Spread of Renaissance architecture in Europe


 Façade of the Convent of San Esteban (Salamanca).
Façade of the Convent of San Esteban (Salamanca).

The Renaissance was a movement almost restricted to the Italian cultural world during its first two centuries of development (between the fourteenth and sixteenth, approximately), during which, in the rest of Europe, surviving architectural styles, generally linked to Gothic or the late-Romanesque. Finally, in his peak moment, the classical aesthetic renaissance began to spread by the various European countries since its Italian home, due to various reasons: war, annexation of Italian territory, the Italian artists travel to Europe to be employed by the various cuts, etc..

Whatever the reasons, it is true that the spread was more aggressive, paradoxically, by the assimilation of certain anti-classical ideas forged in the Mannerist style booming at that time (early sixteenth century). The classical tratadística was already fully developed, so that architects from outside Italy, in general, had a good command of classical compositional rules and their theories, which already allowed some creative license taken. It should be emphasized that there are scholars who are not considered to Mannerism as a movement linked to the Renaissance, pokies online but as a new and radically opposed to it. Thus, the Mannerist production of other European countries may eventually not be considered a genuine Renaissance architecture. In a sense, you might say, according to this view, that in these countries is typically medieval production combined with post-Renaissance architecture (as in France).

As forms of delivery vary from country to country and even the architecture produced by those countries is actually Renaissance, there is a Renaissance different for each region of Europe, according as the influence came from Italy and the historical moment in which they lived. In general, it appears that the Renaissance gave new elements into the national medieval architecture, still, in many cases hard to distinguish between late Gothic and Renaissance architecture, because it was built based on the combination of both aesthetic.

Renaissance architecture in France

Facade of the Louvre Palace in Paris, the work of Pierre Lescot.
Facade of the Louvre Palace in Paris, the work of Pierre Lescot(right).

France was the first country to embrace enthusiastically the Renaissance style. The Renaissance arrived in the late fifteenth century, when Charles VIII returned in 1496 with some Italian artists after the conquest of Naples. Notably the use of that style in the castles of the Loire Valley, whose first building was the Château d'Amboise (c. 1405), where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last years. The style became prevalent during the reign of Francis I (1515 - 1547). The Château de Chambord (1519 - 1536) is a combination of Gothic structure and Italianate ornament, a style that evolved as architects Sebastiano Serlio, who also worked after 1540 in the Castle of Fontainebleau. There, Italian artists such as Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio , and Niccolò dell'Abbate formed the first School of Fontainebleau. Other architects, such as Philibert Delorme, Jacques du Cerceau Androuet, Jacopo Vignola or Pierre Lescot, also inspired new ideas. Another example is the southwest interior facade of the Louvre Palace in Paris, which was designed by Lescot and covered with reliefs of Jean Goujon. Renaissance architecture still continued to grow strongly in the reigns of Henry II and Henry III.


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