Attention to detail: the early Renaissance
Back home, in Italy, the Renaissance had kicked off with
a certain deadpan classicism. Not so in Spain:
the flamboyance of late, Isabelline Gothic collided with
elements of Moorish decoration and Italy’s renewed
interest in sculptural detail and, in the early 16th
century, came up with Plateresque. It belongs to the
Renaissance, not the Gothic period, because of its
Italianate design motifs – the use of columns and
candelabra shapes that brought an order to the
sometimes chaotic exuberance of late Gothic style.
Façades rather than structural innovation felt the
benefit. Salamanca’s university wears the finest piece
of Plateresque, a façade bearing the impressions of
Fernando and Isabel, fruit and twisted scrolls, although
most people linger to find the stone frog that apparently
brings good fortune. Plateresque style crops up all over
Salamanca’s chisel-friendly sandstone buildings.Putting a name to a façade
Although the author of Salamanca uni’s stirring frontage
is unrecorded, in the Renaissance Spain entered a
modern era in which architects’ names were readily
ascribed to their work. Juan de Badajoz, responsible for
the lengthy façade of León’s Hostel de San Marcos with
its classical columns, busts and studded scallop shell
motif (a recurring symbol of the Camino de Santiago),
came to prominence with the building circa 1514.
Another, Alonso de Covarrubias, worked inToledo,
directing new work at the cathedral in the 1630s before
turning his attention to a less fancy Renaissance style
for the Italianate façade on the city’s alcazar. Similarly,
Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón built a reputation as one of the
16th century’s major architects with the understated
Plateresque façade at the University of Alcalá de
Henares.153- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
What’s in a name
The ‘Plateresque’
name hints at the
style’s sculptural
characteristics: it refers
to what some see as the
silver-like quality of
intricately carved detail.
Platerotranslates from
Spanish as ‘silversmith’.3.2.4 Putting on a front: Renaissance and Baroque