ARTH 27.03 Building Boom: Architecture and Urbanism in Early Modern Italy
Across early modern Italy, architects and engineers broke ground on construction projects that transformed cities like Rome, Florence, Venice, and Naples into bustling urban centers. New building technologies and design innovations yielded monumental palaces, soaring devotional spaces, and vast streets and squares. Italy’s building boom was fueled by the consolidation of political and economic power in the hands of ambitious patrons for whom architecture was a vehicle of self-fashioning. This course explores Italian architecture and urbanism of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, with a focus on the socio-political and cultural dynamics that shaped the theory and practice of building between the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. Subjects to be considered include: classicism and the memory of antiquity; treatises and the architectural book; building as propaganda; stylistic experimentation and architectural ornament; villa culture; and designs for the stage. The course will include visits to Rauner Library and the Hood Museum of Art to work with early modern books, prints, and drawings.
Instructor
Kassler-Taub