bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Marsilio Ficino'sDe Stella magorumand Renaissance Views of the Magi
Authors: Buhler Stephen M.
Published: April 2006

References to the Magi whose veneration of the infant Christ is recorded in the second chapter of the gospel of Matthew are frequent in the writings of Marsilio Ficino, especially his letters. The clearest expressions of his interest and faith in the Magi can be found in theApologia, accounting for the more magical elements in theDe vita, and in apraedicatioon the topic of the star that guided the Wise Men.
Family Culture, Renaissance Culture
Authors: Diefendorf Barbara B.
Published: April 2006

Born in 1960 with the publication of Philippe Ariès's L'enfant et la vie familiale, family history as we know it has been tremendously fertile. Although the succession is disputed, its progeny are legion. It is not my intention here to trace the complex genealogy of Ariès's descendants or to separate dutiful heirs from rebels who have renounced their patrimony. The family tree is too prolific, its internal divisions too complex. I hope rather to focus on two main themes in the history of the family, themes which seem to me particularly fruitful where our understanding of the Renaissance is concerned. The first theme involves the fundamental structures of family life— ties of kinship and patterns of residence. The second is marriage and the role of women in the family. In both cases, I am particularly interested in the cultural values represented by these structures and behaviors.
Guillaume Postel and the Syriac Gospels of Athanasius Kircher*
Authors: Kuntz Marion Leathers
Published: April 2006

One of the many treasures of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, is the manuscript of the Gospels written in Syriac in the year 945. This rare and beautiful codex was the property of the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, who gave his “most dear and precious” book to Duke August the Younger of Braunschweig-Lüneburg as an ornament for his most famous library. Duke August (1579-1666) was known as a wonder in his age because among pious rulers he was the most learned, and among men of greatest learning, he was the most pious. For thirty years he studied all branches of learning, and his devotion to political life is witnessed by thirty volumes of correspondence. Among his writings were books on the game of chess and on cryptography. Most important for posterity is his library at Wolfenbüttel, which contains one of the largest collections of Bibles in Europe.
Tax Commissions and Public Opinion: Languedoc 1438-1561
Authors: Solon Paul
Published: April 2006

In Summer 1550 King Henry II of France commissioned the renewal of a special military tax, the taillon. In his commission, chancery draftsmen asserted that this recently-introduced tax and associated military reforms had been so successful "que de tous costes s'en levent et rendent graces à Dieu." They added that provinces previously complaining of garrisons now clamored for them "pour en avoir le prouffit." Such assertions were patently ridiculous in an era when soldiers were about as welcome as a horde of locusts, yet the royal government did not scruple to offer them.
Spenser's Use of Ariosto: Imitation and Allusion in Book I of the Faerie Queene
Authors: Wiggins Peter Desa
Published: April 2006

Conspicuous irrelevance, the term adopted by Harry Berger to describe certain puzzling moments in the Spenserian narrative, might also serve to describe Spenser's allusions to the Orlando Furioso, which are pervasive and, for the most part, appear indifferent to their source—frequently the most indifferent just when they are the easiest to identify. One thinks, for example, of the Timias and Belphoebe episode of book III, canto v, which disregards the tenor of its source in the Furioso, canto xix, to the point where one wonders why Spenser took the trouble to summon recollections of Angelica and Medoro.
“By Lucan Driv'n About”: A Jonsonian Marvell's Lucanic Milton
Authors: Shifflett Andrew
Published: April 2006

Specialists may recall Andrew Marvell's defense of John Milton inThe Second PartofThe Rehearsall Transpros'dagainst the attacks of Samuel Parker, once an associate of sorts but by 1673 a champion of religious intolerance. Parker had written in hisReproofthatThe Rehearsall Transpros'dafforded “as good Precedents for Rebellion and King-killing, as any we meet with in the writings ofJ.M.”; and toward the end ofThe Second PartMarvell makes a point of rebutting this claim as yet another instance of Parker's malicious immoderation. He allows that it was Milton's “misfortune, living in a tumultuous time, to be toss'd on the wrong side, and [that] he writFlagrante bellocertain dangerous Treatises.”
Preserving Property: History, Genealogy, and Inheritance in “Upon Appleton House”*
Authors: Patton Brian
Published: April 2006

“I hope that they may live to see the power of the King and the Lords thrown down, that yet may live to see property preserved.”

— Colonel Petty at Putney, 28 October 1647 (Woodhouse, 61)

The famous army debates held at Putney in 1647 provide us with some remarkable insights into the misgivings of the men who were soon to bring about the trial and execution of their king. Their very practical need to placate the then powerful “Leveller” faction within the army drew the “Grandees” into talks which clearly reveal the limits of their revolutionary aspirations. The principal objection of both Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton to the proposals of the Levellers is also the most telling: both men saw in the proposed Leveller constitution, The Agreement of the People, a threat to the current economic order, an order based upon the ownership of property by a relatively small number of men.
Magdalen's Skull: Allegory and Iconography in Heptameron 32
Authors: Rigolot François
Published: April 2006

Skulls. Finalities. They emerge towards new beginnings.

