Architecture / Origin / Tuscany

• atrium Tuscanicum: The Tuscan atrium; the simplest and probably the most ancient of all atria, adopted at Rome from the Etruscans. It could be employed only for an apartment of small dimensions; the roof structure was carried by two beams placed lengthwise from wall to wall, into which two shorter beams were mortised at equal distances from the wall, so as to form a square opening in the center between them.
• Bigallo: In Florence, a very beautiful fragment of a 15th century structure fronting on the piazza where stands the cathedral and baptistery.
• camp santo: In Italian, a sacred or consecrated field, – that is, a burial ground; used in English for those of Italy, – of which the most famous is that of Pisa, – and more rarely for a much elaborated graveyard anywhere, with cloisters or roofed galleries containing tombs or similar architectural additions…
• cloister vault: A form of dome, with curved surfaces that rise from a square or polygonal plan; the intersections of the curved surfaces form groins or have ribs (example: the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, by Filippo Brunelleschi).
• commesso: A geometrical mosaic practiced in Italy during the Middle Ages, as in the pavement of the Baptistery at Florence.
• cordoni: A ramp or inclined plane formed into paved steps from 18″ to 3′ tread, with only 1″ to 4″ rise, each step being thus inclined somewhat less than the general slope. The risers or fronts of the steps are of stone, and constitute the cordoni. Such ramps are used for animals as well as pedestrians, and are common in Italy.
• crowning: Feature on the top of a lantern or dome. Traditionally a cross-bearing sphere. For the New Sacristy of the Medici Chapel in Florence, Italy, Michelangelo chose a polyhedron made of sixty triangular segments, set on the edges of a dodecahedron, forming a solid with twelve pentagonal based pyramids. This crowing was intended to enhance the variations of light while referring to the Medici device of the diamond.
• duomo: The term for an Italian cathedral.
• Etruscan: The architecture of the Etruscan people in western central Italy from the 8th century B.C. until their conquest by the Romans in 281 B.C. Apart from some underground tombs and city walls, it is largely lost, but remains important for the influence of its construction methods on Roman architecture, e.g., the stone arch.
• Etruscan architecture: The architecture of the Etruscan people in western central Italy from the 8th century B.C. until their conquest by the Romans in 281 B.C. Apart from some underground tombs and city walls, it is largely lost, but remains important for the influence of its construction methods on Roman architecture, e.g., the stone arch.
• Florentine arch: An arch whose extrados is not concentric with its intrados and whose voussoirs are therefore longer at the crown than at the springing; common in the region of Florence in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.
• Florentine lily: Also see Giglio.
• Florentine marble: A variety of gypsum; a sulphate of lime more or less translucent and of a prevailing white color, though often clouded and veined with brownish red and other tints
• Florentine mosaic: A kind of mosaic made with precious and semiprecious stones, inlaid in a surface of white or black marble or similar material, generally displaying elaborate flower patterns and the like.
• giglio: A Florentine emblem like a fleur-de-lys.
• Italianate style: An architectural style characterized by: two or three stories, low-pitched hip (or sometimes gable) roof with widely overhanging eaves supported by large brackets, a cupola or tower, visually balanced façade, decorative bracketed crowns or lintels over windows and doors, and narrow single pane double hung windows and double doors.
• Italianate hipped cottage: The Italianate version of the hipped cottage is one of the oldest subtypes of the period under study. Italianate design predates and postdates the Civil War. Early Italian styles tend toward the Tuscan, which usually includes a pronounced tower. The vernacular hipped cottage is more generally Italian. It has a strong vertical orientation centered on vertical alignment between stories, including
• Italianate commercial building: In the Italianate storefront popular during the 1870s and 1880s, the window treatment (which included the shape and size of the window and the lintel or sill), the cornice line, and the corners of the building offered the most opportunities for detail from the limited design possibilities. Windows were generally long and narrow, and lintels and sills were of metal,
• Italianate: An architectural style characterized by: two or three stories, low-pitched hip (or sometimes gable) roof with widely overhanging eaves supported by large brackets, a cupola or tower, visually balanced façade, decorative bracketed crowns or lintels over windows and doors, and narrow single pane double hung windows and double doors.
