ALBERTI S LATER WORKS

as the chief motif of the facade of the church, and that the propor-
tion of the arches of the crossing repeats that of the side chapels.

Alberti was not the only architect to experiment with such
rhythmical combinations in the longitudinal church building. The
North of Italy proved especially interested in the application of the
principle to the church with nave and aisles, after a Florentine archi-
tect had given the first- hints at Faenza Cathedral (1474). Ferrara,
Parma and other centres picked them up and soon we see this trend
of thought unite forces with that interested in central plans on the
Milanese scheme of a central dome with four smaller and lower domes
in the corners. Venice and the Veneto had begun to build central
churches of this type shortly before 1500, and in 1506 an otherwise
litde-known architect, Spavento, found the classic solution for its
application to the basilica. S. Salvatore in Venice (fig. 52) consists of
a nave of two of the Milano-Venetian units plus an exactly identical
crossing. Only the transepts and apses are tacked on a little incon-
gruously.

S. Salvatore stands in a similar relation to Alberti's S. Andrea in
Mantua as, in the field of domestic architecture, stands the Cancelleria
.in Rome (fig, 53) to Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai. The Cancelleria was
built in 1486-98 as the private residence of Cardinal Riario, nephew
of Sixtus IV, one of the most formidable of the Renaissance popes.
These popes considered themselves worldly rulers almost more than
priests. Julius II, another nephew of Sixtus IV, under whom the new
St. Peter's was begun, and for whom Michelangelo painted the

f "

V J\

A

N. J

I

2O +0 66 &0 100

I ' I ' I i I i

52. GIORGIO SPAVENTO: S. SA1.VATORB, VENICE, BEGUN 1506.
93