Charles Tomlinson

Few readers of Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron will easily forget the sinister scene in novella 32, where a young, beautiful but unfaithful woman is forced by her vengeful husband to drink out of her dead lover's skull. Although equally cruel analogues could be found in Boccaccio's Decameron, Marguerite's strikingly macabre scene seems to be unique in Renaissance literature. Representations of human skeletons are, of course, plentiful in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century iconography, a period often characterized by its obsession with death. Certainly Marguerite may have been influenced by the pervading vanitas and memento morimotifs. At the same time, the whole scene could be viewed as a staged perversion of relic worship, a practice much frowned upon in evangelical circles favored by Marguerite.
“Concludo che non vidi max la più bella casa in Italia”: The Frescoed Decorations in Francesco II Gonzaga's Suburban Villa in the Mantuan Countryside at Gonzaga (1491-1496)*
Authors: Brown Clifford M.
Published: April 2006

“Universae Italiae Liberatori.” On the 500th Anniversary of the Battle of Fornovo and the completion of theMadonna della Vittoria(1495/96 - 1995/96).

Scholarly discussion of late Quattrocento art patronage in Mantua has largely been confined to projects associated with Isabella d'Este (1474-1539, marchesa from 1490 and dowager marchesa from 1519). And yet in 1494 her husband wrote that “painting delights us not a little and by its pleasures we often relax and console our mind from the various occupations, anxieties, and cares in which it is involved.” Francesco II Gonzaga's effulgent praise of the visual arts suggests that he (1466-1519, marquis from 1484) was rather more consequential for the cultural life of the state than has usually been allowed.
The Dreamer's Path: Descartes and the Sixteenth Century
Authors: Keefer Michael H.
Published: April 2006

[Descartes] ne croioit pas qu'on dût s'étonner si fort de voir que les Poëtes, même ceux qui ne font que niaiser, fussent pleins de sentences plus graves, plus sensées, & mieux exprimées que celles qui se trouvent dans les écrits des Philosophes. Il attribuoit cette merveille à la divinité de l'Enthousiasme, & à la force de l'lmagination.

— Adrien Baillet,Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes(1691), paraphrasing Descartes'sOlympicamanuscript of 1619-20

Methode ist Umweg.

— Walter Benjamin, “Epistemo-Critical Prologue,”The Origin of German Tragic Drama

Jacques Derrida begins a recent reflection upon Descartes'sDiscours de la méthodeby remarking upon the metaphor of the path, way, or road contained within the etymology of the word “method”: “methodos, metahodos, c'est-à-dire ‘suivant la route,’ suivant le chemin, en suivant le chemin, en chemin.”
The Politics of Access and Representations of the Sodomite King in Early Modern England
Authors: Perry Curtis
Published: April 2006

This essay treats the image of the sodomite king—in Marlowe'sEdward IIand in the gossip surrounding James I and his favorites — as a figurative response to resentments stemming from the regulation of access to the monarch. Animosities in Marlowe's play anticipate criticism of the Jacobean Bedchamber in part because Marlowe was responding to libels provoked by innovations in the chamber politics of the French king Henri III that also anticipate Jacobean practice. The figure of the sodomite king offers a useful vehicle to explore tensions between personal and bureaucratic monarchy that are exacerbated by the regulation of access.
Toward the Genesis of the Kristeller Thesis of Renaissance Humanism: Four Bibliographical Notes
Authors: Monfasani John
Published: April 2006

Paul Oskar Kristeller's interpretation of Renaissance humanism as a "characteristic phase in what may be called the rhetorical tradition in Western culture" has exercised an enormous influence on Renaissance studies. What I wish to do here is to call attention agroup of works that affected in one way or another Kristeller's thinking about the Renaissance in general and about Renaissance humanism in particular.
Out of the Margins: Religion and the Church in Renaissance Italy*
Authors: Peterson David S.
Published: April 2006

In the last few decades religion and the church have moved from the margins — or, more precisely, the chronological borders — of Italian Renaissance studies to their center. Less than half a century ago it was possible for Étienne Delaruelle and his collaborators on the Renaissance volumes of Fliche and Martin's greatHistoire de l'Égliseto justify excluding from their survey of the emerging "national" churches of the period any consideration of Italy, "it being always subsumed within the history of the papacy." If religion had any place in the Renaissance it was, in the words of Carlo Angeleri, as "a problem."
What did the Renaissance Patron Buy?
Authors: Gilbert Creighton E.
Published: April 2006

This paper is generated by the widespread opinion that Renaissance patrons usually kept creative control over works they commissioned. It analyzes two of the few instances usually cited and adds many more, some involving single works and some implicating a wide spectrum. A considerable range emerges. At one end artists, not only famous ones, can be deferred to as better experts on how themes are shown. At the other, patrons retain tight control of such unique themes as their family histories. A conclusion speculates on possible reasons for the strength of this opinion, in view of its fairly limited basis.
TheArtesand theArs moriendiin Late Renaissance Venice: The Professions in Fabio Glissenti'sDiscorsi morali contra il dispiacer del morire, detto Athanatophilia(1596)
Authors: McClure George W.
Published: April 2006

