By Comm. Prof. Gustavo Giovannoni *

(Pages: XI - XIX)

THE adoption of constructive and decorative materials, especially brick, in various places and times throughout the history of architecture, depends upon geological much more than artistic or historical considerations. Wherever the development of human civilization has taken place in great river valleys there has risen an architecture in brick, made possible by the alluvial deposits. When, however, the centers of government and the consequent building activities have been in the vicinity of mountains or rocky formations, the ease of securing the natural material for construction has led to stone architecture.

No better example of such a principle could be given than that of the two oldest civilizations in the world, the Egyptian and the Chaldean. In Egypt the rocky borders of the Nile valley offered the material for the most monumental stone architecture, while clay along the river banks was made into sun-baked bricks for the humbler constructions. In Chaldea, on the other hand, that is, in the immense plains traversed by the Tigris and the Euphrates, the art and technique of burned clay was developed and applied more fully, and attain gradually to a marvelous degree of perfection, until it was not only a constructive material but also as a means for the transmission of human knowledge.

It is interesting to apply these principles to Italy, a region which, geologically and orographically, is one of the most varied and irregular. Dante's definition:

This varied conformation is reflected in the alternate distribution of zones of brick and stone construction. Brick is widely used in the valley of the Po from Piedmont to Lower Lombardy and the Emilia, and also in the sea-coast regions, especially on the Adriatic. Where, however, mountains are near, as in Upper Lombardy, Upper Venetia, Umbria, and most of Liguria, Tuscany, and Campania, stone prevails. Elsewhere, as in Rome, both methods of construction are found.

To such natural and permanent causes, as Taine would name them, are to be added all those mutable influences of civilization and political administration which tend to modify and at times to efface temporarily all limitations. Thus the Roman Empire especially, with powerful centralized government, its far-flung network of communication throughout the imperial provinces, and with its public service organized upon principles very similar to those of our days, was able at times to superimpose upon the natural conditions of local construction uniform standardized systems, characteristic of the technical and administrative organization of the Empire. Just as the granite of Egypt, either rough or dressed, was brought to Rome, and the pozzolana of Rome and Bacoli was transported everywhere for making strong hydraulic cement, so also, even in regions where stone was common, brick was frequently and systematically used in wall facings for enclosing the plastic concrete conglomerate, in arches and vaults as structural lines of reinforcement, or as decoration on the walls.

These bricks came from the numerous yards, located in the valley zones, where the traditional methods were followed which were perfected in the preceding Etruscan period, technically godfather to Roman practice. It was not, however, in the form of brick that the early Etruscan developed the manufacture of burnt clays, since quadrangular blocks of limestone or tufa were the usual material for walls and vaults, but in the form of external decorations such as antepagments and antefixes, roof tiles, and rich and varied ceremonial vessels, which show a true refinement in both the technical and artistic sense.

When the Western Empire declined and Byzantine architecture advanced in the northern Italy and the East, by grafting itself upon the regional schools of Roman architecture, the use of brick became even more extensive than it was at the height of the Roman power. Just as the great organic system of Byzantine construction, both in the disposition of its masses and in the balancing of its static forces, grew out of the Roman vault, so also was derived the manner of employing brick in the wall structure. As Ravenna, Aquileja, Thessalonica, and Constantinople, the great centers took on a continually greater development, tending afterwards to spread toward the most distant regions of the Eastern Empire.

In like manners arose the Byzantine style of brick decoration which was applied to cornices and walls. It is easy to find this style, even in relatively late periods. Being grafted upon other stylistic forms and contaminating them with foreign additions. For example, in the Roman campanile of the XI to the XIII centuries, the type of brick cornices, projecting saw-tooth fashion on stone brackets, came to modify the composition of the Lombard campanile with its alternate arrangement of parts, or to form the crown of ecclesiastical buildings. In the Church of San Sepolcro, of the Santo Stefano group at Bologna, the construction, which is pure Lombard style, nevertheless shows on the exterior walls a checkered decoration of Byzantine origin with its combinations of vari-colored brick.

These, however, are adaptations which are limited, if not altogether isolated, in Italy where, with the exception of a few centers like Ravenna, Milan, and localities in Venetia and Calabria, Byzantine architecture never exercised a dominating influence. In the rest of Italy, throughout the Middle Ages, there obtained, in construction rather than in decoration, the most localized practice ever known.

