Humanism and the Urban World

Humanism and the Urban World
Author :
Publisher : Penn State Press
Total Pages : 278
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780271056890
ISBN-13 : 0271056894
Rating : 4/5 (894 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Humanism and the Urban World by : Caspar Pearson

Download or read book Humanism and the Urban World written by Caspar Pearson and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Humanism and the Urban World, Caspar Pearson offers a profoundly revisionist account of Leon Battista Alberti’s approach to the urban environment as exemplified in the extensive theoretical treatise De re aedificatoria (On the Art of Building in Ten Books), brought mostly to completion in the 1450s, as well as in his larger body of written work. Past scholars have generally characterized the Italian Renaissance architect and theorist as an enthusiast of the city who envisioned it as a rational, Renaissance ideal. Pearson argues, however, that Alberti’s approach to urbanism was far more complex—that he was even “essentially hostile” to the city at times. Rather than proposing the “ideal” city, Pearson maintains, Alberti presented a variety of possible cities, each one different from another. This book explores the ways in which Alberti sought to remedy urban problems, tracing key themes that manifest in De re aedificatoria. Chapters address Alberti’s consideration of the city’s possible destruction and the city’s capacity to provide order despite its intrinsic instability; his assessment of a variety of political solutions to that instability; his affinity for the countryside and discussions of the virtues of the active versus the contemplative life; and his theories of aesthetics and beauty, in particular the belief that beauty may affect the soul of an enemy and thus preserve buildings from attack.


Humanism and the Urban World Related Books

Humanism and the Urban World
Language: en
Pages: 278
Authors: Caspar Pearson
Categories: Architecture
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-10-20 - Publisher: Penn State Press

GET EBOOK

In Humanism and the Urban World, Caspar Pearson offers a profoundly revisionist account of Leon Battista Alberti’s approach to the urban environment as exempl
Humanism and the Urban World
Language: en
Pages: 256
Authors: Caspar Pearson
Categories: Architecture
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-10-20 - Publisher: Penn State Press

GET EBOOK

In Humanism and the Urban World, Caspar Pearson offers a profoundly revisionist account of Leon Battista Alberti’s approach to the urban environment as exempl
Humanism and the Urban World
Language: en
Pages: 268
Authors: Caspar Pearson
Categories: Cities and towns
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

"Explores Italian Renaissance writer and architect Leon Battista Alberti's complex and sometimes ambivalent attitudes toward the concept of the city, and relate
Sorrow and Consolation in Italian Humanism
Language: en
Pages: 324
Authors: George W. McClure
Categories: Psychology
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-07-14 - Publisher: Princeton University Press

GET EBOOK

George McClure offers here a far-reaching analysis of the role of consolation in Italian Renaissance culture, showing how the humanists' interest in despair, an
The Routledge Companion to Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century Urban Design
Language: en
Pages: 424
Authors: Jon Lang
Categories: Architecture
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-11-09 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

The Routledge Companion to Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century Urban Design is a fully illustrated descriptive and explanatory history of the development o