1. Nor were these practices confined, as some scholars insist, to the later and supposedly decadent phases of the art.
* Nor were/was XX: XX was not ("nor ..." adds the sense of "either", in the same vein, etc.
* be confined to: be limited to ; not present out side of; be exclusive to; be specific to.
* supposedly decadent phases: the phases that people consider to be decadent phases.
=-> Even though some scholars argue that the aforementioned practices existed only in the later phases of the art, which are the phases people consider to be the time the art became decadent, they in fact existed in earlier phases too.
2. Material, then, was utterly subservient to style.
* subservient: not independent but submissively adhering to.
==> Given the above, it is clear that in art the style completely dominates what material is used how.
From what I read in the text, it appears that the scholars in general have negative opinions on such unorthodox use of the materials. They don't believe in making false surfaces or using imitation building materials as you mention, and think this deviation from the norm happened only in the later phase of the Renaissance architecture, which was a period of decadence in their opinion. In other words, that is the scholars' opinion, but the author of the text is disagreeing with them.
As for using "even though", I just used it to make a point, not to mean that "as" has any such meaning. "as" in this text was used in the sense of "the way some fact is borne out by something else", not as a contradiction. What I meant is, "[even though] the scholars have a certain opinion, the author is saying it is not true". So "as" in the text is about "consistence" between the cited opinion and the scholars agreeing with it, while "even though" is what I used to point out the contradiction the author is making against the the scholars.
Any I hope it helps. And I recommend using the Answers page for this kind of a question - you'll get more answers there.
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