1934/06/01 by R. Wittkower, Rudolf Wittkower
Arts and Humanities · #Architecture and Art History Studies #Historical and Religious Studies of Rome #Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/00043079.1934.11408881
openalex publication_date 1934/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The Biblioteca Laurenziana must be reckoned as the most important and influential Italian secular building of the sixteenth century. That no exhaustive investigation of its architectural history exists is so much the more remarkable. The present work is an attempt to fill this gap. It comprises investigations of drawings and documents and of the building itself. The best arrangement seems to be not that of tracing the growth of the building strictly chronologically, but rather to establish first, and attempt to explain, the important break which occurred in its history, a break upon which understanding of both previous and subsequent development depends.