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Allegory and the architecture of Francesco Borromini

This thesis relates the aspirations (examined in political treatises, literary programs and scientific treaties) of Pope Urban VIIIth with the allegorical spaciality of the architecture of Francesco Borromini. The projects initiated under the patronage of the Pope are particularly related to the Pope's election. Urban's personal impressa, the Angelic Sun is an emblem of this election, a reborn sun, a second personal birth and the elevation of the Angelic Pope (the leader of the age of the Holy Spirit). This is allegorically a metamorphosis like the re-birth of Daphne into Laurel; the Tree of Aeneas and Rome and the principal Barberini impressa. As a dynastic emblem the Laurel unites the cosmic territories of the sun and the moon, the traditional emblems of cosmic kingship and world domination. The metaphysical marriage to Rome (coronation and marriage are ritually linked, like the union of the sun and the moon) metaphorically appropriates the capacity of giving birth through construction, to a new city, an intellectual city in the image of Urban, the threshold for spirit. The architecture 'contains' this intellectual body (city), a dynastic emblem of the Angelic Pope.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22545
Date January 1994
CreatorsMacElwee, Andrea L. (Andrea Laurel)
ContributorsPerez-Gomez, Alberto (advisor)
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Architecture (School of Architecture.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001458731, proquestno: MM05341, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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