Читать книгу The Englishman's House: A Practical Guide for Selecting and Building a House онлайн

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Towards the middle of the fifteenth century a revival in architectural art took place, especially under Brunelleschi. The patronage of the Medici added a stimulus to the progress thus initiated. Improvements were introduced in the erection of private residences in most parts of Western Europe, the art having in its best form been chiefly till then directed to building edifices for religious purposes alone. In the sixteenth century architecture in Rome attained a perfection nearly equal to that it had formerly enjoyed under the Cæsars, especially during the Augustan age. Private and public buildings were erected of great magnificence, yet of simplicity of form combined with grandeur. Under Vignola architecture attained great excellence. Michael Angelo was appointed architect of St. Peter’s at Rome about the middle of the sixteenth century, and the mention of his name alone is sufficient to call to mind the extent and value of his labours in the art. In the seventeenth century, about the year 1620, Inigo Jones was engaged in repairing St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and subsequently produced designs for the Royal Palace at Whitehall in the reign of Charles I. Greenwich and Chelsea Hospitals, and other noted buildings, were designed about this period. In France and other continental countries architecture attained great perfection at this period, both in respect to public and private buildings. Among the most eminent architects of a period somewhat nearer to our own time, was Sir Christopher Wren, whose St. Paul’s Cathedral serves as a monument to the great genius of that eminent man. This era may, comparatively speaking, be considered as the commencement of the modern style of English church architecture, inasmuch as several productions of Wren are still used for the purposes to which they were first applied, having undergone little or no change since their completion.