When Renaissance-style architecture became fashionable in the century, it often materialized not just in its original form according to geography, but as a hybrid of all its previous forms according to the whims of architects and clients rather than geography and culture. If this were not in itself confusing, the new Neo-Renaissance frequently borrowed architectural elements from the successful Mannerist period, and in many cases even from the later Baroque period. Mannerism and Baroque are two very opposite styles of architecture. Mannerism was exemplified by the Palazzo del Te and baroque by the Würzburg residence.

Thus the Italian, French and Flemish Renaissance together with many borrowings from those later periods can cause great difficulties in the correct identification of the various forms of architecture of the century. Differentiating some forms of French Neo-Renaissance buildings from those of the Neo-Gothic can sometimes be especially difficult, as both styles were simultaneously popular during the 19th century.

John Ruskin's panegyrics on the architectural wonders of Venice and Florence contributed to the shift in the "attention of academics and designers, their awareness heightened by debate and restoration work"[4] from late neoclassicism and neo-Gothic to the Italian Renaissance. As a consequence a self-conscious "neo-renaissance" manner first began to appear around the year 1840. By 1890 this movement was already in decline. The Peace Palace in The Hague, completed in 1913 in a heavy French Neo-Renaissance manner, was one of the last notable buildings in this style.

Charles Barry introduced the Neo-Renaissance to England with his design for the Travelers Club, Pall Mall") (1829-1832). Other early but typical domestic examples are Mentmore Towers and Ferrières Castle, both designed in the 1850s by Joseph Paxton for members of the Rothschild banking family. The style is characterized by original Renaissance motifs, borrowed from Quattrocento architects such as Alberti. These Motifs include rustified masonry&action=edit&redlink=1 "Rusticaficación (architecture) (not yet drafted)") and padded ashlars, windows framed by architraves and doorways surmounted by pediments "Fronton (architecture)") and entablatures. If a building had several floors, the upper floor was usually smaller and had small square windows representing the mezzanine mezzanine "Mezzanine. (architecture)") from the original Renaissance designs. However, the Neo-Renaissance style later came to incorporate Romanesque and Baroque elements not found in the original Renaissance architecture which was often more serious in its design.

Like all architectural styles, the Neo-Renaissance did not appear fully formed overnight but evolved slowly. One of the first signs of its appearance was the Würzburg women's prison, which was erected in 1809 designed by Peter Speeth. It included a very rustic ground floor, relieved by a round arch, with a curious miniature Egyptian-style portico above, well above this is a sequence of six tall arched windows and above these, just below the slightly projecting roof are the small porthole windows of the upper floor. This building foreshadows similar effects in the work of American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose work in the Neo-Renaissance style was popular in the US during the 1880s. Richardson's final style was a severe mix of both Romanesque and Renaissance elements,[3]​ exemplified by his "Marshall Field Warehouse" in Chicago (completed 1887, now demolished).

However, while the beginning of the Neo-Renaissance period can be defined by its simplicity and severity, the style that prevailed was much more ornate in design. This period can be defined by some of the great opera houses of Europe, such as Gottfried Semper's Burgtheater in Vienna, or his Opera House in Dresden. This ornate Neo-Renaissance form, from France,[3] is sometimes known as the Second Empire Style, and also incorporates some Baroque elements. By 1875 it had become the accepted style in Europe for all types of public and administrative buildings.[3] In England, where Sir George Gilbert Scott designed the London Foreign Office headquarters in this style between 1860 and 1875, he also incorporated certain Palladian features.

Beginning with the Sanssouci orangerie (1851), in Germany "the Neo-Renaissance became the mandatory style for university and public buildings, for banks and financial institutions, and for urban villas."[5] Among the most notable examples of this style are the Meyer villa in Dresden, the Haas villa in Hesse, the Borsig palace in Berlin, the Meissner villa in Leipzig; The German neo-Renaissance version culminated in such turgid projects as the Hamburg City Hall (1886-1897) and the Berlin Reichstag building (completed in 1894).

In Austria, the style was pioneered by such illustrious names as Rudolf Eitelberger"), the founder of the Viennese School of Arts and Crafts (today Vienna University of Applied Arts). It found particular favor in Vienna, where entire streets and blocks were built in the so-called Neo-Renaissance style, actually a conglomerate of classical elements generously borrowed from different historical periods.

