The Fifty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the RSA
Montreal, Quebec Canada
24-26 March, 2011

The representation of the interior in Renaissance architectural drawings

In 1956 Wolfgang Lotz published an essay in which he analyzed the evolution
of the rendering of the interior in Renaissance architectural drawings. This
broad survey opened numerous lines of inquiry, some of which still remain to
be investigated.
If Quattrocento architectural drawings are in debt to perspectival
conventions used in painting, Cinquecento drawings become more precise,
rendering interiors with clear cross sections.
Through the large number of preserved Renaissance drawings it is possible to
distinguish the passage from a "mimetic" interpretation of architectural
interiors (intended to emphasize the shape and volume of the spaces, often
enhanced with the addition of watercolour, ie. Giuliano da Sangallo or
Baldassare Peruzzi) to an accurate translation of the same spaces in three
dimensions represented on a vertical plane. The change in the rendering of
interior spaces is clear in a comparison between two 16th century treatises:
Serlio's Sette libri dell'Architettura and Palladio's Quattro Libri. The
goal of the former is to represent existing architecture, that of the latter
to represent planned architecture. In the second half of the Cinquecento
architects such as Ligorio and du Cerceau introduced a new way of
visualizing space, in particular for ancient buildings, using perspective
cross sections that underscore their "all'antica" characteristics.
This panel seeks contributions from scholars who are interested in the
representation of interiors in architectural drawings, etchings, and
illustrations from Renaissance treatises.

Please send a 150-word abstract and a short CV to Orietta Lanzarini
(orilanzayahoo.it) or Alessandro Brodini (brodinibiblhertz.it) by 17
May.

Papers can be either in English or Italian.