Detail of frieze at the Palazzo del Te (Alison Syme slide collection, FADIS database)
The surface and exterior of a building is the first thing you see when you come across it. From afar, you can begin to comprehend what it is you are looking at, and as you come up to it, you begin to piece together an understanding of the use and message of a building. It may be a cliché, but don’t necessarily read a book by its cover. At least not at first. If there is anything we can learn from the architects of the Renaissance, it is that the surface of a building can convey a very important array of messages and requires reflection and education.
The architect’s role during the Renaissance took on a lot of agency. The architect acted as teacher to the user and viewer of a building. The Renaissance being a time of expanded learning and knowledge, education was to be found everywhere – in books, in ruins, or in the new construction happening all over. Every new building was an opportunity for education and synthesis of knowledge. This practice becomes more important when we acknowledge that most buildings of the time had patrons commissioning them, with important messages needing to be passed on about them through their buildings.
We will examine six different buildings over the next two modules, starting in Italy with the Palazzo del Te – a building challenging the ideals of classicism – and the Tempietto – a building that proclaimed many of those ideals for a very different purpose. We will then move eastwards and examine the royal palaces of Buda and Visegrad in Hungary, and compare their façades to those of two buildings in Italy, the churches of San Lorenzo and Santa Maria Novella to discuss the implications of refinishing medieval Gothic buildings with Renaissance exteriors.
The architects of the time were aware of the sudden surge in education and knowledge and were working towards applying that learning for all around. Those who had a strong education in the Classics were immediately aware of and sometimes challenged by what they saw, and those who were not as educated were getting an education every time they walked down the street and saw one of these buildings.
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