Italy Books

One summer in Italy, two women find themselves being waved through roadblocks just because it never occurs to the police that women could be the criminals they seek. One says to the other, "any four women could rob the bank of Italy and get away with it while the police searched for four men." As this joke evolves first into an idea for a screenplay and then, unexpectedly, into the plans for a daring crime, a large cast of characters living in a Tuscan village move into action. Well-written, nicely paced, and full of laugh-out-loud passages.

Rosa Mentasti's book is one of the best books on Murano glass that I have ever owned. The themes are expertly organized and the pictures are full-page, top quality color photos that are nearly as beautiful as the glass. Brief descriptions of how the glass was made are helpful in appreciating the artistry of Fuga's work for AVeM. I recommend this book for all people interested in Fuga's glass. The care and thought that went into making the book make it a valuable resource for a collector of Murano glass.

Enhanced with the breathtakingly beautiful color photography of Franco Mammana and expertly compiled, edited and oreganized by Ivana della Portella, The Appian Way: From Its Foundation To The Middle Ages is a photographic and historical showcase of the first major artery to connect Rome to southern Italy, which became a model for all roads originating within the ancient capital. A historical survey of the road from its construction in 312 B.C. to its use centuries laterby Christian pilgrims en route to Jerusalem and much more enhances the scenic images from the road itself as well as artistic illustrations expressing edifices from ancient times along this historic road. A treasure for history buffs and a joy for armchair travelers.

Mrs. Howard not only describes "the stones" of this city , but illuminate the soul with details of great historic relevance.
Beacuse of her I learned about the Ruskin's classic book on
Venice and the influence of the Arabs on the West.
This is a very good start point to explore in detail
(with books and travel) the architectural treasures of
this dream surounded by water.

Already recognized since 1949 as "a masterpiece in scholarship" in its field by several eminent architects, the 173 page tome: ARCHITECTURAL PRINCIPLES IN THE AGE OF HUMANISM, 4th ed. (1971) by Rudolf Wittkower; had, incidentally, also provided an in-depth explanation on proportion and ratio as they differed in usage between architectural procedure and Boethian mathematics.
Of special importance is part four 'The Problem of Harmonic Proportion in Architecture' (p. 101) where the author made the salient point that "Although the Pythagoreo-Platonic concept of the numerical ratios of the musical scale never disappeared from mediaeval [sic], theological, philosophical, and aesthetic thought, there was no over-riding need to apply them to art and architecture" (p. 159).

Rudolf Wittkower unknowingly provided in part four the distinction between an elite Quadrivium education containing Boethian "mathematical arts" while "the 'liberal arts' of painting, sculpture, and architecture were regarded as manual occupations" (p. 117). The author explained "That the high Renaissance architects shunned theory" and "that they were practitioners rather than thinkers" (p. 30). And further "Italian architects strove for an easily perceptible ratio between length, height, and depth" (p. 74). So then according to this author, all of the Renaissance architects conception of architecture was based on a "commensurability of ratios" (p. 108).

Rudolf Wittkower indicated "that the [Renaissance] architect is by no means free to apply to a building a system of ratios of his own choosing, that the ratios have to comply with conceptions of a higher order and that a building should mirror the proportions of the human body" (p. 101). In developing the centrally planned church, Renaissance architects faced the dilemma of the pragmatics of church construction combined with the belief in divinity and the acceptance of Roman Catholic dogma.

The Church was to provide the "easily perceptible ratio" with the simple logic that "As man is the image of God and the proportions of his body are produced by divine will, so the proportions in architecture have to embrace and express the cosmic order" (p. 101). That cosmic order and harmony are contained in certain numbers Plato explained in his TIMAEUS.

