The architecture of humanism; a study in the history of taste

260 THE ARCHITECTURE

OFHUMANISM

tongue makes the drift of

each of them minutely

visible.

WecompareGreekarchitecture

withGothic,

andthe

differenceoflanguageissovast

thatthey

are

scarcecommensurable. The

deductionswecandraw

are

evident, but few. We comparethe

Cancelleria

witha

baroquepalace,and,thoughthedivergenceof

interestisscarcely

lessextreme,weareabletomeasure

itat every point, to see the same greatchange of

principle

inahundredshiftingsofproportion,scale,

distribution, and

relief, .^thetic cause and effect

canherebecloselywatchedandclearlyverified.

One otherfact assists us. Renaissance architec-

ture,

unifiedbytheconventionofitsspeech,isunified,

noless,byaconventioninthe

uses

forwhichitwas

employed. The memory of the city-state controls

the architecture of the smallest Italian town and

keepsitfaithfultoafixedtradition. Thepalaceand

thechurch,builtfrontallyuponthestreet,thearcaded

courtyard,thepiazza,the public loggiaandthegate

—

^these

arethe

perpetualunitsofdesign. Eachhas

itsplace,itsoutline,itsconvention. Thechangesof

style pass over them

;

the pattern of

the

scheme

remains. Renaissance architecture has its own

vocabularyanditsalmostsingletheme.

Aninfiniterangeof

purposeinarestrictedrangeof

forms—Renaissance

buildings, having this, should

disclose the springs

ofarchitecture's

power, ifany

buildings can disclose

them

;

propitiously,

in the