• Italian furniture: Furniture characterized by six different styles. The Pre-renaissance (1100-1400) style modeled Byzantine and Gothic art. The Quattrocento (1400-1500) style had very classic and simple details. The Cinquecento (1500-1600) style was dominated by rich and elaborate carvings. The Baroque (1650-1700) style was characterized by exaggerated and ornate designs. The Settecento (1700-1750) style had lavish but elegant designs. The other styles duplicated Directoire, Louis XVI, and Hepplewhite styles.
• Italian Renaissance Revival: Arriving in the late 19th century, this style was a much grander interpretation of northern Italian Renaissance villas and palaces than the earlier Italianate and Italian Villa styles, resulting in more luxurious mansions.
• Italian Renaissance architecture: The group of architectural styles that originated in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an emphasis on symmetry, exact mathematical relationships between parts, and an overall effect of simplicity and repose.
• Italian olive: A wood of yellowish brown color, streaked with darker markings of various shades; used largely for inlay, working smoothly to tool.
• Italian tiling: Same as pan-and-roll roofing tile.
• Italian motif: Design evoking historic styles of construction from Italy.
• Italianate feature: Design that refers to features in the Italianate style.
• Italian moulding: A heavy, wide molding that usually surrounds a fireplace; a type of bolection molding.
• Italianate Tuscan Villa: Villa with a square tower.
• kneeling window: A window with the sill resting on scrolls that resemble “legs” from the knee down. The first version of this design is believed to have been executed by designs of Michelangelo at the Medici-Riccardi Palace in Florence.
• leaning tower: A tower, usually detached and slender for its height, which overhangs its base; the most famous example of such a tower is at Pisa, Italy, where the 179 ft (54.6 m) tower is 16.5 ft (5 m) out of perpendicular.
• opera del duomo: The workshop or museum of an Italian cathedral.
• palatial Italian: Italianate style applied to 19th c. clubs, banks, offices, making them look like Italian astylar palazzi, as in Barry’s Travelers’ Club, Pall Mall, London (1829).
• palazzo: The super town house of Italian nobility (i.e., palace), later a description of any big, urbane building in an Italian town.
• palazzo style: See Italianate; palatial Italian.
• pietra dura: Inlaid work with hard stones (agate, jasper, marble, etc.) later used from 16th c. for mosaics, also called Florentine mosaic, opera commesso, pietra commesse, and lavoro di commesso…
• pietra serena: Dark, slippery, greenish-grey Florentine Macigno stone from Fiesole used for the interior pilasters, entablatures, and architectural elements by Brunelleschi at the Pazzi Chapel and Michelangelo in the Medici Chapel, both in Florence.
• Renascence: From the French renaître (to be born again) and the Italian Rinascimento (rebirth), the term is given to the great revival of arts and letters under the influence of Classical precedents which began in 14th c. Italy and continued during the following two centuries, spreading to virtually all parts of Europe.
• sinopa: In Italian, refers to a preparatory drawing on wet plaster made with red earth mixed with water. Named for Sinope, a Turkish city on the Baltic Sea. Once the wall was prepared with a gross coating of plaster (rinzaffo) a thinner coat (arriccio) was spread, on to which was drawn, using the red earth mixed with water, the preparatory drawing.
• Tuscan villa: A villa with a tower.
• Tuscan architecture: That of the ancient Etruscans. 2. That of modern Tuscany at any epoch, especially any style taking shape in this region and not extending much beyond it. The most important of such styles is the round-arched Gothic, exemplified by the Loggia dei Lanzi and the Bargello, or Palace of the Podesta, both in Florence, and the Cathedral of Lucca, and other buildings; a style which was mainly Gothic in structure with its system of building received from the north, but which protested against the northern style as a decorative system.
• Tuscan: Italianate.
• Tuscan order: A classical order most readily distinguishable by its simplicity. The columns are never fluted, the capitals are unornamented, and the frieze lacks the triglyphs that are part of the Doric order.