God's own language : architectural drawing in the twelfth century / Karl Kinsella.

Main entry:

Kinsella, Karl, 1982- author.

Title & Author:

God's own language : architectural drawing in the twelfth century / Karl Kinsella.

Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2023]
©2023

Description:

226 pages, 16 pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-222) and index.
Noah's Ark in twelfth-century Paris -- Richard and the Abbey of Saint Victor -- The first plans -- The gatehouse -- The slope of Ezekiel's mountain and the language of architecture -- The temple precinct -- The map of the Promised Land and Jewish exegesis.

Summary:

"A historical account of Richard of St Victor's 12th-century book, In visionem Ezechielis, and its positioning as the first-ever treatise on architectural drawing"-- Provided by publisher.
How modern architectural language was invented to communicate with the divine--challenging a common narrative of European architectural history. The architectural drawing might seem to be a quintessentially modern form, and indeed many histories of the genre begin in the early modern period with Italian Renaissance architects such as Alberti. Yet the Middle Ages also had a remarkably sophisticated way of drawing and writing about architecture. God’s Own Language takes us to twelfth-century Paris, where a Scottish monk named Richard of Saint Victor, along with his mentor Hugh, developed an innovative visual and textual architectural language. In the process, he devised techniques and terms that we still use today, from sectional elevations to the word “plan.” Surprisingly, however, Richard’s detailed drawings appeared not in an architectural treatise but in a widely circulated set of biblical commentaries. Seeing architecture as a way of communicating with the divine, Richard drew plans and elevations for such biblical constructions as Noah’s ark and the temple envisioned by the prophet Ezekiel. Interpreting Richard and Hugh’s drawings and writings within the context of the thriving theological and intellectual cultures of medieval Paris, Karl Kinsella argues that the popularity of these works suggests that, centuries before the Renaissance, there was a large circle of readers with a highly developed understanding of geometry and the visual language of architecture.

ISBN:

9780262047746 hardcover
0262047748 hardcover

Subject:

Richard, of St. Victor, -1173. In visionem Ezechielis.
Architectural drawing History To 1500.
Architecture and religion.
Symbolism in architecture.
Architecture et religion.
Symbolisme en architecture.
ARCHITECTURE / General.
Architectural drawing

Form/genre:

History

Added entries:

Architectural drawing in the 12th century.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 318580
Call No.: 318580
Copy: 1
Status: Available

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