Neo-Renaissance was also the favorite style in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 1870s and 1880s. In Budapest, the rapidly growing capital, many monumental public buildings were built in this style, such as St. Stephen's Basilica "St. Stephen's Basilica (Budapest)") and the Hungarian National Opera. Andrássy Avenue is an outstanding group of Neo-Renaissance houses from the last decades of the century. The most famous Hungarian architect of the time, Miklós Ybl preferred Neo-Renaissance in his works.

In Russia, the style was pioneered by Auguste de Montferrand, in the Demidov House (1835), the first building in Saint Petersburg to adopt "a plant-by-plant approach to the ornamentation of the façade, in contrast to the classical method, where the façade was conceived as a unit." Konstantin Thon, the most popular Russian architect of the time, used Italianate elements profusely in the decoration of some interiors of the Grand Kremlin Palace (1837-1851). Another fashionable architect, Andrei Stackensneider"), was responsible for the Mariinsky Palace (1839-1844), with "the faceted rough stone of the first floor" reminiscent of Italian palaces of the 18th century.[6]

The style was further developed by the architects of the Vladimir Palace (1867-1872) and culminated in the Stieglitz Museum (1885-1896). In Moscow, the Neo-Renaissance was less popular than in the northern capital, although the neo-Muscovite interiors (1890-1892) were made with predominantly Florentine and Venetian decoration. Although the Neo-Renaissance is mainly associated with secular buildings, the Yusupov princes commissioned the interior of the church of their palace (1909-1916), near Moscow, to be decorated in strict imitation of the Venetian churches of the 19th century.

The style spread in North America, where as in Europe, it was the favorite residential architectural style of the very wealthy. The Breakers in Rhode Island, a Vanderbilt family residence designed by Richard Morris Hunt in 1870, is a good example. During the second half of the century, New York's Fifth Avenue was filled with French Renaissance chateaux and Italian palazzi, all in Neo-Renaissance style. Most of them have already been demolished.

One of the most widely copied elements of Renaissance architecture were the grand staircases of the castles of Blois and Chambord. Blois had been the favorite residence of the kings of France throughout the Renaissance. The Francis I Wing, completed in 1524, of which the staircase is an integral part, was one of the earliest examples of French Renaissance.[8] French Renaissance architecture was a combination of early Gothic style, along with a strong Italian influence represented by arches, arcades, balustrades, and generally a more fluid line of design than had been evident in early Gothic. The triumphal staircase of the Château de Blois was imitated almost from the time of its completion, and was undoubtedly the predecessor of the "double staircase" (sometimes attributed to Leonardo da Vinci) of the Château de Chambord only a few years later.

A grand staircase, whether based on that of Blois or that of Villa Farnese, became one of the central characteristics of Neo-Renaissance design. It became a common resource not only to solve the internal staircase itself, but also the external one. But while in Blois the stairs had been left open to the elements, in the century the new and innovative use of glass was able to give them protection against the weather, giving the stairs the appearance of being open as in the true Renaissance style, when in fact they were truly interiors. In addition, a more innovative use of glass also allowed open Renaissance courtyards and arcades to be reproduced as noble halls with glazed roofs. That university staircase, although Renaissance in spirit, is, in lightness and colonnade, more in the style of Ottaviano Nonni's staircase (called Il Mascherino) designed for Pope Gregory

Neo-Renaissance and Gothic

Strictly speaking, there are no similarities between Renaissance and Gothic architecture. However, since the French Renaissance evolved from the addition of Renaissance ornamentation to Gothic-based buildings—and also some in architecture such as the courtyard of the Doge's Palace in Venice that was built in that transitional period—some Gothic influences can be observed from time to time. During the Neo-Renaissance period, competent architects tended to avoid any reference to Gothic, designing rather in other classically based styles. However, there are exceptions and they sometimes mixed the two divergent styles. When this happened the chosen form of Gothic was often floral Venetian Gothic.

