1530) spent her last years at the centre of her own court of humanists, poets, and artists. She was the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, and as was usual for the children of royal and noble families, had her life planned through a series of political alliances. The marriage to Charles VIII was annulled after only three years, when Margaret was 3, but she was then wed to Juan, heir of Castile and Aragon, son of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Juan’s sudden death in 1497 left her free to marry Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, in 1501. By 1504 Margaret was a widow once again. Now, however, Margaret took up her role as Regent of the Netherlands, and began to shape her court and palace at Mechelen.
As with many important female patrons of the Renaissance, Margaret had the political savvy to negotiate a life that allowed her as much freedom as possible within the accepted behaviour for noble women. Books such as De institutione feminae christianae by the humanist Juan Luis Vives (1524) prescribed appropriate images of women, aligning their image with that of the Virgin Mary.
In 1506 Margaret chose the city of Mechelen for her permanent residence, where her close relative, Margaret of York (1446–1503) had spent the last thirty years of her life. For the city fathers, the opportunity to welcome Margaret of Austria’s entourage encouraged them to support financially the construction of her residence.
The city architect of Mechelen, Anthonis Keldermans I, designed the new palace wings for Margaret incorporating existing houses near the site, and taking into account a hospital and church that were the property of Margaret’s father, Maximilian [51]. Keldermans was a member of a large family of architects, masons, and artists working in the Burgundian Netherlands.
Brick and stone combined were used for court and noble architecture where stone was at a premium. The distinctive linear patterning that runs across the building unified the separate stages of construction, and marked out the palace as a building of high status through the mixture of materials and the uniformity of its construction. Staessen Le Prince, a member of an important family of stonecutters and stone suppliers, provided the stone components of the loggia at Mechelen.4
51 Anthonis Keldermans I, Palace for Margaret of Austria, begun 1506, Mechelen, northern Netherlands
The loggia merged the old and new sections of the palace, and marked out Margaret of Austria’s transformation of the existing structure. The antique work, however, was localized by employing regional building materials and techniques as well as the use of stepped gables set against the steeply pitched roof.
Rooms devoted to her collections of art and objects distinguish parts of the palace built for Margaret. A thick walled jewellery chamber, deep within the palace, held precious objects, including gold and silver plate. A ‘riche cabinet’ in Margaret’s living quarters contained objects that established her royal lineage and authority to rule, including twenty panel paintings by Juan de Flandres, originally belonging to Margaret’s first mother-in-law, Queen Isabella of Castile. Hangings, tables, and chandeliers were marked with Margaret’s coat of arms with angels and enamelled daisies. The most extraordinary wunderkammer, however, was the coral cabinet, off the garden courtyard. Margaret herself organized the unique and curious objects in the room, including over fifty branches of natural coral, precious stones, religious figurines, and scientific instruments such as astrolabes, games, and mirrors. Many of the objects were adorned with her initials forming an acrostic of the French version of her name, Marguerite.5
Here, she used ‘anticse werken’, or antique work, that is, classical architecture. The loggia in the main courtyard included a type of composite column, four round columns surrounding a square pier, a distinctive invention of the architect, Rombout II Keldermans, and the mason, Staessen Le Prince. This free interpretation of ancient Roman architecture, and modern buildings based on those models, created a distinctive local style that could be identified as the mark of a particular region or patron. But overall, the very use of classical elements, understood by the knowledgeable architectural observer to be derived from antiquity, aligned that building and its patrons with the ideals of ancient culture. Humanist scholars, especially those such as associated with Margaret’s court, translated ancient texts into the local language, offering the knowledge of ancient culture as a model for modern life. Architecture based on antiquity did much the same thing, serving as a sign of Margaret’s own intellectual prowess and interest in the highest forms of learning and culture.
Classical architecture made sense for Margaret of Austria’s palace in Mechelen, as it served as a statement of her educational ideas. At the same time as Margaret was involved in her palace, however, she was also actively directing the construction of her church and tombs in Brou, in the duchy of Savoy, chosen for its connection to Margaret’s husband, Philibert [52]. There, the choir and tombs for Margaret, her husband Philibert of Savoy, and her mother-in-law Margaret of Bourbon employ lavish Gothic ornament in the tracery, finials, and sculptural decoration. This use of Gothic was thoughtfully modulated by Margaret and her artists, Jan van Roome and Loys van Broghem, both from Brussels. Margaret chose Gothic at Brou only after she had considered other options, including a design more Italianate and based on ancient Roman models. Lavish ornament at Brou is at once a sign of her wealth and a statement of her allegiance to a tradition of royal monuments. Margaret had lived in Spain during her brief marriage to Juan of Castile from 1497 to 1499, and during those years the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo was nearly completed. Tracery, vegetal ornament, and use of heraldry in Toledo all offered an important model for Margaret to adopt in her own works.6
52 Lodewijk van Boghen, Jan van Roome, and Conrat Meyt, Tomb of Margaret of Savoy, 1516–30, Church of St Nicholas, Brou, France
In the sixteenth century Gothic architecture was called ‘modern’ work to distinguish it from classical architecture, or the antique.
