Palladio, the Column, and the Utilisation of Columnar Forms from Late Imperial Roman Architecture
Palladio, the Column, and the Utilisation of Columnar Forms from Late Imperial Roman Architecture
Palladio, the Column, and the Utilisation of Columnar Forms from Late Imperial Roman Architecture
Palladio revered the column. It was his favourite structural element and architectural ornament. Palladio also revered antiquity. He thoroughly documented the five orders in the first book of Quattro Libri, and devoted the fourth book to “the ancient temples” where columns are presented in their original settings. If we consider the symbolism and meaning inherent in the column, this may give us insight to why Palladio was so drawn to the architecture of Late Imperial Rome.
According to the scholar John Onians, columns are a material means of expression that helped formulate and develop man’s relationship with gods.[i] Their origins are in Greece, but they were codified in Italy. Columns are first described by Vitruvius (De Architectura, 25 BC), then by Alberti (De Re Architectura “On The Art of Building”, 1443), by Serlio[ii] (7 Libri in 1540), Vignola (The Five Orders of Architecture,1563) and finally by Palladio himself (Quattro Libri, 1570). Onians posits that it was only in the sixteenth century that written architectural theory, through treatises, became influential. He identifies Serlio’s treatise as the first “to seriously affect taste and shape responses to architecture, first in Venice and then in Europe as a whole.”
Another scholar, Gunter Bandmann[iii], posits that the power of the column lies in its double metaphor. Since the beginning of recorded history, the role of the column, in the middle of the dwelling, was that of support, devoid of any representational meaning. It only had a structural or tectonic role. Later, in Egyptian architecture, it signified a tree or plant image that stood beneath a roof symbolizing the heavens. The foliage capital was adopted in the Middle Ages, and eventually transformed into a symbol for a human being---“a meaning
Palladio, the Column, and the Utilisation of Columnar Forms from Late Imperial Roman Architecture
Palladio revered the column. It was his favourite structural element and architectural ornament. Palladio also revered antiquity. He thoroughly documented the five orders in the first book of Quattro Libri, and devoted the fourth book to “the ancient temples” where columns are presented in their original settings. If we consider the symbolism and meaning inherent in the column, this may give us insight to why Palladio was so drawn to the architecture of Late Imperial Rome.
According to the scholar John Onians, columns are a material means of expression that helped formulate and develop man’s relationship with gods.[i] Their origins are in Greece, but they were codified in Italy. Columns are first described by Vitruvius (De Architectura, 25 BC), then by Alberti (De Re Architectura “On The Art of Building”, 1443), by Serlio[ii] (7 Libri in 1540), Vignola (The Five Orders of Architecture,1563) and finally by Palladio himself (Quattro Libri, 1570). Onians posits that it was only in the sixteenth century that written architectural theory, through treatises, became influential. He identifies Serlio’s treatise as the first “to seriously affect taste and shape responses to architecture, first in Venice and then in Europe as a whole.”
Another scholar, Gunter Bandmann[iii], posits that the power of the column lies in its double metaphor. Since the beginning of recorded history, the role of the column, in the middle of the dwelling, was that of support, devoid of any representational meaning. It only had a structural or tectonic role. Later, in Egyptian architecture, it signified a tree or plant image that stood beneath a roof symbolizing the heavens. The foliage capital was adopted in the Middle Ages, and eventually transformed into a symbol for a human being---“a meaning