Renaissance and Baroque Architectural Drawings

In the sixteenth century, chronic wars and a high concentration of towns made the Low Countries one of Europe's prime laboratories for innovations in military architecture and urbanism. The 1553 inspection tour of the region by engineers Giovanni Maria Olgiati and Sebastian van Noyen marked the assimilation of “Italian-style” fortifications into Netherlandish practice and the transition there from defenses with bastions to proper bastioned systems. Olgiati and Van Noyen's joint tour is well documented through a dozen design drawings now held at the Vatican Library, Turin's Archivio di Stato, and Madrid's Palacio Real, as well as a closely related atlas in Turin and complementary archival records. These materials, including many hitherto unknown plans, provide new insights into the design process, offer a unique panorama of the Low Countries’ border defenses at this critical moment, and illuminate the genesis and spread of bastioned fortifications in Europe.

На основі найновіших досліджень палацу Сенявських у Меджибізькій фортеці доводиться існування у XVI ст. важливого архітектурного і оборонного елементу часів Ренесансу: галереї, яку було пізніше втрачено. Гіпотеза про конструкцію галереї підкріплюється результатами досліджень і аналогами серед об’єктів Східної Європи.

On the basis of the latest research of the Sieniawski Palace in Medzhybizh fortress it was existed that in the XVI century there was an important architectural and defense element of the Renaissance: a gallery which was lost later. The hypothesis about the design of the gallery is supported by the results of research and analogues among the objects of Eastern Europe.

Table of Contents: Introduction — Daan van Heesch, Robrecht Janssen and Jan Van der Stock; ‘Le chanoine rouge’: Tribute to an Inspired and Inspiring Master — Paul Vandenbroeck; ‘As yche othere brothere’: The Human Factor within the Hispano-Flemish World — Raymond Fagel; Made in Iberia: A New Look at the Retable of Contador Saldaña in Santa Clara de Tordesillas — Nicola Jennings; Flemish Carved Altarpieces in Spain: Reflections on their Patronage and the Relationship between Flemish and Spanish Artistic Traditions — Jesús Muñiz Petralanda, Maite Barrio Olano and Ion Berasain Salvarredi; Jean Mone, Barcelona, and the Origins of the ‘Netherlandish’ Antique Manner — Ethan Matt Kavaler; Flemish, Spanish, or Somewhere in Between? On a Netherlandish Anonymous Draughtsman of the 1530s and his Inventions — Krista De Jonge; Trading with the Enemy: The Spanish Market for Antwerp Prints and Paintings during the Revolt — Stephanie Porras; The Plantin Book Trade and the Supply of Art Objects to the Spanish Elite — Dirk Imhof; The Duke of Alba’s Tapestry Acquisitions in the Low Countries (c. 1555–73) — Iain Buchanan; Historical Substance and Acquired Meaning of Rogier van der Weyden’s Deposition of Christ at the Court of Philip II — Antonia Putzger; Flemish Mathematical Instruments as Luxury Goods of Knowledge and their Migration to San Lorenzo de El Escorial — Koenraad Van Cleempoel; The Guevaras as Collectors of Netherlandish Art at the Spanish Court — Elena Vázquez Dueñas; Gender, Representation and Power: Female Patronage of Netherlandish Art in Renaissance Spain — Noelia García Pérez; The Dukes of Medina Sidonia and Netherlandish Art: On the Artistic Patronage of a Sixteenth-Century Iberian Court — Eduardo Lamas-Delgado; ‘Tan universal aplauso’: Communal Praise in Seventeenth-Century Madrid — Abigail D. Newman. See: http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9781909400825-1

