• Author / Uploaded
• JY 143

Citation preview

Italian Gothic Architecture • Milan Cathedral (Italian: Duomo di Milano) is the cathedral church of Milan in Lombardy, northern Italy. • The Gothic cathedral took five centuries to complete. • It is the largest Gothic cathedral and the second largest Catholic cathedral in the world.

• Length 157 metres (515 ft) • Width 92 metres (302 ft) • Width (nave) 16.75 metres (55 ft) • Height (max) 45 metres (148 ft) • Dome height (outer) 65.5 metres (215 ft) • Spire height 106.5 metres (349 ft) • Materials Brick with Candoglia marble

• The plan consists of a nave with four sideaisles, crossed by a transept and then followed by choir and apse. • The cathedral's five broad naves, divided by 40 pillars, are reflected in the hierarchic openings of the facade. • Even the transepts have aisles. • The nave columns are 24.5 metres (80 ft) high, and the apsidal windows are 20.7x 8.5 metres (68 x 28 feet). • The huge building is of brick construction, faced with marble • The height of the nave is about 45 meters, the highest Gothic vaults of a complete church. • The roof carries spectacular sculpture that can be enjoyed only from top. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forestof openwork pinnacles and spires, set upon delicate flying buttresses.

The famous "Madonnina" atop the main spire of the cathedral, a baroque gilded bronzeartwork.

Milan Cathedral(Duomo)

The biggest and greatest late gothic architecture in Italy. 1386-1577, west front 1616-1813

The cathedral as it appeared in 1745.

The Cathedral in 1856.

Milan Cathedral Flying Buttress

The Cathedral of Santa Eulalia (also called La Seu) in Barcelona is both Gothic and Victorian.

Regional variations - France • The distinctive characteristic of French cathedrals, and those in Germany and Belgium that were strongly influenced by them, is their height and their impression of verticality. • They are compact, with slight or no projection of the transepts and subsidiary chapels. • The west fronts are highly consistent, having three portals surmounted by a rose window, and two large towers. • Sometimes there are additional towers on the transept ends. • The east end is polygonal with ambulatory and sometimes a chevette of radiating chapels. • In the south of France, many of the major churches are without transepts and some are without aisles.

Regional differences - Building materials • France - limestone. It was good for building because it was soft to cut, but got much harder when the air and rain got on it. It was usually a pale grey colour. France also had beautiful white limestone from Caen which was perfect for making very fine carvings. • England had coarse limestone, red sandstone and dark green Purbeck marble which was often used for architectural decorations like thin columns. • In Italy, limestone was used for city walls and castles, but brick was used for other buildings. Because Italy had lots of beautiful marble in many different colours, many buildings have fronts or "facades" decorated in coloured marble. Some churches have very rough brick facades because the marble was never put on.Florence Cathedral, for example, did not get its marble facade until the 1800s. • In some parts of Europe, there were many tall straight trees that were good for making very large roofs. But in England, by the 1400s, the long straight trees were running out. Many of the trees were used for building ships. The architects had to think of a new way to make a wide roof from short pieces of timber. That is how they invented the hammer-beam roofs which are one of the beautiful features seen in many old Englishchurches.

• Hammer-beam roof: consists of a seriesof trusses, repeated at intervals, • and its object is to transmit the weight and thrust of the roof as low as possible in thesupporting wall

Regional variations -British • The thing that makes English cathedrals different from the others is that they are long, and look horizontal • English cathedrals nearly all took hundreds of years to build, and every part is in a style that is quite different to the next part. (Only Salisbury Cathedral was not built in lots of styles.) • The West window is very large and is never a rose window. • The west front may have two towers like a French Cathedral, or none. • There is nearly always a tower at the middle of the building, which may have a big spire. • The distinctive English east end is square, but it may take a completely different form. Both internally and externally, the stonework is often richly decorated with carvings, particularly the capitals.

Regional variations -Italy • The plan is usually regular and symmetrical. • With the exception of Milan Cathedral which is Germanic in style, Italian cathedrals have few and widely spaced columns. • The proportions are generally mathematically simple, based on the square, and except in Venice where they loved flamboyant arches, the archesare almost always equilateral. • Colours and moldings define the architectural units rather than blending them. Italian cathedral façades are often polychrome and may include mosaics in the lunettes over the doors.

Italy • Italian Gothic cathedrals use lots of colour, both outsideand inside. • On the outside, the facade is often decorated withmarble. • On the inside, the walls are often paintedplaster. • The columns and arches are often decorated with bright coloured paint. • There are also mosaics with gold backgrounds and beautifully tiled floors is geometric patterns. • The facades often have an open porch with a wheel windows above it. • There is often a dome at the centre of the building. • The bell tower is hardly ever attached tothe building, because Italy has quite a few earthquakes. • The windows are not as large as in northern Europe and, although stained glass windows are often found, the favorite way of decorating the churches is fresco (wall painting).

Regional variations -Italy • The façades have projecting open porches and occular or wheel windows rather than roses, and do not usually have a tower. • The crossing is usually surmounted by a dome. There is often a free-standing tower and baptistry. • The eastern end usually has an apse of comparatively low projection. The windows are not as large as in northern Europe and, although stained glass windows are often found, the favourite narrative medium for the interior is the fresco. • The distinctive characteristic of Italian Gothic is the use of polychrome decoration, both externally as marble veneer on the brick façade and also internally where the arches are often made of alternating black and white segments, and where the columns may be painted red, the walls decorated with frescoes and the apse with mosaic.

Revision - Examples to study • • • • •

Notre Dame, Paris Westminster Abbey Hampton Court Palace, London Doges Palace, Venice Milan Cathedral.