Renaissance Gothic Architecture: Innovation, Ornament, and Authority, 1470-1530

FAIN: FA-53783-08

Ethan Matt Kavaler
University of Toronto (Toronto M5S 1A5 Canada)

My book will be the first extended study of what I have termed "Renaissance Gothic," the remarkable and innovative Gothic architecture created from about 1470 until 1530, which produced such famous monuments as King's College Chapel in Cambridge and the Vladislav Hall in Prague's Royal Castle. I pay particular attention to ornament, an essential enterprise for many architects of the period. Furthermore, my project will confront definitions of a Northern Renaissance itself and, inevitably, ideas of periodization. Although long dismissed as an epoch of decadent decline and of secondary importance to incipient Italianate design, this very Late Gothic remained the preferred manner for the most prestigious artists and patrons. Responding to the waning power of traditional Gothic forms, architects developed new strategies to refurbish their accustomed mode.