Ecrire les savoirs prend une dimension singulière au cours de la Renaissance, dans le cadre de l'effervescence intellectuelle qui accompagne et induit une perception renouvelée du monde et de l'individu. Les connaissances établies de même que les sciences émergentes, spéculatives ou expérimentales, sont mises en forme dans la volonté d'apprendre et de comprendre mais aussi dans le désir de recueillir, de théoriser et de transmettre ces savoirs, désir favorisé par de nouveaux modes d'appropriation et de diffusion. Ce phénomène, qui se répand alors dans l'ensemble de l'Europe, a été étudié par et pour de multiples champs disciplinaires, notamment en ce qui concerne les modalités de mise en forme des savoirs scientifiques ou les enjeux de leur réduction en arts. Ce colloque se propose d'approfondir ces processus dans le domaine jamais abordé mais pourtant primordial des savoir-faire artisanaux et artistiques, qui s'expriment dans des écrits manuscrits comme dans les livres imprimés du XV e siècle au premier tiers du XVII e siècle. Dans la pluralité des approches on s'attachera plus précisément :-aux livres de recettes, secrets ou merveilles, à la formulation des usages de métiers et des procédés d'atelier, à la circulation des données écrites et gra-phiques, à l'expression des rapports entre empirisme et expérience ou des liens entre connaissances matérielles et intellectuelles, aux modes d'écriture des ouvrages pratiques et théoriques en vue d'une publication,-aux implications des auteurs et à l'expression de leur personnalité dans les textes, à ce que révèlent leurs origines – artisans, ingénieurs, artistes ou « pen-seurs »-et leurs modes de rédaction, dessin, soliloque, discours, dialogue, au passage de la notion de savoir-faire à celle de techniques grâce à l'édition, à l'ordonnancement de la pensée en vue de son impression et à son enrichis-sement par les divers artifices de l'objet-livre, aux dimensions politiques de l'écriture d'une maitrise technique…

Michelangelo’s extraordinary drawings for the fortifications of Florence (c. 1526-1530) are widely regarded as a turning point in his architectural career. Yet despite considerable scholarly attention the rationale behind these unconventional designs remains a mystery. Lack of familiarity with the practice of siege warfare and fortress design has led art historians to offer implausible explanations for the admittedly bewildering formal appearance of Michelangelo’s plans. To this day they are interpreted as formalist, irrational works intended to frighten the enemy with their aggressive, zoomorphic appearance, and even, in downright psychoanalytic terms, as panic drawings expressing Michelangelo’s subliminal fear of death. But such interpretations fail to explain how Michelangelo arrived at this startling variety of unprecedented architectural forms. This paper argues instead that eccentric forms do not require eccentric explanations. A fresh analysis of the twenty drawings will show that they are not enigmatic doodles of an inscrutable genius but the result of a specific design process. I aim to elucidate Michelangelo’s method by demonstrating that his complex plans were essentially generated by ingeniously combining a limited set of rational design principles. Dating from a uniquely fertile moment in the history of fortification – after its basic design precepts were overturned by advances in artillery, but just before the pentagonal bastion became the standard solution – Michelangelo’s drawings document his characteristically idiosyncratic attempt to rethink the core problem of military architecture – how to reconcile the conflicting demands of attack and defense? – from first principles. Conceived not for heavy cannon but for portable and medium-sized firearms (which explains the absence of massive earthworks and the proliferation instead of gun positions for short-range frontal and flanking fire), Michelangelo’s fortifications are not whimsical fantasies but reasoned, even overwrought proposals to respond to the actual siege methods of the time.

The University Library in Bologna possesses a plan dated circa 1626, by the Florentine architect and military engineer Giovanni Pieroni, concerning proposed fortification with a contemporary survey of Vyšehrad castle, drawn in particular detail in the area of the ruined former royal acropolis prior to its Baroque redevelopment to a fort, providing a valuable glimpse of the earlier constructions. Additionally the plan depicts elements not revealed from the archaeological excavations, comprehensively published in 2004–2015. Also prospects by the Dutch draftsmen, Roelandt Savery and Paulus van Vianen, who worked in Prague at the court of Rudolph II, are equally valuable for the topography of Vyšehrad. These documents help to interpret other known iconographic sources, mainly the two Sadeler’s prospects from 1606, and depict the royal acropolis in greater detail. They also bring new knowledge of its layout in the period of Charles IV and Wenceslas IV, especially regarding the questions about its gates and palaces.