Baroque influences on the Neo-Renaissance

A baroque element introduced in the Neo-Renaissance was the "imperial staircase" (a staircase with a single straight flight that, after a wide landing, is then divided into two separate flights). The staircase that Paxton designed at Mentmore Towers and that at the Warsaw University of Technology (designed by Bronisław Rogóyski" and Stefan Szyller") at the turn of the century) both rise from pastiche Renaissance courtyards, but both staircases seem more akin to Balthasar Neumann's grand baroque staircase at the Würzburg residence than to anything found in a true Renaissance palace. However, the baroque style staircase evident at Mentmore is not without a Renaissance influence, and its first flight is similar to the Giants' Staircase of the Doge's Palace in Venice, which rises from a courtyard built when Venetian Gothic was being uncomfortably merged with Renaissance style. Similarly to that at Mentmore, the Giants' Staircase ends above a porticoed loggia. Perhaps not ironically, Mentmore's drawing room and staircase were designed by Paxton to display a Rothschild collection that had pieces of antique furniture formerly housed in the Doge's Palace.

Paris has many buildings in a combined Neo-Renaissance and Baroque style, such as the Opera Garnier, that don't seem to fit into any category. However, the Parisian Hôtel de Ville is firmly in the true Renaissance style, having been developed in France, with very steep roofs and towers. The reconstruction, which was completed around 1880, faithfully reproduces the Renaissance architectural details of the previous Hôtel de Ville.[9] In another corner of the world far from Paris, the Writers' Building, in Calcutta, was remodeled according to the latest fashions in 1880. This building is striking in its design. Serlian arched loggias deceptively form an almost Indian appearance, which are nevertheless arranged under a mansard roof. In what at first glance appears to be an oriental building, however, on close examination it is a classic example of Palladianism combined with French Renaissance, an almost unique example of this Neo-Renaissance style.

As already mentioned, the Neo-Renaissance style was actually an eclectic mix of styles from the past, which the architect had selected according to the whims of his clients. In the era of the true Renaissance there was a division of labor between the architect, who designed the visible exterior, and others—the craftsmen—who decorated and arranged the interior.[10]​ The original Italian Mannerist house was a place for rest and entertainment, and the convenience and comfort of its interior was a priority; In later baroque designs, comfort and interior design were secondary to exterior appearance. This was followed by the Neoclassical period, which gave importance to proportions and dignity of interiors, but still lost the interior comfort of the Mannerist period. It was during the neo-Renaissance period of the century that those mannerist comforts were rediscovered and taken a step further. It was motivated not only by the increasingly improved construction techniques of the 1850s—which allowed the glazing of the formerly open loggias and arches with the newly invented sheets of plate glass, providing the first picture windows—but also by the mixture of architectural styles that allowed interiors and exteriors to be treated differently. It was at this time that the concept of "decoration style" arose, which allowed distinctions to be made between interior rooms and external appearances, and indeed between different rooms themselves.[10] Thus, the modern treatment of a single room, different from its surroundings and neighboring ones, began its journey. Classic examples of this are the great Rothschild houses in Buckinghamshire), hybrids of various Renaissance palaces and English country houses of the 19th century, all with interiors ranging from Versailles to Medici, and in the case of Mentmore Towers with a large central room, similar to the porticoed courtyard of a Renaissance villa, conveniently glazed, decorated in Venetian style and heated by a fireplace designed by Rubens for his house in Antwerp.[11]​.

At the beginning of the century the Neo-Renaissance was commonplace on the main streets of thousands of cities, large and small, around the world. In southern Europe the Neo-Renaissance style began to fall out of favor around 1900. However, it was still widely practiced in the 1910s in Saint Petersburg and Buenos Aires by architects such as Leon Benois, Marian Peretyatkovich) or Francisco Tamburini.

In England it was so common that today Italian Renaissance palazzi are found as bank headquarters or municipal buildings in the centers of even the smallest towns. It has been said: "It is a well-known fact that the 19th century had no style of art of its own."[12] Although this may have some truth, the same could be said for most periods up to the beginning of the century, as the Neo-Renaissance in the hands of provincial architects developed in a style not always instantly recognizable as a derivative of the Renaissance. In this less obvious aspect, the Neo-Renaissance provided an important background in the totalitarian architecture of several countries, especially in the Stalinist architecture of the Soviet Union, as seen in some pavilions of the All-Russian Exhibition Center.

Neo-Renaissance architecture, due to its diversity, is perhaps the only architectural style that has existed in common in so many forms and in so many countries.

