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

10 THE

ARCHITECTURE

OF

HUMANISM

true

halting-place.

Thus

the term

'Renaissance

architecture,'

which

originally

denoted

no

more than

theearlier

stages,has

gradually

and

inevitably

come

tobeextended

tothework

ofallthis

period.

It is true that

during these

years

many

phases

of

architectural

style, opposed

inaimand

contradic--

tory

infeeling,successively

arose

;

butthelanguage

in which

they disputed

was one

language, the

dialects they

employed were

all akin

;

and at

no

momentcan wesay

thatwhat

followsisnotlinked

to what

went before by

common reference to a

great

tradition, by a general

participation in a

single

complexofideas.

Andincompatibleasthese

several phases

—the primitive, classic,

baroque,aca-

demic, rococo—may at

their climax appear to

be,

yet, for

the mostpart, they,

grewfromoneanother

by gradual

transitions. The margins

which divide;

themarecuriouslydifficultto

define. Theyform,in

fact, a

completechapterin architecture,tobe

read]

consecutively and as a whole.

And at the two

momentswith

whichourstudybeginsandends,

the

sequenceofarchitectureisradically

cleft. Thebuild-

ing of the Pazzi Chapel in Florence marks

a clear

break with the mediaeval past, and with it rises

a

tradition which was never fundamentally deserted,

until in the nineteenth century traditionalism itseU

wascastaside.

Itis in Italy,

where Renaissancearchitecture

was