Spanish Renaissance

Spanish Renaissance

• A movement in Spain that emerged from the Italian Renaissance in Italy during the 14th century
• Spread to Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries
• Recognized as the most thriving period of Spanish culture
• The 16th and 17th centuries are considered the Renaissance and Baroque periods

Geographical Location

• Spain is located in southwestern Europe, south of France, east of Portugal, and near the Pyrenees Mountains
• Spain is the second-largest country in Europe behind France

Climate

• Spain has a temperate climate with hot summers and cold winters inland
• The coast experiences cloudy, cool summers and cool winters
• Madrid, in central Spain, has an average January low of 37°F (3°C) and a July high of 88°F (31°C)

Religion

• Spain had been home to three dominant religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism

Historical Background

• In 1492, major events provided impulse
• The unification of the Christian kingdom with the capture of Granada, was the last Islamic territory in the Iberian Peninsula
• The discovery of the western hemisphere and the Americas
• The publication of the first grammar of a European language, Gramática (Grammar) by Antonio de Nebrija

Geological Materials

• Construction used grey granite and white stucco, granite, limestone, glazed ceramic tile, sandstone, and brick
• The classical style used grey granite and white

Architectural Characteristics

• The Renaissance style began as Plateresque
• Decoration was a combination of Moorish, Gothic, and Renaissance elements
• Ornamentation was used on doors and sometimes windows, extending to rooflines around portals
• Characteristics included symmetry, order, and proportions
• Most structures reflected a human scale
• Small windows were used to combat hot weather
• Buildings had flat or low-pitched roofs and patios
• Churches in latin cross plan, Palaces and houses where centered on patios for privacy
• Rooms generally opened to outdoor spaces

Architectural Details

• Wrought iron window grilles, handrails, and other decoration were common
• Surfaces were plain until the classical period
• Plateresque or Classical decoration usually surrounded rectangular or arched windows with one or two lights, rejas or wrought iron grilles
• Interior ornamentation concentrated around openings
• The most important rooms in private buildings were the entrance hall, main salon, dining area, and the bed chamber
• Rooms had few furnishings, but colors were highly saturated, reds, greens, blues, and yellows
• Color appears primarily in tile work, textiles, and decorative elements
• Plasterwork was usually white, Furnishings and ceilings were made of natural wood, color, and tile
• Floors were made of brick, tile, or stone
• Dining rooms often have lavabos, made of copper, pewter, or pottery, placed on the wall or in a niche faced with tiles
• A lavabo wall fountain consist of a washbasin with flaring sides and an upper portion to hold and distribute water

Plateresque Style

• Plateresque motifs include decorated pigments, pilasters, baluster columns, and grotesques
• The style used classic shapes such as circles, squares, and triangles, stylized to be over-the-top
• Plateresque architects focused on the decoration of already existing structures
• Spain's High Renaissance style is more attuned to the artistic and architectural goals of its Italian counterpart

Classical/Purist Style

• Classical style decoration was copied from Italian Renaissance motifs
• Architects sought mathematical proportions, simplicity, order, and symmetry in structures like the temples of antiquity
• Buildings feature incorporations, clean lines, classic shapes and little decoration, these structures a dignified air

Herrerian Style

• Classical Desornamentado or Herrean style demonstrated an understanding of classical design principles and order
• Decoration was symmetrical and carefully proportioned, emulating high Renaissance forms
• This style, dominated Spanish architecture in the 17th century
• The classicism of the Palace of Charles V was succeeded by an austere style named after Juan de Herrera

Mudejar style

• The Mudejar style is native and unique to Spain, a meeting point between Christianity and Islam
• The term Mudéjar refers to Muslims who continued to practise their religion and customs in Christian territories during the Reconquest
• Featured peaceful coexistence between three cultures: Christian, Muslim and Jewish

Churrigueraesque Style

• An expression of Spanish Baroque architecture and sculpture associated with the Churriguera family of artists and architects
• Characterized by the richly garlanded spiral column
• There was no single version to which all designers of the day adhered
• Classical rules were disregarded
• Earlier Baroque style shows some relationship to central Italy, the style developed in the mid-seventeenth century, led by the family Jose de Churriguera

Famous Structures of Spanish Renaissance

• The oldest university in Spain represents the Spanish plateresque style
• Pope Alexander IV called the University of Salamanca "one of the four torches of the world"
• The 40,000-book library on the top floor symbolizes Salamanca uniting it to world literature and art
• The facade faces the "Patio de Escuelas," and includes statue of fray Luis de Leon
• The university was constructed as "gotico plateresco"

Exterior Designs (Salamanca)

• The facade has three levels
• At the bottom shows a medallion with the Catholic King and Queen, Ferdinand and Isabella
• A Greek inscription reads "The Kings to the University, and This One to Them
• The center displays the imperial shield of Charles V, and the figure of the Pope with two cardinals with a frog
• The third level has a figure of Benedicto XIII in the center

