The document describes the architectural features of several notable buildings in Pisa, Italy from the 12th-13th centuries. It discusses the Pisa Cathedral, known for its two orders of Corinthian columns and pointed arches. It also describes the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a bell tower that leans due to subsidence from a weak foundation. The Campo Santo, a public cemetery from 1277, is notable for its frescoes and elegant tracery along the corridor surrounding the open-air courtyard. The passage explores various hypotheses for the origins and introduction of the pointed arch in European architecture during this time period.
The document describes the architectural features of several notable buildings in Pisa, Italy from the 12th-13th centuries. It discusses the Pisa Cathedral, known for its two orders of Corinthian columns and pointed arches. It also describes the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a bell tower that leans due to subsidence from a weak foundation. The Campo Santo, a public cemetery from 1277, is notable for its frescoes and elegant tracery along the corridor surrounding the open-air courtyard. The passage explores various hypotheses for the origins and introduction of the pointed arch in European architecture during this time period.
The document describes the architectural features of several notable buildings in Pisa, Italy from the 12th-13th centuries. It discusses the Pisa Cathedral, known for its two orders of Corinthian columns and pointed arches. It also describes the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a bell tower that leans due to subsidence from a weak foundation. The Campo Santo, a public cemetery from 1277, is notable for its frescoes and elegant tracery along the corridor surrounding the open-air courtyard. The passage explores various hypotheses for the origins and introduction of the pointed arch in European architecture during this time period.
dome. On tlie exterior are two orders of Corinthian columns engaged in tlie wall, wliich sui)))ort semicircular arches. In the upper order the columns are more numerous, inas- niiicli as each arch below bears two columns above it. Over every two arches of the iip])er oriier is a sharp pediment, separated by a pinnacle from the adjoining ones; and above the pediments a horizontal cornice encircles the buiUling. Al)ove the second story a division in the com])artments occurs, which embraces three of the lower arches ; the se])aratior. being ertected by piers triangular on the plan, crowned by ])innacles. Between these ])iers. semicircular headed small windows are introduced, over each of which is a small circular window, and thereover sharp pediments. Above these the convex surface of the dome springs up, and is divided by twelve ribs, truncated below the vertex, and ornamented with crockets. Between these ribs are a species of dormer windows, one between every two ribs, ornamented v/ith columns, and surmounted each by three small pointed jiediments. The total height is about 170 ft. The cupola is covered with lead and tiles; the rest of tlie edifice is marble. SO.'?. The extraordinary campanile, or bell tower, near the cathedral at Pisa, was built about 1 174. It is celebrated from the circumstance of its overhanging upwards of thirteen feet, a peculiarity observable in many other Italian towers, but in none to so great an extent as in this. There can be no doubt whatever tliat the defect has arisen from bad foundation and that the failure exhibited itself long before the building was completed ; because, on one side, at a certain height, the columns are higher than on the other ; thus showing an en- deavour on the part of the builders to bring back the upper part of the tower to as vertical a direction as was ])racticable, and recover the situation of the centre of gravity. 'Ihe tower is cylindrical, 50 ft. in diameter, and 180 ft. high. It consists of eight stories of columns, in each of which they bear semicircular arches, forming open galleries round the story. The roof is flat, and the ujiper story contains some bells. The last of the grou]) of buildings in Pisa is the Campo Santo, which, from its style and date (l'i7), is only men- tioned here out of its |)lace in order to leave this interesting spot without necessity for further recurrence to it. It is the public burying place of the city, and, whetlier from the remains on its walls of the earliest examples of Giotto, and Cimabue, the beauty of its jiroportions, or the sculjiture that remains about, is unparalleled in interest to the artist. It is a quadrangle, 40.'3 ft. in lengtli, 1 17 ft. in width, and is surrounded by a corridor 32 ft. in breadth. This corridor is roofed, forming a sort of cloister with semicircular-headed windows, which were at first simple apertures extending down to the pavement, but they have been subse<juently divided into smaller apertures by columns, which, from the springing of the arches, branch out into tracery of elegant design. The interior part of the <iuadrangle is open to the sky. Some of the arches above mentioned were completed as late as the year 14G4. The style of the transition to pointed art will be noticed in the section on PoiNrEu Akchitkctuke at the end of Book I. Sect. XV. (a) ORIGIN or THE POINTED AKCII. 294. About the end ot the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century, a most singular and important change took place in the architecture of Europe. The flat southern roof, says Miiller, was su]ierseded by the high pitched northern covering of the ecclesiastical edifices, and its introduction brought with it the use of the pointed arch, which was sub- siuuted for the semicircular one : a necessary consequence, for the roo^' and vi-uits being thus raised, the diameter of the whole could not lie jireserved without changing the entire arrangement of the combination of forms. But we have great doubts on Holler's hypo- thesis ; it will, indeed, be hereafter seen we have a different belief on the origin of the pointed arch. ' Before we at all enter upon the edifices of the period, we think it will be better to put the reader in possession of the different hypotheses in which various writers have in- dulo-ed, relative to the introduction or invention of the pointed arch ; and though we attach very little importance to the discovery, if it could now be clearly established, we are, as our work would be incomplete without the notice, compelled to submit them fjr the reader's consideration. 295. 1. Some have derived this style frovi the hohj groves of the early Celts But we can see no <round for this hypothesis, for it was only in the 14th and 15th centuries that ribs between the groins (which have been compared to the small branches of trees) were intro- duced ; hence it is rather difficult to trace the similarity which its supporters contend for. 29fi. 2. That the stifle oriyinuted from htits made with twigs avd branches of trees intertwined. An hvpothesis fancifully conceived and exhibited to the world by Sir James Hall, in some very interesting plates attached to his work. ]\Ioller properly observes upon this theory of twigs, that it is only in the buildings of the 15th and IGth centuries that the supposed imitation of twigs appears.