[9] See Rio, _L'Art chrétien,_ vol. ii. chap. xi. pp. 319-327, for an
ingenious defence of mystic art. The tales he tells of Bernardino da
Siena and the blessed Umiliana will not win the sympathy of Teutonic
Christians, who must believe that semi-sensuous, semi-pious raptures,
like those described by S. Catherine of Siena and S. Theresa, have
something in them psychologically morbid.




CHAPTER II

ARCHITECTURE


Architecture of Mediaeval Italy--Milan, Genoa, Venice--The Despots as
Builders--Diversity of Styles--Local Influences--Lombard, Tuscan,
Romanesque, Gothic--Italian want of feeling for Gothic--Cathedrals of
Siena and Orvieto--Secular Buildings of the Middle Ages--Florence and
Venice--Private Palaces--Public Halls--Palazzo della Signoria at
Florence--Arnolfo di Cambio--S. Maria del Fiore--Brunelleschi's
Dome--Classical Revival in Architecture--Roman Ruins--Three Periods in
Renaissance Architecture--Their Characteristics--Brunelleschi
--Alberti--Palace-building--Michellozzo--Decorative Work of the
Revival--Bramante--Vitoni's Church of the Umiltà at Pistoja--Palazzo del
Te--Villa Farnesina--Sansovino at Venice--Michael Angelo--The Building of
S. Peter's--Palladio--The Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza--Lombard
Architects--Theorists and Students of Vitruvius--Vignola and
Scamozzi--European Influence of the Palladian Style--Comparison of