Daniele Barbaro, Vitruve et deux icônes crétoises

This article seeks to contextualize Vitruvian theories developed in mid-to-late 16th century Venice and connect those theories with Venetian collections of objects of classical antiquity brought from Venice's overseas territories. At that time, a faction of the patrician class was promoting a new approach to architecture where a construction would be designed solely through mathematical concepts rather than aesthetic perception. This theory elevated the visual arts to the same status as the literary arts through drawing. It led however, to a very different artistic teaching method than the one used by Venetian artistic conventions at that point in time. Using the iconographic model in two Byzantine icons, we will demonstrate the tensions this new spatial conception created between older forms of architectural representation and extant antique spolia within the structures of a society whose civic institutions and their origins were regarded as sacred.