Assigned to the architects, a Quadrivium trained Roman Catholic friar and musical theorist, Franchino Gaffurio (1451-1522) "in a truly Platonic spirit he regarded this principle of harmony as the basis of macrocosm and microcosm, body and soul, painting, architecture, and medicine" (p. 124). It was under this famous Renaissance musical theorist in 1525 that "the old belief in the mysterious efficacy of certain numbers and ratios was given new impetus" (p. 102). "It was Pythagoras who discovered that tones can be measured in space. What he found was that musical consonances were determined by the ratios of small whole numbers. If two strings are made to vibrate under the same conditions, one being half the length of the other, the pitch of the shorter string will be one octave (diapason) above that of the larger one" (p. 102). "Thus the consonances, on which the Greek musical system was based - octave, fifth, and fourth - can be expressed by the progression 1:2:3:4. One can understand that this staggering discovery made people believe that they had seized upon the mysterious harmony which pervades the universe" (p. 103).

"The musical consonances are determined by the mean proportionals; for that the three means constitute all the intervals of the musical scale had been shown in the TIMAEUS. Classical writers on musical theory discussed this point at great length. An exhaustive exposition is to be found in Boethius' DE MUSICA, first printed in Venice in 1491-92, and of very great importance for the doctrine of numbers throughout the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance" (p. 111).

Yet Boethius's DE MUSICA was de-emphasized by Renaissance architects in recognition that the "harmony of the universe which Plato had described in the TIMAEUS on the basis of Pythagora's discovery of the ratios of musical consonances" prompted the "application of Pythagoreo-Platonic system of harmonic ratios directly to architecture" (p. 125). As it turned out (not surprisingly) "Gafurio [sic] was regarded by his contemporaries as a critic in architectural matters" (p. 125).

The author of ARCHITECTURAL PRINCIPLES IN THE AGE OF HUMANISM provided the evidence that although the Quadrivium of the mathematical arts of music, astronomy, geometry, and Boethian proportion and ratio, was known to the Renaissance high architects, they preferred the 'harmonic proportion'; 'proportion of excess'; and the 'proportio proportionum'; derived directly from Plato's TIMAEUS and Pythagoras's three means (arithmetic, geometric, and the harmonic) over Boethius's DE MUSICA, though it was a substantial part of friar Gaffurio's ecclesiastical education. This resulted in "proportionally integrated 'spatial mathematics', which we have recognized as a distinguishing feature of humanist Renaissance architecture" (p. 26).

In comparison, for the practical application of Boethian proportion and ratios, please read: THE PHILOSOPHER'S GAME (2001) by Dr. Ann E. Moyer, where the rules of Boethian proportion found in rithmomachia, had been clearly defined, though inadvertently, by Rudolf Wittkower.

If you are a student or admirer of colonial Italian architecture, then this book is a must.

Rare photos and illustrations, historical background detail and an uncompromised addition to your collection of rare books.

This subject is little written about. So the book will be hard to come by in the future.

I suggest you get this book and NEVER lend it out.

Wolfgang Lotz's Architecture in Italy, 1500-1600 is a wonderful introduction and survey of the majesty of Italian Renaissance Architecture. I had the privilage of studying under Richard Tuttle who is recognized in the introduction, who showed me the brilliance of Lotz's work as well as his ability to show the beauty of architecture. This book is a must for any serious academic student or architectural enthusiast. Lotz's presentation of Italian Architecture is a continuation of Ludwig Heydenreich's Architecture in Italy, 1400-1500, and when read together is certainly the definitive work on Renaissance Architecture. The marvelous pictures and diagrams are the best published images I have come across.

This book is an excellent resource for the historian or designer interested in tradition's impact on our architecture today. History has always affected all "modern" design, and this book draws valuable links and introduces us to a new way to critique modern architecture.

A wonderful book to carry around with you in Rome. The book provides very detailed maps of the City with brief descriptions of what seems like every building in Rome. It is a great format for wandering and discovering as you go.

As with each viewing of an Antonioni film (sans "Zabrieske Point"), the essays in this book make the reader appreciate and "understand" the films of Antonioni more.

Antonioni is a genius, and what he has to say about the process of filmmaking is essential to anyone who wishes to make a respectable film.

And for those of you are still begging to know: Antonioni explains how he made that-probably the greatest in film history-final tracking shot in "The Passenger". God, what a shot that is!