Given the richness of the architecture of Ferdinand and Isabella, the austerity and restraint of the monastery of S. Lorenzo el Real des Escorial (1563–84), built for Philip II, is a radical departure for the architectural traditions of Spain. It had a threefold function: as a monastery for the Hieronymite order; as a church that would serve as a funeral chapel for Philip’s father Charles V and the Hapsburg dynasty; and as a palace [53]. The very size and dominance of the Escorial signals Philip’s less itinerant political policies, especially in contrast to his peripatetic father, who claimed that an emperor needed no other residence than his saddle.7 The church is dedicated to the Spanish saint St Lawrence, martyred in the third century over fire, and the geometrical form of the gridirons appears on the façade of the building and more obliquely in the plan of the complex overall [54].
53 Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, San Lorenzo el Real de Escorial, 1563–84, El Escorial, Spain
Philip II kept close control of the architectural planning and construction. The specific choices of plan and ornament must reflect therefore his approach to building. Overall the building evokes the sort of single-mindedness and clarity that one would expect when the patron is so involved. The temple front on the western façade, seen here, does not lead directly into the church, as one would expect, but into the courtyard, with the church beyond.
54 San Lorenzo el Real de Escorial, 1563–84, El Escorial, Spain
All three sections of the monastery are entered from the western façade: the monastery to the south, church at the centre, and the seminary and Colegio to the north. Cross-shaped divisions incorporate patios or courtyards, as seen in this seventeenth-century painting. The palace for Philip II was along the eastern side of the complex, entered through the northern façade. The sequences of rooms for particular groups within this vast building are clearly defined and legible in the plan. Scholars have suggested various interpretations for the plan as the New Jerusalem or Augustine’s City of God. The highly reduced classical architecture, however, evokes ideas of a primal Christian building type, derived from ancient models and transformed for modern use.
Philip’s father, Charles V, had already set a new pattern of building in the construction of a palace within the sprawling layout of the great fourteenth-century palace of the Islamic Nasrid Dynasty, the Alhambra in Granada [55]. There the architect Pedro Machuca had devised a plan of a circle within a square, the most constrained of architectural compositions, as a counterpoint to the fluid, experiential spaces of the Alhambra. Whereas the Lion Court and the seemingly endless sequence of rooms from the earlier Islamic palace have no obvious edges, no beginning and no end, the Palace of Charles V expresses the most overt geometry. A two-storey courtyard is ringed with Doric and Ionic columns, echoing Italian architecture. It is the contrast, however, between the cultural past and the political present that must have compelled Charles and his architect to create this imperial statement of Hapsburg rule, side by side with the Islamic tradition that runs throughout Spanish history and culture.
55 Pedro Machuca, Palace for Charles V, 1533–61, Granada, Spain
Machuca spent his early years in Italy, and returned to Spain with a thorough knowledge of art and architecture in Rome at the workshop of Raphael. The strict geometry of Charles V’s palace is a radical departure from the fluid design of the Alhambra to which it is attached.
The Escorial sits in the shadow of the rolling hills outside Madrid, and that undulating landscape makes the rigid geometry of six quadrangles, grid-like and unrelenting, appear even starker. The threefold function of the complex is manifest in the building’s plan: the church is at the centre of the complex, with palaces for the family to the right and a palace for the courtiers to the left. The front quadrangle is dedicated to the monastery and university functions.
The first architect was Juan Bautista de Toledo, from Naples, who had worked on St Peter’s in Rome as an assistant to Michelangelo. Thus he brought to the design of the Escorial an understanding of the use of the classical orders as a reference to antiquity and as a way to connect new construction to the gravitas and solemnity of ancient Roman architecture. As at St Peter’s, however, the models from the past were always tempered with new interpretations and local references. Philip began the building of the Escorial after he had returned from a prolonged time in Flanders, and just as San Juan de los Reyes incorporated vegetal ornament from the Gothic tradition, so too did he press for Flemish associations here in the pitched roofs and spires of the corner towers.
After Juan Bautista de Toledo’s death in 1567, his assistant Juan de Herrera (1530–97) became the architect in charge. He worked within the general plan laid down by his predecessor yet shaped the ultimate appearance of the building through the choice of ornament, use of architectural materials, and understanding of the goals of his patron, Philip II. Herrera began his career as a member of the army, and his expertise gained there in mathematics, scientific instruments, fortification, and engineering provided valuable expertise to the court. These disciplines were also understood to be an essential part of the training for any architect, based on classical and humanist writings. The shift to architectural design in his role as court architect proved the value of science as a fundamental training for architecture or, in fact, any practical service at court. This background certainly shaped Herrera’s approach to the design at the Escorial. The masses of the building are conceived of as geometric solids, punctuated through the use of classical ornament. The size of the building certainly demanded a thorough understanding of construction techniques and engineering. Yet Herrera makes that mathematical process evident in the reduction of ornament to a minimum, and the focus kept on the fundamentals of the architecture’s materials and structure.
