Exploring the Book of Fortresses

Duarte de Armas’ Livro das fortalezas or Book of Fortresses illustrates 55 border fortresses in over 180 meticulous measured and annotated renderings. The book is even more impressive given that de Armas completed his on-site survey in a single year (1509) and finished annotating the book the following year. The book’s drawings, alluring in their combination of finite time and enormous space, are difficult to link together at an intra-site or inter-site scale. Consequently, while mapping the 55 border fortresses in the book provides a greater apprehension of a historical, liminal space, this alone does not solve the greater problem of reconstructing de Armas’ methods for rendering place on the Portuguese-Castilian border, nor does it acknowledge the historical moment in which it was produced. This article reconstructs the world of the Book of Fortresses through a novel, digital approach that acknowledges Duarte de Armas’ malleable sense of space rather than ‘rectifying’ his work to match modern geography.

Nicola Zabaglia’s Scaffoldings for the Maintenance of Architectural Space in St. Peter’s Basilica and throughout Europe in the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries

The scenographic architectural space of St. Peter’s represents an authoritative framework for the exhibition of the Vatican’s intellectual and technological potential. The creation and maintenance of St. Peter’s spurred inventions in construction practices and building technology, including the development of ad hoc scaffolding systems that could be assembled in prohibitive conditions. As demonstrated in this article, St. Peter’s Fabbrica and the Church fostered a reassuring place of experience, where rigour and tradition encouraged the realization of striking accomplishments. Notable among others were the scaffoldings designed by the master carpenter Nicola Zabaglia, to whose work the 1743 Castelli e ponti was dedicated. The 1824 reprint of this volume enjoyed a critical fortune in Europe, disseminating the place-specific knowledge of the Vatican Fabbrica.

Architecture for Music : Sonorous Spaces in Sacred Buildings in Renaissance and Baroque Rome

Architectural spaces are usually considered only in their visual and threedimensional character. However, the proper experience of space is multisensory. Sonority is undoubtedly the non-visual characteristic that most affects architecture, influencing its three-dimensional shape, and the size and distribution of its individual parts. Early modern sacred architecture is a case in point. Focusing on Rome and the development of architecture in relation to musical practices, this article demonstrates how architectural forms evolved through a process that ranged from provisional installations to the design of entirely new churches and oratories. In the Baroque period, these religious structures were conceived as synaesthetic spaces of sonority and architecture, in which vision, hearing and liturgical acts merged in an expressive unity.

Places of Knowledge between Ulm and the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century : The Kunstkammer of Johannes Faulhaber

This article investigates how the Kunstkammer of Johannes Faulhaber, renowned mathematician and engineer of Ulm, functioned as a place dedicated to the advancement of mechanical-architectural knowledge. Examining several unstudied publications associated with his Kunstkammer and a previously unknown inventory, we reconstruct the collection and examine Faulhaber’s advertisement of it in printed catalogues. A comparison of Faulhaber᾽s collection with that of his contemporary Joseph Furttenbach the Elder highlights specifics of its focus and scope. The Kunstkammer was also a place of technology transfer, whereby aspects of Dutch military technology were introduced into the German context, and were in turn further disseminated through Faulhaber’s publications. In this sense, Faulhaber᾽s Kunstkammer can be understood as an entanglement of ‘places’ – both physical and printed.

Architecture on Paper : The Development and Function of Architectural Drawings in the Renaissance

Drawings and the practice of drawing take centre stage in an investigation of what ‘designed’ Renaissance architecture, and what led the medieval master builder to gradually develop the characteristic features of the modern architect. This article focuses on the languages of drawings that were employed and developed by Renaissance architects. Examining the variety of functions that different graphical languages had within design and building processes, the article draws upon a storied argument between two Florentine architects to illustrate the conceptual and social tensions epitomized by drawing. The final section examines architectural drawings as means of communication beyond the building site, calling particular attention to the printed drawings that became increasingly important in the sixteenth century.

Towards a New Architecture of Cosmic Experience

The article unfolds an account of several overlapping fields of inquiry contributing to the early modern experience of the cosmos. Traversing scale, scope, and media, from the first recorded meteorite fall to scholastic debates over the materiality of heaven and the practice of architecture as cosmic analogue, I argue in favour of bringing together a broad range of interdisciplinary source material in order to explore the spatiality of the cosmos and how it was encountered and reproduced as a place or cosmic space or non-place on earth. The accompanying examples gesture towards an open-ended model defined not solely by the built environment as much as by the ephemeral and rhetorical structures framing the cosmos for human consumption.

Building on ‘Hollow Land’ : Skill and Expertise in Foundation-Laying Practices in the Low Countries in the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries

Foundation-laying practices for marshy conditions have received comparatively little attention in architectural history; however, in the seventeenth century Netherlandish specialized skill and knowledge for the construction of pile foundations was recognized as being exceptional and garnered international esteem. Based on new archival material, this article provides insight into the rigorous processes of foundation design, and draws attention to its multidisciplinary nature. In addition, it sheds new light on the introduction of deep foundations, which was a major engineering innovation, providing greater stability because of the use of longer piles that reached the first solid layer deep below the surface. While Dutch expertise was directly related to the landscapes they inhabited, other factors that fostered innovation in foundation design are considered as well.

The ‘Conquest’ and Construction of an Urban Place : The Insula dei Gesuiti in Venice in the Early Modern Period

This article examines the production of place and its socio-economic impact in early modern Venice, reconstructing the urban dynamics in one of the lesser-known peripheries of the city, the insula dei Gesuiti. Building on the idea of place making as a collective enterprise, it concentrates on three stages of urban growth and its pertaining agents: the colonization process undertaken by private citizens and ecclesiastical institutions; their efforts toward a residential urban development; and the state-imposed action to determine the insula’s final outline. These practices were instrumental in securing significant real estate holdings, but they also initiated a profound change in the area’s intended use. Urban transformations engendered a new social identity that would serve as a model for the redesigned Venetian margins.

The Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala and the Construction of Siena

The Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala was central to the development of architecture and infrastructure in early modern Siena. A major landowner and patron, the hospital institution oversaw the construction of a wide range of buildings throughout the commune, and also played a crucial role in the perpetuation of a distinctly Sienese corpus of technical knowledge. Archival records attest to the presence of the Spedale’s building workshop, which contributed workers, materials and expertise to both the institution’s projects, as well as those involving Siena’s infrastructure and defences. Several fifteenth-century model books trace the technical tradition spearheaded by the Scala. Assembled by individual practitioners, the books bolstered a collective memory, delineating the ideas and structures that made Siena a place.