ABSTRACT
The displacement of Gothic design by Renaissance classicism was one of the most dramatic pivots in the history of western architecture, involving revolutionary changes not only in the appearance and structure of buildings, but also in the way that they were conceived. The dynamics of this transition were of course extremely complex, and any reasonably complete account of the phenomenon would have to deal at length with the broader cultural context of architectural production. Even a fairly specialized book like this one, moreover, must acknowledge that the distinction between Gothic and Renaissance architectural cultures was anything but sharp. Category labels like “Gothic” and “Renaissance” are inevitably somewhat imprecise and artificial, and there has never been universal scholarly consensus about their definitions.1 Even within the architectural spheres recognized as canonically Gothic or Renaissance, there was a great deal of variety, which complicates attempts to define essential characteristics of each mode. And, in the sixteenth century especially, many designers created hybrid structures that are effectively impossible to pigeonhole into one category or the other, since they drew on both architectural traditions. Despite these very real ambiguities and complications, though, the terms “Gothic” and “Renaissance” remain useful as labels for the two major architectural modes that existed side by side from roughly 1400 to 1600.
