RENAISSANCE. 



KENT 



10 



where columniation displays itself iu all its purity, that was taken as a 

 model, but rather such structures as the Colosseum, where several 

 small orders that is, small in proportion to the general mass are 

 introduced for little more than decoration to it. And in the Renaissance 

 and Cinque-cento (or 1500 as we should say, 16th century) styles, 

 entire orders are used only as embellishment, and avowedly so. Where 

 columns are employed for actual support, as in open loggie, it is only 

 in combination with arches springing from them, the columns per- 

 forming the office of piers to the arches. A great deal of Italian 

 Renaissance is, however, anlylar, with either a full entablature, or a 

 cornicione crowning and proportioned to the entire mass. This large 

 and simple mode of treatment was greatly affected by the Florentine 

 and Homan architects of the period of the revival, and contrasts very 

 strikingly with the Transalpine Renaissance in France and other 

 countries, which is characterised by multiplicity of parts, and numerous 

 divisions and breaks. It contrasts also with the contemporary practice 

 of the Italian architects themselves when they employed the orders, in 

 dninj; which they made their compositions microstylar, applying a 

 separate small order to each floor or horizontal division of a facade, 

 above the ground floor ; and they further reduced the height of the 

 columns by giving a considerable proportion of each order to high 

 pedestals beneath the columns. 



In Transalpine Renaissance such application of the orders was greatly 

 exaggerated, they being employed for the ground floor as well as the 

 others, and the spaces between the columns being filled in, either 

 entirely or nearly so, with large windows, so that the columns or 

 pilasters between them show only as accessories to the windows them- 

 selves, and as narrow piers between them. Fenestration completely 

 predominates, both as to the quantity of surface the openings occupy, 

 and the architectural character occasioned by it. One of the earliest 

 importations of the Renaissance into this country, Longleat House, 

 Wilts, erected by John of Padua, 1567, is an instance of such mode of 

 composition, and shows how greatly the borrowed style was transformed 

 in it* general physiognomy, even when treated faithfully with regard 

 to details. 



One deviation from Italian practice was the frequent employment 

 of coupled columns or pilasters, which was in some cases (as at 

 \\'oll;iton Hall, see ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE) caused by the neces- 

 sity for wider piers between the windows, at the same time that the 

 intercolumns were completely occupied by the windows, which last, it 

 should be observed, retained their Tudor or English character, being 

 very spacious and divided by mullions and transoms. 



In much of the Italian Renaissance, especially in that for which purity 

 and correctness were affected, the character of the detail is somewhat 

 dry and meagre, and there is very little of ornamentation, even the 

 entablatures to Corinthian columns consisting of only plain mouldings. 

 Florid Renaissance, as it may for distinction's sake be called seems, on 

 the contrary, to have been most in favour both in France and in our 

 country, probably in consequence of the taste for luxuriant enrichment 

 which had been indulged during that period of Gothic architecture 

 which the new style was beginning to replace. Besides which, it was 

 out of Italy adopted as an exotic fashion, owing to which and to its 

 being at first employed for palatial and sumptuous structures, it was 

 displayed in all its luxuriance. This florid species of the style and 

 p"rii id is marked by a profusion of enrichment and carvings in mould- 

 ing*, panels, and friezes, by arabesque foliage and medallions, with 

 whirh surfaces of considerable extent are oftentimes covered. The 

 carvings consist of grotesque animals, foliage, &o., extended into scroll- 

 work, interlaced in an entirely capricious manner, of the kind known as 

 ARABESQUE. In Italian Renaissance the Game kind of sculpture occurs, 

 but purer in design, more graceful in style, and more refined in execu 

 tion. Figures of Amorini, with medallions, on which are portraits, 

 armorial bearings, 4c., are common, especially in interiors. Even the 

 xhafu of columns are frequently d unasked or broidered, if not for their 

 entire height, for a considerable portion of it, and generally the lower 

 ones, with foliage and other chasing ; besides which they are further 

 enriched by one or more bands embossed in similar manner. The faces 

 both of pilasters and pedestals are also highly decorated by being 

 panelled, and tilled up with arabesque work or other sculptures. 

 Niches, too, are frequent features in composition, and within, their 

 head* are generally carved to resemble a shell ; as arc also devices, 

 mottos, and other inscriptions. This profusion of minute ornament is 

 eminently characteristic of the Renaissance taste in building, furniture, 

 and decoration generally ; and though it was then carried to excess, 

 and the combinations themselves were often very uncouth, grotesque, 

 and what U understood by the term quaint (oddly picturesque, but 

 not beautiful), much of the ornament is, taken separately, marked by 

 elegance as well as fancy. Some examples from Italian interiors, of 

 characteristic design and admirably carved, may be seen in the South 

 Kensington Museum. 



Fteiieh Renaissance dates from the reign of Louis XII., who em- 

 ployed Italian artists, and among others the architect Qiocondo [Uio- 

 i, in BIOG. Div.], who erected for Cardinal d'Amboise, the 

 ter of that monarch, the celebrated Chateau Oaillon. Though 

 that edifice at least what remained of it, was taken down some years 

 ago, it H kuov.ii from the representation* of it, and also from ,;uc!i 

 fragments <>f it as have been preserved by being reconstructed at the 

 i '.eaux-Arts, Paris, to have been an exceedingly sumptuous 



pile. The buildings towards the court were almost entirely incrusted 

 over with panelled pilasters, arabesques, medallions, and other sculp- 

 ture. The Chateau de Blois, the birth-place of Louis XII., and 

 restored and decorated by him, was another distinguished work of that 

 period, and probably one of those on which Giocondo was employed. 

