Reproduction of the original: Early Renaissance Architecture in Englad by J. Alfred Gotch

Our built environment inspires writers to reflect on the human experience, discover its history, or make it up. Buildings tell stories. Castles, country homes, churches, and monasteries are “documents” of the people who built them, owned them, lived and died in them, inherited and saved or destroyed them, and recorded their histories. Literature and Architecture in Early Modern England examines the relationship between sixteenth- and seventeenth-century architectural and literary works. By becoming more sensitive to the narrative functions of architecture, Anne M. Myers argues, we begin to understand how a range of writers viewed and made use of the material built environment that surrounded the production of early modern texts in England. Scholars have long found themselves in the position of excusing or explaining England’s failure to achieve the equivalent of the Italian Renaissance in the visual arts. Myers proposes that architecture inspired an unusual amount of historiographic and literary production, including poetry, drama, architectural treatises, and diaries. Works by William Camden, Henry Wotton, Ben Jonson, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Anne Clifford, and John Evelyn, when considered as a group, are texts that overturn the engrained critical notion that a Protestant fear of idolatry sentenced the visual arts and architecture in England to a state of suspicion and neglect.

This is the first study of Renaissance architecture as an immersive, multisensory experience that combines historical analysis with the evidence of first-hand accounts. Questioning the universalizing claims of contemporary architectural phenomenologists, David Karmon emphasizes the infinite variety of meanings produced through human interactions with the built environment. His book draws upon the close study of literary and visual sources to prove that early modern audiences paid sustained attention to the multisensory experience of the buildings and cities in which they lived. Through reconstructing the Renaissance understanding of the senses, we can better gauge how constant interaction with the built environment shaped daily practices and contributed to new forms of understanding. Architecture and the Senses in the Italian Renaissance offers a stimulating new approach to the study of Renaissance architecture and urbanism as a kind of 'experiential trigger' that shaped ways of both thinking and being in the world.

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In the mid-1880s The Builder, an influential British architectural journal, published an article characterizing Renaissance architecture as a corrupt bastardization of the classical architecture of Greece and Rome. By the turn of the century, however, the same journal praised the Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi as the ?Christopher Columbus of modern architecture.? Victorian Perceptions of Renaissance Architecture, 1850-1914 examines these conflicting characterizations and reveals how the writing of architectural history was intimately tied to the rise of the professional architect and the formalization of architectural education in late nineteenth-century Britain. Drawing on a broad range of evidence, including literary texts, professional journals, university curricula, and census records, Victorian Perceptions reframes works by seminal authors such as John Ruskin, Walter Pater, John Addington Symonds, and Geoffrey Scott alongside those by architect-authors such as William J. Anderson and Reginald Blomfield within contemporary architectural debates. Relevant for architectural historians, as well as literary scholars and those in Victorian studies, Victorian Perceptions reassesses the history of Renaissance architecture within the formation of a modern, British architectural profession.

This compelling book offers a new paradigm for the periodization of the arts, one that counters a prevailing Italianate bias among historians of northern Europe of this era. The years after 1500 brought the construction of several iconic Late Gothic monuments, including the transept facades of Beauvais cathedral in northern France, much of King's College in Cambridge, England, and the parish church at Annaberg in Saxony. Most designers and patrons preferred this elite Gothic style, which was considered fashionable and highly refined, to alternative Italianate styles. Ethan Matt Kavaler connects Gothic architecture to related developments in painting and other media, and considers the consequences of the breakdown of the Gothic system in the early 16th century. Late Gothic architecture is recognized for its sensuous and abundant ornament. Its visually rich surfaces signify wealth and magnificence, and its flamboyant geometric designs portray a system of perfect and essential forms that convey spiritual authority, while often serving as signs of personal or corporate identity. Renaissance Gothic presents a groundbreaking and detailed study of the Gothic architecture of the late 15th and 16th centuries across Europe.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.