When Renaissance-style architecture became fashionable in the century, it often materialized not just in its original form according to geography, but as a hybrid of all its previous forms according to the whims of architects and clients rather than geography and culture. If this were not in itself confusing, the new Neo-Renaissance frequently borrowed architectural elements from the successful Mannerist period, and in many cases even from the later Baroque period. Mannerism and Baroque are two very opposite styles of architecture. Mannerism was exemplified by the Palazzo del Te and baroque by the Würzburg residence.

Thus the Italian, French and Flemish Renaissance together with many borrowings from those later periods can cause great difficulties in the correct identification of the various forms of architecture of the century. Differentiating some forms of French Neo-Renaissance buildings from those of the Neo-Gothic can sometimes be especially difficult, as both styles were simultaneously popular during the 19th century.

John Ruskin's panegyrics on the architectural wonders of Venice and Florence contributed to the shift in the "attention of academics and designers, their awareness heightened by debate and restoration work"[4] from late neoclassicism and neo-Gothic to the Italian Renaissance. As a consequence a self-conscious "neo-renaissance" manner first began to appear around the year 1840. By 1890 this movement was already in decline. The Peace Palace in The Hague, completed in 1913 in a heavy French Neo-Renaissance manner, was one of the last notable buildings in this style.

Charles Barry introduced the Neo-Renaissance to England with his design for the Travelers Club, Pall Mall") (1829-1832). Other early but typical domestic examples are Mentmore Towers and Ferrières Castle, both designed in the 1850s by Joseph Paxton for members of the Rothschild banking family. The style is characterized by original Renaissance motifs, borrowed from Quattrocento architects such as Alberti. These Motifs include rustified masonry&action=edit&redlink=1 "Rusticaficación (architecture) (not yet drafted)") and padded ashlars, windows framed by architraves and doorways surmounted by pediments "Fronton (architecture)") and entablatures. If a building had several floors, the upper floor was usually smaller and had small square windows representing the mezzanine mezzanine "Mezzanine. (architecture)") from the original Renaissance designs. However, the Neo-Renaissance style later came to incorporate Romanesque and Baroque elements not found in the original Renaissance architecture which was often more serious in its design.

Like all architectural styles, the Neo-Renaissance did not appear fully formed overnight but evolved slowly. One of the first signs of its appearance was the Würzburg women's prison, which was erected in 1809 designed by Peter Speeth. It included a very rustic ground floor, relieved by a round arch, with a curious miniature Egyptian-style portico above, well above this is a sequence of six tall arched windows and above these, just below the slightly projecting roof are the small porthole windows of the upper floor. This building foreshadows similar effects in the work of American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose work in the Neo-Renaissance style was popular in the US during the 1880s. Richardson's final style was a severe mix of both Romanesque and Renaissance elements,[3]​ exemplified by his "Marshall Field Warehouse" in Chicago (completed 1887, now demolished).

However, while the beginning of the Neo-Renaissance period can be defined by its simplicity and severity, the style that prevailed was much more ornate in design. This period can be defined by some of the great opera houses of Europe, such as Gottfried Semper's Burgtheater in Vienna, or his Opera House in Dresden. This ornate Neo-Renaissance form, from France,[3] is sometimes known as the Second Empire Style, and also incorporates some Baroque elements. By 1875 it had become the accepted style in Europe for all types of public and administrative buildings.[3] In England, where Sir George Gilbert Scott designed the London Foreign Office headquarters in this style between 1860 and 1875, he also incorporated certain Palladian features.

Beginning with the Sanssouci orangerie (1851), in Germany "the Neo-Renaissance became the mandatory style for university and public buildings, for banks and financial institutions, and for urban villas."[5] Among the most notable examples of this style are the Meyer villa in Dresden, the Haas villa in Hesse, the Borsig palace in Berlin, the Meissner villa in Leipzig; The German neo-Renaissance version culminated in such turgid projects as the Hamburg City Hall (1886-1897) and the Berlin Reichstag building (completed in 1894).

In Austria, the style was pioneered by such illustrious names as Rudolf Eitelberger"), the founder of the Viennese School of Arts and Crafts (today Vienna University of Applied Arts). It found particular favor in Vienna, where entire streets and blocks were built in the so-called Neo-Renaissance style, actually a conglomerate of classical elements generously borrowed from different historical periods.

