Architectural Invention in Renaissance Rome : Artists, Humanists, and the Planning of Raphael's Villa Madama

A revisionist view of Renaissance architectural design as a dialectical process engaging word and image in the creation of Raphael's masterwork. Cover 1 Half-title page 3 Title page 5 Copyright page 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 List of Plates 11 List of Figures 13 Preface and Acknowledgments 21 Note on Translations and Abbreviations 27 Introduction: The Nature of Invention, in Word and Image 29 1 Reviving the Corpse 59 Patrons, Humanists, and Artists in Leonine Rome 61 Raphael’s Lazarus: The Medici Villa Project 77 2 Writing Architecture 91 The Textual Villa 91 Poets and Muses at the Construction Site 98 3 Sperulo’s Vision 105 The Poet as Medici Vates 105 Sperulo Gives Meaning to Ancient Marbles 117 Envisioning Paintings: Battles and Clemency 123 4 Encomia of the Unbuilt 129 Building the Villa in Verse and Prose: Sperulo’s and Raphael’s Descriptions 129 Hortatory Ekphrasis 134 The Inventive Assemblage of Literary and Rhetorical Genres 137 Poetry and Planning 140 5 Metastructures of Word and Image 143 Multivalent Conceptual Programs 143 Topography of Christian Triumph 145 Parnassus 149 The Realm of Venus Genetrix 160 Temple of Peace 162 Coenatio Iovis 168 Medici Ancestor Gallery 171 The Generative Power of Marbles 177 6 Dynamic Design 186 Reconfiguring the Roles of Artists and Advisors 187 Poetry as Design Tool 196 Performing the Plans 197 Collaboration and Competition 199 Authorship and Building Practice 201 Modern Ruins and the Culture of Coming-to-Be 207 Conclusion 214 Appendix I 224 Appendix II 260 Appendix III 270 Notes 272 Bibliography 335 Index 364 Villa Madama, Raphael's late masterwork of architecture, landscape, and decoration for the Medici popes, is a paradigm of the Renaissance villa. The creation of this important, unfinished complex provides a remarkable case study for the nature of architectural invention. Drawing on little known poetry describing the villa while it was on the drawing board, as well as ground plans, letters, and antiquities once installed there, Yvonne Elet reveals the design process to have been a dynamic, collaborative effort involving humanists as well as architects. She explores design as a self-reflexive process, and the dialectic of text and architectural form, illuminating the relation of word and image in Renaissance architectural practice. Her revisionist account of architectural design as a process engaging different systems of knowledge, visual and verbal, has important implications for the relation of architecture and language, meaning in architecture, and the translation of idea into form. "Humanist collaborators also contributed to the development of visual projects in many ways. That they served as advisors and propagandists is well known, but we have scant knowledge of exactly how they worked with artists, and especially with architects. How did their ideas make their way into form? The role of the humanist advisor has been studied primarily in respect to the representational media of painting and sculpture, focusing on so-called iconographic programs or inventions; but their role in architectural projects is much less understood"-- Provided by publisher Preface and acknowledgements Note on translations and abbreviations Introduction. The nature of invention, in word and image 1. Reviving the corpse 2. Writing architecture 3. Sperulo's vision 4. Encomia of the unbuilt 5. Metastructures of word and image 6. Dynamic design Conclusion. Building with mortar and verse Appendices Bibliography Index.