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Architectural Treatises and the East Adriatic Coast: Cultural Transfers and the Circulation of Knowledge in the Renaissance

Architectural treatises written in the 15th and 16th century are the most structured expressions of the built environment of the period, establishing norms and influencing building practice across Europe. Especially after the invention of printing, these books brought about the diffusion of knowledge of classical antiquity and architectural principles, and put into circulation images and accounts of a certain number of ancient and modern buildings. This chapter traces the references to the regions of the Eastern Adriatic, especially to Istria, Dalmatia and Dubrovnik area in architectural treatises, in order to shed light on the cultural encounters and exchanges between the areas geographically adjacent to the principal centers of the Italian peninsula seen through Italian and French eyes.

architectural treatises, east Adriatic coast, circulation of knowledge

From the Introduction by the eds.: Treatises contained as much idealisation as practical information, but in their preoccupation with antiquity and classical orders they privileged Roman architecture, and the buildings of Rome. A groundbreaking contribution by Jasenka Gudelj addresses this issue through an evaluation of natural and antique resources of the Eastern Adriatic, ruled by Venice in the sixteenth century. Discussing the references to the geographical location of stones and quarries made by Renaissance authors such as Alberti, Vasari, Sebastiano Serlio, Palladio and Vincenzo Scamozzi – particularly the stone from Istria, a type of limestone widely used in Italy, and in the monuments of Dalmatia – Gudelj contextualises Rome’s rise to supremacy and the canonisation of the Triumphal Arch and the Corinthian order. Pointing to the omissions, confusions, contradictions and interjections in these texts about the Adriatic and its antiquities, she demonstrates the tension between lucid observation and reverence to Rome, reminding us that there is no ‘centre’ without the ‘periphery’, and vice versa.