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

i6 THE

ARCHITECTURE OF

HUMANISM

though impassioned,

was too

reactionary,

his con-

clusionstooacademicand

tooset,for

an agewhen

creative

vigourwasstill,beyond

measure,

turbulent.

Withthat

turbulencenoartthat

wasnot rapidand

pictorialinitsappeal

couldnowkeeppace.

The

time

was past when an architecture

of such calculated

restraint as Sammichele had

foreshadowed

could

capture

longattention

;

andtheartofPeruzzi,rich

though it was

with never-exhausted possibilities,

seems to have perished unexplored, because, so to

say, its tempo was too slow, its interest
too

unob-

trusive.
Vignola, stronger perhaps than these, is

before long forgotten in Bernini.
Architecture

becomes a debatable ground between
the ideals of

structureand
decoration, andfromtheirfertilecon-

flict new inventions areever forthcoming

to please

a rapidly

• tiring taste. Fashions
  die; but the

Renaissance

itself, more irresistible than any force

which it produced, begets its own

momentum, and

passes on, with almost the

negligent fecundity of

nature, self-destructive and self-renewing.

Weareconfrontedwith

aperiodofarchitectureat

oncedaringand

pedantic,andasuccessionofmasters

theorthodoxy

ofwhoseprofessions

isoftenequalled!

onlybythelicenceof

theirpractice. In

spite

ofits

libertyofthought,

inspiteofitskeen

individualism,

the Renaissance

is yet an

age of

authority;

and

Rome, butpagan Rome

thistime,is

oncemorethe