His architecture continued the classicizing trend initiated by Pacheco and developed under Juan Battista, yet his particular feel for the essence of classicism led him to shape a style of building which subsequently in the nineteenth century came to be called the estilo desornamentado, or the unornamented style, a negative term that historians coined to describe what they saw as severe and restricted ornament.8 The pilasters in the church at the Escorial, or the vaulting in the hallways throughout the palace, typify an architecture which attempts to balance the massing of the structure with an ornamental system with enough strength and clarity to inflect the grey granite used throughout.
Philip II’s court historian and librarian, Fray José de Sigüenza (1544–1606), was a witness to the building of the Escorial. Around 1590 he wrote a two-part book about the building, describing first a history of the Hieronymite monastic order based there and second an analysis of the architecture.9 Sigüenza based his interpretation of the restrained style of the Escorial on his knowledge of St Augustine (354–430), whose works had a special significance as the founding tenets of the Hieronymite order. Using the aesthetic categories described by Augustine, Sigüenza praises the Escorial as an expression of the rule of Philip.
One of the great beauties of this building is seen in how all its parts imitate one another, and how much the whole is in all the parts. The building which fails to keep this order shows the poor resources and understanding of its architect, in not having bound together or unified the whole body. What we call correspondence is none other than the right reason of art … with the authority not alone of Vitruvius … but that of the divine Augustine, doctor of the church, who, as a man of high genius, wished, among a thousand other matters of learning found in his books, to touch also on this of correspondence in architecture.
As Spain had lost the habits of the fine arts in the savagery and wildness of the war against the Moors … people were astonished to see preserved here [at the Escorial] so much correspondence in architecture, and believed that it was only the taste or inclination of King Philip, or an idle curiosity, that wherever a door or window appeared another should respond to it … Thus we may say that this Prince, as we learn from Saint Augustine, returned us to reason and made us notice that the arts contain reason both in themselves and in the proportion they make with our souls.10
A more florid ornamental system, such as that used for Ferdinand and Isabella, would have been totally out of keeping with the austerity desired by Philip II. Classical details at the Escorial are often reduced to such a degree, as in the fluting of a column isolated on a wall or the traces of handrails along the main staircase, that they seem a distant echo of the most avant-garde architecture in Italy or elsewhere. The most current architectural treatises such as Sebastiano Serlio’s Regole generali di architettura sopra le cinque maniere degli edifici (Venice, 1537–51), translated into Spanish by Francisco de Villalpando (1552), offered architects options in their interpretation of the orders. Yet the innovation seen at the Escorial is a specific response to the wishes of the patron in light of local traditions and the history of architecture in Spain.
No architectural form better represents royal power than the triumphal arch. In the ancient world, free-standing arches represented the triumph of ancient Rome and her control over a vast empire. Two of the best known arches in the Roman Forum, the arch of Septimius Severus (dedicated in 203) and the Arch of Titus (dedicated in 315), celebrated military victories. Their function, therefore, was celebratory and commemorative, making a permanent urban monument that incorporated the temporary banners of festival architecture. Alberti incorporated the form of the local Roman arch of Augustus (27 BC) in the exterior of the church of San Francesco in Rimini [56, 57]. Even for those places that did not have their own Roman arch surviving from the past, the form was well known through prints and publications. A triumphal arch was such a powerful mark of political power and military triumph that its very appearance gave the imprimatur of the royal presence.
The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I connected himself to these long-standing traditions through the creation of a triumphal arch laden with his coat of arms, family portraits, genealogical trees, and a display of classical architectural forms. One scene within the arch commemorates Maximilian’s rediscovery of a fragment of the robe worn by Christ at the Crucifixion, and long forgotten in the Cathedral of Trier.11 Devised by the court artist Albrecht Dürer from about 1512 on, the arch was not constructed in any permanent material, but rather composed of 192 woodblock prints and when assembled was over 7 square metres. An edition of 700 was made in 1517–18, and sent to the councils of imperial cities and loyal princes.12 Its description as an Ehrenpforte, or Gate of Honour, reflected both the long traditions of the form and imagery related directly to Maximilian I [58].
For Federico da Montefeltro (1422–82) and his wife Battista Sforza the creation of a great court meant the creation of a great city. They transformed Urbino, the small town in the hills west of Rimini, into the setting for a magnificent court by building convents, monasteries, and a cathedral. Their patronage confirmed their control of the city through good works and financial support.
56 Arch of Augustus, 27 BC, Rimini, Italy
Ancient Roman arches commemorated military triumphs and were known by travellers as well as from treatises and guides. The form of the arch, with a large central arch and smaller side arches, became a marker of ancient architecture. Renaissance architects used the a-b-a pattern of the arch as a recognizable rhythm on building façades, as in Bramante’s Belvedere. Where there were local examples, as in Rimini, those often served as the models for Renaissance builders.
