BRICK AND MARBLE

IN

THE MIDDLE AGES:

  Notes of Tours in the North of Italy.
 

BY GEORGE EDMUND STREET, RA.,
MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL AND ROYAL ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS, VIENNA,
ETC. ETC.

SECOND EDITION.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.


LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1874.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

To the Memory
OF
THE RIGHT REV. SAMUEL WILBERFORCE,
LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,
ETC. ETC.,
IN TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR’S MOST SINCERE AFFECTION,
AND
IN GRATITUDE FOR NUMBERLESS BENEFITS RECEIVED FROM HIM,
THIS VOLUME,
ORIGINALLY DEDICATED TO HIM IN 1855,
IS NOW INSCRIBED.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

THE First Edition of this volume has been so long out of print that I had almost ceased to regard myself as responsible for all that it contains. It was the rapid and fresh summary of a happy journey undertaken in the early years of my artistic career. There were, I knew, many details in which it could easily be improved, and many journeys taken over the same ground might have enabled me to go far more into detail than I was able to do when I published it. I find, however, on reading again what I wrote so long ago, that age and greater knowledge of the subject have generally confirmed my old ideas, and that, as far as regards the principles of my book, I still believe them to be true and just. In revising what I wrote, however, I have found myself obliged to make many alterations and additions, sometimes in relation to towns not visited on my first journey, sometimes in reference to buildings either not described at all or at best insufficiently described before. In doing this I have endeavoured not to increase too much the bulk of the volume, and as far as possible not to interfere with the general character or tone of its contents, though in the process of revision the larger portion of the book has had to be re-written.

I hope, if other occupations admit of it, before long to add to this volume a second, containing notes of tours in the centre and south of Italy, undertaken with the same object of studying and describing the too little appreciated art of Italy in the Middle Ages, which seems to me to be almost equally full of interest in all parts of the Peninsula.

The materials which I have accumulated for this purpose are only too considerable, and the very richness of the subject has made me shy of approaching it; but the necessity of publishing another edition of this volume has revived my resolution to complete as soon as possible the work which I originally proposed to myself, and of which I have never lost sight. But whether I accomplish this or not, the volume which I now republish may, I hope, give a tolerably complete view of Italian Gothic architecture north of the Apennines.

Those who wish for further archæological details as to the age and history of buildings, will not find great difficulty in supplementing what I have written. For myself I confess at once that I have not had time or opportunity for examining the documentary history of the buildings I have described, and that the dates where I have given them are generally obtained at second-hand, though never given save where they accord with the architectural character of the work. It was never for merely archæological purposes that I made my many journeys in Italy. Before I first travelled there I had made myself well acquainted with all the best remains of the Middle Ages in England: I had travelled, sketch-book in hand, through France and Germany, and I knew, therefore, something of the art of our fathers in most districts north of the Alps. But so far I had found no time or opportunity for the study of those early Italian buildings which give the key to the history and style of ours, or of those later works in which, with more or less distinctness, the architects north of the Alps repaid the debt they had previously incurred to the South.

I felt then, as I do now, that no study of architecture was complete which did not proceed exhaustively with the study of all European varieties, and above all of that of Italy. Moreover, there was something in the practice and tendencies of our own day which gave special interest and fascination to such a study. We had gone on in our old paths, studying the works of our own country, which in some respects were deficient in their teaching. We wished to combine the best architecture, the best painting, and the best sculpture in our works. The world seemed to respond to our aspirations, and it is south and not north of the Alps that examples of such a combination have to be looked for. So again it was desirable at any rate to meet the demand which was naturally arising for colour in construction, and here again it was in Italy only that numerous ancient examples of such a combination were to be found. These were the special inducements to me in my earliest journey to Italy, and their influence is as strong as ever upon me. I feel, indeed, even more now than then, the importance of such study to the English architect of to-day. The more men educate themselves by the study of ancient examples, the more is their work likely to become refined and scholarly, whilst at the same time there is no real risk of its becoming less original.

It is quite possible, and one wishes above everything to see it usual, for architects to design all their work without special reference to, or really copying from, any old work. But before doing this they ought at least to put themselves in the same position as to knowledge of what had been done before as that in which their forefathers were. Unless they do so, the desire for originality will only be satisfied by the production of excesses and monstrosities, whose only claim is that they are new—one which, in spite of those who demand a new style, I venture to declare to be their sufficient condemnation.

It remains only to say, that since I first visited Italy two works have been published which add infinitely to our knowledge of the sister arts of painting and sculpture, and enable the artist to travel with a full certainty that he will not lose anything by reason of the ignorance or carelessness of his guide. I need hardly say that I refer to Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s ‘History of Painting in Northern Italy,’ and to Mr. C. C. Perkins’s admirable volumes on ‘Italian’ and ‘Tuscan Sculptors.’ To the latter, indeed, I owe I know not how many acknowledgments for the information I have derived from him. He has done that for the History of Mediæval and post-Mediæval sculpture in Italy which had before hardly even so much as been attempted, and his facts and conclusions are almost always so stated as to command the assent of his readers.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

IN these days of railways and rapid travelling there is scarcely any excuse for ignorance of Continental art. The most busy man finds some short holiday in the course of the year, and, if wise as well as busy, spends it not in quiet sojourn at home, but in active search of the picturesque, the beautiful, or the old, in nature or in art, either in his own country or abroad.

And as the holidays of busy men are short, and therefore to be made as much of as possible, I conceive that I shall be rendering some service, and providing myself with a fair