Le tecniche costruttive negli scritti di architettura in Europa tra Rinascimento e prima Età Moderna

Abstract

This thematic issue of Opus Incertum explores the complex relationship between construction practices and architectural writings in early modern Europe. Through selected case studies from Italy, France, Portugal and the Low Countries, it considers how allegedly oral building traditions were confronted with writing, how they adapted their time-honoured methods to theoretical frameworks, and how they used drawing in support of writing for the communication of technical know-how. Various texts on building materials and construction methods are examined to assess why and how they transmitted technical knowledge and how they related to actual building practice; the literary and rhetorical aspects of technical passages on construction are analysed to illuminate their role within the architectural treatise as a whole; and translations and adaptations of internationally circulating texts on construction are looked at to see if and how these were adjusted to local circumstances.