57 Leon Battista Alberti, Church of San Francesco, enlarged 1450–6, Rimini, Italy
Alberti wrapped the earlier 13th-century church, built of brick, in a new shell of white marble. He modelled the arches, attached columns, and roundels on the ancient Arch of Augustus, not far from the church. Sigismondo Malatesta (1417–68), condottiere and prince, aimed to create a cultural centre in Rimini through the patronage of scholars and artists, and by positioning himself as the restorer of ancient Roman greatness. The cloak of classical learning and the arts at San Francesco proclaimed Malatesta’s cultural ambitions. Alberti’s project was never completed, and is known primarily from the survival of a foundation medal that shows the building as if it were completed.
58 Albrecht Dürer, Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I, 1512–18
The invention of movable type print in the mid-fifteenth century, and the expansion of block printing technology, encouraged ambitious projects such as this arch for Maximilian I. It allowed him to control the imagery used for his triumphal entries; he was not dependent upon local guilds or groups to create arches in his honour. Easily erected, and as easily taken down, innovative schemes promoted the royal image in the absence of the ruler himself.
Federico was Count of Urbino from 1444 to 1482, and then given the title Duke of Urbino in 1474 by Pope Sixtus IV, a new honour that rewarded him for his service to the papacy as military commander. Federico had made his wealth through his role as a condottiere, providing troops for hire. Military culture therefore dominated all of his building projects, either in the form of fortifications throughout his territory in the Marche region on the northern Adriatic coast of Italy, or as symbolic elements in his own palace in Urbino [59]. The court residence’s renovation and expansion, beginning in 1450, was attuned to its setting within the city and appearance from afar. Federico had a piazza, or open space, created on the city side of the palace toward the east. Along this façade, doors and windows were to be covered with marble revetments, and framed with classical pilasters and surrounds, although only parts of this side were completed.
The palace on the edge of the city, rising from the sheer cliffs that were the city’s setting, was the main sign of Federico’s magnificence. Approaching the city from the west, the great walls of the palace appear impenetrable. Yet on this side Federico had also built a tower with a three-storey loggia of classical arches. Impressive from a distance and marking the palace as a princely seat, the arches offered a commanding view across the landscape. This quality of the visible—seeing the palace against city and prospect from palace—reflects the complex way this building both defined the image of the ruler and reinforced his own understanding of his political rule.
59 Urbino, Italy
The town, and the palace of Federico da Montefeltro that marks its edge, is high on a rocky hill, commanding the valley below. With the architectural advice of Luciano Laurana (from 1468) and later Francesco di Giorgio, Federico began an ambitious programme of renovation and expansion, adding extensive wings and suites of rooms, gardens, towers, and courtyards. The two towers, framing arches, provide views over the countryside and a multistoreyed triumphal arch, visible to all approaching the town.
The grandeur of Federico’s palace, as with many of the great court residences in Europe, resides in control of the movement through the courtyards and rooms. Here, visitors would climb the great height from the city to the palace via a long ramp accessible by horses and on foot. The great courtyard entered first immediately signalled that here was the palace of a cultured soldier [60]. Arches on composite columns, a triumphal architectural form, ring the regular space of the courtyard. An inscription in ancient Roman lettering proclaims the glory and culture of the patron. The geometric regularity of the courtyard and choice of ornament suggest how Federico da Montefeltro could control not only his political world but also the shape of its architectural setting.
A wide, dignified staircase rises on an axis from the courtyard, leading to the ceremonial rooms and private apartments on the upper storeys [61]. Separate apartments were laid out for the prince and his wife, with the rooms becoming progressively smaller as one moves into the more private spaces. A separate apartment provided for the warmer days of the summer. Battista Sforza’s rooms connected with the cathedral next door, offering her direct access to private chapels for her devotional practices and masses. Several sequences of rooms were planned around a giardino pensile, or hanging garden, with windows in its outer wall giving views across the landscape. Equally impressive as the spaces above are the vast service areas in the substructure of the building, including stabling for hundreds of horses and storage for the food and supplies needed for the large numbers connected with the court.
60 Luciano Laurana and Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Cortile d’Onore, 1467–72, Urbino
The courtyard forms the centre of the palace plan, and all activity radiates out from it. Laurana treated each side of the courtyard as a distinct façade, breaking the continuity of the arcade with strongly articulated piers at the corners. Francesco di Giorgio completed the storey above the arches, and the attic storey was added in the mid-sixteenth century. Laurana was born in Zara, Dalmatia (now Zadar, Croatia), but knew the buildings of Brunelleschi and Alberti. Out of their work he forged a distinctive style and a reputation for refined and modern palaces.
61 Staircase, Urbino
The planning for the staircase probably happened early in the history of the palace. Its position in the main wing of the palace affected many other factors of the design including the location of windows on the exterior. The stairs move up through the building with wide and gracious steps, adding exceptional dignity to the experience of the building on even the most basic level.
