Teatro Olimpico Vicenza

Something short and sweet tonight. I just had this photo up to add to my thesis catalogue. Some of you probably know it - the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy. Designed by Andrea Palladio and  then completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi. It is unusual for its survival, theatres usually have terribly short life spans, especially before the advent of electric light when the combination of many many candles and a lot of flammable wood and paper meant they tended to burn down. It is also unique as an example of an attempt to recreate an ancient Roman theatre. It was built for the humanist Accademia Olimpica in Vicenza who wished to perform plays in it after the style of ancient Rome, both revivals of ancient plays as well as new plays written in the same style. It is very closely based on antique examples with the semi circular seats (the cavea) the permanent scenery (scaenae) with its screen of columns and sculptures (columnatio). The streets are very much based on 16th scenery, though we do know that Roman theatres did have some kind of scenery behind the columnatio. By the time it was completed in the 1580s the interest in reviving ancient plays was on the wane and instead most theatrical productions were using a theatre in a style that is still very familiar today, with  a semi-circular auditorium, a single proscenium arch and scenery on some kind of moveable machines and a backdrop. You can still watch plays and operas in this theatre, I have never been there at the right time of year though.

The illusion is quite amazing and one always wants to wander up the street to see just how short it really is.

Snapshot, Rome

San Andrea al Quirinale, 11:30am, April 22nd 2010.

Snapshot Venice, 2005.

I'm off to Venice, hope to have lots of gorgeous photos for the blog when I get back from my trip, and maybe even a sneaky update while I'm away. Though I can't promise I will spend my time seeking out internet cafes when there are Veronese and Titian paintings to see, canals to cross and prosecco to drink.

A presto!

Cloister Garden and Interior of San Lorenzo, Rome

I am busy scrabbling around trying to finish up a chapter on something I originally worked on in early 2006. I have been flicking through files from that time and thought I should put up some pictures I took in Rome in February, just before a conference where I gave a paper on the topic I am currently writing on. Possibly I should have been in the library instead of wandering around old churches (just like I should now be writing instead of blogging!), but the offer was there to go with a few experts on late Roman and Early Christian antiquity, so I could hardly resist.

A few facts. The church was founded on the burial place of St Lawrence, or San Lorenzo, who was famously 'grilled' to death. A topic favoured by Baroque painters who loved nothing more than a good ole grisly martyrdom. Here is in a painting by Valentin de Boulogne (1621-2, now in the Prado, Madrid). He makes it look easy.

Via Web Gallery of Art.

There has been a church on the site since Constantine founded one there in the fourth century. The church was entirely rebuilt by Pope Honorius III in the 13th century to make it more suitable as a site for future coronations of eastern emperors (though shortly after Constantinople was retaken and there was no more of that!) It was restored in the 17th century by Pope Innocent X. It is one of the seven basilicas you would visit if you were to do a pilgrimage to Rome.

The nave. You can see the old granite columns that were salvaged from classical buildings are use as supports along the nave. Very common practice in Rome where so many churches, and other buildings, have bits and pieces of architecture from a huge range of eras. Something I always think of when I hear people spouting off in discussion over retaining 20th century architecture that if you can't keep a whole building there is no historical/cultural value in keeping anything any of the building. Clearly places like this demonstrate the ridiculousness of such theories. They also demonstrate that so many historical buildings struggle to 'fit' a specific historical era.

The throne, the decoration of inlaid stone and gold leaf is known as 'cosmati'. The throne would date to the 12th century, the columns seen behind would be from an ancient Roman building.

The pulpit.


The cloister garden, most large basilicas have these spaces, always worth seeking out.


Fragments of ancient inscriptions, columns and stonework set into the walls.


More columns, notice how the one closest and slightly cut out of the picture has a completely different base, a sign that the columns have been mostly salvaged from older buildings.
The garden, simple yet effective. Generally these gardens were (and are) used to grow vegetables and herbs that are used by the monks.

Garden TV

I watched 'Around the World in 80 Gardens' last Tuesday on ABC. Apart from the fact that I am deeply jealous of Monty Don's job and think that I would make a much better host (jokes! ... maybe), I really enjoyed it. It was refreshing to see something about gardens that was about more than just planting seedlings or laying the latest paving. He visited a wonderful range of gardens and reflected on the reasons behind their creation, how they fit within day to day life, or how they reflected high art and design. He also tapped into the idea that gardens are art, but a very different art. He described them as:

The most human of all arts because we inhabit them.

Some of my favourite gardens from the first episode included those of Luis Barragan in Mexico.

Casa Barragan. Photo from here.

Also the wonderfully whimsical and fantastical garden of Los Pozas in Xilitla by Edward James between the 1940s and the 1980s. It reminded me of the Sacro Bosco, at Bomarzo, Italy.

Photos from here.

Sacro Bosco, Bomarzo, Italy.

Italy

I have a lot of photos from my studies in Italy so I thought I would share some of my favourite places and buildings.


The staircase and facade of Palazzo Madama in Turin, designed by Filippo Juvarra, an architect born in Messina, trained in Rome, and who came to work for the Savoy King in 1714. The staircase sits on the front of the medieval castello in the centre of the city. Juvarra's work is characyerised by an openess of space, the forms are not sculptural but spatial. Richard Pommer described it as 'open architecture' the spaces and solid forms common to the architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries were pierced through with holes and openings. The columns below are like a forest and as one moves around the view and feeling of the space constantly changes.

It is also the staircase which the minis drove down in 'The Italian Job.'

Snapshot, Melbourne

Josef Hochgurtel's Exhibition Fountain of 1880, Exhibition Gardens, Carlton, Monday 21st June, 1:55pm.

It makes my heart happy to see some fountains on around Melbourne. It has always seemed to me that during a drought a fountain becomes more necessary rather than less. As long as they have sensible hydraulics that don't waste water a fountain in a dry land becomes a display of something precious and hard earned. Some of the greatest fountains have been designed in conditions not of abundance of water but the exact opposite.

The water theatre at the Villa Aldobrandini.



At the time it was built a good old fashioned neighbour war was raging between the various landholders on the hills, water was scarce and in the dead of night pipes would be re-routed, statuary would be destroyed in revenge and so on. So the theatre was, amongst other things, symbolic of Cardinal Aldobrandini's victory in this water war.