This apparent contradiction is not due to an incoherence of the Renaissance thinkers. On the contrary, they all scrupulously respected the axiom known as Conformit?, "conformity", established by Alberti and adopted as one of the trademarks of Renaissance: "First of all, one must see to it that all the parts are in harmony with each other, and they are in harmony if they correspond, so as to form one beauty, in regard to size, function, kind, colour and other similar qualities". In other words, a clash between the parts of a work should be avoided at all costs. Since Renaissance builders routinely had to complete unfinished Gothic buildings, the issue was a current one. The Gothic style was undesirable, but even more undesirable was a violation of this Conformità or Convenienza, laid down by the very founder of the theory of art.

There were three ways of respecting Conformità.

The easiest was to ignore the old structure and remodel it or encase it in a contemporary sheath. An instance of this is Tempio Malatestiano, which looks entirely Renaissance but is actually much older.
The second method was compromise, adopted in the case of Santa Maria Novella (Florence): integrating smoothly between the old and the new.
The third way was to submit to Conformit‡ and continue the work in a consciously Gothicising style. The Milan Cathedral, a Gothic structure if there ever was one, did not receive its tribune (or crossing tower) until the late Renaissance where Bramante designed it. Stylistically, the tribune is to be an integral part of the structure. However we will mention on the side one inconsistency to its Gothic nature: the garland-like buttresses, that look like they hang from the central structure rather than support it -- this is a totally counter-gothic conception, an application of Bramante's sense of criticism to the detested style.

In all these solutions, architects merely deferred to the postulate, with no aesthetic endorsement of the Gothic style. They also recognized the relativeness of merit: They conceded that a given historical condition imposed insurmountable limitations upon each artist and that, therefore, a positive value had to be attributed to his work from the historical point of view even if it had to be condemned from the standpoint of aesthetic dogma. In other words, Gothic had merit in that the "poor" artists of the time could not produce anything better with what they had.

This is the view in which we must understand Vasari's Gothic frame, drawn for the sake of coherence and of relative praise (as opposed to absolute). This simple drawing marks the beginning of an approach that is strictly art-historical, focused on the visual remains, and proceeds in "disinterested" manner.

Article by Joumana Medlej