The Reformation in Denmark and Sweden exacerbated tensions between the King, the clergy, and the nobility. In Denmark the exile of the Catholic King Christian II in 1523 allowed his uncle, Frederick I, to gain control and bring the Lutheran Protestants to the throne. The following decades saw fractious manoeuvring for power between the monarchy and the nobility, with economic and political control finally secured in a hereditary monarchy. For the King to maintain his rule, however, required a steady source of income. A toll, the Sound Dues, levied on all ships passing through the Øresund, the narrow straight between Denmark and Sweden that leads to the Baltic Sea, provided up to two-thirds of the monarch’s income in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and remained in effect into the twentieth century. Ships were required to pay up to 2 per cent of the value of their cargo, risking cannon fire from both sides of the strait if they refused to pay. This toll, financially so important, enabled King Frederick II to vastly expand Kronborg, the fifteenth-century fortress in the town of Helsingør, beginning in 1574 [62].13
Impressive from both land and sea, Kronborg encompassed some of the earlier structures built on the site in the 1420s by King Erik of Pomerania. The castle is situated out on the krogen, or hook, extending into the sound, and is set off from the town which was planned and developed in the previous century. Such a position enhanced the visual effect of the castle, discouraging any merchants trying to thwart the King’s taxes.
Frederick II’s first concern was the redesign of the fortifications that were by the sixteenth century out of date. New bastions and curtain walls provided extra protection and an impenetrable appearance. The Flemish architect Antonis van Obberghen (1543–1611) was brought in to design the fortifications, having extensive experience as a military engineer and designer in Antwerp, Dresden, Wrocław, and other northern cities. Three ranges of the earlier castle were expanded to four around a central courtyard with corner towers, thus creating the largest castle in Scandinavia. The north wing contained the King and Queen’s apartments. State events such as the celebration in 1589 of the marriage of Anne of Denmark, sister of King Christian IV, and King James VI of Scotland took place in the Riddersal, or Knight’s Hall [63]. Although the hall is missing the rich tapestries that would have been hung for any official occasion, the room’s great length and luminous interior could not have failed to impress any visitor.
62 Anthonis Obberghen, Kronborg Catle, 1574–85, Helsingør, Denmark
Rebuilding the medieval brick castle began with the fortifications. Frederick II wished to create a great courtly residence, but he also needed to ensure his position by collecting taxes from all ships passing through the narrow sound. He added to each wing of the new palace in turn, adding cannon towers, a chapel (based on the Lutheran model at Torgau), apartments, and grand reception halls. From 1580 the castle was resurfaced with white sandstone, giving the appearance of unity to the building that had been added to gradually and making it a visual presence on its site, overlooking the sea.
63 Riddersal, Kronborg, 1579, Helsingør, Denmark
The south wing was raised another storey to accommodate a new ceremonial hall, or throne room. At 62 metres long by 12 metres wide, it was one of the largest banqueting rooms in Europe. A fire in 1629 destroyed much of the room’s original decoration including its wooden ceiling, wall paintings, and fireplaces.
By about 1500, the Jagiellonian dynasty controlled a vast expanse of central Europe from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea, eastward into Russia and encompassing Hungary and Bohemia. Vladislav II Jagiełło chose to base his court in Prague, which along with Krakow, Buda, and Prague all had a tradition of humanist culture that included all areas of the arts and letters. Scholars came from Italy and were employed at the court throughout the fifteenth century.
Vladislav’s decision to occupy the Hradčany Castle in Prague from 1485 allowed him to associate his rule with the long history of Bohemian kings who had held the castle before. He established a political continuity that ensured the legitimacy of his reign. The architect Benedikt Ried was brought in to add onto the existing structure.
The existing hall was, at the time it was completed, the largest ceremonial hall in central Europe [64]. Using walls from the earlier palace, Ried created a vast vaulted space supported on massive piers that reach down into the lower floors. Flame-like vaulting seems to rise in a miraculous way over the floor, creating a royal baldachin where the pageantry of state could be performed. Ried varied the vaulting slightly on the Riders’ Staircase that leads to the hall, by which knights on horseback could enter. This vaulting type was an elaboration of the older, traditional ornament used in the Gothic period, and derived from religious architecture. Yet the vaulting goes far beyond any specific Gothic examples. Its technical virtuosity and effect are the mark of a new ruler intent on making a link with the history of Bohemian rulers. In doing so, Vladislav sought to align his own reign with earlier Bohemian kings.14
64 Benedikt Ried, Vladislav Hall, finished 1502, Hradčany, Prague
Ried made this vast hall, the largest in Europe at the time, out of three smaller spaces. The vaulting embraces the whole of the space, covering the ceiling and side walls in one large stroke that emphasizes the vastness of the space.
