EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY:THE CLASSIC REVIVAL, PERIODS

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CHAPTER XX.

EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Anderson, Architecture of the Renaissance in Italy. Burckhardt,

The Civilization of the Renaissance; Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien; Der

Cicerone. Cellesi, Sei Fabbriche di Firenze. Cicognara, Le Fabbriche più cospicue di

Venezia. Durm, Die Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien (in Hdbuch. d. Arch.).

Fergusson, History of Modern Architecture. Geymüller, La Renaissance en Toscane.

Montigny et Famin, Architecture Toscane. Moore, Character of Renaissance

Architecture. Müntz, La Renaissance en Italie et en France à l'époque de Charles VIII.

Palustre, L'Architecture de la Renaissance. Pater, Studies in the Renaissance. Symonds,

The Renaissance of the Fine Arts in Italy. Tosi and Becchio, Altars, Tabernacles, and

Tombs.

THE CLASSIC REVIVAL. The abandonment of Gothic architecture in Italy and the

substitution in its place of forms derived from classic models were occasioned by no

sudden or merely local revolution. The Renaissance was the result of a profound and

universal intellectual movement, whose roots may be traced far back into the Middle

Ages, and which manifested itself first in Italy simply because there the conditions

were most propitious. It spread through Europe just as rapidly as similar conditions

appearing in other countries prepared the way for it. The essence of this far-reaching

movement was the protest of the individual reason against the trammels of external

and arbitrary authority--a protest which found its earliest organized expression in

the Humanists. In its assertion of the intellectual and moral rights of the individual,

the Renaissance laid the foundations of modern civilization. The same spirit, in

rejecting the authority and teachings of the Church in matters of purely secular

knowledge, led to the questionings of the precursors of modern science and the

discoveries of the early navigators. But in nothing did the reaction against mediæval

scholasticism and asceticism display itself more strikingly than in the joyful

enthusiasm which marked the pursuit of classic studies. The long-neglected treasures

of classic literature were reopened, almost rediscovered, in the fourteenth century by

the immortal trio--Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The joy of living, the hitherto

forbidden delight in beauty and pleasure for their own sakes, the exultant awakening

to the sense of personal freedom, which came with the bursting of mediæval fetters,

found in classic art and literature their most sympathetic expression. It was in Italy,

where feudalism had never fully established itself, and where the municipalities and

guilds had developed, as nowhere else, the sense of civic and personal freedom, that

these symptoms first manifested themselves. In Italy, and above all in the Tuscan

cities, they appeared throughout the fourteenth century in the growing enthusiasm

for all that recalled the antique culture, and in the rapid advance of luxury and

refinement in both public and private life.

THE RENAISSANCE OF THE ARTS. Classic Roman architecture had never lost its

influence on the Italian taste. Gothic art, already declining in the West, had never

been in Italy more than a borrowed garb, clothing architectural conceptions classic

rather than Gothic in spirit. The antique monuments which abounded on every hand

were ever present models for the artist, and to the Florentines of the early fifteenth

century the civilization which had created them represented the highest ideal of

human culture. They longed to revive in their own time the glories of ancient Rome,

and appropriated with uncritical and undiscriminating enthusiasm the good and the

bad, the early and the late forms of Roman art, Naïvely unconscious of the disparity

between their own architectural conceptions and those they fancied they imitated,

they were, unknown to themselves, creating a new style, in which the details of

Roman art were fitted in novel combinations to new requirements. In proportion as

the Church lost its hold on the culture of the age, this new architecture entered

increasingly into the service of private luxury and public display. It created, it is true,

striking types of church design, and made of the dome one of the most imposing of

external features; but its most characteristic products were palaces, villas, council

halls, and monuments to the great and the powerful. The personal element in design

asserted itself as never before in the growth of schools and the development of styles.

Thenceforward the history of Italian architecture becomes the history of the

achievements of individual artists.

