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With Out Trace Interdisciplinary Investigations Into Time Space and The Body 1st Edition Simon Dwyer Rachel Franks Reina Green
With Out Trace Interdisciplinary Investigations Into Time Space and The Body 1st Edition Simon Dwyer Rachel Franks Reina Green
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With(Out) Trace
Inter-Disciplinary Press
Publishing Advisory Board
2015
With(Out) Trace:
Edited by
Inter-Disciplinary Press
Oxford, United Kingdom
© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2015
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing
ISBN: 978-1-84888-441-0
First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2015. First Edition.
Table of Contents
Introduction vii
Simon Dwyer, Rachel Franks and Reina Green
Monument of Anxiety 41
Moa Liew and Christel Nisbeth
Performing Arts and Fine Art: Busy with Bodies, What Body? 97
Peter Sonderen
A trace is not only what is left behind as suggested by the above quotation. It is
not just an indication of a past presence. A trace can also be a way of going on, a
way of moving, as in a dance as the steps are traced across the floor, or as one
walks along the sand, leaving footprints. A trace can even be non-material, without
a physical presence, yet still reveal the occurrence of an event. Indeed, it may only
exist in the mind – merely an impression left by someone, something, at some
time. Further, a trace may be an action: the act of following a path, the footprints
of another, the vestigial remains of another body in another time in space; or it can
be the making of a path. One can trace one’s own way, mark one’s own course.
One can also explore, investigate and discover by tracing, making connections
where none were previously thought to exist.
The trace, its liminal nature, its function as both action and object, and its role
in research and discovery is, as the title, With(out) Trace: Inter-Disciplinary
Investigations into Time, Space and the Body, suggests, an overarching theme in
this collection, which brings together the seminal presentations and discussions
that took place at the Third Global Time, Space + the Body Conference, an
initiative of the research network Inter-Disciplinary.Net, held at Mansfield
College, Oxford, in September 2014. Scholars ranging from early-career
researchers to seasoned academics from twenty different countries and a wide
range of disciplines and perspectives met to discuss and debate ideas about time,
space, and the body, and their interconnection. As apparent from the range of
chapters published here, there were scholars of art, architecture, culture, dance,
gender, history, literature, medicine, philosophy, photography, sociology and
theatre, to name just some of the diverse disciplines represented. Yet, despite the
diversity of the research fields, perspectives and approaches, the chapters engaged
and connected with each other in both expected and surprising ways, and these
connections reveal the beauty and value of inter-disciplinary discussion. It is that
discussion that the editors of this ebook have tried to encapsulate, and it is their
hope that conversations begun at the conference will continue and be energised by
this publication.
All of the presenters at the Third Time, Space + the Body Conference were
invited to submit their original presentation scripts for publication. In an effort to
capture the conversations that took place over the three days of the conference, the
editing process was focused around resolving minor issues and ensuring
consistency both within each chapter and across the volume. Beyond that, a light
editorial hand has been used so that individual authors’ voices can be heard and
x Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
readers can have a sense of the range of perspectives presented at the conference.
Many of the more formal rules of writing have not been applied. For example,
some of the chapters are written in the first person, a point-of-view not often used
in academic writing, but one that encourages readers to engage directly with the
researchers.
The most significant difference between this volume and the conference is in
the grouping of the chapters themselves. Drawing on the conversations that
followed each group of papers at the conference, and the final roundtable
discussion, the editors have organised the chapters according to the following five
themes:
Notes
1
W. J. Chisum and B. Turvey, ‘Evidence Dynamics: Locard’s Exchange Principle
& Crime Reconstruction,’ Journal of Behavioral Profiling 1.1 (January 2000),
viewed on 14 April 2015, http://www.profiling.org/journal.
Bibliography
Chisum, W. J. and B. Turvey. ‘Evidence Dynamics: Locard’s Exchange Principle
& Crime Reconstruction.’ Journal of Behavioral Profiling 1.1 (January 2000).
Viewed on 14 April 2015. http://www.profiling.org/journal.
Part I
Anthony R. Brand
Abstract
‘To dwell,’ claimed Walter Benjamin, ‘is to leave traces.’1 The act of leaving
traces is described by anthropologist, Tim Ingold, as ‘fundamental to being
human.’2 What is the trace, how is it created, and what is its importance to us as a
visible reminder of our past and of time made tangible? The central thesis of this
paper is that leaving traces is a form of storytelling, and that the perception of
traces is therefore a binding form of perception that connects us with our past and
our surroundings. In 1974, the environmental psychologist Robert Sommer
presented his thesis on ‘Hard Architecture’: environments that actively resist the
touch or impression of their inhabitants.3 For Sommer, evidence of hard
architecture was as legible in the creation of these new stoic spaces as it was in the
physiognomy of the occupants themselves. He reminds us of the reciprocal
relationship between man and environment and, thus, the responsibility of both. An
environment created to resist the impression of man, could nevertheless impress
upon man ‘somatic disorders, anxiety, and irritation,’ most commonly inducing
‘numbness to one’s surrounding […and] psychological withdrawal.’4 Although it
has indeed been forty years since Sommer diagnosed ‘hard architecture,’ it is only
now that its effects are being felt, like the trace itself, as an absent presence.5 Both
the trace and its erasure are unavoidably concerned with the recording,
experiencing, and expressing of time. A trace points towards the past. An erasure
of traces is thus a deliberate forgetting and an erasure of history – a denial of time.
