File:A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance (1901) (14784598595).jpg

Identifier: historyofarchit02cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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open arcades ofthe town halls. But Florence presents a striking exception to thisOr San Tu\e^ in the building now known as Or San Michele. AMicheie. parish church dedicated to St. Michael, dating from aboutthe year 1000, and standing contiguous to a garden, whence it tookthe vocable of S. Michele in Orto, was taken down in 1284 to makeway for a grain market in the form of an open vaulted loggia, cov-ered by a low tower for the storage of the grain.^ This building,which was the work of Arnolfo, then the official architect of theCommune, was destroyed in whole or in part by the great fire of1304. A few years later, perhaps in 1317, the foundations of a newmarket were laid. It was the period of the greatest development ofthe architectural genius of Florence, and of the highest enthusiasmof her citizens in regard to the embellishment of their city. ThePalazzo Vecchio was approaching completion. The works of the ^ Didron, Annales Archeologiques, vol. xxvi., p. 30. I CIVIL ARCHITECTURE 301
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Fig. 454. Milan. From the Fagade of the Ospedale Mag-g-iore. cathedral, interrupted by the death of Arnolfo in 1311, were aboutto be resumed under the direction of Giotto. Giottos pupil andgodson, Taddeo Gaddi, was made the architect of the new market.But the work seems not to have been seriously begun before 1336.^ The plan and disposition of the building are of the simplest de-scription. It is a perfectly regular rectangle measuring about seventyby a hundred feet, standing free on all sides, and with three highstories, of which the lowest presents three great round arches on eachside, and two on each end, the arches having a breadth of abouttwenty-two feet and a height of thirty-five feet. (Fig. 451.) Thescale thus approaches, though still at a considerable distance, themajestic scale of the great loggia in the Piazza, and the noble sim-plicity of the loggia is still the note of the smaller arcades. Thereseems little doubt that in the beginning the lower arches were open 1 A decree

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