In his voluminous Moral Discourses Against the Displeasure of Dying (1596), the Venetian physician Fabio Glissenti describes the tenacious revolt against death that permeates virtually all of society. Though important in itself as a major humanistic treatment of death in the vernacular, Glissenti's treatise has an unusual significance that lies not so much in its patent purpose - to recommend the acceptance of death - but rather in its countervailing undercurrent - to probe the psychology of work. In novellas and dialogues among interlocutors drawn from the gamut of professional types in Venice, Glissenti presents testimonials of professional art or pride, exchanges concerning professional morality, and Dantesque catalogues of punishments for professional sins. This study examines the professional ethos suffusing the Discorsi morali as a reflection of moral and psychological attitudes toward work in early modern culture.
The Jew as Renaissance Man
Authors: Berek Peter
Published: April 2006

The Jew available to be known in England in the 1590s is a Marrano - a covert figure whose identity is self-created, hard to discover, foreign, associated with novel or controversial enterprises like foreign trade or money-lending, and anxiety-producing. By and large, non-theatrical representations of Jewishness reveal less ambivalence than does Marlowe's Barabas. In the plays of Marlowe and then of Shakespeare, the Jew becomes a figure which enables the playwright to express and at the same time to condemn the impulse in both culture and theatre to treat selfhood and social role as a matter of choice. By becoming theatrical, the anxiety about identity and innovation implicit in the Marrano state gains explicitness and becomes available to the culture at large. Marlowe and Shakespeare play a central role in creating - not imitating - the frightening yet comic Jewish figure which haunts Western culture. But the immediate impact of their achievement is felt in the theatre, and is barely visible in non-theatrical discourse about Jews in the decades after their plays.
Microhistory and Cultural Geography: Ben Jonson's “To Sir Robert Wroth” and the Absorption of Local Community in the Commonwealth*
Authors: Elsky Martin
Published: April 2006

The consolidation of England into a monarchical commonwealth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries created the possibility of polyvalent geographic identity. Ben Jonsons country house poem, “To Sir Robert Wroth, “ was written from the vantage point of a shift in the politico-geographical borders that made local communities in the shires part of a centralizing monarchical commonwealth. Microhistorical examination of the Wroths and their village in the period preceding the composition of the poem reveals their insistent local identity and resistance to the monarchical commonwealth ruled from London. The immediate context of their resistance to the center was a Privy Council project to make the River Lea navigable in order to bringdown the price of grain in London. Economically threatened, the Wroths orchestrated sabotage against the project, but eventually acquiesced to the Privy Council and re-entered the centrally administered commonwealth fold. Jonsons poem is a testimony to this reaffiliation, a celebration of the Wroths as exemplars of commonwealth identity within local region. Only when they distanced themselves from local identity did the Wroths become suitable for Jonson as a poetic model of the country ideal. In Jonsons hands, the country house poem becomes the vehicle of multivalent identification with place.
Pythagoras in the Renaissance: The Case of Marsilio Ficino*
Authors: Celenza Christopher S.
Published: April 2006

This article discusses the manner in which Ficino employs the figure of Pythagoras and various aspects of the Pythagorean tradition in the philosophical areas of psychology, moral philosophy, and ontology. It also argues that the figure of Pythagoras as prophet was particularly appealing to a Ficino situated in the cultural environment of late fifteenth-century Florence. Text, culture, and ideology interacted in a complex way: spurred on by his early appreciation of Iamblichus's soteriological presentation of Pythagoras, Ficino helped create an ideology in Florence which was receptive to a prophetic figure. The piece thus suggests that Ficino viewed a certain segment of the history of thought through late ancient, Iamblichean eyes.
Machiavelli's Art of War: A Reconsideration*
Authors: Colish Marcia L.
Published: April 2006

Machiavelli's Art of War contains an unexplored and unexplained paradox: the dialogue's chief interlocutor is Fabrizio Colonna, a condottiere in the employ of Ferdinand of Aragon, who played a critical role in the Spanish conquest of northern Italy and in the collapse of the Florentine republic led by Piero Soderini, in which Machiavelli worked as a civil servant. Yet, Machiavelli chooses Fabrizio to defend the superiority of the citizen militia, which he associates with republican civic virtue, over mercenary troops. This paradox has remained unaccounted for because literary scholars have ignored the historical background underlying the text's assorted political subtexts, while historians have ignored the nature of Quattrocento dialogue, as a literary genre, in contextualizing the work. Once these historical and literary dimensions of the Art of War are brought together, it can be seen why Fabrizio Colonna would have been perceived, by Machiavelli and his audience, as the ideal representative of a military position which he espoused neither in theory or in practice.
Letters from Home: The Epistolary Aspects of Joachim Du Bellay'sLes Regrets
Authors: Bizer Marc
Published: April 2006