Benedikt Ried, however, worked in two different modes at Hradčany Castle. As if speaking in two languages he adapted classical forms as well as Gothic traditions. Classical architecture, including the full vocabulary of columns, entablatures, and mouldings, had earlier been used by Florentine architects working in Hungary. This architecture was well known by both Ried and his patrons in Prague, and evoked the principles of humanist education that, as we have seen, were part of courtly culture. Alongside the Gothic, this other language of architecture was used for the exterior of the hall, window frames, and entrance doors [65].15
Both traditional and more modern architectural forms expressed the complex identity of Vladislav’s rule: a rightful heir to the tradition of Bohemian rule, and equally fluent with the humanist culture popular in the European courts. Classical architecture, referred to as the modern style, was closely associated with the study of the history, literature, and natural sciences of the ancient world. The analogy of language is useful here. Courts were increasingly international. In addition to foreign visitors, diplomats, and envoys, they offered numerous employment opportunities for the expertise of scholars, scientists and artists. But an interest in humanist culture, as ever, did not preclude the importance of local traditions. Vladislav probably requested renovations and additions to the castle in Prague from both conventions. Art, architecture, and other forms of court display were most effective when they spoke to diverse audiences, both in a local dialect and in an international language.
65 Benedikt Ried, Vladislav Hall, finished 1502, Hradčany, Prague
The large rectangular windows of the hall are framed on the exterior with classical window surrounds.
Under Grand Duke Ivan III (reg. 1462–1505), Moscow became the capital of the Russian state. Moscow gained a further status as the centre of the Orthodox Church when they broke from western European church leaders after the Council of Florence in 1439. At that meeting the Byzantine and eastern churches joined with the Bishop of Rome in recognizing the power of the Pope and the benefit of joining forces in resisting the threat from the Ottoman Empire. The Russian Church, however, refused to cede their independence to the Roman Church. On both religious and political grounds Moscow was, by the middle of the fifteenth century, an autonomous power and Ivan III initiated a building programme that would provide the appropriate setting for the new capital of the powerful Russian state.
The existing walls of the Kremlin were stone, which had replaced the earlier walls of oak, but by the fifteenth century these were dilapidated and dangerously weak. Ivan III had the walls rebuilt with specially designed bricks that were particularly heavy and strong. Twenty towers marked the vulnerable corners and entrances of the fortifications. Ivan commissioned new palaces and banqueting halls within the Kremlin, all necessary additions for the new capital. For the walls and other new buildings, Ivan hired both Russian architects who knew the regional building traditions as well as foreign architects and engineers who had the latest technical knowledge necessary to solve specific building problems. Pietro Antonio Solari (c.1450–1493) of Milan designed several of the towers and the Rusticated Chambers (1487–91), a state reception hall.
Ivan III may have known of the technical expertise of Italian architects from his wife Zoë Palaiologa, a niece of the last Byzantine emperor. She had been raised in Rome as a ward of the Pope after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. In addition to her promotion of Italian building, Italy and Russia had a long history of trade, especially for the luxury goods of furs and hawks that ambassadors to the east brought back to Italian courts.16
When Ivan III took power in 1462, the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin was near to collapse. The church had a special political importance as the site of the crowning of Russian rulers and the burial place of Moscow’s princes and metropolitans (the leaders of the Church). Metropolitan Philip, an enthusiastic supporter of Ivan’s building programme, began the renovations to the church. He engaged two Russian architects, Ivan Krivtsov and Myshkin, and ordered new stone from a quarry close to Moscow. The cornerstone for the new church was laid on 30 April 1472; by May 1474 the walls and vaulting of the new church were complete and the large central drum for the main dome begun. An earthquake on 19 May, however, weakened the building, which in addition may also have had serious structural faults from the use of poor-quality stone, insufficient mortar between the blocks, and a construction technique of rubble infill in the walls. The building collapsed the next day.17
That year Ivan sent an envoy to Italy with a mission to hire an architect capable of rebuilding this important church. Aristotele Fioravanti (1420–85) was known for his work as an engineer designing fortifications, straightening towers, and repairing canals. Beginning in 1475, he rebuilt the church of the Dormition with deeper foundations and limestone walls [66]. Fioravanti studied other Russian churches for the design requirements, yet deviated from his predecessors in composing a unified exterior and open, lighter interior space. Tall pilasters and columns serve as buttresses, supporting the five domes that are typical of Russian churches. The unified appearance of the church comes from the repetition of the zakomary and blind arcades, an Italian composition of traditional Russian elements.
66 Aristotele Fioravanti da Bologna, Cathedral of the Dormition, Kremlin, c.1476, Moscow
Italian architects were renowned as great engineers, and Aristotele Fioravanti da Bologna went to Russia in order to shore up the cathedral then being built in the Kremlin. He introduced many structural innovations, including the use of lightweight bricks and deep foundations to prevent further cracking. Although the rebuilt cathedral benefited from Italian engineering, the design and function remained true to Russian ecclesiastical traditions. Aristotele studied buildings in Vladimir and Novgorod in order to understand local traditions for this important church that was used for coronations and imperial ceremonies.