Casa de las Conchas

• A historic building in Salamanca
• Its name comes from the facade, which is covered with carved Scallop Shells
• The windows use mo ironwork, upper ones have carved panels that substitute balconies that also have heraldic carvinas

Cathedral of Granada

• Served as the first renaissance church
• Began back in 1506
• Gothic Style designed by Enrique de Agas as the initial burial grounds for Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
• The first stone was set in on March 25 1523
• With the arrival of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V brought about a new change in the building plans
• Diego de Siloé, - Alonso Cano and in 1704 construction was finally finished
• Architects: Enrique de Agas, Diego de Siloé, Juan de Maeda, Ambrosio de Vico

Cathedral of Granada Exteriors

• Functions are a fusion of a a functions of church and imperial pantheon
• The building has a basilical ground plan with a circular apse as a mausoleum, 5 naves with triforium
• There are two towers with the tower of San Miguel acting as a buttress
• The design adapts the Roman temple pillars using a plinth, base, shaft capital and entablature
• Great Mosque inspired the model at Córdoba, a further tier with an added base and pilaster to fill the distance between the entablature and the base of the vaults
• Uses Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders

Cathedral of Granada Interiors

• Piers are similar to those found in the cathedral of Pienza in Italy, using lightness and space
• The visitor is invited to look into all directions, similar to the churches of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito in Florence, by Brunelleschi
• Whitewash has a luminous effect in the building
• Number, proportion, geometry, and harmony are a key consideration in the building
• The façade is triple arched
• An inscription alludes to the conquest of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs above the central arch.
• A double-headed eagle on the right-hand pier represents the marriage between the empire and the Catholic religion
• Main features included a arch with portals and canvas
• Features pillars crowned by semicircular arches supported on pilasters, marble medallions from "José Laughing on the Annunciation" (José Risueño), circular window, and empty niches
• Cupola used medieval technique of buttressing and flying buttress that is great which attenuated towards the middle and is hidden from the floor level that carries a third of the weight of the dome
• Stained glass windows function as paintings on canvases
• Siloé intended these windows to be a central of the main chapel, tradition dictated that stained-glass windows be incorporated
• The main chapel, Sancta Sanctorum illuminates the tabernacle
• Needed development of iconography within chapel

Main chapels (Cathedral of Granada)

• Represents the life, passion, and death of Jesus Christ
• Interior has Corinthian columns, entablature, vault, stained glass windows
• Tabernacle given from the duke of San Pedro de Galatino and the crown, a great vault representing the heavens, decorated with golden stars + arched panels
• Sculptures figures of the Apostles (polychrome), and busts of Adam and Eve by Alonso Cano and large figures of the Catholic Monarchs praying
• There pieces within are by Granada artists, such as Pedro Duque Cornejo, with work by la sculpture Alonso Mena,chapel of San Cecilio, magnificent reredos of de Santiago, by Hurtado Izquierdo.
• Also has paintings by Juan de Sevilla de Bocanegra on the stone reredos of the that decorate the transept, as well as side chapels such the Cristo de Esperanza de Rojas.

Palace of Charles V

• Architect Pedro Machuco
• Constructed next to Alhambra beginning on1527
• A masterpiece of Renaissance architecture
• Has Ionic and Doric Colonnades, rustications, ashlar pilasters, the facdes and includes a two-storey patio
• Its dimensions are 63m x 63m with an inner court: 30m in
• It's a square structure a square structure on a centralized layout influence by the renaissance
• Uses cross-axes, and has multiple different of entrances
• Features Alternating Rythm of triangular pediments on the second level, with an interior circular court surrounded by the same superimposed order of doric and ionic
• Southern and Western facade

Internal details

• Has a Cornice. pediment a relief abundance doors (serpentine stone)
• Rectangular shape pilasters are ionic a corinthian
• Four Doors
• Central of body pedestal lions (marbles). Tuscan order of surface and windows (anillos bronze) level medallions in the stone.

Exterior Features (Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial)

• Located at Madrid in central Spain
• Royal site
• Designed by Juan Bautista de Toledo
• Philip appointed Toledo architect royal in 1559
• They designated Escorial as a monument to Spain's role as a center of the Christian world with Juan de Herrera taking work
• Has four storeys
• Located is 45 kilometres Madrid complex laid de Toledo's, de Toledo)

Royal Site of San Lorenzo Interiors

• Has Three doors: middle a to Los and the side those leads three to monastery. Has doors
• Altar has three-tiered reredos Screen or is that with gilded
• Features Leoni and Philip and Zuccaro to fresoes
• Toledo of kilometers

El Transito Synagogue History

• Samuel Ben Meir Ha-Levi for. A for
• I's
• Jima(intercourse)
• Ceilings Mudejar 23m(9 1/4 height.