The instability of government, the subdivisions of territories, the scarcity of technical and financial means, the difficulty of communication, and the insecurity of external relations led almost always to the use of local materials, thus giving to the geological theory the most direct and incontestable application. A few exceptions, as seen in partly completed work, constitute the best confirmation of this principle. Parma began its baptistery with marble imported from Verona, but when war hindered all trade, it continued the construction with its own local brick. Siena did the same in the XIV century when its palaces were at the height of construction.

This phenomenon of the localization in the use of material caused brick to predominate during the Middle Ages in those regions of Italy previously indicated, and to celebrate a veritable triumph in medieval Romanesque and Gothic monuments, such as the cathedrals of Piacenza and Cremona; San Giacomo, San Francesco, the Mercanzia, and the great brick towers of Bologna; Santi Giovanni e Paolo and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari of Venice; the churches of Verona (with alternating brick and stone courses); the campaniles of Venice, Pomposa, Parma, and Rome; Santa Maria della Roccelletta near Squillace; Sant' Antonio of Padua; the city halls of Fano and Rimini; the Broletto of Milan; the castles of Ferrara, Milan, Pavia, Gradara; and many others.

However, the spread of the prevailing styles in construction and decoration carried with them the new and apparently irrational fact that the forms and the decorations characteristic of stone were often imitated in brick, and sometimes in terra cotta, where the transportation of the more expensive materials was practically impossible. Thus we often find, for example at Parma, Piacenza, Modena, and Bologna, types of cubical capitals executed in brick, vaults ribs, window and door frames with mouldings carved in brick, as if they were stone, and cornices with small pendent arches, either simple or interlaced, which might be done indifferently either in stone or brick.

Real ornamental terra cotta of delicate pattern and with its own refined and appropriate ornamentation came quite late, more particularly in the XIV and XV centuries, The best examples of it are found in the valley of the Po or neighboring regions, such as Pavia, Bologna, Cremona, and Ferrara.

When at the height of the Renaissance, in the XV century, Italian art definitely resumed classic forms, at first regional in character and timidly ornamental then universal and fully architectural, Italian architecture did not lose the local habit in the use of building materials, so fully established in the Middle Ages. This seeming contradiction is easily explained. The architecture of the Renaissance was no longer an art of sincerity in construction, but one rather of profound aesthetic harmony based upon exact relations among the individual parts and inspired by what Luca Macioli, a writer on aesthetics, calls "the divine proportion." It is natural, therefore, that expression in terms of the materials became secondary, the more so since, because of the changed social conditions of artists and workmen, the technique of the XV and XVI centuries was on a lower average level than that of the XIV century.

Therefore, during this period and also during that of the following XVII and XVIII centuries derived from it, it is always less easy to find architectural and decorative expression that may with exact consistency be called characteristic of brick architecture. There abound multiple geometrical squares or ornamental facings of brick to form a background of the exposed surfaces; and still more frequent than in preceding periods are examples of stone forms executed in brick or, as some might say, the translation into brick of architectural elements meant for stone. Among the most significant examples may be cited brick door and window openings very common in the Marches, as at Macerata and Jesi, in which the brick is carefully cut according to exact patterns; or the brick columns so common in the architecture of Borromini in Rome; or the façades of XVII century Piedmont palaces at Turin, Mondovì, Asti, etc., where brick is used in massive projecting coigns as well as in all the windows with their ornate and twisted carvings of the Baroque style. There are even examples, as in the vestibule vaults of the Royal Palace at Alessandria, in which the virtuosity of the artisans carving the brick went so far as to imitate rich stucco decoration. But, aside from these exceptional examples, it is precisely the advance of stucco technique that marks the end of decorative architecture in brick, as a means of current expression.

From the XVII century on, buildings entirely of brick, in which the exterior indicates the interior construction, are more easily found in modest country structures, in which also there is so much artistic vitality and such possibilities of greater aesthetic development than in the more pretentious houses, administrative buildings, or churches of the cities where often the fictitious outer forms, concealing the inner structure, are no longer with refinement.

Coming to the XIX century and the present time, we find that there are not wanting adaptations of brick architecture to new themes, in which experiments and attempts are made at obtaining a modern organic expression, both in the ease of execution on the wall surface – a positive aesthetic element which always has a high value – and in the more or less direct relation between technique and form. At times, these architectural experiments turn to the past and seek to draw from it, either by imitation or free treatment, new elements of beauty. At other times, the designer adheres to a pure constructive simplicity or else, by the use of other ornamental means in majolica, graffito, terra cotta, and mosaic, seeks to obtain combinations of entirely new effects.

