Filarete and the East: The Renaissance of a Prisca Architectura

Abstract

Filarete's Libro Architettonico, written in Milan between 1460 and 1464/66, calls for a rebirth of antiquity. This is conventionally interpreted as a appeal for the emulation of Roman (or Greek) architecture, but Berthold Hub shows that Filarete's designs have noticeable elements in common with the architecture of the Near and Far East. The Libro locates the ideal buildings it describes in "India" and repeatedly mentions Egypt as being the place of origin of all architecture and as the model to be imitated. Filarete and the East: The Renaissance of a Prisca Architectura provides evidence of Filarete's familiarity with the Orient and subjects his designs to detailed comparison with buildings from India and Turkey. The author argues that Filarete was aiming to revive a prisca architectura, analogous to the efforts of humanist contemporaries who were searching for ever-older and more venerable evidence of an original truth, a prisca theologia.