Isabelline (architectural style): Difference between revisions

Inside of Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo.

Facace of the Colegio de San Gregorio, Valladolid.

Entrance to the Royal Chapel of Granada.

Isabelline Gothic (in Spanish, Gótico Isabelino), is a style of the Crown of Castile during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, who represents the transition between late Gothic and early Renaissance, with original features and influences of Islamic and Mudéjar art , Flanders and in a lesser extent, Italy.

The Isabelline style introduces several decorative rather than structural elements of the Castilian tradition and some ornaments of Islamic influence and other from Flanders, typically Flamboyant form. Many of the buildings that were built in this style were commissioned by the Catholic Monarchs or were in some way sponsored by them. Parallely in Portugal takes place a similar art called Manueline. Most obvious characteristic is the predominance of heraldic and epigraphic motifs, especially the symbols of the yoke and arrows and the pomegranate, which refer to the Monarchs. Also characteristic of this period the ornament with balls.

References to Classical antiquity in Spain just a bit more than literary, unlike in Italy, where the presence of Roman buildings was much more abundant and the Gothic had received a very adapted to the local classicist taste. Until the 1530's ended up not imposed the Roman to the Modern in the Spanish architecture. The use of these terms are concerned, in the intention of those who used, to things other than what today might think: the Roman was the style of the Italianate renaissance, classical or purist, while the Modern was for them the late Gothic and the Platereque decorative vocabulary.

Regardless of the environmental characteristics of the interior, the Gothic provides a proven structural systems. And it is the Gothic style in the Peninsula had suffered a series of changes due to local tradition, much smaller window which allows the construction system for roofs and much less pronounced, and flat roofs, what style really made a original, but better preservation of the Gothic construction system. On the other hand, most likely Spanish architects accustomed to Gothic, looked with some contempt visible metal braces that Italian architects were forced to put on the arches to resist the horizontal thrust, when the building system "Gothic" had methods avoided the "trap."

From the Gothic inheritance begins to take shape a unique style that includes more modern elements. Perhaps the best example of this style is the Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, the Gothic idea is more in the constructive system in the design of interior space, that little relationship to the original French Gothic.

Therefore, in the Peninsula, whose tradition of classical architecture is temporarily too far, (after the centuries of Muslim rule) prefer, by tradition of its own, constructive rationality, the Gothic system that evolves over time in the decoration of buildings , corresponding to the overall wealth of the country at the time, to a surcharge, which has been called plateresco, while keeping intact many Gothic elements, especially how to bear the burdens of the vaults of the pillars (not the walls, as in the Romanesque), propped up with the flying buttresses, with their pinnacles and, often, the pointed arches.

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  Cloister of Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo.
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  San Jerónimo el Real, Madrid.
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  Church of Convent of San Pablo, Valladolid.
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  Church of Santa María, Aranda de Duero
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  Church del Sagrario, Málaga
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  Exterior decoration of the Chapel del Condestable, Burgos.

Notes and References

• Chueca Goitia, Fernando: Historia de la arquitectura española, two volumes. Diputación de Ávila, 2001. ISBN 84-923918-7-1