FRONTONE. - The upper terminal part of a facade, generally triangular in shape so as to follow the slope of the roof.
It was adopted in the earliest Christian buildings (Constantinian basilicas, Syrian churches); but in Romanesque and Gothic churches the facade, although almost always ending in slopes, rarely presents a pediment, because a cornice separating it from the part below is lacking. The classical arrangement returns in the Renaissance. The curvilinear form remains confined to Venice and the Venetian sphere of influence, in the second half of the 15th century (S. Maria dei Miracoli, S. Zaccaria). In the 17th century the pediment too takes on that sense of movement and tension that marks the whole architecture of the period; broken forms appear (S. Maria in Campitelli in Rome) and mixed-line forms, in which Borromini above all displays his extravagance. The Neoclassical age brought this element too back to the simplicity of its original line, but with a sense of coldness and rigidity.
In a broad sense the name of pediment is also given to the crowning element of windows, portals and altars. In windows it appears already sporadically in the Early Christian period (S. Salvatore of Spoleto) and the Romanesque (baptistery of Florence). The first example of a curvilinear pediment in windows is that of S. Salvatore al Monte by Cronaca; the motif was adopted by Michelangelo (sacristy of S. Lorenzo), and spread rapidly, even alternating with the triangular one on the same facade. The bizarre invention of inverted cornices is in Buontalenti (porta delle Suppliche in the portico of the Uffizi in Florence, 1580), and is entirely episodic; but already in this period there begins the use, very frequent in the 17th century, of the broken pediment to make room at the center for decorations or coats of arms.
Mario Zocca