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: Leisure
Site: Villa Rotonda
Location: Vicenza
Architect: Palladio
Year of Completion: c. 1550
Analysis: Yuanting Peng
Villa Rotonda placed on a hilltop just outside the city of Vicenza. Its terrian is higher than the buildings surrounding it, so that enables viewer to have a perfect view from this villa. In order for each room to have some sun, the design was rotated 45 degrees from each cardinal point of the compass. This also allow the four different sides of the architecture to facing diversing scenes: the river, the farmlands, the woods, and the city.
The design is for a completely symmetrical building having a square plan with four facades, each of which has a projecting portico. From the porticos, a designed, stage like view can be seen. Palladio use many of the elements from theater and stage in this architecture, so the experience of it can lead to the perfect imagination of idyllic pastoral life.
The whole is contained within an imaginary circle which touches each corner of the building and centres of the porticos. The highlight of the interior is the central, circular hall, surrounded by a balcony and covered by the domed ceiling.
In this space, most important part of the programs, which are the meeting between hosts and guests happened, and this centralized space also enabled viewers to attend different scenes in each portico.
Under the main program on ground floor and second floor, there’s an addition space of underground, which enabled servants to circulate without interrupting the program going on in upper floors. It also worked as a pathway to secondary circulation linking towards the woods around villa and the river shore down the hill.
Unlike some other Palladian villas, the building was not designed from the start to accommodate a working farm. Thus, it is intended as a purely site for leisure of the owner and guests.
