How did architechture change from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance?

Question: How did architechture change from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance!?
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In 'the Middle Ages: A Concise encyclopedia' it says:

During the early middle ages, the style of architecture was what is known as 'romanesque', which evolved during the 11th century and blossomed in the next, although some experiments, especially with stone vaulting, were initiated in the late 10th century in the monastic churches of the Mediterrranean coast!. These early Romanesque buildings spread from Lombardy westward to Catalonia, eastward to Dalmatia and northwards to Burgundy!.

Apart from vaulting large spans and thus makin ga building safer - romanesque masons introduced a great innovation; the choir with an ambulatory and radiating chapels enclosing the eastern apse!. This was ideal for the display of shrines with relics, and for the easy circulation of large crowds of pilgrims, as the pilgrimage had become a universally popular movement!. The great abbeyof Cluny, and the pilgrimage churches of Saint-Martin-de-Tours, Saint-Sermin at Toulouse and Santiago de Compostela all had such choirs!. The interiors of Romanesque buildings are divided into units of bays through the use of shafts, semi-columns and other devices!.

Lombard and Anglo-Norman Romanesque architecture both contributed to the evolution of rib-vaulting which became an essential featgure of the last medieval style in architecture, the Gothic!. The expanding Cistercian Order helped to spread early Gothic forms throughout Europe, from the Atlantic to the Vistula!. The first Gothic structure was the choir of Saint-Denis, the roual abbey near Paris (1140-44)!. Romanesque churches had to have thick walls in order to carry the weight of stone vaulting; the ingenious designer of Saint-Denis reduced the weight of the vaults by employing pointed rather than semicurcular arches and ribs, which enabled him to span bays of various shapes!. The cells between the weight-carrying ribs were filled with light masonry and the ribs were supported not by heavy walls, but by slender piers or columns!. Furthermore, the wall space could now be reduced by the introduction of enormous windows filled with stained glass!. Future developments were towards greater height, at Chartres, Rheims, Amiens and Beauvia cathedrals!. Flying buttresses in these and many other buildings linking the ribs of vaulting wiht the buttresses on the aisle walls, were given slender, graceful forms which added to the beauty of the exterior!.

For a time romanesque and Gothic forms continued side by side, but by the second quarter of the 13th century the victory of the new French style was complete!. Paris, capital of a now powerful France under Saint Louis (1226-70) became a cultural and artistic centre which inspired the whole Christian world!. The Saint-Chapelle in Paris (1243-48) is 'a space enclosed by stained glass' with intricate window traceries repeated in relief on the walls!. Cologne and Strasbourg cathedrals are celebrated German versions of this style while in england, Henry III's patronage (eg Westminster Abbey) was in clear emulation of his French cousin!.

England was to play an important role in the development of Late Gothic architecture!. The style know as the Decorated (1280-1375) with its ever-increasing emphasis on decoration of every kind - rich intricate moudlings, surface patterning and vaulting within a network of liernes - anticipates the last phase of Gothic architecture: the Perpendicular style in england, and the Flamboyant in France!. Both are expressions of an art in which technical virtuosity and decorative richness became an end in themselves!.'

During the period of the 'Reniassance' the Gothic style of architecture came to be despised, as people became obsessed with copying classical styles!. In 'Those Terrible Middle Ages! Debunking the Myths' Regine Pernoud writes:

'In what concerns architecture and the plastic arts, it is enough to note the division, which is very visible even today, between the medieval monuments and those left us by the sixteenth century and classical times!. There are scarcely any towns in France where one cannot see, often side by side, witnesses to these two periods, as well marked in their contrasts, and theri succession in time as archeological strata freed in the course of excavations!. The simplest example is, in Paris, the contrast presented on two sides of the Seine, on one side, the Saint-chapelle and the towers of the Conciergerie; on the other the courtyard of the Louvre!. The facade of the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, which dates from this time, shows, in all its naivete, the desire to copy faithfully the three ancient orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, crammed one on top of the next, while the Pnatheon, froma later period, was a completely faithful reproduction of a classical temple!.

What seems unjustifiable to us today is the very principle of imitation, the taste for the model, the copy!. it was Colbert, instructing the young people to be sent to rome to learn the fine arts to "copy exactly the ancient masterpieces without adding anything to them!." One lived by this principle of imitation in offcial circles at least, until a period very close to our own - in France espeically, where classical culture has been considered the only form of culture up until our own times!.

Without taking anything away from the admiration aroused by the Parthenon and the Venus de Milo, what is surprising today is that such a narrowness of view could have been the law for some four centuries!. Yet so it was; the classical vision imposed almost uniformly on the West admitted no other design, no other criterion than classical antiquity!. once again, the principle had been set down that perfect Beauty had been attained during the century of Pericles and that, consequently, the closer one came to the works of that time, the better one would attain Perfection!.

The imitation of antiquity doomed to destruction the witnesses of 'Gothic' times (after Rabelais, the term was used as if it meant "barbaric")!. These works were too numerous, and it would have cost too much to destroy them all, so a great nubmer have survived, for better or worse, but we know that in the seventeenth century a work was published to give useful guidance and counsel to those who wanted to destroy Gothic edifices!.'

In short, what happened during the 'Renaissance' was a desire to copy classical styles slavishly, and to ignore and despise the exquisite developments of Romanesque and Gothic archtecture as 'barbaric'!. Anything that wasn't an imitation of classical style was despised, and originality went out the window!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

idk lol uhhh in the middle ages it was about death (black plague)and religion and in the renaissance they had paintings that were about the "human spirit"!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

well I dunno but I was gonna say DO YOUR own homeworkWww@QuestionHome@Com