LOGGIA. — An open gallery on the upper floors of buildings, almost always with arches, more rarely with an architrave. In church architecture it appears as a development of the pre-Romanesque motif of the series of niches or blind arches, arising from the structural necessity of lightening the masonry, together with the aesthetic intention of imparting movement to the surfaces.
The earliest examples are found in the 11th century, in the tiburium of the chapel of S. Aquilino beside S. Lorenzo in Milan and in the apse of S. Sofia in Padua, where arches on piers are used; then, lightened by the use of small columns, it becomes extremely common in 12th-century Lombard architecture, in apses (S. Giacomo and S. Fedele in Como; S. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo) and on façades, where it follows the slopes of the roof (S. Michele in Ciel d'oro in Pavia) or marks a horizontal division (cathedral of Cremona). The Lombard craftsmen spread its use throughout northern and central Italy, where in the cathedrals of Modena, Piacenza, and Ferrara the l. are a dominant motif encircling the entire building; they become typical of Pisan architecture, which frequently uses them in several tiers on façades (cathedral and S. Paolo a Ripa d'Arno in Pisa; S. Michele in Foro in Lucca; S. Paolo in Pistoia, etc.). They were also adopted beyond the Alps, particularly in the Rhineland (S. Castoro in Koblenz; the cathedrals of Speyer, Mainz, and Bonn). During the 13th century they were also used in bell towers, either only for the crowning section (cathedral of Cremona) or in several tiers (tower of Pisa; cathedral of Pistoia); but their use became increasingly rare with the rise of Gothic forms, and only a few examples can be cited on façades (Santo in Padua), in apses (cathedral of Trento), and in tiburia (Chiaravalle Abbey); in the late Lombard Quattrocento, however, they again came to be widely used for tiburia (Certosa of Pavia; cathedral of Bergamo; S. Maria delle Grazie in Cremona), including by Bramante himself (S. Maria delle Grazie in Milan).
Not motivated by ornamental or structural considerations, but arising from religious necessities, are the loggias of the blessing that surmount the entrances of the principal Roman basilicas and are sufficiently spacious to accommodate the Pontiff and his retinue. The loggia that stood beside the basilica of S. Giovanni in Laterano, commissioned on that occasion by Boniface VIII, is linked to the memory of the first jubilee; this one, and the one that probably already existed at S. Pietro, were rebuilt when the two basilicas were reconstructed. The solemn architectural motif was also repeated in churches attached to the principal cardinalatial palaces, not only during the Renaissance (SS. Apostoli, S. Marco), but even in the seventeenth century (S. Maria in Via Lata). A magnificent eighteenth-century example is that of S. Maria Maggiore (1748), in which the spaciousness of the l. is emphasized by the massive buildings at the sides; the most recent is that of S. Maria degli Angeli in Assisi.
The loggias of cloisters (v.) serve the practical need of providing access to the various rooms, similarly to those used in civil architecture for courtyards, of which it is unnecessary to cite the innumerable examples from every period. Loggias appear on palace façades as early as the Duecento, as in Rome at the old Palazzo senatorio and especially in Venice, where they become a dominant motif: typical expressions are the Palazzo ducale, the Libreria of Sansovino, and the l. of the Baroque Palazzo Rezzonico. Both in courtyards and on façades, the l. were enriched with painted decoration, already in use in the Quattrocento (Palazzo dei Cavalieri di Rodi in Rome), whose most famous example is found in Raphael's l. In the late Cinquecento and even more in subsequent centuries, the external l. of palaces often served the purpose of a belvedere (Palazzi Farnese, Borghese, Falconieri, etc.).
The name l. is also given to certain buildings opened by arcades at ground level, almost always intended for public or representative use (l. dei Lanzi in Florence; degli Osii in Milan; of the Palazzo del Comune in Brescia; of the Capitano in Vicenza), or, exceptionally, for charitable purposes (l. del Bigallo in Florence, where abandoned children were collected), or, much more often, for commercial exchange (l. dei Mercanti in Siena, Ancona, and Bologna), or for markets (l. del Porcellino in Florence). — Vedi tav. C.