In conjunction with our October seminar, the speaker is leading this viewing of materials at the Soane Museum, limited to 10 places.
Abstract:
This visit is an opportunity to examine first-hand two key works of the Italian Renaissance in the collection of the Sir John Soane’s Museum: the North Italian Album (c. 1500) and a partial copy of Francesco di Giorgio’s Opusculum de architectura (vol. 128; c. 1550). The North Italian Album is an eclectic collection of cityscapes and colourful designs for buildings and objects. In dramatic opposition, the Francesco di Giorgio copy-drawings belong to a workaday model book of machine designs produced by tracing. Including comparative material in the Soane’s collection such as the remarkable Codex Coner, discussion will centre on the conventions of architectural drawings in Renaissance Italy and on the relationship between artistic and architectural practice, enabling participants to reflect on the strategies of architectural representation and questioning our understanding of what constitutes an architectural drawing. The visit is led by Livia Lupi (University of Warwick), author of Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy and curator of forthcoming digital exhibition Beyond the Painter-Architect: Artists Reinventing Architecture in Renaissance Italy, and by Elizabeth Merrill (University of Ghent), an expert on Francesco di Giorgio and Principal Investigator of ERC project Copying as Common Practice in Early Modern European Architecture.
Registration:
To book a place, please email stephen.gage@sahgb.org.uk
Max. 10 participants
Speakers:
Livia Lupi is a historian of art and architecture in early modern Europe, with a focus on the intersection of artistic and architectural practice. Her work has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust and the Warburg Institute. In addition to her research, she works as a curator, editor, and translator.
Elizabeth Merrill specializes in early modern Italian architecture. Much of her research centers on Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501) and the artistic and technical culture of fifteenth-century Italy, which is traced through surviving model books, copy drawings, and illustrated treatises. Currently she is the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project “Copying as Common Practice in Early Modern European Architecture.”
Image Caption: Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501), Hoeing machine (top), and Windass with double-pulley (bottom), Opusculum de architectura, c. 1475. London, The British Museum, ms. 197.b.21, fol. 5r. © The Trustees of the British Museum