S. Andrea in Mantua is the final architectural work and the masterpiece of Leon Battista Alberti, the great 15th-century Italian humanist. As a key monument of Renaissance architecture and a seminal work for later developments including the work of Bramante and endless repetitions in Baroque Europe, the novelty of the spatial creation in S. Andrea has long been recognized. What has been obscured by the long period of construction--over 300 years--is the extent to which the existing building reflects Alberti's plan. This book, through a careful investigation of the church fabric and a sound interpretation of all relevant documents, demonstrates the fidelity of the current building to Alberti's original design. The author publishes all known documents relating to the building, including previously unpublished material, and presents new photographic documentation. The book also discusses the place of the church in Alberti's work, sources for its design in ancient, medieval and Renaissance architecture, and its role in the dynastic and civic ambitions of the ruling family of Mantua, the Gonzaga. The changes made in Alberti's plan, particularly those of the 18th century, Juvarra's dome, and Pozzo's neo-quattrocento restoration of the interior, are re-evaluated. This is the first extensive treatment of the building in English, and the first serious monograph on S. Andrea since the 19th century.

In twenty-first-century American cities, policy makers increasingly celebrate university-sponsored innovation districts as engines of inclusive growth. But the story is not so simple. In University City, Laura Wolf-Powers chronicles five decades of planning in and around the communities of West Philadelphia’s University City to illuminate how the dynamics of innovation district development in the present both depart from and connect to the politics of mid-twentieth-century urban renewal. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, Wolf-Powers concludes that even as university and government leaders vow to develop without displacement, what existing residents value is imperiled when innovation-driven redevelopment remains accountable to the property market. The book first traces the municipal and institutional politics that empowered officials to demolish a predominantly Black neighborhood near the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University in the late 1960s to make way for the University City Science Center and University City High School. It also provides new insight into organizations whose members experimented during that same period with alternative conceptions of economic advancement. The book then shifts to the present, documenting contemporary efforts to position university-adjacent neighborhoods as locations for prosperity built on scientific knowledge. Wolf-Powers examines the work of mobilized civic groups to push cultural preservation concerns into the public arena and to win policies to help economically insecure families keep a foothold in changing neighborhoods. Placing Philadelphia’s innovation districts in the context of similar development taking place around the United States, University City advocates a reorientation of redevelopment practice around the recognition that despite their negligible worth in real estate terms, the time, care, and energy people invest in their local environments—and in one another—are precious urban resources.