Ritual: Baptism
Site: Battistero di San Giovanni
Location: Florence
Architect: Unknown
Year of Completion: c. 1128
Analysis: Tina Lim
150 word description goes here. Achum consulto ves faturi pria vignos complius con se aucest rehebatam te iam fue con vium percer am tam terbis, quonsul usulare ntilicaet, cuperei publincum, consimus, nostriore mei ilneque a volicio mus conerit, publin denatod itentes, qua actum init; ne ine pro, manum iam o inam ignaturis adem re ius consum inulocrem sedit vivatimmodiu sedit et prata cont nicatiq uemus, dium ingultortus nos etorterit, omprorunit gra dit atu morum ductam Romnihilium pernum inam etorae nem des M. Nostra in sus. Alessolus, o ves cotandenemus bondac in Itam. Sertamquam or ublicultus publin vernius, nos, sente it; C. Hoculis? Romnirita ne ina, quam patiam sedem que confirit, uropore morei cem, nor ad Catus muscred cris culicaesi imuricendam tam it, quitata sdaccio, mederior qui catus morterum omnicaes! Duc re cus es!
The Laurentian Library reveals not only the ritual of study, but the rituals of self-sorting, categorization, and the dissemination of knowledge. Mapping the convergence and divergence of paths from the scale of the city to the building to the desk and to the book helps to reveal how the Laurentian Library acts as a motherboard for organizing the ritual circuitry of Renaissance Florence.
The Library’s desks are crucial to how rituals are performed in the space. Because the books are chained to the desks and the desks are built into the architecture, there is direct connection between the knowledge that one seeks and the place where it is found. The desks categorize texts by subject, displaying titles found in them on the side. Accessing a book that’s next to the window while someone is already in the desk requires shuffling places.
The Laurentian Library’s form is reminiscent of a religious building, with reading desks acting as pews alongside the processional aisle. The language borrows from the religious context of the San Lorenzo complex in which the Library is situated. In fact, the original plan of Michelangelo included a triangular rare books room at the end of the reading room, reminiscent of the Holiest of Holies in the Temple of Solomon. The procession inside the library, up the flowing staircase into the reading room, acts as a funnel that all elite Florentines coming to the library must pass through, regardless of where they came from in the city or what bench is their ultimate destination. The tripartite interior facade of the vestibule reinforces the idea of rising from hell to purgatory to heaven in an ascent to knowledge.
Ultimately, the Laurentian Library acts as the motherboard of the city’s knowledge, centralizing and organizing the ritual circuitry of Renaissance Florence.
Ritual: Vestment
Site: Sacrestia Vecchia
Location: Florence
Architect: Brunelleschi
Year of Completion: 1428
Analysis: Cheng Liu
The Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo is a symbolic building of Brunellesichi with the use of pendentives structure, umbrella dome, pilasters and geometry.
The use of sacristy could be understood as a storage of liturgical vessels and the colset of the priest. It is where they store and put on their chasuble. The vestment (chasuble) are not worn out. Both the vessels and the vestment are only for the use of ritual functions and activities, like masses and so.
The floor plan is designed with a square and a circle tangent to the square to form the dome and the altar of the sacristy is formed as another square with an umbrella dome on the west side. Extruding the geometry up, the space is consist of a cube with a hemisphere on the top and the circle defined by arches.
It is also called Medici Sacristy because the Old Sacristy also functions as an important burial spaces for Medici Family. This is the reason why there is an altar placed in the sacristy and causes two different circulation for the ritual of vestment for the priest.
One main circulation is that the priest would enter the sacristy, go to the side room wash hands, go to the vestment table to put on the chasuble and then circulate out the sacristy to the main altar of San Lorenzo. The secondary circualtion is that after the vestment has been put on, the priest would go directly to the altar in the Old Sacristy to do the ritual event for Medici Family only.
The platform for all the vestment happening is on several steps higher than the main level of San Lorenzo. Both altars are on another several steps up. The hierarchy of the vestment and spaces was displayed this way.
