• Cover. Details of the Palazzo Farnese from Letarouilly 
• italy 
•	Chronological Survey of Italian Renaissance Architecture 
•	Frontispiece. DAVID by Michelangelo Florence 

467 		The Architect In the Renaissance 	
481 		Materials 	
491 		Bottega 	
495 		Demonstration at Plsa 	
501 		Facade 	
509 	• 	Elements of the Garden 	
Hon. Editors G. E. Pearse 
Rex Martlenssen 

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The Journal of the Transvaal. Natal and Orange Free State Provincial Institutes of South African Architects and the Chapter of South African Quantity Surveyors. 
202. K e I v In H 0 use. 7 5 Mar s h a II S t r e e t. J 0 h ann e s bur g. Tel e p h 0 n e 33-1936. 
Volume Twenty One Number Eleven. November Nineteen Hundred and Thirty Seven 1 

	
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FACADE. 
B Y 
REX 
MARTIENSSEN 
	" It is not good to have too much liberty. 	It is not good to have all one wants." 
Pascal. 
A geometric analysis of the palace architecture of Renaissance Italy-of the facade ordinance in particular-must carry us very much farther back than the period of the early palaces themselves. Whether we consider those of Rome, Florence or Venice, whether we turn to the mature works of Sangallo or Sanmicheli, to the provincial masterpieces of Rossellino, or to the fretted airy palazzi of the Grande Canal, we must first seek out the root formulae - the initial rules of the classic arrangement. We must establish the fundamentals which existed before the substance of Italian architecture was split between east and west-the common stock of Rome and Byzantium. 
In Italy the Flavian Amphitheatre establishes the note of geometric repetition-ruthless, monotonous, powerful in its cumulative effect. The facade with its rigid and ordered sequence of architectural elements, subdivided into units strictly disciplined according to a pre-arranged notation, sets the motive, flexible only within small limits, “classic," impersonal, and in the great tradition of man's patternizing instincts. 
The facade is anti-plastic, it is without modelling or irregularity save for the outward ripple of its architectural minutiae which never do more than mark the vertical and horizontal components of the geometric arrangement. The cohesion and stability of the structure lies in the inward nature of the disrupting forces. There is not the plastic unity of the homogeneous structure (such as the Roman vault) there is not the poised resistance, the outward propping up of the gothic shell. The forces lie soberly, rhythmically carried from stone to stone, separate, yet controlled in a finite stability. 
The lesson of the amphitheatre at Rome (no less in Pola and Verona, in Nimes or El Djem) lies in the formulation of an architectural alphabet, a series of standards, against which the stature of man can be measured. The repetition of recognizable architectural units in established contexts introduces the conception of scale. The amorphous has no scale because the eye cannot space out and measure its limiting surfaces. The apprehension of space whether in landscape or architecture is dependent upon the disposition of measurable accents within its planes. 
PALAZZO 
SACCHETTI 
	ROM E 	• 	Photo : 
Alinari 
The architect's own house. 
An austere, 
dispasElements 
sionai'e exercise in <the Renaissance idiom. 
of the plan handled with sobriety and spaciousness. The cliff-like facade is relieved by the surging travertine consoles of the ground floor windows. The lofty portone marks the division of symmetry. 
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PALAZZO ANTINORI • FLORENCE 

	

PALAZZO RICCARDI. FLORENCE 

 

 

	

The collective simplicity and single unified shape of such a structure as the amphitheatre makes little demand on the functional modification of the established form. The elliptical plan generated in the vertical dimension offers no difficulties of the order which are encountered to-day. Thus externally there is a plane surface continuous and finite, curved to a simple enclosure. The reconciliation of varying and complicated three dimensional arrangements such as occurred in the great thermae of Rome involves a plasticity which far outruns the basic postulates of the classic notation. We are not concerned with this possibility in the present investigation. It was to the flat geometry of the amphitheatre and of the aqueduct, rather, that the Renaissance architects turned for the inspiration of their surface treatments. In the arches of the Pont du Gard will be found the germs of the austere facades of the Renaissance rather than in the sumptuous tepidarium of Caracalla. 

