Renaissance and Baroque Architectural Drawings

En el Bajo Aragón turolense se asentaron un gran número de órdenes religiosas en las primeras décadas del Seiscientos, y entre ellas, los carmelitas, que llegaron a Alcañiz en 1602; y los carmelitas descalzos, que se establecieron en el convento del desierto de Calanda en la década de los ochenta de ese siglo. Sin embargo, las diferencias entre ambos establecimientos son evidentes, ya que fueron concebidos tanto espiritual como arquitectónicamente diferentes uno de otro debido a las funciones que debían cumplir. El caso alcañizano es una de las muestras más destacadas de la arquitectura bajoaragonesa del barroco, mientras que el calandino es un buen ejemplo de desierto carmelita, cuyas trazas probablemente fueron realizadas por artífices de la orden.
A great number of religious orders settled in the Bajo Aragón in Teruel in the first decades of the 17th century, among them the Carmelites that arrived in Alcañiz in 1602; or the Carmelites Discalced, that settled in the convent of the desert of Calanda in the decade of the 80s of that century. However, the differences between both establishments are evident, since they were conceived differently both spiritually and architecturally due to the different function that they had to fulfil. In the case of Alcañiz, it is one of the most prominent samples of the architecture of the Bajo Aragón in the Baroque period, while in Calanda’s case, it is a good example of Carmelite desert, the design of which was probably made by authors of the order.

This article is an attempt to analyse the reconstruction process of the eighteenth-century Norbertine monastery in Imbramowice destroyed by a conflagration in 1710 and being rebuilt for almost thirty years. The researchers considered the monastery and its church as an example of the bel composto which was projected by a Polish architect Kacper Bażanka who was educated in Rome and founded by bishop Kazimierz Łubieński. The sources record that the bishop’s visits’ documentation, an eighteenth-century chronicle wrote by the Norbertine abbess Zofia Gorthówna and the nineteen letters by monastery commissioner Dominik Lochman, provide new facts about the monastery in Imbramowice. The information included in the chronicle and the letters allowed for the recostruction of an organisational issues as well as the circumstances connected with building a new monastery, the direction and organisation of the „factory” and queries related to the monastery’s financing and individuals involved in the erection. As a result, the research allowed to consider the rebuilding of the monastery in Imbramowice as a complex and multi-faceted process, created through support from many founders and closely associated with the Cracovian bishop’s power.

Niniejszy artykuł jest podjętą przez autorkę próbą rekonstrukcji dziejów XVIII-wiecznej fabryki kościoła i klasztoru sióstr Norbertanek w Imbramowicach. Założenie to, zniszczone przez pożar na początku 1710 roku, a następnie sukcesywnie odbudowywane przez prawie 30 lat, stanowiło dotychczas dla historyków sztuki jeden z przykładów wznoszonego od fundamentów dzieła kompleksowego, fundowanego przez ówczesnego biskupa krakowskiego, Kazimierza Łubieńskiego i budowanego według całościowego projektu wykształconego w Rzymie architekta Kacpra Bażanki. Zachowane w klasztorze źródła archiwalne dokumentujące szczegółowo przebieg odbudowy założenia, a więc przede wszystkimi wizytacje biskupie, XVIII-wieczna kronika klasztorna oraz korespondencja kierowana do przełożonej konwentu przez ówczesnego komisarza klasztoru Dominika Lochmana, pozwoliły na szczegółowe omówienie procesu odbudowy i wprowadzenie nowych ustaleń dotyczących dziejów klasztoru. Poruszane w artykule zagadnienia odnoszące się do okoliczności odbudowy założenia, kwestii związanych z finansowaniem prac, kierownictwem, organizacją prac oraz udziałem poszczególnych osób, pozwoliły na wyłonienie obrazu „fabryki” klasztoru jako procesu złożonego i wieloaspektowego, powstałego w wyniku dobroczynności wielu fundatorów oraz związanego ściśle z ówczesną sytuacją konwentu, pozostającego pod władzą biskupów diecezji krakowskiej.