EARLY BEGINNINGS. Already in the 13th century the pulpits of Niccolo Pisano at

Sienna and Pisa had revealed that master's direct recourse to antique monuments for

inspiration and suggestion. In the frescoes of Giotto and his followers, and in the

architectural details of many nominally Gothic buildings, classic forms had appeared

with increasing frequency during the fourteenth century. This was especially true in

Florence, which was then the artistic capital of Italy. Never, perhaps, since the days

of Pericles, had there been another community so permeated with the love of beauty

in art, and so endowed with the capacity to realize it. Nowhere else in Europe at that

time was there such strenuous life, such intense feeling, or such free course for

individual genius as in Florence. Her artists, with unexampled versatility, addressed

themselves with equal success to goldsmiths' work, sculpture, architecture and

engineering--often to painting and poetry as well; and they were quick to catch in

their art the spirit of the classic revival. The new movement achieved its first

architectural triumph in the dome of the cathedral of Florence (142064); and it was

Florentine--or at least Tuscan--artists who planted in other centres the seeds of the

new art that were to spring up in the local and provincial schools of Sienna, Milan,

Pavia, Bologna, and Venice, of Brescia, Lucca, Perugia, and Rimini, and many other

North Italian cities. The movement asserted itself late in Rome and Naples, as an

importation from Northern Italy, but it bore abundant fruit in these cities in its later

stages.

PERIODS. The classic styles which grew up out of the Renaissance may be divided

for convenience into four periods.

THE EARLY RENAISSANCE or FORMATIVE PERIOD, 142090; characterized by the grace

and freedom of the decorative detail, suggested by Roman prototypes and applied to

compositions of great variety and originality.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE or FORMALLY CLASSIC PERIOD, 14901550. During this period

classic details were copied with increasing fidelity, the orders especially appearing in

almost all compositions; decoration meanwhile losing somewhat in grace and

freedom.

THE EARLY BAROQUE (or BAROCO), 15501600; a period of classic formality

characterized by the use of colossal orders, engaged columns and rather scanty

decoration.

THE DECLINE or LATER BAROQUE, marked by poverty of invention in the composition

and a predominance of vulgar sham and display in the decoration. Broken pediments,

huge scrolls, florid stucco-work and a general disregard of architectural propriety

were universal.

During the eighteenth century there was a reaction from these extravagances, which

showed itself in a return to the servile copying of classic models, sometimes not

without a certain dignity of composition and restraint in the decoration.

By many writers the name Renaissance is confined to the first period. This is correct

from the etymological point of view; but it is impossible to dissociate the first period

historically from those which followed it, down to the final exhaustion of the artistic

movement to which it gave birth, in the heavy extravagances of the Rococo.

FIG. 158.--EARLY RENAISSANCE CAPITAL, PAL. ZORZI, VENICE.

Another division is made by the Italians, who give the name of the Quattrocento to

the period which closed with the end of the fifteenth century, Cinquecento to the

sixteenth century, and Seicento to the seventeenth century or Rococo. It has,

however, become common to confine the use of the term Cinquecento to the first half

of the sixteenth century.

CONSTRUCTION AND DETAIL. The architects of the Renaissance occupied

themselves more with form than with construction, and rarely set themselves

constructive problems of great difficulty. Although the new architecture began with

the colossal dome of the cathedral of Florence, and culminated in the stupendous

church of St. Peter at Rome, it was pre-eminently an architecture of palaces and

villas, of façades and of decorative display. Constructive difficulties were reduced to

their lowest terms, and the constructive framework was concealed, not emphasized,

by the decorative apparel of the design. Among the masterpieces of the early

Renaissance are many buildings of small dimensions, such as gates, chapels, tombs

and fountains. In these the individual fancy had full sway, and produced surprising

results by the beauty of enriched mouldings, of carved friezes with infant genii,

wreaths of fruit, griffins, masks and scrolls; by pilasters covered with arabesques as

delicate in modelling as if wrought in silver; by inlays of marble, panels of glazed

terra-cotta, marvellously carved doors, fine stucco-work in relief, capitals and

cornices of wonderful richness and variety. The Roman orders appeared only in free

imitations, with panelled and carved pilasters for the most part instead of columns,

and capitals of fanciful design, recalling remotely the Corinthian by their volutes and

leaves (Fig. 158). Instead of the low-pitched classic pediments, there appears

frequently an arched cornice enclosing a sculptured lunette. Doors and windows

were enclosed in richly carved frames, sometimes arched and sometimes square.

Façades were flat and unbroken, depending mainly for effect upon the distribution

and adornment of the openings, and the design of doorways, courtyards and

cornices. Internally vaults and flat ceilings of wood and plaster were about equally

common, the barrel vault and dome occurring far more frequently than the groined

vault. Many of the ceilings of this period are of remarkable richness and beauty.

