In early modern times scholars and architects investigated age-old buildings in order to look for useful sources of inspiration. They too, occasionally misinterpreted younger buildings as proofs of majestic Roman or other ancient glory, such as the buildings of the Carolingian, Ottonian and Stauffer emperors. But even if the correct age of a certain building was known, buildings from c. 800–1200 were sometimes regarded as ‘Antique’ architecture, since the concept of ‘Antiquity’ was far more stretched than our modern periodisation allows. This was a Europe-wide phenomenon. The results are rather diverse in style, but they all share an intellectual and artistic strategy: a conscious revival of an ‘ancient’ architecture — whatever the date and origin of these models.
Contributors: Barbara Arciszewska, Lex Bosman, Ian Campbell, Eliana Carrara, Bianca de Divitiis, Krista De Jonge, Emanuela Ferretti, Emanuela Garofalo, Stefaan Grieten, Hubertus Günther, Stephan Hoppe, Sanne Maekelberg, Kristoffer Neville, Marco Rosario Nobile, Konrad Ottenheym, Stefano Piazza, and Richard Schofield.
Konrad Ottenheym is Professor of Architectural History at Utrecht University (The Netherlands). His publications deal with Dutch architecture and architectural theory of the early modern period with a special focus on its relationships with other European regions.
Preface Michael Kwakkelstein
List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors
Romanesque Renaissance – Introduction Konrad Ottenheym
Part 1: Romanesque Architecture and the Venerable Past of the Church and the Realm
1 Il ruolo della memoria normanna nella cultura architettonica siciliana della prima età moderna Stefano Piazza
2 Tra mito e modello. Le cattedrali normanne nell’architettura Religiosa del Cinquecento in Italia meridionale Emanuela Garofalo
3 Le cupole in pietra a vista nel primo Cinquecento in Sicilia Marco Rosario Nobile
4 Memory of the Romanesque in Renaissance Southern Italy: From Paper to Stone Bianca de Divitiis
5 The Scottish Romanesque Revival Revisited (Again) Ian Campbell
6 Polish Architecture ‘more vetusto … murata’: References to Romanesque Buildings in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth before 1600 Barbara Arciszewska
7 Romanesque Reconstructions: The Revival of Liège in the Early Sixteenth Century Stefaan Grieten and Krista De Jonge
8 Matters of Representation: On the Revival of the Early Mediaeval Keep in Brabant during the Early Modern Period Krista De Jonge and Sanne Maekelberg
9 A Deconstruction of San Michele in Isola in Venice Richard Schofield
Part 2: Romanesque Architecture as Imaginary Antiquity
10 Il Battistero di Firenze nella storiografia medicea tra Cosimo I e Francesco I Eliana Carrara and Emanuela Ferretti
11 Byzantine Cupolas and the Myth of the ‘Ancient Origins’ of Venice Hubertus Günther
12 Architecture and Early Humanism at German Princely Courts: Lower Bavaria, Salzburg and Passau and the Romanesque Renaissance (c. 1480–1500) Stephan Hoppe
13 The ‘Pagan Chapel’: St Nicolas’ Chapel at Nijmegen and Other Romanesque Rotundas Regarded as Ancient Temples Konrad Ottenheym
14 Roman or Romanesque? Confusion about the Putative Temple of Apollo in Maastricht Lex Bosman
15 Text and Form: The Beginnings of Architectural History and Architectural Aesthetics in the Far North Kristoffer Neville
Index
All interested in art history and architecture of the Renaissance period, and the relationships between humanist scholarship, architects, artists and their patrons c. 1400–1700. Keywords: Renaissance architecture; fifteenth-century and sixteenth-century revival of Romanesque architecture; artists, antiquarians, humanists; early modern concepts of ‘Antiquity’.