 Iu the reign of Francis I., the palaces erected by that sumptuous 

 prince and his nobles attested the magnificence if not the refinement 

 of that age. As a retreat for himself in the immediate vicinity of his 

 capital, Francis built (about 1530) the Chateau de Madrid in the Bois 

 de Boulogne, whose facades were decorated with coloured enamelled 

 tiles, constituting a species of polychromic decoration. Of that 

 building nothing now remains, it having been taken down at the 

 end of the last century ; but another architectural specimen of the 

 same period, the house or casiuo of Francis I., erected at Moret, near 

 Fontainebleau, has been preserved by being removed to Paris, where it 

 was re-erected in its primitive state, in the Bois de Boulogne, by the 

 architect Biet, in 1823. Of this interesting monument of the lienais- 

 sance, which has also some polychromic Robbia-ware decoration, plans, 

 elevations, and sections, are given in Normand's Paris Moderne, but 

 being only in outline, a great deal of the effect is lost in them. The palace 

 of Fontainebleau itself, in its interior at least, records the magnificence 

 of Francis, his taste for splendour, and his liberal encouragement of 

 arts. The Tuilieries, as built for Catherine di Medieis, by Philibert 

 Delorme and Bullant, is another great example of French Renaissance 

 when at its best, which has undergone such alterations as to be no 

 longer recognisable. By French writers generally, the style is con- 

 sidered to have risen to its highest point of excellence in the hands of 

 Philibert Delorme [DELORME, in BIOG. Div.] in the reigus of Henry II. 

 and Francis II. : but it perhaps appears to more advantage in the 

 edifices built in the reign of Francis I. 



In Germany, the castle or rather palace of Heidelberg would, if 

 completed, have been a most gorgeous pile in the Renaissance style, as 

 it showed itself in that country ; and though now a ruin, the principal 

 portion of the exterior is in sufficiently good preservation to admit of 

 faithful restoration, in a series of architectural engravings. German 

 Renaissance was even more exuberant, not to say extravagant, alike 

 in constructive character and decorative details, than even the French. 



The Renaissance edifices of Spain are many of them interesting 

 and striking specimens of the kind. Among them may be men- 

 tioned, as deserving of particular notice for the elegant taste it 

 displays, the upper gallery of the cloister of the Convent of 

 Huerta ; also the Town Halls of Zaragossa and of Seville ; and the 

 Alcaza at Toledo. 



RENT, in Political Economy, in defined by Mr. Ricardo to be " that 

 portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for 

 the use of the indestructible powers of the soil. It is often, however 

 (he remarks), confounded with the interest and profit of capital, and 

 in popular language the term is applied to whatever is annually paid 

 by a farmer to his landlord." Mr. Malthus (' Prin. of Pol. Econ.') de- 

 tines rent to be " that portion of the value of the whole produce which 

 remains to the owner of the land, after all the outgoings belonging to 

 its cultivation, of whatever kind, have been paid, including the profits 

 of the capital employed, estimated according to the usual and ordinary 

 rate of the profits of agricultural capital at the time being." 



As most modern economists have adopted the main principles of the 

 Ricardo theory, we here give an outline of it, in the words of Mr. 

 Ricardo : " If all land had the same properties, if it were boundless 

 in quantity and uniform in quality, no charge could be made for its 

 use, unless where it possessed peculiar advantages of situation. It is 

 then because land is of different qualities with respect to its productive 

 powers, and because, in the progress of population, land of an inferior 

 quality, or less advantageously situated, is called into cultivation, that 

 rent is ever paid for the use of it. When, in the progress of society, 

 land of the second degree of fertility is taken into cultivation, rent 

 immediately commences on that of the first quality, and the amount 

 of that rent will depend on the difference in the quality of these two 

 portions of land. . . . With every step in the progress of popula- 

 tion which shall oblige a country to have recourse to land of a worse 

 quality to enable it to raise its supply of food, rent on all the more 

 fertile land will rif>e. ... If good land existed in a quantity much 

 more abundant than the production of food for an increasing popula- 

 tion required, or if capital could be indefinitely employed without a 

 diminished return on the old land, there could be no rise of rent ; for 

 rent invariably proceeds from the employment of an additional quan- 

 tity of labour with a proportionally less return." 



Rent, according to the definition which has been given, consists of 

 a surplus which remains after the capital expended in production has 

 been replaced with ordinary profits. This surplus, which constitutes 

 rent, arises, as Mr. Ricardo asserts, from, and is hi proportion to, the 

 necessity for resorting to inferior soils or employing capital on the old 

 soil with small returns. To use the words of Mr. Mill, his friend and 

 disciple " Rent is the difference between the return made to the 

 more productive portions and that which is made to the least pro- 

 ductive portion of capital employed upon the land." In a country 

 containing, as every country does contain, land of various degrees of 

 fertility, rent therefore will not be paid until the demands of an 

 increasing population have rendered it necessary to have recourse to 

 the inferior soils. " Thus (continues Ricardo), suppose land, Nos. 1 