Neo-Renaissance was also the favorite style in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 1870s and 1880s. In Budapest, the rapidly growing capital, many monumental public buildings were built in this style, such as St. Stephen's Basilica "St. Stephen's Basilica (Budapest)") and the Hungarian National Opera. Andrássy Avenue is an outstanding group of Neo-Renaissance houses from the last decades of the century. The most famous Hungarian architect of the time, Miklós Ybl preferred Neo-Renaissance in his works.

In Russia, the style was pioneered by Auguste de Montferrand, in the Demidov House (1835), the first building in Saint Petersburg to adopt "a plant-by-plant approach to the ornamentation of the façade, in contrast to the classical method, where the façade was conceived as a unit." Konstantin Thon, the most popular Russian architect of the time, used Italianate elements profusely in the decoration of some interiors of the Grand Kremlin Palace (1837-1851). Another fashionable architect, Andrei Stackensneider"), was responsible for the Mariinsky Palace (1839-1844), with "the faceted rough stone of the first floor" reminiscent of Italian palaces of the 18th century.[6]

The style was further developed by the architects of the Vladimir Palace (1867-1872) and culminated in the Stieglitz Museum (1885-1896). In Moscow, the Neo-Renaissance was less popular than in the northern capital, although the neo-Muscovite interiors (1890-1892) were made with predominantly Florentine and Venetian decoration. Although the Neo-Renaissance is mainly associated with secular buildings, the Yusupov princes commissioned the interior of the church of their palace (1909-1916), near Moscow, to be decorated in strict imitation of the Venetian churches of the 19th century.

The style spread in North America, where as in Europe, it was the favorite residential architectural style of the very wealthy. The Breakers in Rhode Island, a Vanderbilt family residence designed by Richard Morris Hunt in 1870, is a good example. During the second half of the century, New York's Fifth Avenue was filled with French Renaissance chateaux and Italian palazzi, all in Neo-Renaissance style. Most of them have already been demolished.

One of the most widely copied elements of Renaissance architecture were the grand staircases of the castles of Blois and Chambord. Blois had been the favorite residence of the kings of France throughout the Renaissance. The Francis I Wing, completed in 1524, of which the staircase is an integral part, was one of the earliest examples of French Renaissance.[8] French Renaissance architecture was a combination of early Gothic style, along with a strong Italian influence represented by arches, arcades, balustrades, and generally a more fluid line of design than had been evident in early Gothic. The triumphal staircase of the Château de Blois was imitated almost from the time of its completion, and was undoubtedly the predecessor of the "double staircase" (sometimes attributed to Leonardo da Vinci) of the Château de Chambord only a few years later.

A grand staircase, whether based on that of Blois or that of Villa Farnese, became one of the central characteristics of Neo-Renaissance design. It became a common resource not only to solve the internal staircase itself, but also the external one. But while in Blois the stairs had been left open to the elements, in the century the new and innovative use of glass was able to give them protection against the weather, giving the stairs the appearance of being open as in the true Renaissance style, when in fact they were truly interiors. In addition, a more innovative use of glass also allowed open Renaissance courtyards and arcades to be reproduced as noble halls with glazed roofs. That university staircase, although Renaissance in spirit, is, in lightness and colonnade, more in the style of Ottaviano Nonni's staircase (called Il Mascherino) designed for Pope Gregory

Neo-Renaissance and Gothic

Strictly speaking, there are no similarities between Renaissance and Gothic architecture. However, since the French Renaissance evolved from the addition of Renaissance ornamentation to Gothic-based buildings—and also some in architecture such as the courtyard of the Doge's Palace in Venice that was built in that transitional period—some Gothic influences can be observed from time to time. During the Neo-Renaissance period, competent architects tended to avoid any reference to Gothic, designing rather in other classically based styles. However, there are exceptions and they sometimes mixed the two divergent styles. When this happened the chosen form of Gothic was often floral Venetian Gothic.