It is my contention that the poetic collectionLes Regretsby Joachim Du Bellay is a product of the humanist epistolary heritage. This essay attempts to demonstrate not only the importance of the epistolary and secretarial traditions for our understanding ofLes Regrets, but also how Du Bellay uses them to elaborate a new poetics. Specifically, beginning with the epistolary and secretarial traditions in Europe, this study then moves to a discussion of the epistolary genre in French literary history and subsequently to the figure of the secretary in Renaissance poetry before focusing on Du Bellay's correspondance with Ronsard.
The Many “Lives” of Pedro de Ribadeneyra
Authors: Bilinkoff Jodi
Published: April 2006

The important early Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneyra (1526-1611) has the distinction of having been a biographer of men, a biographer of women, an autobiographer, and the subject of biography. As such he and his texts seem particularly apt subjects for study given the current interest by scholars in a number of disciplines in the various forms of “life-writing“ produced so abundantly in the early modern period. In this essay I briefly examine Ribadeneyra's most famous biography, that of his mentor Ignatius Loyola, as well as two little-known and virtually unstudied texts: hisLifeof the pious laywoman Estefanía Manrique de Castilla and his autobiography orConfessions. I focus upon the ways in which he treated issues of authority and obedience in constructing as exemplary the lives of these three Spanish nobles and explore his strategies for enlisting life-writing in the campaign for a renewed, activist Catholicism.
Taking Treaties Less Seriously
Authors: Vagts Detlev F.
Published: April 2006

A decade ago, my predecessor as Editor in Chief wrote a trenchant critique of what he saw as a tendency of the United States not to give its treaty obligations the weight they deserved. I return to the subject to report that the last ten years have seen an alarming exacerbation of that situation. The mood in the United States about treaty commitments has turned distinctly negative. This has gone so far as to dismay both actual and potential treaty partners of the United States and, in general, all who are concerned about the performance of the country in the realm of international law. Some of the manifestations of this mood can be dismissed as eccentric, at the level of Christian militias’ expressions of anxiety about the prospects of black-painted helicopters dropping United Nations forces into Montana and Idaho. The more worrisome part of it is the prevalence of distaste for treaty commitments in Congress and other influential circles, including the media.
Denial of residence status to alien on grounds of genocide—application of Refugee Convention— duty to extradite under Genocide Convention—use ofNGO reports and experts in municipal proceedings
Authors: Oxman Bernard H. , Schabas William A.
Published: April 2006

Mugesera v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

Immigration and Refugee Board (Appeal Division) of Canada, November 6, 1998.

In its landmark ruling of September 2, 1998, in the Akayesu case, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) reviews the background of genocide in that country, noting in particular the role that hate propaganda played in preparing the tens of thousands of “willing executioners” who participated in the crimes of April to July, 1994. According to the Rwanda Tribunal, the “most notorious” propaganda agent was “a certain Leon Mugesera,” an extremist pamphleteer who gave a public speech in November 1992 calling for the extermination of the Tutsi. Mugesera fled Rwanda in the weeks following die incident. With the help of a network of aid workers, academics and diplomats that he had nurtured over many years, he was able to flee to Canada and obtain permanent resident status there.
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act—denial of immunity for extrajudicial killing—Cuban liability for shooting down civil aircraft—punitive damages—retroactive application of statute recognizing cause of action for human rights violations
Authors: Oxman Bernard H. , Schnably Stephen J.
Published: April 2006

Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba. 996 F.Supp. 1239.

U.S. District Court, S.D. Fla., December 17, 1997.

On February 24, 1996, the Cuban Air Force deliberately shot down two unarmed civil aircraft piloted by members of the Miami-based organization Brothers to die Rescue. The incident resulted in the loss of four lives and evoked widespread international condemnation. It prompted Congress to enact the controversial Helms-Burton Act on March 12, 1996, tightening the U.S. embargo against Cuba in effect since 1962.
‘Most Fit for a Wounded Conscience” The Place of Luther's “Commentary on Galatians” in Grace Abounding*
Authors: Camden Vera J.
Published: April 2006

After a score of years, filled with fear and trembling and temptations, which were so terrible that — note well! — scarcely one individual in each generation experiences… this as Luther did.