A study of the plans of the palazzi reveals little fundamental departure from the classical Roman prototype. I have discussed elsewhere':' the development of the Graeco-Roman house in Pompeii from Etruscan and Greek origins. Except for the specialised type of Venice the departure from classical precepts is shown only in the multiplication of floors, in the increased size of apartments. The cortile replaces the peristyle, but the hollow nucleus surrounded by a shell is substantially the same. This constantly external attitude, this dominance of the courtyard facade bending inwards with flat street facade, is the Roman tradition which presupposes the city as an organic unity. It is the result of a life predominantly (and in Mediterranean countries, justifiably) open air. It is the expression of the forum rather than the salon. 

Such a state of affairs must not be regarded from the standpoint of present-day developments. The complete substitution of mechanical transport for pedestrian circulation carries with it an entire revaluation in scale. The individual facade facing a "corridor" street or piazza-once a vital definition in the town space becomes blurred in the movement factor. 

The unit of measure, then, which is the gift of Egypt and Greece has been handed through Rome to Italy of the Renaissance. First the organism of the city composed of unit facades-essentially' repetitive rather than diverse, then the facades measured in turn into alternating voids and solids, these positive and negative components established through the medium of intricate geometric accents. The console, the architrave, the pedestal and pediment each contribute to the exactness of the desired relationship. The use of these sub-elements as we may term them distinguish the direct, the forceful from the subtle, the intellectual. The rude continuity of the Verona amphitheatre compared with the more" designed" Flavian prototype-finds fifteen centuries later a parallel between the strident Palazzo Pitti (almost without accent) and the superb Palazzo Sacchetti with its half tones-fundamentally austere in conception but musically relieved by the surging travertine consoles and the tender moulding of the portone. 
	The palaces of Florence display boldly their Etruscan ancestry. 	The 

Riccardi-constant standard of the Florentine idiom, the Pitti, the Strozzi, all demonstrate within very close limits the tradition of stone wrested from the surrounding quarries of Tuscany and laid massively into giant facades. In Florence the material dominates. It is modelled-the hand rather than the mind is sensed in every rugged projection, in the rich complacency of the 

triple graded surfaces with their separating chains of dentils ... In the windows
there is the continuity of the aqueduct, the eternal stability of Rome and Etruria-but only many years later when Rome had imposed her passionate 

archaeology on the architecture of Italy did the builders of Florence domimate her material with a pattern that was significant in space rather than in solidity. 

The P0111peian HOl/se, •• SOl/th African Arcllitectl/ral Record," July, 1933. 
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PALAZZO FARNESE 

	ROME 	ANTONIO DA SANGALLO 

	• 	Photo: Alinari 

Of the early palaces of Florence the Antinori is the freest from material influence. The smoothness of its wall surface-the dynamic arrangement of its ground floor opening show a delight in material subordination an almost wilful independence from the accepted massivenes of its contemporaries. The bold but light eaves throw a deep brush stroke across the facade, the tall door firmly pierces the expanse of the lower walling ; the whole presages the austere essays which were to appear much later in Rome. The extremely limited nature of the problem of the town dwelling even on the grandiose scale of the Roman examples is a factor which freed the architect from excessive preoccupation with practical details of domestic arrangement.* The axially disposed entrance through the great portone, the 
*In Venice the disposition of the individual palaces in relation to the water streets tends to subordinate the great cortile of Florence into a small court. The salon on the first floor occupies more than a third of the facade width, and this arrangement in combination with the generous first floor balcony imparts to the Venetian examples an exotic flavour having no counterpart in Italy proper, 

easy sweep of the lateral staircase, the service on the ground floor, the vast and impressive salone on the first floor, combine in unvarying sequence. Never do we find any radical departure from this established arrangement. 
In Rome the supreme example of domestic architecture is the Palazzo Farnese. Here, in spite of the generous spacing, there is a strong horizontal quality in the three bands of windows. The vigorously projecting attributes which also extend the apparent width of the openings, tend to diminish the " pierced" nature of the wall surface and to establish progressions rather than static units of solid and void. 
Sangallo designed the Palazzo Sacchetti in a lighter mood. In contrast to the Farnese, the true relationship between window and wall remains intact. The final effect of the facade arrangement is one of repose rather than movement. It is without direction, poised, inevitable. The Sacchetti is the creation of an intellect untinged with passion. 
The culmination of the movement is reached. Products of a controlled impulse, these palaces marked the last stage before impatience with the restrictions of a pure style brought decay, and final collapse into vulgarity. 

CORTILE 

PALAZZO FARNESE 

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Photo: Alinari 

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