Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (M. Arch. in Advanced Studies)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1977. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-158). / by Deborah Walne Poodry. / M.Arch.in Advanced Studies / M.C.P.

Gianlorenzo Bernini's Altieri Chapel possesses an aesthetic splendour that continues to captivate modern viewers. However, despite the recent publication of Shelly Karen Perlove and Giovanni Careri's studies on this subject, its unique manner of signification continues to be elusive. In the former case, the author's dependence on a melange of seventeenth-century religious notions reduces Bernini's choice of imagery to mere theological illustration. On the other hand, Careri affirms the originality of the chapel, but his over reliance on a heuristic comparison with film montage limits his appreciation of the viewer's role in this aesthetically charged space. / The present study strikes a balance between its own contemporary subjectivity and Bernini's historicity, locating the chapel's meaning making capacity in a hermeneutic oscillation between both its constituent elements and the participatory beholder. The result is the recognition of a unique artistic statement, which avers the fundamental commonality between several post-Tridentine liturgical practices. The salvific efficacy of these tenets is asserted by an aesthetic signification of the divine presence which lies behind them. The spectator is drawn into a mimetic world, suffused with Baroque Catholic ideology, and shown that Church doctrine is backlit with the radiance of ultimate truth. Of course, seventeenth-century viewing practices cannot be recreated, just as the feeling engendered by this artistic experience is beyond the descriptive powers of this or any other text. Nevertheless, it is possible to provide a guide to the spiritual references in Bernini's microcosm, for, while secular, modern viewers may no longer see with Baroque eyes, perhaps they can appreciate what those eyes saw.

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Thesis explores the ways in which Information and Communication Technology (ICT)use, specifically that of telephones and the Internet, impacts the lives of Eritrean refugees in Rome, Italy. Informal interviews, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation were carried out in a 'center of second reception.' Results show that information obtained through the use of ICT acts on the imaginations of refugees, encouraging or discouraging movement to alternative locations. ICT use can help maintain a sense of emotional "closeness" to family members abroad for some, but not for others. Limitations in access to ICT exist for the refugees and their families in Eritrea that crosscut multiple socio-demographic categories. Finally, surveillance, enacted through ICT use, negotiates power between the Eritrean state and its subjects in the diaspora. / Graduation date: 2012

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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In early 1505, at twenty-nine years of age, Michelangelo began work on a massive tomb for Pope Julius II. The formal, temporal, and constructional intertwinings of this project are plumbed to create the foundation of this text. Finding its only full manifestation in the narratives of Vasari and Condivi, this tomb was the site of Michelangelo's first engagement with the making of architecture. The execution of this project would go on to intermittently occupy nearly half of Michelangelo's lifetime, making it a pivotal and paradigmatic work in the understanding of his opera. Explored as an embodied architectural treatise, the tomb reveals Michelangelo's dynamic process of creative making. Problematic issues in the prevailing Twentieth Century analyses and reconstructions of the tomb are called into question and alternative approaches to establish a deeper understanding of the project are proposed. Conjectures on the relevance of history, the hegemony and limits of analysis, the physical manifestation of ideas, what it means to "finish" a project, and what constitutes a "work," are projected from the foundations of the tomb onto the making of architecture today.

Five hundred years of Christian martyrdom are represented in the Ecclesiae militantis triumphi (1583). Engraved by Giovanni Battista Cavalieri, the series that was bound into a book reproduces a fresco cycle in the church of San Stefano Rotondo in Rome. While the church belonged to the Jesuit German-Hungarian College, the book accompanied priests in their proselytizing mission in Northern Europe. This thesis will look at the function of the book in relation to various audiences, in different viewing contexts. Analyzed primarily in relation to the intended Jesuit audience as an object of devotion, the book will also be inserted within the Early Christian revival promoted by Gregory XIII (1572-1585). Finally, it will be looked at in relation to an audience composed of individuals interested in factual knowledge about Early Christian history and in the martyr as a historical figure. A general endeavor of the thesis is to situate the Ecclesiae militantis triumphi in relation to late sixteen-century representations of martyrdom, both Catholic and Protestant, as well as in relation to other contemporary Roman printed works.

This study traces the genesis and development of the History of Constantine tapestries designed by Pietro da Cortona and woven on the looms established by Francesco Barberini shortly after his return from France in December 1625. The circumstances surrounding the creation of the series provide a foundation and a framework for exploring its meaning and purpose. Though inspired by an earlier Constantine suite of tapestries designed by Rubens, the "Cortona" panels should be read as an independent entity, the significance of which can only be fully appreciated within the context of the gran salone of the Palazzo Barberini, which I propose was their intended destination. This conclusion is supported by the many links between the tapestries and Barberini ideology, papal politics, the palace and the ceiling fresco in the Salone. Like the Divine Providence fresco, the "Cortona" series is a summa of the virtues and religious, political, intellectual and social initiatives of the family. The series emerges finally as a promotionally Italian endeavour, a showcase of Italian art and culture.