— Kierkegaard

Many critics of John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, perhaps “embarrassed by the rawness and repetitive misery of his lived experience,” have structured Bunyan's obsessive vacillations between hope and despair through identifying conventional stages in his autobiography, as if the intensity of Bunyan's narrative might be contained by placing him within a set of literary or theological conventions. Patricia Caldwell questions this critical focus on “thought” and doctrine, noting that “it is almost as if the literary people themselves are taking their cue from the Puritans themselves” by denying the affective power of a text which appears to follow conventional stages.
The Influence of Humanism on Post-Reformation Catholic Preachers in France*
Authors: Taylor Larissa Juliet
Published: April 2006

Prior to the reformation, most sermons given in France were structured according to the “modern method” of division and subdivision, which proceeded in rather artificial fashion from theme to protheme, then to the elaboration of theological points and exempla. Those who deviated from this form, such as Jean Vitrier, were lavishly praised by humanists such as Erasmus, but were often sufficiently heterodox in other respects to attract the attention of the Paris Faculty of Theology. In the first decade after the outbreak of the Reformation in France, the modern method persisted, but by the 1530s it had been replaced almost completely by a much freer and more expressive rendering of theological and Biblical material. This was accompanied by an equally major change in the language of printing: by the mid-sixteenth century, almost all popular sermons were printed in French, whereas their earlier counterparts had been printed exclusively in Latin.
On the Edge of Reason: The Boundaries of Balkanism in Slovenian, Austrian, and Italian Discourse
Authors: Patterson Patrick Hyder
Published: April 2006

In this article Patrick Patterson offers new perspectives on the critique of Balkanist discourse elaborated recently by Maria Todorova and others. Examining Slovenian, Austrian, and Italian commentary on contemporary southeastern Europe, Patterson concludes that Slovenia's “western” neighbors did not wholeheartedly embrace the campaign by some influential Slovenes to distance their society from other, purportedly “Balkan,” Yugoslavs. Although Balkanism marked the discourse of all three countries, Italian and Austrian opinion often rejected important implications of the Slovenes' exceptionalist rhetoric. Ultimately, the internal dynamics of Austrian and Italian identity and political culture trumped the Balkan - ist logic behind Slovenes' claims to a uniquely “central European” character. Moreover, even in Slovenian sources, Balkanist rhetoric proved less dominant and consistent than the prevailing critique admits. Accordingly, that critique, which treats Balkanism as a rigid, uniform, pervasive, and virtually inescapable “power discourse” of hegemony, should be revised to account for forces that may limit or subvert its power.
Ukraine in Blackface: Performance and Representation in Gogol'’sDikan'ka Tales, Book 1
Authors: Koropeckyj Roman , Romanchuk Robert
Published: April 2006

In this article, Roman Koropeckyj and Robert Romanchuk present a Lacanian reading of the preface and “The Fair at Sorochintsy” from Nikolai Gogol’sEvenings on a Farm near Dikan'ka, vol. 1 (1831), viewed through the prism of American blackface minstrelsy. They trace representations of ethnicity and class in Gogol'’s “performance” of Ukraine. Their analysis of the preface demonstrates how Pan'ko’s Ukraine reaches a Russian lowerclass audience through the intervention of the gaze of an Other, an elite nonreader. The self-absenting of this Other opens a space for the audience’s imaginary identification with the Ukrainian minstrel, while structuring this space symbolically. Their analysis of “The Fair” demonstrates how this “opening” creates a fantasy of Ukraine as a world of unbridled sexuality, simultaneously repressed and re-presented by the story’s Russian- language fabula and elegiac “bookends.” The repressed Ukrainian content irrupts, symptomatically, in the story’s epigraphs. Akin to minstrelsy’s “blackening” of American popular culture, the tension between the repressed and the expressed adumbrates the “Ukrainianization” of Russian national culture.
French Domestic Architecture in the Early 18th Century: The Town Houses of Robert de Cotte
Authors: Neuman Robert
Published: April 2006

The original drawings and published designs for town houses by Robert de Cotte are examined here in order to clarify a relatively unknown aspect of his activity as one of the dominant figures in French architecture of the early 18th century. The projects, which date from 1710 to 1716, are set against the background of the history of the hôtel, a distinct architectural type that underwent a remarkable period of development in Paris during the first three decades of the century. New light is shed on the architect's attitude toward the urban mansion by a virtually unknown series of designs in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Taken as a group with the executed plans, they demonstrate that de Cotte's ability lay not in the development of new ideas but in synthesis of a very high order-his sources were primarily the works of J. H. Mansart and Lassurance. His designs are distinguished by a consistent interest in giving the corps-de-logis the appearance of a freestanding block. In the elevations, he concentrated on harmonious compositions with suavely detailed motifs, achieving an elegant simplicity entirely his own. The relation of his plans to the functions of an hôtel, as revealed in house-building manuals of the period, shows that de Cotte sought to satisfy both the public and private needs of his clients.
The Domus Aurea Reconsidered
Authors: Warden P. Gregory
Published: April 2006