La Lettera a Leone X, nata dalla collaborazione tra Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello, è un documento fondante per la storia della tutela oltre a costituire uno degli scritti storico-artistici più importanti e noti del Rinascimento. La Lettera fornisce una ricca messe di informazioni sul Raffaello teorico delle arti, in congiunzione con pochi altri documenti scritti da lui o a lui riferibili: la Lettera su Villa Madama, le glosse alla traduzione vitruviana che commissionò a Fabio Calvo ravennate, i cinque sonetti petrarcheschi che compose all'inizio del suo soggiorno romano, le lettere ai famigliari. La Lettera descrive il grande progetto di "Mettere in disegno Roma antica", ma non solo. Essa è una lettera-dedicatoria e il prologo di una sorta di trattato di nuova concezione in cui la pianta di Roma sarebbe stata accompagnata da disegni degli edifici esemplari, in pianta, prospetto e sezione, nonché da notizie antiquarie: un vero e proprio lavoro di stampo umanistico capace di intrecciare più ambiti disciplinari. L'amalgama in grado di tenere assieme questa grande impalcatura concettuale e operativa era Raffaello. Alla sua morte (6 aprile 1520) tutto sembra sparire d'incanto ed è quasi divorato dal tempo; ma, come la brace, si riaccende allo scadere del Settecento per durare, fuoco inestinguibile, ancora oggi, illuminando anche l'articolo 9 della nostra Carta costituzionale.

Beitrag zur gleichnamigen Tagung in Hannover, Tagungszentrum Schloss Herrenhausen,
2014:
Der mediale Status der Plankopie im frühneuzeitlichen Architekturbetrieb wird darin anhand von Schriftquellen und Beispielen aus dem 16.-18. Jahrhundert folgendermaßen bestimmt: Als "Kopien" wurden seinerzeit die an Auftraggeber oder Genehmigungsbehörden versandten Reinzeichnungen von Entwurfs- und Arbeitszeichnungen bezeichnet, vergleichbar den Reinschriften im Urkunden- und Korrespondenzwesen. Einen Sonderfall der Kopie stellt die Replik dar, in welcher der Architekt einen eigenen Entwurf zeichnerisch wiederholt.

Fortified Cities in the Spanish Netherlands (Thionville, Groningen, Vlissingen, Maastricht, 1567-1579).
My contributions to the catalogue of the exhibition “Leonardo e il Rinascimento nei Codici napoletani” (Napels, Biblioteca Nazionale, 12 December 2019-13 March 2020) discuss the design of fortifications in the Low Countries in the 16th century and concentrate in particular on five drawings from “Flanders” (i.e. the Spanish Netherlands) preserved in the so-called “codice Tarsia” of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli (Ms XII.D.1). My essay offers first a general overview of the development of military architecture in the 16th-century Low Countries, with particular regard to exchanges with Italy and the use and circulation of fortification drawings, and then focuses on the first years of the Dutch Revolt (1567-1572) and the works in these years of the engineers Francesco Paciotto, Bartolomeo Campi and Jacques van Noyen at Thionville, Vlissingen and Groningen. The related catalogue entries examine in more detail the five drawings in question. The drawing of Thionville (c. 7v) shows an ambitious but never executed design for a new bastioned enceinte with eight bastions, attributable to Bartolomeo Campi or his son Scipio Campi and datable to the years 1568−1579. This design must be interpreted as an alternative to Paciotto’s more austere project of 1567, though it also bears similarities to another design for Thionville attributable to Van Noyen. The drawing of Vlissingen (c. 10v), evidently by the same author as the Thionville drawing, comprises an accurate plan of the eastern part of the town with the old harbour and the new citadel, designed by Bartolomeo Campi in 1571 but never completed. The two drawings of Groningen (c. 4v, c. 6r) carefully depict the city’s fortifications with the new citadel, designed by Bartolomeo Campi and built between 1569 and 1576; one of them (c. 6r) shows also the city’s street pattern and the surrounding countryside. The fifth “Flemish” sheet is a previously unknown drawing (c. 8r b) which I identify here as a partial, unfinished plan of the siege of Maastricht in 1579. This drawing has remained unknown until now because it was used as a support of the well-known drawing in the same album of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome under construction and was rediscovered only after a recent restoration. It represents the southern part of the city of Maastricht (with the Tongersepoort and Sint-Pieterspoort) during the siege led by Alexander Farnese in 1579, showing both the city’s fortifications and the surrounding siege works.

Presentazione tenuta nell’ambito del Workshop ‘Architecture as process: Drawings and models’, organizzato da Amanda Lillie. University of York, History of Art Department, Architecture & Theory Research School, 5 giugno 2017. Invitato dalla Prof.sa Amanda Lillie