Methodological Notes on Modelling Reconstructions After Literary Architecture

Fabio Colonnese

doi:10.1007/s00004-021-00558-9

Abstract

The manifold relationships between text and image are investigated by analysing attempts at a three-dimensional reconstruction of the Palace of Love and Venus described in Giovan Battista Marino’s Adonis. From text analysis and iconographical precedents to free-hand sketching and three-dimensional modelling, the article describes the progressive translation of some verses of the poem into a consistent system of drawings and models, which, besides revealing some hidden features of text, addresses the implicit limits of the ineffable quality of Marino’s literary space.

Highlights

This article analyses the practice of reconstructing architecture described in literature and, by focusing on the case studio of Giovan Battista Marino’s Adone, it provides a methodological framework and a discussion of primary and secondary results
A framework for scientific and cultural visualization, Virtual Heritage is aimed at the knowledge, preservation, and dissemination of tangible or intangible heritage and is mainly intended as a visual re-creation of a cultural expression, site, or environment from the past, generally through two and three-dimensional modelling, digital collages, photo-montages, animation, panoramic photographs, laser-scan modelling
From the fantastic places described by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels, published in 1726, pervaded by bitter social critique, to the dystopic institutions described by Franz Kafka in the early 1900s, literary architecture is a central piece of cultural heritage as are the images it has evoked over the centuries

Summary

Introduction

This article analyses the practice of reconstructing architecture described in literature and, by focusing on the case studio of Giovan Battista Marino’s Adone, it provides a methodological framework and a discussion of primary and secondary results. Adonis finds himself inside a square courtyard with a red and white checkered floor He sees four fountains and a towering helical staircase in the middle, from which four arched bridges depart to lead to the loggias on different levels. In order to explore the spatial consequences of these conjectures and to simulate the effect of the loggia in the main courtyard, the layout in Fig. 8b was developed Despite these general conjectures, tests, and mock-ups, major criticalities emerge in the proportion of the towers, which look too ‘horizontal’, in the description of the circular room at the top of the staircase, and the organization of the gardens in the main courtyard, where the main circular tower is supposed to stand.

Discussion

Conclusion