The Domus Aurea was built by Nero after the fire of 64 A. D., and construction continued at least until Nero's death in 68. Although the building is described by Roman writers, none of the remains identified today as the Domus Aurea are mentioned in the literary sources. Previous scholarship, basing itself on literary sources and other Roman monuments, has shown that the Domus Aurea was a landscape park in which the architectural components were subordinated to a greater landscape design, but problems still remain with regard to topographical questions. The Domus Aurea is normally reconstructed as vast in scale, covering up to 80 hectares or a large part of ancient Rome. It is suggested here that the monument covered a much smaller area, perhaps only half that normally reconstructed. Problems of chronology are also discussed, particularly the question of what happened to the building after the death of Nero. It is suggested that the Esquiline wing, the best known of the buildings presently identified as the Domus Aurea, is only partially Neronian, and that its eastern section is Flavian in date. This revision affects our view of the development of Roman architecture and assigns less importance to the role played by Neronian architects in the "concrete revolution" of the 1st century A. D.
Stanford White at the University of Virginia: Some New Light on an Old Question
Authors: Yetter George Humphrey
Published: April 2006

The purpose of this paper is to add to the extant data on the work of Stanford White. From the very day of the unveiling of his plans for the reconstruction and renovation at the University of Virginia in 1896, controversy has continued in regard to its impact and purpose. Generally reproached since completion for obstructing the Jeffersonian vista southward from the Rotunda, White is redeemed here through documentation which proves that the final decision concerning placement of the new buildings was made by the University's rector, W. C. N. Randolph. A chronological development of the history and the circumstances leading to the engagement of the McKim, Mead and White firm follow, together with a discussion of the decision-making process. The firm's work is compared with Jefferson's original design, while at the same time it is considered as part of the architectural ensemble of library, academic buildings, and student rooms.
Housing Boston's Poor: The First Philanthropic Experiments
Authors: Zaitzevsky Cynthia
Published: April 2006

Although the English movement of the mid-19th century to provide better housing for the working classes has received much attention, there has been little published on corresponding activities in the United States. This paper deals with the movement that began in Boston in 1846 and with two groups of buildings: the "model lodging houses" initiated by Charles Eliot Norton and Abbot Lawrence in the early 1850s and constructed from 1855 to 1892. Views, plans, descriptions, and attributions are provided when possible for the four earliest buildings, all of which were demolished before 1875, and current photographs and complete documentation for the four that still stand. Extensive use is made of published and unpublished statements by Norton, Lawrence, and others involved in the movement, as well as of newspaper accounts. The Boston movement and the buildings it produced are related to their parallels in England and, as far as can be ascertained, in New York, which appears to be the only other American city involved in the very earliest phase of the model housing movement.
H. and J. E. Billings of Boston: From Classicism to the Picturesque
Authors: O'Gorman James F.
Published: April 2006

During what until recently has been seen as the lean years between Bulfinch's departure and Richardson's arrival in Boston (1818-1874), the population of the city rose from 41,000 to nearly 300,000, and the number of architects from a handful to over one hundred. Only now are the designers who gave shape to this urban growth beginning to receive the serious research they deserve. This paper outlines the careers of two of these men, the little-known Hammatt Billings (who was born the year Bulfinch left and died the year Richardson arrived), and his lesser-known brother, Joseph. Together, separately, and in collaboration with others, the Billingses designed a large number of buildings across New England, beginning with the Boston Museum (1845-1846) and ending with the original buildings for Wellesley College (1869-1875). In addition, the universally talented Hammatt contributed overtly and covertly to the work of other architects to a degree that may never be accurately measured.
Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and "L'occhio" "minore" of Florence Cathedral
Authors: Trachtenberg Marvin
Published: April 2006

Florence Cathedral continues to yield surprises, and it is not always necessary to dig for them. A detail as small and seemingly insignificant as a keystone is here revealed as evidence of a trecento project for a set of minor lanterns. Ironically, but for good reasons, this scheme was abandoned by the very architects who in all likelihood actually crafted the keystone, Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti. The detail is full of implications about Early Renaissance architectural practice, and it would be the first documented, completed architectural "work" involving Brunelleschi.
Le Corbusier's "Regulating Lines" for the Villa at Garches (1927) and Other Early Works
Authors: Herz-Fischler Roger
Published: April 2006

Le Corbusier's drawing on page 144 of his Oeuvre complète indicates that he had used the "golden number" while designing the villa at Garches. Documents at the Fondation Le Corbusier show that this drawing was made at least 18 months after the original design. Moreover, the regulating lines here do not agree with those on an earlier drawing. The same sort of discrepancy is also found when comparing drawings of other early works. To explain the apparent contradictions and to understand Le Corbusier's method, his writings must be consulted. From these it becomes clear that the regulating lines were not used to design buildings but rather to modify or confirm the original plans. Hence more than one set of lines would fit a given structure. The plans for Garches must be understood in this light. When Le Corbusier took up the "golden number" he simply used it, after the fact, to further confirm his work at Garches. It is this later confirmation that we see in the Oeuvre complète.
East or West in 11th-Century Pisan Culture: The Dome of the Cathedral and Its Western Counterparts
Authors: Smith Christine
Published: April 2006

