Architecture and the Senses in the Italian Renaissance

The Varieties of Architectural Experience

David Karmon

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781108477987
• eBook ISBN: 9781108787307
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

This is the first study of Renaissance architecture as an immersive, multisensory experience that combines historical analysis with the evidence of first-hand accounts. Questioning the universalizing claims of contemporary architectural phenomenologists, David Karmon emphasizes the infinite variety of meanings produced through human interactions with the built environment. His book draws upon the close study of literary and visual sources to prove that early modern audiences paid sustained attention to the multisensory experience of the buildings and cities in which they lived. Through reconstructing the Renaissance understanding of the senses, we can better gauge how constant interaction with the built environment shaped daily practices and contributed to new forms of understanding. Architecture and the Senses in the Italian Renaissance offers a stimulating new approach to the study of Renaissance architecture and urbanism as a kind of 'experiential trigger' that shaped ways of both thinking and being in the world.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• One A Sense of Renaissance Architecture
• Two Architecture and the Imagination
• Three Movement in the Built Environment
• Four The Building of Devotion
• Five Sensations of Health and Illness
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Index