Examining the urban and architectural developments in Rome during the Pontificate of Julius II (1503–13) this book focuses on the political, religious and artistic motives behind the principal architect, Donato Bramante, and his ambition to create a unified urban/architectural scheme.

From the myth of Arcadia through to the twenty-first century, ideas about sustainability – how we imagine better urban environments – remain persistently relevant, and raise recurring questions. How do cities evolve as complex spaces nurturing both urban creativity and the fortuitous art of discovery, and by which mechanisms do they foster imagination and innovation? While past utopias were conceived in terms of an ideal geometry, contemporary exemplary models of urban design seek technological solutions of optimal organisation. The Venice Variations explores Venice as a prototypical city that may hold unique answers to the ancient narrative of utopia. Venice was not the result of a preconceived ideal but the pragmatic outcome of social and economic networks of communication. Its urban creativity, though, came to represent the quintessential combination of place and institutions of its time. Through a discussion of Venice and two other works owing their inspiration to this city – Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital – Sophia Psarra describes Venice as a system that starts to resemble a highly probabilistic ‘algorithm’, that is, a structure with a small number of rules capable of producing a large number of variations. The rapidly escalating processes of urban development around our big cities share many of the motivations for survival, shelter and trade that brought Venice into existence. Rather than seeing these places as problems to be solved, we need to understand how urban complexity can evolve, as happened from its unprepossessing origins in the marshes of the Venetian lagoon to the ‘model city’ that endured a thousand years. This book frees Venice from stereotypical representations, revealing its generative capacity to inform potential other ‘Venices’ for the future.

As the first book-length study of waterborne festivities in Renaissance and early modern Europe, this collection of essays draws on a rich array of sources, many previously un-researched, to explore aspects of scenography, choreography, music, fashion, painting, sculpture, architecture, stage-and personnel-management and urban planning as evinced in spectacles staged on water. Bodies of water in all their variety are explored here: seas, rivers, fountains, lakes and canals and flooded improvised locations within or adjacent to great buildings all provided stages for elaborate and costly performances, utilising the particular qualities of water to reflect light and distort sound. The volume encompasses festivals marking a wide range of occasions from the election of civic officials, the welcome of a monarch, an investiture or coronation, to ambassadorial visits or the arrival of a royal or ducal bride or bridegroom. Often taking the form of re-enactments of naval battles or legendary seaborne quests, these festivals seek to buttress civic and national pride, make claims to mastery over the sea and landscape, and explore the imaginative as well as practical life of performance space which has been a hallmark of the research and publication of this volume's honorand, J.R. (Ronnie) Mulryne.

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.

Explores the role of music in the cultural, religious, and political upheavals of late Renaissance Italy, revealing how musical activity of all kinds was instrumentalized by those in power. Italian culture did not lose its vigour after 1530, but underwent a transformation.

First published in 2001, Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive guide to the German and Dutch-speaking world in the Middle Ages, from approximately C.E. 500 to 1500. It offers detailed accounts of a wide variety of aspects of medieval Germany, including language, literature, architecture, politics, warfare, medicine, philosophy and religion. In addition, this reference work includes bibliographies and citations to aid further study. This A-Z encyclopedia, featuring over 500 entries written by expert contributors, will be of key interest to students and scholars, as well as general readers.

An encyclopedia covering the political, social, intellectual, religious and cultural history of the German- and Dutch-speaking medieval world, between 500 and 1500. Entries cover individuals and their deeds as well as broader historical topics.