Baroque influences on the Neo-Renaissance

A baroque element introduced in the Neo-Renaissance was the "imperial staircase" (a staircase with a single straight flight that, after a wide landing, is then divided into two separate flights). The staircase that Paxton designed at Mentmore Towers and that at the Warsaw University of Technology (designed by Bronisław Rogóyski" and Stefan Szyller") at the turn of the century) both rise from pastiche Renaissance courtyards, but both staircases seem more akin to Balthasar Neumann's grand baroque staircase at the Würzburg residence than to anything found in a true Renaissance palace. However, the baroque style staircase evident at Mentmore is not without a Renaissance influence, and its first flight is similar to the Giants' Staircase of the Doge's Palace in Venice, which rises from a courtyard built when Venetian Gothic was being uncomfortably merged with Renaissance style. Similarly to that at Mentmore, the Giants' Staircase ends above a porticoed loggia. Perhaps not ironically, Mentmore's drawing room and staircase were designed by Paxton to display a Rothschild collection that had pieces of antique furniture formerly housed in the Doge's Palace.

Paris has many buildings in a combined Neo-Renaissance and Baroque style, such as the Opera Garnier, that don't seem to fit into any category. However, the Parisian Hôtel de Ville is firmly in the true Renaissance style, having been developed in France, with very steep roofs and towers. The reconstruction, which was completed around 1880, faithfully reproduces the Renaissance architectural details of the previous Hôtel de Ville.[9] In another corner of the world far from Paris, the Writers' Building, in Calcutta, was remodeled according to the latest fashions in 1880. This building is striking in its design. Serlian arched loggias deceptively form an almost Indian appearance, which are nevertheless arranged under a mansard roof. In what at first glance appears to be an oriental building, however, on close examination it is a classic example of Palladianism combined with French Renaissance, an almost unique example of this Neo-Renaissance style.

As already mentioned, the Neo-Renaissance style was actually an eclectic mix of styles from the past, which the architect had selected according to the whims of his clients. In the era of the true Renaissance there was a division of labor between the architect, who designed the visible exterior, and others—the craftsmen—who decorated and arranged the interior.[10]​ The original Italian Mannerist house was a place for rest and entertainment, and the convenience and comfort of its interior was a priority; In later baroque designs, comfort and interior design were secondary to exterior appearance. This was followed by the Neoclassical period, which gave importance to proportions and dignity of interiors, but still lost the interior comfort of the Mannerist period. It was during the neo-Renaissance period of the century that those mannerist comforts were rediscovered and taken a step further. It was motivated not only by the increasingly improved construction techniques of the 1850s—which allowed the glazing of the formerly open loggias and arches with the newly invented sheets of plate glass, providing the first picture windows—but also by the mixture of architectural styles that allowed interiors and exteriors to be treated differently. It was at this time that the concept of "decoration style" arose, which allowed distinctions to be made between interior rooms and external appearances, and indeed between different rooms themselves.[10] Thus, the modern treatment of a single room, different from its surroundings and neighboring ones, began its journey. Classic examples of this are the great Rothschild houses in Buckinghamshire), hybrids of various Renaissance palaces and English country houses of the 19th century, all with interiors ranging from Versailles to Medici, and in the case of Mentmore Towers with a large central room, similar to the porticoed courtyard of a Renaissance villa, conveniently glazed, decorated in Venetian style and heated by a fireplace designed by Rubens for his house in Antwerp.[11]​.

At the beginning of the century the Neo-Renaissance was commonplace on the main streets of thousands of cities, large and small, around the world. In southern Europe the Neo-Renaissance style began to fall out of favor around 1900. However, it was still widely practiced in the 1910s in Saint Petersburg and Buenos Aires by architects such as Leon Benois, Marian Peretyatkovich) or Francisco Tamburini.

In England it was so common that today Italian Renaissance palazzi are found as bank headquarters or municipal buildings in the centers of even the smallest towns. It has been said: "It is a well-known fact that the 19th century had no style of art of its own."[12] Although this may have some truth, the same could be said for most periods up to the beginning of the century, as the Neo-Renaissance in the hands of provincial architects developed in a style not always instantly recognizable as a derivative of the Renaissance. In this less obvious aspect, the Neo-Renaissance provided an important background in the totalitarian architecture of several countries, especially in the Stalinist architecture of the Soviet Union, as seen in some pavilions of the All-Russian Exhibition Center.

Neo-Renaissance architecture, due to its diversity, is perhaps the only architectural style that has existed in common in so many forms and in so many countries.