THE EARLY RENAISSANCE IN FLORENCE: THE DUOMO. In the year 1417 a

public competition was held for completing the cathedral of Florence by a dome over

the immense octagon, 143 feet in diameter. Filippo Brunelleschi, sculptor and

architect (13771446), who with Donatello had journeyed to Rome to study there

the masterworks of ancient art, after demonstrating the inadequacy of all the

solutions proposed by the competitors, was finally permitted to undertake the

gigantic task according to his own plans. These provided for an octagonal dome in

two shells, connected by eight major and sixteen minor ribs, and crowned by a

lantern at the top (Fig. 159). This wholly original conception, by which for the first

time (outside of Moslem art) the dome was made an external feature fitly terminating

in the light forms and upward movement of a lantern, was carried out between the

years 1420 and 1464. Though in no wise an imitation of Roman forms, it was

classic in its spirit, in its vastness and its simplicity of line, and was made possible

solely by Brunelleschi's studies of Roman design and construction (Fig. 160).

FIG. 159.--SECTION OF DOME OF DUOMO, FLORENCE.

OTHER CHURCHES. From Brunelleschi's designs were also erected the Pazzi

Chapel in Sta. Croce, a charming design of a Greek cross covered with a dome at the

intersection, and preceded by a vestibule with a richly decorated vault; and the two

great churches of S. Lorenzo (1425) and S. Spirito (14331476, Fig. 161). Both

reproduced in a measure the plan of the Pisa Cathedral, having a three-aisled nave

and transepts, with a low dome over the crossing. The side aisles were covered with

domical vaults and the central aisles with flat wooden or plaster ceilings. All the

details of columns, arches and mouldings were imitated from Roman models, and yet

the result was something entirely new. Consciously or unconsciously, Brunelleschi

was reviving Byzantine rather than Roman conceptions in the planning and structural

design of these domical churches, but the garb in which he clothed them was Roman,

at least in detail. The Old Sacristy of S. Lorenzo was another domical design of great

beauty.

From this time on the new style was in general use for church designs. L. B. Alberti

(140473), who had in Rome mastered classic details more thoroughly than

Brunelleschi, remodelled the church of S. Francesco at Rimini with Roman pilasters

and arches, and with engaged orders in the façade, which, however, was never

completed. His great work was the church of S. Andrea at Mantua, a Latin cross in

plan, with a dome at the intersection (the present high dome dating however, only

from the 18th century) and a façade to which the conception of a Roman triumphal

arch was skilfully adapted. His façade of incrusted marbles for the church of S. M.

Novella at Florence was a less successful work, though its flaring consoles over the

side aisles established an unfortunate precedent frequently imitated in later churches.

FIG. 160.--EXTERIOR OF DOME OF DUOMO, FLORENCE.

A great activity in church-building marked the period between 1475 and 1490. The

plans of the churches erected about this time throughout north Italy display an

interesting variety of arrangements, in nearly all of which the dome is combined with

the three-aisled cruciform plan, either as a central feature at the crossing or as a

domical vault over each bay. Bologna and Ferrara possess a number of churches of

this kind. Occasionally the basilican arrangement was followed, with columnar

arcades separating the aisles. More often, however, the pier-arches were of the

Roman type, with engaged columns or pilasters between them. The interiors,

presumably intended to receive painted decorations, were in most cases somewhat

bare of ornament, pleasing rather by happy proportions and effective vaulting or rich

flat ceilings, panelled, painted and gilded, than by elaborate architectural detail.

A similar scantiness of ornament is to be remarked in the exteriors, excepting the

façades, which were sometimes highly ornate; the doorways, with columns,

pediments, sculpture and carving, receiving especial attention. High external domes

did not come into general use until the next period. In Milan, Pavia, and some other

Lombard cities, the internal cupola over the crossing was, however, covered

externally by a lofty structure in diminishing stages, like that of the Certosa at Pavia

(Fig. 152), or that erected by Bramante for the church of S. M. delle Grazie at Milan.

