With words and images: Serlio, Palladio and the drawing of the ancient

Abstract

The present project originates from the concerns arising from the research during the academic master's degree, and to answer questions that could not be answered at that time. Broadening the literary review of the Renaissance, the research seeks a reflection on the ancient design presented both in text and images by Sebastiano Serlio, in his Book III, and by Andrea Palladio, in his Book IV of I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, supported by the humanistic culture developing around the papal court in Rome. The cultural and intellectual effervescence that took place in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, with the humanists as precursors, made artists and architects seek inspiration for their works from classical sources. Humanists, who played an important role in the transformations that sustained the ideological basis of the Renaissance movement, proposing a new reading of Christian civilization in which they infused a new consciousness connected to man. A culture in which order and freedom of the human spirit, of the rational and of nature predominated, in which art was inspired by classical models. The architects of the Renaissance, illuminating this prerogative, made the written text and the drawing important allies for their theoretical and practical conceptions; as well as for the diffusion of their ideas and projects. The focus of this research is circumscribed to the study of the monuments and ruins of Classical Antiquity, present in the city of Rome, for the constitution of Book III, by Serlio, and Book IV, by Palladio, in order to establish similarities and differences between the textual approaches and design solutions used by both architects in buildings exhibited in common in their respective books. To this end, two buildings were selected for a detailed study regarding text and image: the Tampietto di Bramante and the Pantheon, justified by the fact that the images begin to configure a process of historical-critical analysis as a document, providing information about the architectural significance. (AU)