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Pursuing the intersections of Venetian culture from the beginning of the sixteenth century through the first decades of the seventeenth, Manfredo Tafuri develops a story crowded with characters and full of surprises. He engages the doges Andrea Gritti and Leonardo Dona; architects and artists Sansovino, Serlio, Palladio, and Scamozzi; and scientists Francesco Barozzi and Galileo. He records the battle that was fought for architecture as metaphor for absolute truth and good government, and contrasts these with the myths that inspired them.

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Library Journal Review

In this series of insightful but at times inaccessible essays, Tafuri considers some of the principal architectural projects and proposals of late Renaissance Venice. Armed with a powerful intellect and a profound command of the documentation, the author more often than not successfully explores the complex intellectual and historical context of architectural thought and activity. Arising from this sophisticated contextual approach is a deepened sense of the confluence of religious, civic, political, social, and intellectual programs that may impinge upon the human-made environment. In Tafuri's approach, however, stylistic inflection too often becomes merely a manifestation of external forces manipulating artistic choices. Furthermore, his critical contribution to a contextual methodology of analysis is obscured by an affected critical terminology and a level of abstract assertation not always supported by the work itself.-- Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Manfredo Tafuri is one of the most highly respected and prolific practitioners of that special branch of contextual art history that aims at uncovering--"decoding"--the language embedded in architectural forms. This study of 16th-century Venetian architecture (a translation of the Italian edition of 1985) allows one to see both the strengths and shortcomings of his methodology. The new Roman style that intrudes in Venice beginning in the late 15th century is here discussed in terms of a drama that pits novitas against old-time Venetian values. A series of specific projects serve as case studies that are surgically dissected to reveal a hidden agenda. The basic question posed is: How does Venice--a city committed at an early stage to a vision of itself as eternal and unchanging--incorporate new ideas into its urban fabric? Tafuri draws heavily on documents, contemporary source material, religious history, literature, and politics in his search for the answers. Nevertheless, the conclusions remain for the most part highly imaginative, hypothetical reconstructions of the possible script that allowed, or did not allow, novitas to break forth. Not everyone can follow in Tafuri's footsteps, but the kinds of questions he raises have already made a notable impression on the field, and this is certain to be augmented by the increasing availability of his work in English. A must for all serious collections. -D. Pincus, University of British Columbia

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Manfredo Tafuri is the Director of the Department of History of Architecture at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice.

Jessica Levine is a writer and translator living in New York City. She has previously translated two works by Manfredo Tafuri, History of Italian Architecture, 1944-1985 and Venice and the Renaissance.