File:A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance (1901) (14781397881).jpg

Identifier: historyofarchit02cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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413. ^ These towers are remarkable for their apparently dangerous inclination, amounting CIVIL ARCHITECTURE 237 The Torre dellaPallata at Brescia,dating from the thir-teenth century, is anexample of an un-usual form, a broadsquare with batteringbase, strong anglebuttresses, and theusual machicolationsand battlements. There was an-other class Communalof towers *°^®^^-which are extremelyinteresting as an illus-tration of the civiclife of the MiddleAges; those, namely,which were erectedfrom the eleventh tothe fifteenth centuriesby the communesthemselves, mostlyduring the twelfthcentury, but also ear-lier and later, — toserve the double pur-pose of bell - towersand watch-towers. They were sometimes raised over the town-gates,more often in the public square or as a part of the town hall. Suchwas the so-called Torre del Pubblico at Modena, known also as LaGhirlandaja, which stands near the cathedral, and of which the squareportion was built about 1224, capped with battlements, furnished
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Fig. 393. Como. Porta Torre. in the Garisenda to something like eight feet, and in the Asinelli to five. As in the caseof the Pisa tower, this inclination has been by many writers presumed to have beenintentional on the part of the builders. Such a theory appears unreasonable on everyground, but especially perhaps in view of the proximity of the two towers, and the factthat they lean in different directions, the lines of inclination nearly crossing each other.Ricci cites early records and manuscripts to show that it was common during the thir-teenth century for cities to pass laws ordering the destruction of towers believed to beunsafe. 238 ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY with a bell, and put under the charge of the militi. The presentbelfry and the spire, which rises to the height of three hundred andfifteen feet, were added a hundred years later. (See Fig. 84.) Such was the tower of the commune at Mantua, and also atMantua the Torre della Gabbia, built perhaps by the commune and perhaps by th

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