The vault over the crossing at Pisa cathedral is elliptical in plan and has an exposed exterior profile. These characteristics, unique in 11th-century Tuscany, have caused scholars to doubt that the dome could have been built as part of the original cathedral fabric, which was largely complete by 1118. Yet Sanpaolesi's recent discussion of the problem, based on his study of the cupola during its restoration in 1957, presents substantial evidence in support of an early date (1090-1100) for the squinches and tambour below the cupola proper, and he argues convincingly that the cupola itself must share this date. Acceptance of his conclusions, however, does not necessitate assuming that the cupola was foreseen when the cathedral was planned in 1063, or that its original appearance conformed to what we see today. Indeed, I will argue that the unusual shape of the cupola is the inevitable consequence of a decision to vault the crossing, taken after the foundations of the cathedral were already laid. Further, I will present evidence which suggests that the exterior profile of the dome was not exposed originally, and has only been exposed since the late 14th century. Finally, I will show that in its original form the cupola was closely related to contemporary Lombard structures.
Beverley Minster in Its 13th-Century Context
Authors: Hoey Lawrence
Published: April 2006

Beverley Minster includes some of the finest and most interesting early Gothic architecture in the north of England, but the building has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. This article analyzes the design of the early-13th-century choir and transepts of Beverley in the context of contemporary buildings and attempts to show that while separate elements of the design have parallels in some of these buildings, they always undergo a significant transformation, either in their individual form or in their relationship to one another in the overall design. The resulting elevation of Beverley combines northern English characteristics such as the clustered pier with the Purbeck marble shafting of Lincoln and southern England. On the other hand, the proportions of the elevation suggest some knowledge of contemporary French buildings, but there are no specific French motifs at Beverley. In spite of the variety of its sources, the Beverley design is coherent and consistent and well illustrates the originality possible within the context of the Early English Gothic style.
Proportion and Beauty-The Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Michael Schindler, Newport Beach, 1922-1926
Authors: Sarnitz August E.
Published: April 2006

This is a contextual investigation of the theory and design of Rudolph M. Schindler (1887-1953), one of the most outstanding and interesting architects of the Modern Movement in the United States. Born in 1887 in Vienna, he was trained under Otto Wagner at the Academy of Fine Arts, under Adolf Loos in the Bauschule, and under Frank Lloyd Wright working in his studio in Oak Park and Taliesin. The architectural design of Schindler not only reflects the influence of his teachers but it also has had a lasting influence on modern architecture in the United States. Although Schindler did not teach extensively at architectural schools, his articles and buildings were published throughout the United States and Europe. Schindler's personal background is unusual since, although trained in Austria, he spent the rest of his life in the United States without ever returning to visit Europe. He left Europe before World War I and maintained no direct relationship with architects and artists of the Russian Constructivism, Dutch Cubism, German Bauhaus, or Italian Futurism, and, living in the United States, he also was never confronted with the cultural policy of the German Third Reich and the notion of Entartete Kunst. Most modern architects from Austria and Germany left their countries during the time of the fascists. Schindler was in a unique position. Since he remained in the United States after World War I, he was spared the fate of his contemporaries. Throughout his life, Schindler was very much isolated from the so-called International Style, and as a result he gave his body of work a very personal interpretation.
Toward the Definition of a Yuan Dynasty Hall
Authors: Steinhardt Nancy Shatzman
Published: April 2006

The structure of buildings from the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) in China has heretofore been studied alternatively as the culmination of earlier periods of architectural styles from about the 10th century and as the beginning of a new phase in Chinese construction that lasts until the beginning of the Modern period in the 19th century. This article takes as its focus halls built at palatial or religious complexes in north China during the Yuan period to determine if a period style can be defined within the homogeneous timber frame building tradition. Studying the buildings and their details through surviving architecture and fragments, contemporary descriptions, and contemporary painting, the investigation concludes that, although the Yuan period may be termed transitional, its buildings are more closely allied with the pre-Yuan than the post-Yuan period, especially as the earlier style is known from the illustrated construction manual Yingzao Fashi.
"Of Greater Lasting Consequence": Frederick Law Olmsted and the Fate of Franklin Park, Boston
Authors: von Hoffman Alexander
Published: April 2006

This essay explores the reasons that Franklin Park in Boston, Massachusetts, failed to fulfill the high expectations of its designer, Frederick Law Olmsted. The fate of Olmsted's lofty goals in Boston is revealing because it sheds light upon his thought and work, on the historic development of the urban park in the United States, and on the significance of the movement for public parks as a turn-of-the-century reform effort. In 1886 Olmsted presented his plan for Franklin Park, the crucial component of Boston's new park system. Influenced by Ruskin and others, Olmsted held that contemplation of the park's vistas of rolling lawns would reverse the debilitating effects of city life. The success of Franklin Park, he felt, depended upon sequestering the Country Park section of the scheme and protecting it from noisy, crowded, and athletic activities. Olmsted's choice of the "beautiful" style of landscape without visual centers of interest allowed local golfers, bicyclists, and baseball players in the 1890s to shape Franklin Park's pleasant but empty-looking spaces for their own uses. Then, in 1910, the park commissioners added ornate flower displays and a wild animal zoo, both ideas that Olmsted had explicitly condemned. The alternative uses of the park were accepted because they were promoted by powerful groups of middle-class and upper-middle-class Bostonians and because their proponents claimed for them the same properties of mental, physical, and moral improvement that Olmsted claimed for his peaceful park scenery.
The Early Gothic Choir of Pershore Abbey
Authors: Stalley Roger , Thurlby Malcolm
Published: April 2006