At Prato, in the church of the Madonna delle Carceri (14951516), by Giuliano da

S. Gallo, the type of the Pazzi chapel reappears in a larger scale; the plan is

cruciform, with equal or nearly equal arms covered by barrel vaults, at whose

intersection rises a dome of moderate height on pendentives. This charming edifice,

with its unfinished exterior of white marble, its simple and dignified lines, and

internal embellishments in della-Robbia ware, is one of the masterpieces of the

period.

FIG. 161.--INTERIOR OF S. SPIRITO, FLORENCE.

In the designing of chapels and oratories the architects of the early Renaissance

attained conspicuous success, these edifices presenting fewer structural limitations

and being more purely decorative in character than the larger churches. Such façades

as that of S. Bernardino at Perugia and of the Frati di S. Spirito at Bologna are

among the most delightful products of the decorative fancy of the 15th century.

FLORENTINE PALACES. While the architects of this period failed to develop any

new and thoroughly satisfactory ecclesiastical type, they attained conspicuous

success in palace-architecture. The Riccardi palace in Florence (1430) marks the first

step of the Renaissance in this direction. It was built for the great Cosimo di Medici

by Michelozzi (13971473), a contemporary of Brunelleschi and Alberti, and a man

of great talent. Its imposing rectangular façade, with widely spaced mullioned

windows in two stories over a massive basement, is crowned with a classic cornice of

unusual and perhaps excessive size. In spite of the bold and fortress-like character of

the rusticated masonry of these façades, and the mediæval look they seem to present

to modern eyes, they marked a revolution in style and established a type frequently

imitated in later years. The courtyard, in contrast with this stern exterior, appears

light and cheerful (Fig. 162). Its wall is carried on round arches borne by columns

with Corinthianesque capitals, and the arcade is enriched with sculptured

medallions. The Pitti Palace, by Brunelleschi (1435), embodies the same ideas on a

more colossal scale, but lacks the grace of an adequate cornice. A lighter and more

ornate style appeared in 1460 in the P. Rucellai, by Alberti, in which for the first

time classical pilasters in superposed stages were applied to a street façade. To avoid

the dilemma of either insufficiently crowning the edifice or making the cornice too

heavy for the upper range of pilasters, Alberti made use of brackets, occupying the

width of the upper frieze, and converting the whole upper entablature into a cornice.

But this compromise was not quite successful, and it remained for later architects in

Venice, Verona, and Rome to work out more satisfactory methods of applying the

orders to many-storied palace façades. In the great P. Strozzi (Fig. 163), erected in

1490 by Benedetto da Majano and Cronaca, the architects reverted to the earlier type

of the P. Riccardi, treating it with greater refinement and producing one of the

noblest palaces of Italy.

FIG. 162.--COURTYARD OF RICCARDI PALACE, FLORENCE.

FIG. 163.--FAÇADE OF STROZZI PALACE, FLORENCE.

COURTYARDS; ARCADES. These palaces were all built around interior courts,

whose walls rested on columnar arcades, as in the P. Riccardi (Fig. 162). The origin

of these arcades may be found in the arcaded cloisters of mediæval monastic

churches, which often suggest classic models, as in those of St. Paul-beyond-the-

Walls and St. John Lateran at Rome. Brunelleschi not only introduced columnar

arcades into a number of cloisters and palace courts, but also used them effectively

as exterior features in the Loggia S. Paolo and the Foundling Hospital (Ospedale

degli Innocenti) at Florence. The chief drawback in these light arcades was their

inability to withstand the thrust of the vaulting over the space behind them, and the

consequent recourse to iron tie-rods where vaulting was used. The Italians, however,

seemed to care little about this disfigurement.

MINOR WORKS. The details of the new style were developed quite as rapidly in

purely decorative works as in monumental buildings. Altars, mural monuments,

tabernacles, pulpits and ciboria afforded scope for the genius of the most

distinguished artists. Among those who were specially celebrated in works of this

kind should be named Lucca della Robbia (140082) and his successors, Mino da

Fiesole (143184) and Benedetto da Majano (144297). Possessed of a wonderful

fertility of invention, they and their pupils multiplied their works in extraordinary

number and variety, not only throughout north Italy, but also in Rome and Naples.

Among the most famous examples of this branch of design may be mentioned a

pulpit in Sta. Croce by B. da Majano; a terra-cotta fountain in the sacristy of S. M.

