Designing Works in Sangallo's 'Circle' Giovannoni, G
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge Architecture Faculty Publications Architecture 9-1-2020 Designing Works in Sangallo’s ‘Circle’ Julia Smyth-Pinney University of Kentucky, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/architect_facpub Part of the Architecture Commons Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Repository Citation Smyth-Pinney, Julia, "Designing Works in Sangallo’s ‘Circle’" (2020). Architecture Faculty Publications. 4. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/architect_facpub/4 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Architecture at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Architecture Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Designing Works in Sangallo’s ‘Circle’ Digital Object Identifier (DOI) http://doi.org/10.5334/ah.525 Notes/Citation Information Published in Architectural Histories, v. 8, issue 1. © 2020 The Author(s) This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/ This book review is available at UKnowledge: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/architect_facpub/4 Art. 11, page 10 of 13 Marinazzo et al: Reviews Summer 2020 access to the architecture of the East, and the sources with Designing Works in Sangallo’s ‘Circle’ which he was fluent, Hart proceeds to observe how he translated this into his design practice. Here the reader Julia Smyth-Pinney encounters well-known examples of Wren’s architecture, University of Kentucky, US such as the Gothic Tom Tower and St. Mary Aldermary, as [email protected] well as less obvious connections. For example, the domes of St. Stephen Walbrook and St. Martin Ludgate — adopt- Maria Beltramini and Cristina Conti, eds. Antonio da San- ing cross-squares and octagonal Greek-cross systems — are gallo il Giovane: Architettura e decorazione da Leone X a associated with Byzantine and Ottoman prototypes. While Paolo III. Milan: Officina libraria, 183 pages, 2018, ISBN the examples and visual analyses of these discussions are 978-88-3367-012-6 unquestionably the most original part of the book, this material is also inevitably the most speculative. Hart’s con- During his lifetime, the architect Antonio da Sangallo the clusions frequently assume source material that cannot be Younger (1484–1546) was also a carpenter, surveyor, engi- explicitly traced. However, the argument is both plausible neer, contractor, urbanist, entrepreneur, devotee of the and believable thanks to Hart’s detailed account on the antique and director of a Sangallo architectural ‘firm’ that sources for these models, as well as his emphasis on their included multiple family members. His enormous output larger political and religious significance. had an astonishingly broad typological range. In addition In fact, one of the book’s most profound contributions to his lifelong involvement at St. Peter’s Basilica, Antonio concerns the meaning of architecture and the degree to designed other works with religious, residential, military, which it can be translated. Pivoting between Wren’s study urbanistic and celebratory programs. Understandably, of Eastern architecture and his adoption of these forms this vast range and volume has created research difficul- in English design, Hart illuminates the historical, religious ties. These are compounded by scarce documentation for and cultural questions that arise from the reconciliation many modified or unbuilt works, which are mostly or only of formal and cultural models with foreign environments. known from the drawings produced by Antonio or others In Wren’s case, the Anglican, Stuart, post-Restoration in the so-called setta Sangallesca. Antonio helmed that and post-1666 context in which he operated was deter- broader ‘circle’ of architects, sculptors, painters, builders minative. All the more problematic then is his treatment and artisans for thirty years. Yet his exact role in the crea- of the specific architectural vocabulary of the East in tion of most of its products remains opaque, even though order to establish forms of national identity (Soo 2012). many specific studies of Antonio’s designs have appeared For instance, the colonnaded and domed structures he piecemeal over the past six decades, and two comprehen- favored are traced to Jerusalem, Constantinople and the sive surveys provide bedrock facts about his architecture. Eastern regions of the Roman Empire, as opposed to closer Gustavo Giovannoni’s two-volume opus (Giovannoni but more contentious Catholic models. Similarly, Wren 1959) examines the built work as well as related drawings justified his use of the unpopular and ‘barbarous’ Gothic and projects. Currently, a magisterial, three-volume cata- by charting its origins to the Holy Land as an imported logue of the Uffizi’s architectural drawings of Antonio da ‘Saracen’ style, thus perpetuating a sort of post hoc fallacy Sangallo and his circle, conceived and edited by Christoph typical in processes of nation-building. Luitpold Frommel, nears completion but still lacks the In mapping the complex system of cultural interpre- crucial final volume on palaces (Frommel and Adams tation, adaptation and use that underlay Wren’s formal 1994, 2000, –). These two indispensable surveys, which appropriation of Eastern models, Hart also sheds light on inevitably imposed boundaries and organizing strategies, the architect’s substantially circumstantial approach to gave precedence to building type in order to clarify chro- style and design, which was mediated by issues of context nology and authorship. Unfortunately, those choices have and largely informed by his empirical mindset. In fact, obstructed other avenues of inquiry, and have allowed the Wren often simultaneously adopted and used formal ref- study of Antonio as maestro of a complex business to lag. erences derived from disparate geographical and histori- The volume Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane: Architettura cal contexts, for example in the long colonnades of the e decorazione da Leone X a Paolo III responds to that situ- Greenwich Hospital, where Hart relates the overall design ation (Figure 5). Its contents — fourteen individual essays to Eastern models like Palmyra, but whose structurally on architectural and art history — result from years of cross- efficient doubled columns also carry French undertones. disciplinary inquiries pursued by a core group of faculty This approach was not uncommon, as demonstrated for and students at Roman university campuses, supported instance by the case of Nicholas Hawksmoor, pupil of by a broader Italian and international array of scholars. Wren and another subject of Hart’s scholarship (2002). In June 2017, Maria Beltramini drew them all together Hart’s book then successfully contributes to systematiz- for a ‘Study Day’ in Rome. The delivered papers are here ing Wren’s empirical design method within a wide cross- revised, rearranged, augmented and published in a vol- national and cross-temporal network of architectural ume that provides a rich and coherent view of Antonio’s referencing. Wren’s contingent political and religious entire ‘circle’ and its members’ diverse activities. The translation of Eastern architecture ultimately cements book’s essays, which address an audience already famil- Tafuri’s image of an architectural ‘chemist’, manipulating iar with Antonio subjects and documents, are grounded languages and forms as bottles and phials in a laboratory, in primary-source evidence — archival texts, treatises and as an endless combinatory experiment (1968: 140–142). commentaries, drawings and built fabric. To probe deeply, Marinazzo et al: Reviews Summer 2020 Art. 11, page 11 of 13 GAL Figure 5: Cover of Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane: Architettura e decorazione da Leone X a Paolo III. Photo Credit: Officina libraria. Antonio’s smaller endeavors are considered, because they the topical essays, Serena Quagliaroli reports on the tech- best reveal how and why he deployed others in the per- nical development of stucco and its use and stylistic varia- formance of different tasks, at the various stages of these tions between 1500 and 1560; then Anna Maria Riccomini designs. analyzes Antonio’s lifelong antiquarian interests. She The individual essays are organized sequentially: the convincingly identifies specific ancient objects collected first and last essays address the shape and basic themes by the architect and describes their display in his via Giulia of Antonio’s life, while the second and third essays pur- home. Antonio’s acquisitiveness and his Vitruvian studies sue topics of general import, followed by case studies. In were primarily driven by genuine interest, modified by the initial essay, Barbara Agosti reminds us that many of hereditary pressures and concerns about status. Antonio’s contemporaries expressed both envy and appre- The ten case studies are arranged chronologically. They ciation of his business skills. She peoples the three phases investigate Antonio’s interactions with his subordinate in Antonio’s successful career — largely determined by collaborators and subcontractors, and question how papal reigns — with Antonio’s artistic colleagues, includ- they worked either hierarchically under Antonio,