Part five of six

A keen interest in architecture is also evident in media other than painting.

The mosaics for the Mascoli Chapel in San Marco, designed by the painter Giambono, reiterate some of Altichiero’s designs, while at the same time proposing more classicising solutions. Similarly, the work of the Lombardo family, trained sculptors but active as architects too, demonstrates the extent to which architecture and sculpture are intertwined. 

But architectural design went far beyond these art forms to include the so-called decorative arts: the North Italian Album features many designs for objects that share the same decorative or structural patterns as some of the more overtly architectural drawings in the collection, testifying to dynamic exchanges between craftsmen and prompting us to reflect on the relationship between design and craft. 

Michele Giambono 
Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple
Mosaic 
1430 – 1450
Mascoli Chapel, San Marco, Venice 
© Bridgeman Images

The temple in this mosaic reproduces the blue tiled domes of the Basilica del Santo in Padua as well as evoking Venetian architecture and Altichiero’s settings. It is part of a broader decoration that includes a further three narrative scenes characterised by the prominent building where they take place. This unique work precisely transposes ambitious architectural designs into a mosaic decoration, bringing together this longstanding Venetian tradition and advanced strategies of architectural representation.
 

Decorative details on the Trompe l’oeil archway

Pietro and Tullio Lombardo
Trompe l’oeil archway
White and polychromed marble
1487 – 1490 
Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice

This highly decorative solution engages with the space of the square in front of the Scuola Grande. It provides a sculptural response to Donate Bramante’s painted trompe l’oeil at Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan (1482-1486) as much as tapping into the perspectival architectural representations typical of wood marquetry.

Hand unknown
Chariots and consoles 
Ink and pigment on parchment 
c. 1500
North Italian Album, SM volume 122/33 
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London 

On this page of the North Italian Album, the draughtsman quickly shifted from designing triumphal chariots to experimenting with console brackets. The two objects share similar shapes and elaborate decorative patterns, demonstrating the vitality and versatility of the draughtsman’s architectural imagination. 

Hand unknown
Fireplace and two statues on pedestals 
Chalk and ink on parchment
c. 1500
North Italian Album, SM volume 122/46 
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London

The fireplace drawn on this page of the North Italian Album is characterised by unusual triangular pedestals and a large capital with acanthus leaves and volutes. The canopy of the chimney is markedly architectural too: each of its five segments is demarcated by stacked pilasters on pedestals. It is an example of how architectural design could directly translate to a household object.

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