Aeolian Winds and the Spirit in Renaissance Architecture

Academia Eolia Revisited

Barbara Kenda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134151448
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Written by scholars of international stature, Aeolian Winds and the Spirit in Renaissance Architecture presents studies of Renaissance pneumatology exploring the relationship between architecture and the disciplines of art and science.

One of the principle goals of Renaissance architects was to augment the powers of pneuma so as to foster the art of well-being. Central to the study of pneumatic architecture are six Italian villas connected together by a ventilating system of caves and tunnels, including Eolia, in which Trento established an academic circle of scholars that included Palladio, Tazzo and Ruzzante.

Picking up on current interest in environmental issues, Aeolian Winds and the Spirit in Renaissance Architecture reintroduces Renaissance perspectives on the key relationships in environmental issues between architecture and art and science. This beautifully illustrated and unprecedented study will illuminate the studies of any architecture or Renaissance student or scholar.

Chapter 1

Aeolian winds and the spirit of Renaissance architecture

Academia Eolia revisited

Barbara Kenda

This book identifies a long unfamiliar subject of early scientific theory – pneumatology (from pneuma, meaning air, wind, spirit, soul) – which has been curiously overlooked in the well-explored field of Renaissance architecture. Re-introducing a once central aspect of architectural theory, the chapters investigate sixteenth- and seventeenth-century pneumatic architecture and its relations with other disciplines in the arts and sciences, demonstrating how pneuma sheds light on a wide range of artistic production. While much of modern Renaissance scholarship has emphasized the mathematics of ideal architecture, this book recontextualizes essence, wind and ventilation as principals of classical building, and shows that one of the primary goals of Renaissance architects was to enhance the powers of pneuma so as to foster the art of well-being. Therefore this book substantiates the thesis that pneuma was a fundamental link for establishing harmony between the human body, architecture and the cosmos, and that a building was envisioned as a mediator between the inhabitant’s soul and the anima mundi, the soul of the world.

The most distinctive examples of Renaissance pneumatic architecture are the villas of Costozza in the Veneto, above all Villa Eolia. This remarkable edifice stands as a model of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century pneumatic villas, and serves as a basis for further studies on the topic of architecture infused by air, wind and soul-stimulating spirit, as developed by the contributing authors.

In several poems and texts, the caves of Costozza in the Vicentine Berici Hills have been considered representations of the cosmos and sources of poetic inspiration.¹ Conceived as indispensable to the cosmic continuity between God and man, the subterranean world was glorified in verse by Pulice and Conforto Petrarch’s (poet-friends), praised by Benedictine monks, and celebrated by several Renaissance humanists. Like Pythagoras, who was reported to meditate for many days in the cave of Ida in his search for enlightenment, these poets and scholars observed that the caves were a place of divine revelation, a point of cosmic insight and a wonder where “winds originate, flow like water and generate fresh air.”²

Just as the caves below served as the literal foundation for the villas, the pneuma of these caves became the spiritual basis for the Renaissance architects at Costozza. Villas Trento-Buoni Fanciulli, Trento-Carli, Eolia, Trento-da Schio, Ca’Molina-da Schio and Garzadori-da Schio are linked underground by the caves and wind-channels that circulate pneuma among their halls, transforming them into ensouled edifices, or ville spiritali, and promoting the science of therapeutic architecture. Consequently, these hygienico-pneumatic villas were praised by Palladio and Scamozzi, and were later described by the eighteen-century priest-historian Francesco Barbarano as a “delightful place, because … during the summer heat, fresh, gentle wind issues from the caves and flows through certain canals … proportionally to the habitations to comfort their dwellers … As I have experienced, nothing but a Terrestrial Paradise is sensed in these freshly ventilated rooms.”³