In attempting to resolve the complicated archaeological problems and the design sources of the early Gothic choir of Pershore Abbey, this article examines issues that are fundamental to the understanding of early Gothic architecture in Britain. The issues discussed are the nature of the plan of the choir, whether it was intended to be vaulted or not, the most appropriate form for the elevation, and problems in consistency and inconsistency in taste.
Alfred Agache, French Sociology, and Modern Urbanism in France and Brazil
Authors: Underwood David K.
Published: April 2006

The 1930 master plan for Rio de Janeiro, drawn up by the French architect-urbanist Alfred Agache, had an important impact on Rio and on the development of modern planning in Brazil. Reflecting the socioscientific methods of Edmond Demolins and the Musée Social in Paris as well as the sociological ideas of Gabriel Tarde and Emile Durkheim, the plan exemplifies the ambitions and techniques of the urbanism of the Société Française d'Urbanistes (SFU). Agache, a leading theorist, teacher, and practitioner of SFU urbanism, developed a sociological urbanisme parlant that evolved out of his Beaux-Arts training and his background in French sociology. Agache's ideas on the fine arts and urban planning were synthesized and refined in the courses on social art history and urbanism, the first of their kind in France, that he taught at the Collège Libre des Sciences Sociales in Paris. In defining theoretically and expressing artistically the Brazilian capital's urban program in terms of the fine art of applied sociology, Agache provided the Brazilians with a blueprint for socioeconomic and moral reform on the levels of both urban and national development. Situated chronologically between the international expositions of 1925 and 1937 in Paris, Agache's project reflects as well the larger purposes and methods of the two expos and, in so doing, clarifies the historical evolution of SFU urbanism.
A Late Gothic Drawing of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo at the Prado Museum in Madrid
Authors: Sanabria Sergio L.
Published: April 2006

A presentation drawing of the interior of the church of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, intended for the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, reveals aspects of the design procedures followed by Late Gothic master masons. Its unusual optical structure is designed to permit accurate representation of a dense collection of details to be executed by masters from various trades. The Toledan architect and sculptor Juan Guas has been believed to be the sole designer of the drawing. The Burgalese Simón de Colonia may have intervened in the design of the crossing, and a court blazoner must have provided the heraldic and religious program.
Rudolf Steiner's First Goetheanum as an Illustration of Organic Functionalism
Authors: Adams David
Published: April 2006

Austrian designer Rudolf Steiner intended his first Goetheanum building in Dornach, Switzerland (1913-1922), among other purposes, to be a dramatic illustration of the principles of a new style of architecture, simultaneously organic and functional. Its unusual forms in carved wood and reinforced concrete, its watercolor murals, and its engraved colored-glass windows were also to be a visual introduction to the metaphysical ideas of Steiner's anthroposophy. The central dynamic of the building was the intersection of its two domes of different sizes, intended by Steiner to express the union of spirit and matter through his treatment of the functions of stage and auditorium. The contrast between the two domed spaces was supported in great detail throughout the interior. Steiner applied formative principles of the natural world to building designs, attempting to achieve an organism-like relation between part and whole, a harmonious adaptation of building to site, and an organic formal quality sympathetic to the human observer. In particular, he employed the principle of metamorphosis in the abstract forms of the building's ornamentation and ground plan, relating this principle to Goethe's studies of biological morphology. He created forms and spaces that not only fulfilled but also directly imaged their functions, including their relationship to their human users. He set forth his new architectural approach within the context of an extensively enunciated architectural theory, whose primary thrust was the encouragement of a clear adaptation of the designs of buildings to a holistically conceived human nature. He pioneered new techniques and styles, which, along with his lectures and writings, have influenced a number of significant artists and architects of the twentieth century.
Objectively Speaking
Authors: Djordjević Ivana
Published: April 2006

Once we accept a theory of proportions as the basis of an architectural aesthetic in general, we come immediately to the question of whether we talk about the proportions of a building or about the proportions perceived in a building. This question is also closely related to the question, What is the aesthetic object of architecture-the building, or an idea of a building, or a project, a set of drawings, or some other entity? Answering this question means not only offering an answer to the question, What is architectural history actually about? but also- as some disputes on the interpretation of Palladio's Quattro libri show-suggesting a justification of a theory of proportions in modern times. The idea of this text is to discuss this problem within the framework of Kant's theory of space-not so much in order to see what Kant would say on the topic, but much more in order to show that an epistemology like Kant's, which pretends to be a full catalogue of cognitive processes, must allow space for positing ideal architectural objects.