The Italianate interventions in Russian architecture diminished in the next generation of building. After an extensive fire in June 1547, architects working for Ivan IV looked again to Russian models for inspiration. The onion domes and multiple chapels of St Basil’s Cathedral (1555–65) recall Russian wooden architecture. The exterior was later painted, and even more domes added over the chapels, further emphasizing the effect of the exterior and the church’s appearance at the end of Red Square.
For King Francis I, building was a personal passion and a matter of international policy. At the beginning of his reign, he added a new wing at Blois, an ancient chateau that had been earlier renovated by Louis XII. In this new wing a three-storey loggia overlooks the garden, with an impressive open stairway that projects into the main courtyard. Even in this early building project, Francis set the pattern for his later building, incorporating architectural elements from recent Italian building. The loggia at Blois recalled the Vatican loggia designed by Raphael and completed by 1516. The staircase, however, was a grand version of French stairways. Here again a ruler sought an architectural language that incorporated classical building with its authority from ancient sources within the framework of traditional French building traditions.
From 1519, Francis began his grandest building project, the chateau at Chambord [67]. Not far from Blois, along the Chasson River, and on the edge of a great forest, the site was excellent for hunting, the land was under royal control, and thus free from any encumbrances from noble landowners. Francis was here free to build a vast house that embodied all the aspirations of his reign.
The general form of Chambord is based on the traditional French château-fort, the defensible medieval castle with its corner towers and massive walls. The square keep at Chambord recalls that castle type, as it rises from one side of a walled in courtyard. First impressions are of a vast castle rising out of the lush valley, an image well established with French royal building. On closer inspection, however, the fortified aspects of the chateau function as a backdrop to ornament of pilasters, window frames, and mouldings derived from classical models used in architecture in Italy. The plan of the entire chateau is also more regular and symmetrical than earlier châteaux-fort; cross-shaped halls divide the keep into equal quadrants, each holding a separate apartment. This recalls the experiments by Italian architects with Greek cross plans for church designs, including St Peter’s in Rome.
67 Chambord, France
All of the elements used at Chambord can be found in earlier French chateaux (the keep, corner towers, spiral stair). Yet their scale and combination in a centralized, Italianate plan, transform these traditional elements into something new. Francis I spent little time at the chateau; its importance for him transcended any function as a residence. By the end of his reign it had become a monument to him and his rule.
The mix of Italian and French elements appears most dramatically on the roof of the chateau, which seen from a distance looks like a fantasy cityscape of towers and turrets rising from the great mass of the keep [68]. A silhouette of spires against the sky was an important part of medieval architecture, and the mass of the medieval château-fort was an easily visible sign of seigneurial power in the landscape. At Chambord that tradition is amplified into a thousand facets, as now the roof sprouts chimneys, towers, and dormers along alleys of walkways. Detailing on these miniature buildings is classical. Yet the overall effect is more like the flamboyant decoration of late Gothic design than anything in Italy.
68 Roof pavilions, Chambord, France
Roofs were well-used spaces in grand houses. Small pavilions, also called banqueting houses, offered an escape from the formality of the regulated life of the main house. These rooms offered cool air and great views across the landscape and the hunt. In these intimate spaces, diners consumed special confections and exotic meals.
69 Double spiral staircase, Chambord, France
The staircase rises through the centre of the keep. At the centre of the cross-plan it animates the interior of the chateau from its highly visible location. Like other aspects of the chateau, the stair is a French form amplified in its scale and situation.
A double spiral staircase is at the centre of the keep, contained within a stone skeleton [69]. The twisting form within the building breaks through the roof as a lantern and spire, allowing light down into the core. A model of Chambord shows the stair as straight flights, typical in Italian buildings, perhaps an earlier design suggested by an Italian designer. The French solution, used here, creates a marvellous effect that is experienced only when one is at the centre of the stair. Its twisting form, only partially visible at any time, animates the massive building around its double, entwined spirals. At the top, you enter out into light under a stone frame, filled with glass, emerging into the rooftop pavilions.
Many architects, including Domenico da Fontana and Leonardo da Vinci, have been proposed as the designers at Chambord. Francis himself, given his interest in architecture, was certainly involved on some level in the choices of the site, overall conception, and ultimate effect on his royal visitors. A project this complex would have employed a vast number of designers and craftsmen, both domestic and foreign. A conception based on the châteaux-fort provided the framework for countless innovations and modifications.
An interplay between French traditions and Italian planning and ornament perfectly suited Francis I’s ambitions on the European political stage. Francis himself, however, spent little time at this rural palace of vast scale. Its function was to express to both French nobles and international rivals his understanding of the ways in which architecture could express political policy.
