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: Individual Prayer
Site: Santo Spirito
Location: Florence
Architect: Brunelleschi
Year of Completion: 1481
Analysis: Xiaojun Zhou
The high-lighting point of this basilica is the almost complete arrangement of side chapels in a circular path. Side chapels were usually places for families to bury their family members. The use of each side chapel is regulated under the contract between the church and the family during their agreed period of time. Depending on each church, the rules of using side chapels are very interchangeable. Generally, all the artworks are owned and provided by the families, but how they should look and place are very much regulating by each church. Santo Spirito, for example, has relatively strict rules, also because of the limited size of side chapels. Therefore, each side chapel is very much similar in terms of the numbers, sizes, themes, etc. of artworks in each side chapel.
My ritual analysis focuses on individual prayers and their relationship with the general prayers coming to the basilica through the spatial analysis of side chapels and the rest of the church. When individual prayers are praying inside the side chapels, they are being seen by the general prayers, although not disturbed most of the time. For the reason for lighting candles and bringing fresh flowers, individual prayers are also supervised by others. Although individual prayers are practicing their own rituals when in the side chapels, they are still a very important part of all prayers, and even more standing-out, because their family has the custom of such ritual, and because they are for sure not random visitors but active participants.