However, as in the modern architecture of all countries which have been disturbed by the too rapid changes and the consequent possibilities of new developments, there is wanting a true unity of direction which has the force of a real style beyond the vagaries and oscillations of a passing fashion.

By adhering to the real nature of a material and the proper uses inherent in it, as may be done in brick architecture, perhaps it may prove less difficulties to find the clue to a rational architecture expression. To this end, the present time is especially favorable when the great improvement in manufacturing technique, afforded by mechanical progress, makes it possible to utilize the plastic qualities of clay to the best advantage in obtaining uniform and standardized elements for use in wall surfaces where varied patterns may be combined in decorative effects. Besides, the developed means of communication which characterize our cinematic civilization permit, for the first time since the days of the Roman Empire and in a much more efficacious manner, the breaking up of localization in the use of materials, and further the distribution of manufactured products over an extensive territory.

For this reason, it may prove interesting and useful, not only for cultural reasons but also for those of a practical artistic production, to review the various stages of the path traversed and seek out the continuity of Italian brick architecture through successive examples from ancient to modern times. In the complex life of a civilization, as in that of an enduring and famous architecture, the study that takes into account the evolution of one element and relates to its various manifestations, as to a common denominator, is a method always productive of fruitful results. Up to the present, no such study on the subject of many investigations to establish stylistic classifications, to determine regional characteristics, or to illustrate individual accomplishments of distinguished artists.

The present work, entrusted to two young scholars, Professor Carlo Roccatelli for the Ancient and the Renaissance periods, and Professor Enrico Verdozzi for the Medieval and Modern , follows the method indicated above but does not claim to be exhaustive. Its aim is to collect a number of examples, chosen from among the most notable and significant to be found in the different epochs of Italian art, and to provide them with an illustrative treatment, partly synthetic and partly analytic, which will set forth peculiar characteristics of each example and trace the main lines of brick technology and art during the respective architectural and constructive epochs.

A complete treatment of the subject would require much more space and time. Yet, although limited, the present work throws light on monuments which are still imperfectly known and in some of their details completely unedited. By systematic association of ideas and by enriching the historical with the technical and artistic conceptions, the work will perhaps make a not inconsiderable contribution to the progress of our knowledge of Italian architecture in the past, as well as aid in the determination of new rational affirmations which will graft upon its trunk young and sturdy shoots.

As to bibliography, the treatises on the subject of Italian brick architecture, both as to construction and decoration are, up to the present time, few and incomplete, all of them with different aims and only incidentally dwelling on the present theme. Among the few works which deal with the technique and technology of Italian brick in the various regions maybe mentioned: G. REVERE I Laetrile, Milan, 1907; Enciclopedia italiana delle arti e industrie under the word Laterizi; FORMENTI, La pratica del baffricare, Milan, 1893-95, which treats also of the various earths, etc.; SALMOIRAGHI, Materiali naturali da costruzione, Milan, 1904.

Of Special interest among the publication which treat of the structural and decorative application of brick, during the various periods of Italian architecture, is the treatise of RUNGE, Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Bachstein-Architekture Italiens. Leipzig, 1884; special mention must also be made of GRUNER, Terra Cotta Architecture of North Italy, 1867; STRACK, Ziegelbauwerke des Mittelalters und der Renaissance in Italien, Berlin, 1889; STREET, Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages, 1874.

Other data on the subject dealing with Italy may be found in chapters, or in sporadic treatment, in works of a more general scope; in treatises on architecture like those of Cloquet, Gaudet, and Milani; and in studies dealing with styles like ARCHINTI, Gli stili dell' Architettura, Milan, 1900; CUMMINGS, A History of Architecture in Italy from the Time of Constantine to the Dawn of the Renaissance, Boston, 1901; ARTHUR KINGSLEY PORTER, Lombard Architecture, 1912; DURM, Baukunst der Romer and Baukunst der Renaissance Italien, 1898; PARKER, Arheology of Rome, etc.

There may be consulted also VERDIER ET CATTOIS, L' architecture domestique au Moyen Ages; MELANI, Manuale d' arte decorativa antica e moderna, Milan, 1907; ANDERSON, Examples of the Municipal, Commercial, and Street Architecture of France and Italy, 1877; etc. In the field of publications of general character pertaining to brick from the decorative point of view, CHABAT, La brique et la terrecuite (Etude Historique) Paris, 1881-90; LACROIX ET DETAIN, Construction en briques, particulars dealing with the subjects from a stylistic and historical point of view will be found in the notes of Roccatelli and Verdozzi.