Preparations for a diplomatic meeting in June 1520 between King Francis I of France and King Henry VIII of England began months in advance. They met in a valley in north-west France, in between the towns of Guines and Ardres. For two weeks they held tournaments, jousting and competing in mock battles, to celebrate the Treaty of London, a peace agreement they had signed in 1518. Both sides planned elaborate but temporary buildings for their retinues with all of the luxury of their permanent palaces back home [70]. Essentially pavilions, the buildings cost about 200,000 livres (worth about £400,000 in today’s money) and required thousands of hours of labour.
The French encampment was a group of tents, some as tall as 40 metres, covered in a cloth woven with gold and silver threads, lined with blue velvet, and embellished with the French fleurs-de-lis. The effect of the sun on the metallic fabric must have been extraordinary against the green fields. Tents evoked the temporary buildings used in military campaigns, recalling the chivalric imagery at the heart of Francis I’s rule.
The English court held their ceremonial events in temporary Tudor palaces, modelled after the many palaces used by Henry VIII in England. Brick, easily available nearby, was used for the ground floor of the main building. The upper storey was made from wood and plaster, painted to look like brick. Set into these less precious materials were large double windows with individual glass panes shaped like diamonds. The effect of glittering light off the faceted glass rivalled the French tents of gold and silver cloth. If France and England met to celebrate a diplomatic peace, their rivalry continued in the opulence of their architecture.18
70 Tent design for the Field of the Cloth of Gold, June 1520
Several tents were linked together to create a pavilion. Royal mottoes (DIEU ET MON DROIT and SEMPER VIVAT IN ETERNO), royal ‘animals’ holding standards, and the repeated image of the Tudor rose decorate the tents. Although temporary structures, the sophistication of the imagery and richness of the materials were equal to any more permanent building.
None of the buildings survives from this diplomatic encounter; storms threatened to pull down the French tents and they lasted only four days. Yet temporary architecture like this, and the arches built elsewhere for triumphal entries, shaped the public perception of a ruling power’s political reach and international importance. Paintings and written descriptions recorded the events for an audience far greater than the small group who might have seen the temporary structures in person.
The expense and effort of constructing elaborate temporary structures were an extension of a wider cultural policy pursued by both monarchs of using architecture as part of their political rule. Both were insatiable builders. At the end of his life Henry VIII claimed nearly fifty houses, castles, and lodges throughout England.19 And with each new building project, Francis I too reaffirmed his power and presence.
On his accession, Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria (1528–79, reg. 1550–79) moved his capital to Munich. He added buildings to the Residenz, transforming it into an appropriate setting for his growing collection of paintings, coins, and ancient sculpture. In his collecting, as well as in the design of the building, Albrecht V sought the advice of Hans Jakob Fugger, a member of the important banking family of Augsburg. Hans Jakob, however, had little interest in the family business and spent much of his time instead cultivating his own knowledge in the arts and supporting painters, sculptors, craftsmen, and architects who were sympathetic to his rarefied tastes. One of Fugger’s agents in Europe was the antiquarian and artist Jacopo Strada. Fugger surely recommended Strada to the Duke, and in 1567 Strada was in his native Mantua making measured drawings of the Ducal Palace and the Palazzo Te, both belonging to the Gonzaga family [138].20 The Gonzaga palaces were ideal models for this type of building venture because of the reputation of the court as important patrons of the arts, well known to Strada and thus Fugger as well.
Around this time, the Duke was beginning to make plans for the construction of an Antiquarium, a display room for the collection of antiquities he had bought using Strada as agent [71]. In his role as antiquarian to the Duke, Strada offered his knowledge on all aspects of ancient culture and it was probably his idea to make the Antiquarium a long, low room, 69 metres long, under barrel vaults like a Roman cryptoporticus, supporting a library above.21 The room was more cavern-like than it is now; the floor was lowered at the end of the sixteenth century when the artist Frederick Sustris painted the walls and ceilings with grotesque ornament.
71 Jacopo Strada and Bernhard and Simon Zwitzel, Antiquarium, Residenz, begun 1569, Munich, Germany
The long and low shape of this room derived from an ancient Roman model, the cryptoporticus, a covered walkway or passage. The barrel vault shape was meant to provide support to an upper structure, as it does in this case as well. In ancient times the space might have been used for storage. In the Residenz in Munich, the decoration was added later by Frederik Sustris beginning in 1586. The grotesque work, again modelled after ancient Roman rooms, changes the character of the room, making it lighter and less a focus on the ancient sculptures that were the original intention.
Many rulers employed scholars within their court, men able to offer practical advice on culture as well as military tactics, religious practice, and political policy. Strada served Fugger and Duke Albrecht, as well as his other clients, by transforming his scholarly knowledge into useful information. From his base in Vienna, Strada worked on numerous publications, including books based on his own drawings of buildings and the work of artists such as Titian and Raphael, as well as supervising the projects of others. In Lyons in the 1550s Strada had met the architect Sebastiano Serlio and purchased his unpublished manuscript that he later had printed and published. As Imperial Antiquary, Strada was an agent and promoter, supervising projects as diverse as court festivals, silver table services, and artistic programmes for his wealthy and powerful patrons.
