La villa: Forma e ideologia

by James S. Ackerman, Piera Giovanna Tordella (Translator)

Luogo riservato al riposo, allo svago, all'otium, ma anche simbolo di potere politico o economico, la villa riflette, nel corso dei secoli, i mutamenti del gusto e delle esigenze di chi la abita. La sua struttura architettonica e la posizione che occupa nel paesaggio risultano infatti, fin dall'antichità, intimamente correlate a precisi contesti culturali e segno tangibile di una volontà di affermazione e di dominio dell'ambiente circostante. Descriverne le forme significa dunque, in primo luogo, descrivere le abitudini e le esigenze dei proprietari.

Genres: Architecture

402 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1990

About the author

James S. Ackerman, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Fine Arts Emeritus at Harvard University and a Fellow and former Trustee of the American Academy in Rome, was born in San Francisco in 1919 and studied at Yale and New York University. He is a former editor of the Art Bulletin, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a corresponding member of the British Academy, the Accademia Olimpica (Vicenza), the Ateneo Veneto and the Royal Academy of Uppsala. He gave the Slade Lectures at Cambridge in 1969-70.

Professor Ackerman has lived several years in Italy, beginning with service during the last war, and is the author of many studies on Italian architecture, including The Cortile del Belvedere (1954), a history of the Renaissance portion of the Vatican Palace, and The Architecture of Michelangelo (1961), which received the Charles Rufus Morey Award of the College Art Association of America and the Alice David Hitchcock Award of the Society of Architectural Historians. Recently, he has published The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (1990); a volume of collected essays, Distance Points, is in press. He is co-author of a volume on historical practice and theory, Art and Archaeology (1963). He has conceived an narrated the films Looking for Renaissance Rome (1975, with Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt) and Palladio the Architet and His Influence in America (1980).

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels dated at times, but if you are interested in the concept of the villa and its social implications, this is the book to read. It covers villas from Roman antiquity, Renaissance Italy, Britain, and the United States. It is especially helpful if you are studying the reception of antique art and ideology by later societies.

[Douglas Murphy]

Very thorough, learned and pretty fascinating.