Venetian Gothic architecture: how to identify it

what it is

Venetian Gothic is the form of Gothic architecture built in Venice, mostly for palaces on the city's canals. Its main motif is the ogee arch, a pointed arch whose sides curve in an S shape before meeting at the tip. Windows are grouped in rows of closely spaced arches, often topped with quatrefoils (four-lobed openings cut in stone). Facades combine brick, white Istrian stone and colored marble, and many palaces have a loggia, an open arcaded gallery, across the main floor. Roofline crenellations and stone window grilles follow Byzantine and Islamic models.

The Doge's Palace has a ground-floor arcade of pointed arches, a loggia of quatrefoil tracery above it, and an upper wall of pink and white stone laid in a diamond pattern. The Ca' d'Oro (1421-1437) on the Grand Canal is named for the gilding that once covered its facade. In French Gothic churches, tracery is a thin screen inside window openings; in Venetian palaces, the stone tracery carries the weight of the wall above.

how to spot one

Pointed arch An arch whose two curved sides meet at a point, called the apex. It is the standard arch of Gothic and Gothic Revival buildings and pushes outward less than a round arch. Tracery window A window divided by vertical stone bars called mullions, which branch at the top into curved stonework called tracery. It supports large areas of glass in Gothic churches and Gothic Revival buildings. Arcade A row of arches carried on columns or piers (thick square supports), often forming a covered walkway along a building. Arcades are common on Roman, Romanesque, Renaissance and Spanish Colonial buildings.

Also look for

Balustrade Wrought-iron balcony Carved stone relief

history

Venetian Gothic developed in the 13th century in a city whose trade ran to Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean. In most of Europe the ogee arch appeared late in the Gothic period, but in Venice it was used from the start. The main phase came in the 14th and 15th centuries. Rebuilding of the Doge's Palace began around 1340, its wing on the Piazzetta was added from 1424, and Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon carved its Porta della Carta gateway in 1438-1442.

Venice kept building in Gothic until the mid-1400s, later than most Italian cities, and its early Renaissance palaces kept Gothic window shapes. The style returned in the 19th century after John Ruskin praised it in The Stones of Venice (1851-1853). British architects used it for commercial buildings such as the Wool Exchange in Bradford and William Leiper's Templeton carpet factory in Glasgow (1888-1892), which copies the Doge's Palace. In the United States, Frank Furness and Charles Amos Cummings adopted it, and one of the last examples is the Ca' d'Zan mansion in Sarasota, Florida (1926).

where to find it

The Grand Canal in Venice, above all the Doge's Palace and Ca' d'Oro, plus 19th century revival buildings in London, Manchester, and New York.

easy to confuse with

Notre-Dame de Paris, an example of Gothic

Gothic Pointed arches, ribbed ceilings, and flying buttresses that let stone walls turn into glass and light.

Palace of Westminster, an example of Gothic Revival

Gothic Revival Medieval drama revived: pointed arches, steep gables, patterned stone window bars, and strong vertical lines.