Fifteenth century Florentine architect Il Filarete authored the first illustrated book on architecture, with a distinct pedagogical agenda to teach his patron to build nobly. Written as a dialogical narrative, taking place between a patron and his architect, the treatise's pedagogical tone unfolds as a form of storytelling about the design and construction of an ideal city. Despite its miscellaneous aspects embedded in the book, which differentiates it significantly from the architectural treatises belong to the Western cannon, the author stresses his role as an architect, and proposes an unprecedent analogy to define the role of the architect (his profession) in regards to building practice [edificare]. Extending the Vitruvian body topos under the influence of Civic Humanism to an organic anthropomorphism, Filarete bases the generation of a building on similar grounds to human generation, through which he defines gender-specific roles to the patron (male agent) as the father of the building, and the architect (female agent) as its mother. This generally known analogy, although has been frequently mentioned, was not taken as a clue that can pertain the essence of architectural production in the Renaissance patronage context. In this dissertation, I propose to contextualize his unprecedented proposal within the larger framework of the production agency of building in the early modern period, and how architecture as a profession is aimed to be defined within that. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this dissertation, I have offered an in-depth analysis of Filarete's "generation" analogy for building production in the quattrocento Renaissance context. Filarete is a fifteenth century Florentine sculptor turned architect, who owns his fame to the extraordinary book he wrote ¬¬– Libro Architettonico – in which he could demonstrate the wonders he can build with the aid of a devoted patron. Targeting at the ideology of the patron's fame to be established through the noble edifices he builds, Filarete signifies the temporal nature of buildings which ends in ruins –as the Roman antiquity is perceived in the Renaissance –. Relying on ancient "body" metaphor for architecture, Filarete offers an analogy to his patron to perceive buildings similar to "a living man," that eventually dies. Accordingly, the generation of buildings is introduced as similar to generation of man. Based on a sexual metaphor Filarete coins here, the patron takes the role of the father, to generate "his" building together with an architect –mother–. Similar to a pregnant mother, the architect develops the design in his realm to deliver in the form of a scaled artifact (whether a drawing or a wooden model). Filarete suggests the architect –mother– to be the wet-nurse, signifying the ongoing process of design during construction and the architect's role to ensure its integrity to the building. This unprecedented analogy, although was never studied in depth, carries many connotations when examined in Renaissance patronage context and reflects significant nuances regarding the production of such noble building. The patron's influence in design is recognized with the father role, which has a long and prominent history in comparison to the emerging individuality of the Renaissance artist. In this well-established scheme, Filarete relies on the creative faculties of an artist, as associated with female attributes since the antiquity, yet extends it further to motherhood to define "architect" as a professional title. This unique interpretation parallels the emerging notions of family during the Renaissance, as perpetuated by Civic Humanism. A comparative study of the family treatises of the fifteenth century shows that the emphasis on the mother in the growth of a child parallels Filarete's intentions to convince his patron to rely on his architect for the good of his building. In the overall pedagogical tone of the Libro, Filarete is educating the patron to build nobly, which is offered as a stylistic choice to build in the ancient manner, and introduces the architect as an equal agent of the design process, distinguishing its role from a mason.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/104118 |
| Date | 07 July 2021 |
| Creators | Terim, Berrin |
| Contributors | Architecture, Emmons, Paul F., Holt, Jaan, Feuerstein, Marcia F., Kunze, Donald E. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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