Renaissance Revival

Renaissance Revival buildings copy the 15th- and 16th-century palaces, or palazzi, of Rome and Florence. A typical facade is a tall rectangular block. The ground floor is faced in rusticated stone (blocks with deep-cut joints or rough faces), and the upper floors have regular rows of windows, each framed by moldings and often capped with a pediment (a low triangular or curved crown). Horizontal stone bands mark the floors, and a deep projecting cornice runs along the roofline. Corners are often reinforced with quoins, larger stone blocks laid in alternating lengths.

In London, Charles Barry's Reform Club (1837-1841) on Pall Mall is modeled on the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. In New York, the Villard Houses (1882-1884), designed by Joseph Morrill Wells of McKim, Mead & White, follow Rome's Palazzo della Cancelleria and are faced in brownstone. The same firm's Boston Public Library (1895) has a long front of arched windows above a plain base.

Charles Barry introduced the style to England with the Travellers Club on Pall Mall in London (1829-1832), modeled on Italian palazzi, and followed it with the larger Reform Club on the same street (1837-1841), based on the Palazzo Farnese. In New York, A. T. Stewart's Marble Palace at 280 Broadway (1845-1846), designed by John B. Snook and Joseph Trench, was the city's first commercial building in the related Italianate style and the country's first department store.

In the United States the palazzo form was used through the late 19th century for banks, clubs, stores and town houses. New York brownstone row houses, faced in sandstone from New Jersey and Portland, Connecticut, used palazzo details such as stone window hoods and heavy cornices, with a stoop rising to a raised front door. McKim, Mead & White designed many large buildings in the style in the 1880s and 1890s, including the University Club of New York (1899). The Peace Palace in The Hague (1913) is one of the last major examples.