(in Polish) Villa and villeggiatura w nowożytnej Europie 1400-1600

The course will examine changing social attitudes to the concept of recreation away from the cares of the city (villeggiatura) and architectural character of suburban and country residences (villa) from antiquity until c. 1550 (1st term) and from c. 1550 to the present (2nd term).

The lectures will explore the amazing ascendancy and lasting popularity of villeggiatura, phenomenon rooted in the conviction that a stay in the country offered release from the anxieties of urban life. The course investigates diverse ideological underpinnings of the villeggiatura and will trace how the villa was adopted in different cultural milieus, both shaping and reflecting contemporary social relations. Changing meanings of the term itself will be discussed, ranging from the classical notion of the villa as a landed estate, through the villa as a residence of the owner (casa di villa), to the current understanding of the villa, as a “building in the country designed for its owner’s enjoyment and relaxation” (Ackerman). The course will demonstrate how the humanistic tradition stretching back to Pliny and Varro tied the ambiguous notion of the villa to the classical ideal of otium, without casting it into a specific architectural shape or style. Consequently, the lectures will present the spectacular formal diversity of villa architecture, dependent of location, function and social status of the owner. The chronological overview, based on examination of contemporary texts and buildings, will include the development of the villeggiatura in antiquity, its decline in the Middle Ages, and then its revival, first in Tuscany, then in the Roman Campagna and finally in the Veneto.

Selected Primary sources:

ALBERTI, Leon Battista, L’Architettura (De re aedificatoria), (1452), Ksiąg dziesięć o sztuce budowania (Warszawa 1960)

CICERO, Marcus Tullius, Tusculan Disputations, many editions (Rozmowy tuskulańskie (2010)

CORNARO, A., Discorsi intorno alla Vita Sobria, (transl. W. Butler), Milwaukee, 1913.

CRESCENZI DE’, Piero: Trattato della Agricoltura di Piero de’ Crescenzi (Opus ruralium commodorum), [c. 1304-09] Venice, 1538

DONI, Anton Francesco, Le Ville, 1566 (Modena, 1969).

FALCONE, Giuseppe, La nuova, vaga, et dilettevole villa: Opera d’Agricoltura, più che necessaria, per chi desidera d’accrescere l’entrate, de suoi poderi. Brescia,1599.

GALLO, Agostino, Le Venti Giornate dell’Agricoltura e de’ Piaceri della Villa (1564) Brescia, 1775.

GUARINI, Giovan Battista, Il Pastor fido e il Compendio della poesia tragicómica, ed. Gioachino Brognoligo, Bari, 1914.

HESIOD, Works and Days (Prace i dni, 1999)

HORATIUS, Quintus Flaccus, Wybór poezji, Wrocław 1971

LANDINO, Cristoforo, Disputationes camaldulenses, (c. 1474) Florence, 1980.

LOLLIO, Alberto, Delle orationi di M. Alberto Lollio gentil’huomo ferrarese volume primo. Aggiuntavi una lettera de medesimo in lauda della villa. Ferrara, 1563.

MEDICI, Lorenzo de’, Tutte le opere, ed. Paolo Orvieto, Rome, 1992.

OVIDIUS, Publius Naso, Tristia. Epistulas ex ponto/ Żale. Listy znad Morza Czarnego, many editions

PALLADIO, Andrea, I Quattro libri dell’architettura, Venice, 1570

PLINIUS SECUNDUS, Letters, many editions

POLIZIANO, Angelo: Le selve e la strega: prolusioni nello studio fiorentino, 1482-1492, ed. I del Lungo, Florence, 1925.

SANNAZARO, JACOPO: Arcadia, Naples, 1504

VERGILIUS, Publius Maro, Eclogues and Georgics, many editions

Selected Secondary Sources:

ACKERMAN J., Palladio, Harmondsworth, 1966.

--Palladio's Villas, New York, 1967.

--The Villa. Form and Ideology of Country Houses, Princeton, 1990

AIRS, M. ed., The Renaissance Villa in Britain, 1500-1700, Reading, 2007.

ARCISZEWSKA, B. ed., The Baroque Villa. Suburban and Country Residences c. 1600-1800, Wilanów, 2009.

AZZI VISENTINI, M., La villa in Italia: Quattrocento e cinquecento, Milan,1995

BALDAN, A., Ville Venete in territorio Padovano e nella Serenissima Repubblica. Documentazione- iconografia- testimonianze, Padova, 1986.

BARBIERI, F., Andrea Palladio e la cultura veneta del Rinascimento, Rome, 1983.

BENEŠ M., and D. HARRIS, eds., Villas and Gardens in Early Modern Italy and France, Cambridge, 2001

BENTMANN, R., AND MÜLLER, M., Die Villa als Herrschaftsarchitektur, Frankfurt, 1970

COFFIN, D.R., The Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome, Princeton, 1979.

GOBBI, G., La villa fiorentina, Florence, 1980.

KUBELIK, M., Die Villa im Veneto: zur typologischen Entwicklung im Quattrocento, Munich, 1977.

MOMETTO, P., "La vita in villa," in: Storia della cultura Veneta, Il Settecento, 5/I, Vicenza, 1985.

MURARO, M., Venetian Villas: the History and the Culture, New York, 1986.

REUTTI, F., ed., Die römanische Villa, Darmstadt, 1990. DE LA RUFFINIÈRE DU PREY, P., The Villas of Pliny from Antiquity to Posterity, Chicago, 1994.

TURNER, A., The Vision of Landscape in Renaissance Italy, Princeton, 1966.

Class participation will result in student’s greater ability to engage with the concepts, values and debates that inform the study and practice of architectural history, including an awareness of the limitations and partiality of all historical knowledge. Students will also be able to analyze, describe and interpret objects, images, buildings and artefacts closely and systematically, in order to select relevant evidence and apply it to the examination of historical processes. In addition, the course will aid the student in developing critical analysis skills and in improving judgment in relation to the subject. On a more general level, the course will provide the experience of close textual analysis of different kinds of historical documents, and will help to develop academic study and writing skills.

Short research paper and active class participation (Zaliczenie pisemne- referat; oraz aktywny udział w zajęciach.)