Task 8. Match the English word-combinations with their Russian equivalents. Choose suitable word-combinations from the list to complete the sentences.

1. In the 15th century, Italy and France … already … of the Renaissance.

2. In 1436, Brunelleschi created a wonderful octagonal dome, … and … of Florence.

3. Brunelleschi was the first, who … in architecture.

4. Michelangelo came to architecture with a keen … of a sculptor.

5. Michelangelo designed … of St. Peter's dome, and used 10 iron chains that resisted … of the cupola.

6. Michelangelo originated the concepts of … that were later developed by the Baroque style.

7. The invention of printing in the mid-15th century promoted the dissemination of knowledge and …

8. Leon Battista Alberti, a scholar with … of all arts, wrote his famous treatise, where he … of architecture.

9. Alberti followed the ideas of Vitruvius, who considered the fusion of … to be … of true architecture.

10. The unique talent of Leonardo da Vinci helped …

11. The brilliant works of Donato Bramante in Milan and Rome were … for the architects all over the world.

12. Palladio's style was the quintessence of taste, characterized by …

Task 9. Join the sentences using the Participial Construction. Follow the model:

Michelangelo was the greatest sculptor. He opened up new concepts of scale, space, and volume in architecture. → Being the greatest sculptor, Michelangelo opened up new concepts of scale, space, and volume in architecture.

1. Gothic was a wild northern style. It had never been very popular in Italy.

2. Renaissance culture was influential all over Europe. It dominated the continent for 250 years.

3. Printing was one of the major engines behind the Renaissance. It caused the production of books and development of sciences.

4. The treatise by Vitruvius was written in the 1st century BC. It was an Encyclopedia on architecture and engineering.

5. A new class of merchant princes was very rich. They extended a generous financial support to artists and architects.

6. The creations by Brunelleschi in Florence were the icons of style. They have become the copy-books of the Renaissance.

7. Leon Battista Alberti was a new type of genius. He joined theory and practice of the Renaissance.

8. Leonardo da Vinci was "the Renaissance man of legend". He anticipated the High Renaissance.

9. The Tempietto San Pietro was a true jewel of the Renaissance. It became a source of inspiration across 350 years.

10. St. Peter's Cathedral was a monument to the 9 major architects. It took 170 years to construct.

11. Andrea Palladio was the chief figure of the High Renaissance in Venice. He has been valued for elegance and taste.

Task 10. Use the Past Indefinite Tense or the Past Participle of the verbs from the box to complete the text. Some verbs are used more than once.

Wealthy Italian families ___ prominent sites for their palaces. Usually with three storeys and a courtyard, those buildings ___ to the powerful dynasties. The main living areas of the palaces were ___ on the first floor, "Piano Nobile", while the upper storeys were usually ___ for the children. Many Florentine palaces ___ double-leaf windows ___ from medieval buildings. The use of large stone blocks on the ground floor ___ a visual impression of great strength. Stone rustication was an extremely costly feature ___ to emphasize the patron's wealth and status. The Italian Renaissance was ___ by a fusion of Classical and local traditions. Alberti ___ pilasters to decorate the façade of the Palazzo Rucellai (1470) in Florence. He ___ the Doric order at ground level, the Corinthian orders above, and the entablature to separate the storeys. Brick was widely ___ as a building material in northern Italy, but many structures were ___ with tiles and marble according to the local style. Some palaces were ___ in antique mosaics of black, green, and white marbles and red porphyry, with a delicate terracotta decoration around windows and cornices. A relief with Classical motifs was a traditional form of decoration, especially in Lombardy and Tuscany. In the 16th century, landscape architecture ___ a very important idea of the Renaissance: large villas, gardens, and very small "villa suburbana" near the city. Hillside location, rivers and lakes, balconies and terraces, towers and belvederes, fragrant plants and garden architecture were the essential features of villas and gardens, whose origin ___ from the Roman style.

Unit 12.

Task 1. Read the text

"BRITISH NEO-CLASSICISM: TASTE AND ELEGANCE"

1. Baroque came to an end in the middle of the 18th century, and Europe returned to balanced and proportional Classical architecture. During 150 years of its development, Baroque failed to conquer the whole Europe. The heritage of Classical architecture, its value and influence, were incomparable to those of Baroque. The enthusiasm and creativity of a new generation of architects found their expression in the refined taste and elegance rediscovered in ancient civilizations. During the 18th century, archaeologists, architects, artists, and scientists toured ruins and monuments of Greece and Rome. That Grand Tour of intellectuals resulted in a large variety of publications, from tourist notes and sketch-books to deep scientific treatises, which appeared in Italy, England, Germany, and France. All those facts together with the changing political, social and emotional atmosphere caused the decline of Baroque and the birth of a new style – Neo-Classicism.

2. Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), an architect and painter, was one of the first who published the results of his investigations. Piranesi moved to Rome in 1740 and carried out a serious study of ancient culture: he made a substantial record of Roman architecture with plans and details of buildings, orders and principles of construction.

3. Although the stage was provided by Greece and Rome, the leading parts in the Neo-Classical drama were played by foreign actors. Undoubtedly, that was Britain's moment. England was the first European country, where the new style was expressed with the greatest elegance. Notable Neo-Classical buildings were created in Scotland, especially in Edinburgh, which was named the "Athens of the North". Young British talents of the new style were guided by the amateur architect Lord Burlington (1694–1753), their practical bibles being "I Quattro Libri dell' Architettura" (1570) by Andrea Palladio and "Vitruvius Britannicus" (1717) by the Scottish architect Colen Campbell.

4. Colen Campbell (1676–1729) put his theories into practice in 1722, having built Houghton Hall in Norfolk. Campbell was also famous for Mereworth Castle (1723) in Kent, which was inspired by Palladio's Villa Rotonda. The young painter William Kent (1685–1748) created another interpretation of the Rotonda theme – Chiswick House (1725) in London. The most outstanding architectural creation of William Kent was Holkham Hall (1734) in Norfolk. The magnificent structure, comprising a central block and 4 wings, was built of yellow Roman brick. The perfect geometry of its design and the brilliance of the surrounding landscape were unmistakably Palladian. Kent's talent as a painter was best revealed in his work at Kensington Palace in London in the 1730's. He decorated the interiors in 3 different styles: the Grand Staircase in the Venetian Baroque manner, the Cupola Room in the Neo-Antique style, and the Presence-Chamber in the Arabesque style.

5. The genius of the Palladian style was its adaptability. Many British builders produced copy-books that provided easy-to-copy designs for palaces, villas, and pavilions. It was possible to trace the influence of the Palladian style from luxury estates to modest country houses built all over England, Scotland, and Ireland. But new elegance was not limited to country houses. The Woods, brothers and gifted architects, were the first who translated the Palladian style into city streets. The golden-white stone elevations of terrace houses in Bath, a fashionable spa town, look like one continuous Palladian façade: the rhythm of pilasters and columns is combined with the symmetry of architraves and friezes.

6. Young British architects were the leaders of the Romantic Movement, which inspired a revolution in English garden design. It was William Kent who gave a start for English landscape architecture with his famous words "all nature is a garden". While Baroque houses needed geometrical order of formal gardens, elegant Palladian houses required a romantic environment. The entire landscape, as far as the eye could see, became part of the estate. The most celebrated gardener was Lancelot Brown (1716–1783). His brilliant art of locating and planting trees is now taken for granted as a characteristic feature of the English landscape. The fusion of architecture and nature went one step forward and marked the development of the Picturesque Movement. Gardens were decorated with such delightful architectural creations as summer-houses, pagodas and small temples, graceful arches and elegant bridges, beautiful lakes and romantic grottoes. Besides that, landscape architects created a wide range of fashionable country houses: Italianized villas, Gothic-style buildings, castellated estates, etc. Since that time, the British love of nature has been a never-ending story. In 1815, John Nash, a designer of the loveliest London landscape jewel – the Regent's Park – wrote in his diary: "The villas in the park were to be carefully sited in relation to each other and to the greenery in such a way that no villa should see any other, but each should seem to possess the whole of the park"

7. The new tendency was manifested in the work of Robert Adam (1728–1792), a talented Scottish architect and one of the most celebrated academicians of his day, whose creations generated legions of imitators. Robert Adam invented his own version of the Etruscan decoration, which became extremely fashionable in room interiors, wall moldings, ceilings, mantelpieces, sculpture, door handles, and furniture as well as in vases, lamps, and pottery. Adam's style notable for its taste and elegance constituted "the poetry of architecture". Adam's finest designs included Kedlestone Hall (1760's) in Derbyshire built in the Greek style, and Syon House (1770's) in London built in the Roman style. The magnificent marble columns, supporting the cornice with golden Greek sculptures in the vestibule of Syon House, were Roman originals brought from the River Tiber.

8. Neo-Classicism was in many ways a very literary period, the time when philosophers, writers, and intellectuals had an exceptional influence on artistic and political movements that were changing the face of the world. It was, perhaps, the combination of strict Classicism with nobility, elegance, fantasy, and love of nature that made that period so fascinating and romantic.

Vocabulary

1. to conquer завоевать

2. heritage наследие

3. decline отклоняться

4.to reveal открывать

5. pilaster пилястр

6. fusion слияние, объединение

7. graceful элегантный, грациозный

7. to manifest проявлять, обнаруживать

8. to possess обладать

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