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- Title
Theory and Criticism at the root of the Vitruvian Matrix architect in Portugal (1521- 1557). The question of Origins between Design and Matter.
- Authors
ABREU, Susana Matos
- Abstract
This Ph.D. thesis addresses how the profession of Architect was implemented and this phenomenon's repercussions on the architectural practice in Portugal during1521-1557. Therefore, it deals with the turning point of the late-Gothic artistic concepts to the Renaissance, during which the Latin treatise De Architectura (I century BC) by Vitruvius - in re-evaluation by the Italian cultural movement born in the Quattrocento and known as Vitruvianism - affected the invention of the modern ideas of Architecture and Architect. In the first part of the study, I propose (on the basis of an original approach to the text De Architectura) the division of all the research done under the Vitruvianism during the Renaissance into two distinct branches according to its objects and methods: the "humanistic"; and the "mathematical/ techno-artisanal". Considering this bifurcation on the setting up of new architectural theories, the training and practice of modern architects influenced by the Vitruvian text (especially in Italy, but also all over Europe), I also attempt to identify its influence on the Renaissance literature after Vitruvius - particularly on the excerpts regarding how the concepts of Architecture and Architect developed over time. The same subject also allowed to question some current ideas about the disciplinary vocation of modern architectural treatises, including their authors' motivations, the quality of their main public reader, their influence over artists and patrons, and even their effects over the artistic practices and the aesthetic modulations of the architectural work. Evidence gathered from artistic literature helped me to adjust such perspectives: mainly texts by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Antonio Averulino il Filarete, Raffaello Sanzio (and Baldassare Castiglioni), Luca Pacioli, and especially Leon Battista Alberti. The second part of the study readdresses these themes, as well as some of the conclusions stemmed from my earlier analyses, applying them to the specific study of the Portuguese architecture. Supported by some interpretations of the Vitruvian text found on Renaissance commentators and other main architectural treatises current in the Iberian Peninsula (by Leon Battista Alberti, Cesare Cesariano, Diegode Sagredo, Sebastiano Serlio and Francisco de Holanda), I also investigate the possible existence of a "Portuguese" idea of Architect based on the Vitruvian concept of architectus. Considering the various cultural and artistic Portuguese scenarios, this enquiry helps challenging some ideas established on a sheer historic perspective, and to better focus certain historiographical issues that concerned the profession of the Architect at the time - difficult to identify by any other methods. In general, it can be said that the first part of this study provides a fresh view on the treatise of Vitruvius and the Vitruvianism, suggesting that the ontological and epistemological concepts of Architectura and architectus derive from which I call here the "Question of the Origins" - one of the most persistent discussions in the artistic literature during the 15th and 16th centuries. Such approach - configuring a thesis - seeks to understand the various Renaissance modulations attributed to the Vitruvian-based idea of Architect, whose motivations I disclose in the various narratives about the origins and progresses of the architectural discipline registered in several passages of the treatise De Architectura. Assuming this work as one that seeks to open new avenues of research (more than to give definitive answers to precise questions), in the last chapter of the study I assess the Portuguese theoretical and critical production in the period 1521-1557. This evaluation is also done in the light of the Vitruvian "Question of the Origins" and its following enquiry to the modern figure of the architectus - both themes that, in earlier chapters of this study, I suggest having shaped all the research conducted by the Renaissance Vitruvianism. From a methodological point of view, I assume that Theory, Criticism and Art History are inseparable.
- Subjects
PORTUGAL; 15TH century Italian history; ARCHITECTURAL history; ARCHITECTURE
- Publication
E-Journal of Portuguese History, 2019, Vol 17, Issue 2, p551
- ISSN
1645-6432
- Publication type
Abstract