THE
AMERICAN ARCHITECT
FOUNDED 1876
SOME ITALIAN TOWN GATES
By Samuel Chamberlain
Illustrated with Lithographs and Sketches by the Author
AMONG the most priceless and monumental rehcs bequgahed by the Middle Ages, fortified town gates undoubtedly assume a first rank. The essece of the troubled and war-torn life of the Dark Centuries seems to be embodied in these heavily protected approaches to medieval citadels. Walled towns, gaunt and frowning, become human and burst into the semblance of a wan smile at those rare intervals where gateways are pierced in them. Your mason of the Middle Ages, after heaping up vast and monotonous walls of stone, often seized upon the decorative possibilities of a portal with enthusiasm, a fact for which one may be everlastingly thankful. It is interesting to observe how the various defensive elements, which had to be incorporated in a feudal gateway, grew to assume a decorative aspect. Escutcheons crept into unadorned axes, and the corbelled openings, through which the unhospitable inhabitants were wont to pour boiling oil, developed pointed arches and even a suspicion of tracery. Saw - toothed parapets which once shielded archers and catapult heavers became as superfluous as the buttons on a business man’s coat.
What at first were severe, unembellished caverns in the wall, guarded with moats and massive oak doors and devastating slits for sharpshooters, were transformed gradually into rusticated portals and finally into baroque affairs which bore no pretense of being anything but ornamental.
One doubts whether the fortified gateway flourishes anywhere in greater abundance and variety than in the hill towns of Italy, those onetime heavily armed citadels whose very existence
depended upon the invulnerability of their defenses. San Gimignano, that unforgettable reminder of medieval majesty, now populated by droning guides and milk chocolate merchants, has several magnificent arched openings in its bald and blistered fortifications. Probably the most dramatic one, shown in the present sketch, is the formidable bulk of masonry which rests at the top of a steeply inclined road, dominated by one of the many gargantuan towers of the ancient city. There is little condescension to beauty here, but the rugged mass piles up into something that is very handsome indeed.
The gateways of
Sienna have a different
MODENA
FROM THE ORIGINAL LITHOGRAPH
Copyright, 1928, The Architectural & Building Press, Inc.
AMERICAN ARCHITECT
FOUNDED 1876
SOME ITALIAN TOWN GATES
By Samuel Chamberlain
Illustrated with Lithographs and Sketches by the Author
AMONG the most priceless and monumental rehcs bequgahed by the Middle Ages, fortified town gates undoubtedly assume a first rank. The essece of the troubled and war-torn life of the Dark Centuries seems to be embodied in these heavily protected approaches to medieval citadels. Walled towns, gaunt and frowning, become human and burst into the semblance of a wan smile at those rare intervals where gateways are pierced in them. Your mason of the Middle Ages, after heaping up vast and monotonous walls of stone, often seized upon the decorative possibilities of a portal with enthusiasm, a fact for which one may be everlastingly thankful. It is interesting to observe how the various defensive elements, which had to be incorporated in a feudal gateway, grew to assume a decorative aspect. Escutcheons crept into unadorned axes, and the corbelled openings, through which the unhospitable inhabitants were wont to pour boiling oil, developed pointed arches and even a suspicion of tracery. Saw - toothed parapets which once shielded archers and catapult heavers became as superfluous as the buttons on a business man’s coat.
What at first were severe, unembellished caverns in the wall, guarded with moats and massive oak doors and devastating slits for sharpshooters, were transformed gradually into rusticated portals and finally into baroque affairs which bore no pretense of being anything but ornamental.
One doubts whether the fortified gateway flourishes anywhere in greater abundance and variety than in the hill towns of Italy, those onetime heavily armed citadels whose very existence
depended upon the invulnerability of their defenses. San Gimignano, that unforgettable reminder of medieval majesty, now populated by droning guides and milk chocolate merchants, has several magnificent arched openings in its bald and blistered fortifications. Probably the most dramatic one, shown in the present sketch, is the formidable bulk of masonry which rests at the top of a steeply inclined road, dominated by one of the many gargantuan towers of the ancient city. There is little condescension to beauty here, but the rugged mass piles up into something that is very handsome indeed.
The gateways of
Sienna have a different
MODENA
FROM THE ORIGINAL LITHOGRAPH
Copyright, 1928, The Architectural & Building Press, Inc.