Venetian Gothic architecture
Encyclopedia
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
combining use of the Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
lancet arch
Lancet window
A lancet window is a tall narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural motif are most often found in Gothic and ecclesiastical structures, where they are often placed singly or in pairs.The motif first...
with Byzantine
Byzantine architecture
Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to...
and Moorish architecture
Moorish architecture
Moorish architecture is the western term used to describe the articulated Berber-Islamic architecture of North Africa and Al-Andalus.-Characteristic elements:...
influences. The style originated in 14th century Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
with the confluence of Byzantine styles from Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, Arab influences from Moorish Spain and early Gothic forms from mainland Italy. The official name of the typical venetian architecture is gothic commercialism
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
. Chief examples of the style are the Doge's Palace, Beaucastle in Worcester and the Ca' d'Oro
Ca' d'Oro
Ca' d'Oro is a palace on the Grand Canal in Venice, northern Italy. One of the older palazzi, it has always been known as Ca' d'Oro due to the gilt and polychrome external decorations which once adorned its walls.The Palazzo was built between 1428 and 1430 for the Contarini family, who provided...
in Venice.
In the 19th Century, the works of John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
and others drew from the style in a revival, part of the broader Gothic Revival movement in Victorian architecture
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
.
History
The Gothic Period erupted in Venice during a time of great affluence, when the upper class was funding the building of new churches as well as new, opulent homes for themselves. At the same time, monks were beginning to bring the Gothic style to Venice’s churches from mainland Italy. The most striking examples of this new architectural fashion can be seen in Santi Giovanni e Paolo and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. However, these churches were still very similar to those found in the rest of Italy, the main difference being the building materials. It was not until the increase in palace construction, that Venetian Gothic became a distinct style in itself. Influenced by the Doge's Palace, the creators of this new style meshed Gothic, Byzantine, and Oriental themes to produce a totally unique approach to architecture. This Venetian Gothic style lasted well into the 15th century because of the city’s love of ornate decoration and pointed arches.Characteristics and examples
Unique to the Venetian Gothic architectural style is the desire for lightness and grace in structure. While other European cities often favored heavy buildings, Venice had always held the concern that every inch of land is valuable, because of the canals running through the city. Therefore, the Venetian Gothic, while far more intricate in style and design that previous construction types in Venice, never allowed more weight or size than necessary to support the building. This is an interesting concept because, while the window traceries in Northern Gothic construction only supported stained glass, the traceries in Venetian Gothic supported the weight of the entire building. Therefore the immense weight sustained by the traceries only alludes to the extreme weightlessness of the buildings as a whole.One major aspect of the Venetian Gothic style change that came about during the 14th and 15th centuries was the proportion of the central hall in secular buildings. This hall, known as the portego, evolved into a long passageway that was often opened by a loggia with gothic arches. Architects favored using intricate traceries, similar to those found on the Doge’s Palace.
The most iconic Venetian Gothic structure, the Doge's Palace, is a luxuriously decorated building that includes traits of Gothic, Moorish, and Renaissance architectural styles. In the 14th Century, following two fires that destroyed the previous structure, the palace was rebuilt in its present, recognizably Gothic form.
Yet another important example of Venetian Gothic architecture is Santa Maria dei Frari, a Franciscan church. First constructed in the 1400s, this Franciscan church was rebuilt in its current Gothic style in the 15th Century.
Revival
The style was revived in the 19th century, largely through the influence of BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
architectural critic John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
and his treatise The Stones of Venice
The Stones of Venice (book)
The Stones of Venice is a three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture by English art historian John Ruskin, first published from 1851 to 1853. Intending to prove how the architecture in Venice exemplified the principles he discussed in his earlier work, The Seven Lamps of Architecture,...
. In North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
the style was popularized by architects Charles Amos Cummings
Charles Amos Cummings
Charles Amos Cummings , is a nineteenth century American architect and architectural historian who worked primarily in the Venetian Gothic style. Cummings followed the precepts of British cultural theorist and architectural critic John Ruskin...
, Frank Furness
Frank Furness
Frank Heyling Furness was an acclaimed American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his eclectic, muscular, often idiosyncratically scaled buildings, and for his influence on the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan...
, William Robert Ware
William Robert Ware
William Robert Ware , born in Cambridge, Massachusetts into a family of the Unitarian clergy, was an American architect, author, and founder of two important American architectural schools....
, Willard T. Sears
Willard T. Sears
Willard Thomas Sears was a prominent New England architect of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who worked primarily in the Gothic Revival and Renaissance Revival styles....
, and Frederick William Stevens
Frederick William Stevens
Frederick William Stevens was an English architectural engineer who worked for the British colonial government in India. Stevens' most notable design was the railway station Victoria Terminus in Bombay...
. In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the architect William Pitt
William Pitt (architect)
William Pitt born in Melbourne was an architect, public servant and politician working in Victoria, Australia in the later part of the 19th century and early 20th century....
was an exponent of the style and Joseph Reed
Joseph Reed (architect)
Joseph Reed , a Cornishman by birth, was probably the most influential Victorian era architect in Melbourne, Australia. He established a practice, Reed and Barnes in Melbourne in 1852. The practice now known as Bates Smart is one of the oldest continually operating in the world.Reed's buildings...
was known to experiment in it also.