File:The art of the Pitti Palace - with a short history of the building of the palace, and its owners, and an appreciation of its treasures (1903) (14801560543).jpg

Identifier: artofpittipalace1903addi (find matches)
Title: The art of the Pitti Palace : with a short history of the building of the palace, and its owners, and an appreciation of its treasures
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Addison, Julia de Wolf Gibbs, 1866-
Subjects: Palazzo Pitti Painting
Publisher: Boston : L.C. Page
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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ot too pronounced. The separatestones of which it is built are enormous; but thereare so many of them, that they do not strike thebeholder as presenting more than a good bold sur-face. Some of the single blocks among those whichhelp to support the terraces are monoliths as longas five men. They are as little worked as is con-sistent with an approximately flat surface; theywere hewn roughly from the quarry. Their colouris dark gray, which adds to the rugged effect ofthe pile. The whole front as it stands to-day is475 feet long; the distance from the centre of onewindow to the centre of the next is twenty-four feet. The fagade is unornamented. There are balus-trades which run at the top of the three stories,enclosing three balconies, which appear in proportionto be hardly more than string-courses. Leader Scott remarks that in the building as itnow stands there is great want of balance. Theimmense length, in proportion to its height, hasdisastrously exaggerated the horizontal lines. This
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I Xttca IPitti anb Ibis iC^alace «3 IS owing to the later additions to the plan. In thefacade are no vertical divisions except such articu-lations as the constant repeat of the round-archedwindows indicate. Each storey is forty feet inheight, and the arches twelve feet across. Thesethree storeys should properly have been surmountedby a heavy cornice^ as is the Strozzi Palace, — whatRuskin calls a solemn frown of projection, nota scowl, as in the Palazzo Vecchio. Judging fromBrunelleschis sketch, however, it was to have beentopped with an open loggia. Bartolommeo Ammanati, who built the bridgeknown as Ponte Trinita, was engaged to continuethe building in the sixteenth century. By that timethe palace had passed into the possession of theMedici, and has ever since been the royal residencein Florence. Buonacorsi Pitti^ a grandson of Luca, was livingthere in 1529, as head of the family; but, beingheavily in debt, he decided to sell the place. SoCosimo I. de Medici bought it for his wife

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