RENAISSANCE AND MANNERISM C. I420-C. l6<X>

spandrels of the arcade. A subtly scaled architrave divides ground
floor from first floor. Now the pediments over the windows are
certainly a Roman motif. So seem to be the Corinthian columns.
But arches on such slender columns are really in their expression
just as different from those of, say, the Colosseum, as they are from
any Gothic arcades. Their source and that of several other motifs
of .the facade is the Tuscan Proto-Renaissance of S. Miniato
(pi. xxm), i.e. the architecture of Florence in the nth and I2th

42. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHi: STO. SPIRITO, FLORENCE, BEGUN 1435-
centuries, and nothing else. This is an eminently significant fact.
The Tuscans, unconsciously of course, prepared themselves for the
reception of the Roman style by first going back to their own
Romanesque Proto-Renaissance.
The relation of Brunelleschi's churches to the past is very similar.
Sto. Spirito (pi. XLVH and fig. 42), which he designed in 1435, is a
basilica with round-headed arcades and a flat roof; Romanesque,
one can say, in these general characteristics. The bases and capitals of
the Corinthian columns, on the other hand, and the fragments of an
entablature above are Roman, rendered with a correctness and under-
standing of their vigorous beauty that were beyond the power of
the architects of the Proto-Renaissance. The curious niches of the
aisles are also Roman, though treated in a very original way* But
So