Novella, by the della Robbias; the Marsupini tomb in Sta. Croce, by Desiderio da

Settignano (all in Florence); the della Rovere tomb in S. M. del Popolo, Rome, by

Mino da Fiesole, and in the Cathedral at Lucca the Noceto tomb and the Tempietto,

by Matteo Civitali. It was in works of this character that the Renaissance oftenest

made its first appearance in a new centre, as was the case in Sienna, Pisa, Lucca,

Naples, etc.

NORTH ITALY. Between 1450 and 1490 the Renaissance presented in Sienna, in a

number of important palaces, a sharp contrast to the prevalent Gothic style of that

city. The P. Piccolomini--a somewhat crude imitation of the P. Riccardi in

Florence--dates from 1463; the P. del Governo was built 1469, and the Spannocchi

Palace in 1470. In 1463 Ant. Federighi built there the Loggia del Papa. About the

same time Bernardo di Lorenzo was building for Pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius

Piccolomini) an entirely new city, Pienza, with a cathedral, archbishop's palace, town

hall and Papal residence (the P. Piccolomini), which are interesting if not strikingly

original works. Pisa possesses few early Renaissance structures, owing to the utter

prostration of her fortunes in the 15th century, and the dominance of Pisan Gothic

traditions. In Lucca, besides a wealth of minor monuments (largely the work of

Matteo Civitali, 14351501) in various churches, a number of palaces date from

this period, the most important being the P. Pretorio and P. Bernardini. To Milan the

Renaissance was carried by the Florentine masters Michelozzi and Filarete, to whom

are respectively due the Portinari Chapel in S. Eustorgio (1462) and the earlier part

of the great Ospedale Maggiore (1457). In the latter, an edifice of brick with terra-

cotta enrichments, the windows were Gothic in outline--an unusual mixture of

styles, even in Italy. The munificence of the Sforzas, the hereditary tyrants of the

province, embellished the semi-Gothic Certosa of Pavia with a new marble façade,

begun 1476 or 1491, which in its fanciful and exuberant decoration, and the small

scale of its parts, belongs properly to the early Renaissance. Exquisitely beautiful in

detail, it resembles rather a magnified altar-piece than a work of architecture,

properly speaking. Bologna and Ferrara developed somewhat late in the century a

strong local school of architecture, remarkable especially for the beauty of its

courtyards, its graceful street arcades, and its artistic treatment of brick and terra-

cotta (P. Bevilacqua, P. Fava, at Bologna; P. Scrofa, P. Roverella, at Ferrara). About

the same time palaces with interior arcades and details in the new style were erected

in Verona, Vicenza, Mantua, and other cities.

FIG. 164.--TOMB OF PIETRO DI NOCETO, LUCCA.

VENICE. In this city of merchant princes and a wealthy bourgeoisie, the architecture

of the Renaissance took on a new aspect of splendor and display. It was late in

appearing, the Gothic style with its tinge of Byzantine decorative traditions having

here developed into a style well suited to the needs of a rich and relatively tranquil

community. These traditions the architects of the new style appropriated in a

measure, as in the marble incrustations of the exquisite little church of S. M. dei

Miracoli (148089), and the façade of the Scuola di S. Marco (14851533), both

by Pietro Lombardo. Nowhere else, unless on the contemporary façade of the Certosa

at Pavia, were marble inlays and delicate carving, combined with a framework of thin

pilasters, finely profiled entablatures and arched pediments, so lavishly bestowed

upon the street fronts of churches and palaces. The family of the Lombardi (Martino,

his sons Moro and Pietro, and grandsons Antonio and Tullio), with Ant. Bregno and

Bart. Buon, were the leaders in the architectural Renaissance of this period, and to

them Venice owes her choicest masterpieces in the new style. Its first appearance is

noted in the later portions of the church of S. Zaccaria (14561515), partly Gothic

internally, with a façade whose semicircular pediment and small decorative arcades

show a somewhat timid but interesting application of classic details. In this church,

and still more so in S. Giobbe (145193) and the Miracoli above mentioned, the

decorative element predominates throughout. It is hard to imagine details more

graceful in design, more effective in the swing of their movement, or more delicate in

execution than the mouldings, reliefs, wreaths, scrolls, and capitals one encounters in

these buildings. Yet in structural interest, in scale and breadth of planning, these

early Renaissance Venetian buildings hold a relatively inferior rank.

