renaissance

[French=regeneration, new birth; re-again, and nai ance = birth.] [RENASCENT.] The revival of anything long extinct, lost, or decayed; a term applied to the transitional movement in Europe from the middle ages to the modern world, and especially to the time of the revival of letters and art in the fifteenth century. In a still narrower sense applied to the style of architecture which succeeded the Gothic [RENAISSANCE-ARCHITECTURE), and that peculiar style of decoration revived by Raphael in the pontificate of Leo X., resulting from the discoveries made by him of the paintings in the then recently exhumed Therme of Titus, and in the Septizonia. It was freer than the antique. renai ance-architecture, s. Arch.: A style which first sprang into existence in Italy in the beginning of the fifteenth century. It reached its zenith in that country in the course of the same century, and at the beginning of the following became a model for all other countries. At the early epoch of its existence the new style of architecture displays not so much an alteration in buttre es, pinnacles, clustered columns, deeply rece ed portals, ., were borrowed from the Pointed style, and it was only in the details and in the ornamentation that the Renai ance was followed. The Louvre and the earlier portions of the Tuileries are examples of this style. The Renai ance style was not employed in Germany before the middle of the sixteenth century, and the most noteworthy instances of it are the Belvedere of Ferdinand 1., on the Hradschin at Prague, and the so-called Otto Henry additions to the Heidelberg Castle (1556-1559). In Spain an Early Renai ance style appears a kind of transitional Renai ance belonging to the first half of the sixteenth century, It consisted of the application of Moorish and pointed arch forms in conjunction with those of cla ical antiquity; in this way a conformation was produced which was peculiar to Spain, and the style is characterized by bold lightne , by luxuriance in decoration, and by a spirit of romance. The Italian Renai ance style was introduced into England about the middle of the sixteenth century by John of Padua, the architect of Henry VIII. The most noteworthy examples of it are White hall Palace, by Inigo Jones, and St. Paul's and other churches, by Sir Christopher Wren.