In the sixteenth century, pneuma was considered a fundamental condition for establishing harmony among the human body, architecture and the universe. Thus, one of the central goals of Renaissance architects was to augment the vigor of air, wind and vital spirit and therefore the inhabitants’ physical and spiritual state. The idea of a building embodied by air, vital spirit and soul and pervaded by a life-force was of crucial importance to the architects of the pneumatic villas at Costozza. Above the entrance door to the cryptoporticus of Villa Eolia, an inscription reads: AEOLUS HIC CLAUSO VENTORUM CARCERE REGNAT AEOLIA (Aeolus rules over Aeolia by way of this prison of winds.) In the nearby Villa Garzadori-da Schio, this Virgilian verse from Aeneid I is engraved on the wall, above the statue of Aeolus that stands in front of the cave: HIC VASTO REX AEOLUS ANTRO/LUCTANTES VENTOS. TEMESTATESQUE SONORAS/IMPERIO PREMIT. AC VINCLIS ET CARCERE FRAENAT./ILLI INDIGNANTES MAGNO CUM MURMURE MONTIS/CIRCUM CLAUSTRA EREMUNT. CELSA SEDET AEOLUS ARCE./SCEPTRA TENENS: MOLLITQUE ANIMOS, ET TEMPERAT IRAS. (Here in his vast cavern, Aeolus, their king, keeps under his way and with prison bonds curbs the struggling winds and the roaring gales. They, to the mountain’s mighty moans, chafe blustering around the barriers. In his lofty citadel sits Aeolus, sceptre in hand, taming their passions and soothing their rage.)⁴ Both texts refer to the ancient myth of the god Aeolus who guarded the imprisoned winds in a cave on the island Aeolia. Mythological winds have their origin in the etymology of the Greek word pneuma (

) which derives from pnein, to blow, and means ‘breath’ or ‘wind’ as well as the vital spirit, the soul.

Pneuma, thought to be an essence animating the universe and the true originator of human existence, had been one of the major speculative subjects among ancient thinkers. Anaximenes (sixth century BC) was probably the first of the pre-Socratics to formulate the theory that the world breathes and that Air is the spiritus mundi.⁵ However, Renaissance pneumatic architecture is primarily based on medical pneuma which ancient pneumatists largely associated with the breath diffused throughout the body. Medical axioms in architecture, especially those advocating salubrious climates, sites and the buildings’ natural ventilation, and those prescribed to restore the physical and mental state of the human body, appear most explicitly in the writings of Hippocrates (fifth century BC). In fact, the practice of Renaissance villas is influenced largely by the theories of Hippocrates, whose treatises Airs, Waters, Places⁶ and Breaths⁷ were broadly disseminated, and whose discoveries on pneuma, both within and outside the human body were highly respected in the age of humanism.

[The cities] that lie towards the risings of the sun are likely to be healthier than those facing the north and those exposed to the hot winds… In the first place, the heat and the cold are more moderate. Then the waters that face the risings of the sun must be clear, sweetsmelling, soft and delightful, in such a city. For the sun, shining down upon them when it rises, purifies them. The…inhabitants are of better complexion and more blooming than elsewhere, unless some disease prevents this. They are clear-voiced, and with better temper and intelligence than those who are exposed to the north, just as all things growing there are better. A city so situated is just like spring, because the heat and the cold are tempered; the diseases… are both fewer and less severe… [The cities] that lie towards the settings of the sun, and are sheltered from the east winds, while the hot winds and the cold north winds blow past them – these cities must have a most unhealthy situation… In the summer, cold breezes blow in the morning and there are heavy dews; for the rest of the day the sun as it advances towards the west thoroughly scorches the inhabitants, so that they are likely to be pale and sickly, subject to all the diseases.⁸

Hippocratic theories relating to the influence of environments on the human body, as well as his statement that “all disease is caused by pneuma” were often reiterated in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century architectural treatises and seem to have been critical for the invention of the therapeutic villas under study here.

The transmission of the Hippocratic tradition to the Renaissance period was largely due to the Pneumatic school in Rome⁹ – Athenaeus, Chrysippius, Herodotus, Archigenes, etc. – and above all, Galen (second century AD) who wrote a commentary¹⁰ on Airs, Waters, Places and who expanded the observations on climate, air and wind as well as their relation to housing and ways of life. Galen’s humoral pathology, based on the Hippocratic doctrine of four humors, advocated that health depended upon the eucrasia of all the temperaments, disease upon a distemper of these same qualities. Renaissance architects firmly believed in this theory, since sixteenth-century edifices were required to be tempered on the analogy with the human body. In fact, the well-known bodybuildi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Illustration credits
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• 1 Aeolian winds and the spirit of Renaissance architecture: Academic Eolia revisited
• 2 Chasma gês: Delphic pneuma and the cult of Asklepios
• 3 “Study the warm winds and the cold:” Hippocrates and the Renaissance villa
• 4 The role of the winds in architectural theory from Vitruvius to Scamozzi
• 5 Making visible the invisible: signs of air in architectural treatises
• 6 Poetry and “spirited” ancient sculpture in Renaissance Rome: Pomponio Leto’s Academy to the sixteenth-century sculpture garden
• 7 The winds in the corners: Giulio Romano, the elements and the Palazzo Te’s Fall of the Giants
• 8 The breath of cities
• Index