FIG. 165.--VENDRAMINI PALACE, VENICE.

PALACES. The great Court of the Doge's Palace, begun 1483 by Ant. Rizzio,

belongs only in part to the first period. It shows, however, the lack of constructive

principle and of largeness of composition just mentioned, but its decorative effect

and picturesque variety elicit almost universal admiration. Like the neighboring

façade of St. Mark's, it violates nearly every principle of correct composition, and yet

in a measure atones for this capital defect by its charm of detail. Far more

satisfactory from the purely architectural point of view is the façade of the

P. Vendramini (Vendramin-Calergi), by Pietro Lombardo (1481). The simple, stately

lines of its composition, the dignity of its broad arched and mullioned windows,

separated by engaged columns--the earliest example in Venice of this feature, and

one of the earliest in Italy--its well-proportioned basement and upper stories,

crowned by an adequate but somewhat heavy entablature, make this one of the finest

palaces in Italy (Fig. 165) It established a type of large-windowed, vigorously

modelled façades which later architects developed, but hardly surpassed. In the

smaller contemporary, P. Dario, another type appears, better suited for small

buildings, depending for effect mainly upon well-ordered openings and incrusted

panelling of colored marble.

ROME. Internal disorders and the long exile of the popes had by the end of the

fourteenth century reduced Rome to utter insignificance. Not until the second half of

the fifteenth century did returning prosperity and wealth afford the Renaissance its

opportunity in the Eternal City. Pope Nicholas V. had, indeed, begun the rebuilding

of St. Peter's from designs by B. Rossellini, in 1450, but the project lapsed shortly

after with the death of the pope. The earliest Renaissance building in Rome was the

P. di Venezia, begun in 1455, together with the adjoining porch of S. Marco. In this

palace and the adjoining unfinished Palazzetto we find the influence of the old

Roman monuments clearly manifested in the court arcades, built like those of the

Colosseum, with superposed stages of massive piers and engaged columns carrying

entablatures. The proportions are awkward, the details coarse; but the spirit of

Roman classicism is here seen in the germ. The exterior of this palace is, however,

still Gothic in spirit. The architects are unknown; Giuliano da Majano (145290),

Giacomo di Pietrasanta, and Meo del Caprino (14301501) are known to have

worked upon it, but it is not certain in what capacity.

The new style, reaching, and in time overcoming, the conservatism of the Church,

overthrew the old basilican traditions. In S. Agostino (147983), by Pietrasanta, and

S. M. del Popolo, by Pintelli (?), piers with pilasters or half-columns and massive

arches separate the aisles, and the crossing is crowned with a dome. To the same

period belong the Sistine chapel and parts of the Vatican palace, but the interest of

these lies rather in their later decorations than in their somewhat scanty architectural

merit.

The architectural renewal of Rome, thus begun, reached its culmination in the

following period.

OTHER MONUMENTS. The complete enumeration of even the most important Early

Renaissance monuments of Italy is impossible within our limits. Two or three only

can here be singled out as suggesting types. Among town halls of this period the first

place belongs to the P. del Consiglio at Verona, by Fra Giocondo (14351515). In

this beautiful edifice the façade consists of a light and graceful arcade supporting a

wall pierced with four windows, and covered with elaborate frescoed arabesques

(recently restored). Its unfortunate division by pilasters into four bays, with a pier in

the centre, is a blemish avoided in the contemporary P. del Consiglio at Padua. The

Ducal Palace at Urbino, by Luciano da Laurano (1468), is noteworthy for its fine

arcaded court, and was highly famed in its day. At Brescia S. M. dei Miracoli is a

remarkable example of a cruciform domical church dating from the close of this

period, and is especially celebrated for the exuberant decoration of its porch and its

elaborate detail. Few campaniles were built in this period; the best of them are at

Venice. Naples possesses several interesting Early Renaissance monuments, chief

among which are the Porta Capuana (1484), by Giul. da Majano, the triumphal Arch

of Alphonso of Arragon, by Pietro di Martino, and the P. Gravina, by Gab. d'Agnolo.

Naples is also very rich in minor works of the early Renaissance, in which it ranks

with Florence, Venice, and Rome.

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