Drawing on Walter Benjamin and Alois Riegl, I consider the types of traces our
bodies leave in time, space and the body, along with our perception of them, and
their significance in everyday life.
*****
1. Absent Presence
A story does not aim to convey an event per se, which is the
purpose of information; [...] it thus bears the trace of the
storyteller, much the way an earthen vessel bears the trace of the
potter’s hand.18
Given the obvious cultural importance of storytelling and the rich inheritance of
traces, why would their erasure be something to celebrate or encourage?19
By the beginning of the twentieth century, there emerged a very clear
distinction between the accidental trace (laden with stories) – which was dwindling
with the advances in technology and industrialisation – and the intentional
bureaucratic tracings (rich in information) – which were implemented in order to
keep track of the masses. The repercussions of the former were voiced in particular
by the Arts and Crafts movement. William Morris, for instance, affirmed that in
order for something to be considered a work of art, it ‘must show obvious traces of
the hand of man […] without more interposition of machines.’20 It is with this
division that the hand of the artisan was amputated and replaced with the cold
prosthesis of the machine, and with it, the erasure of traces and the forgetting of
stories:21
One only has to watch a collector handle the objects in his glass
case. As he holds them in his hands, he seems to be seeing
through them into their distant past.29
Age-value has therefore, a far greater appeal than historical-value, since it is not a
specialised perception that is required, but a more general, more human one, whose
‘immediate emotional effect depends on neither scholarly knowledge nor historical
education for its satisfaction, since it is evoked by mere sensory perception.’ Its
Anthony R. Brand 9
__________________________________________________________________
impression may be felt more simply in the way it ‘touches the masses.’51 This
mode of ‘sensory perception’ is echoed by Ginzburg, who proposes a distinction
between two types of intuition, ‘high’ and ‘low’: ‘This “low intuition” is based on
the senses […and] can be found throughout the entire world, with no limits of
geography, history, ethnicity, sex or class.’52
This too, is akin to Benjamin’s conception of a tactile reception of the
environment, one that comes about not through concentrated attention – like that of
the huntsman or detective – but rather in a more casual, habitual manner that is
acquired through the body over time.53
The antithesis – and ‘most formidable opponent’ – of age-value is conceived by
Riegl to be newness-value. Newness-value, like age-value, is not a specialist
appraisal, and may similarly be appreciated ‘by anyone, regardless of education.’54
This appeal is to the purity of youth and the idealised notion of timeless perfection
and immortality. Just as age-value manifests itself most conspicuously ‘in the
corrosion of surfaces, in their patina, in the wear and tear of buildings and objects,
and so forth,’55 newness-value is apprehended by its visible lack of age-value or its
immaculate and untouched appearance.
Notes
1
Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project [Das Passagen-Werk], trans. Howard
Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002),
9.
2
Tim Ingold, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 177.
3
Robert Sommer, Tight Spaces: Hard Architecture and How to Humanize It
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1974), 3.
4
Ibid., 19.
5
Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting [Mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli], trans.
Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2004).
6
Walter Benjamin, Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, 1927-1934, trans. Rodney
Livingstone, eds. Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland and Gary Smith, Vol. 2,
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 472.
7
Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms in Art [La vie des formes]. 1934. trans. Charles
Beecher Hogan and Greorge Kubler (New York, NY: Zone Books, 1992), 184.
8
Tim Ingold, Lines: A Brief History (London: Routledge, 2007), 43; Ingold, Being
Alive, 5.
9
Other types include cracks, imaginary lines, and stamps or prints (see previous
note).
10
Ingold, Being Alive, 5; 177.
11
Strictly speaking the footprints are only an indexical image of the foot or shoe
that created them, and not the person or animal. They are rather, a metonymic
image of the creator, that is to say, the footprint is an index of a foot, which itself
Anthony R. Brand 11
__________________________________________________________________
implies the body (and therefore the past presence) of its creator. It is therefore a
‘second-order sign.’
12
See in particular Ingold, Lines; Ingold, Being Alive; Ricoeur, Memory, History,
Forgetting; Mohsen Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow, On Weathering: the Life
of Buildings in Time (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993).
13
A desire for immortality, of course, has been embedded in human mythology for
thousands of years (see Book III of The History of Herodotus¸ from the fifth
century BC).
14
Jonathan Chapman, Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences and
Empathy (London: Earthscan, 2005).
15
Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 8 (see also 415-416).
16
Bertolt Brecht, ‘Aus dem Lesebuch für Städtebewohner,’ Versuche, Vol. 2
(Potsdam: Kiepenheuer, 1930).
17
Benjamin, Selected Writings, Vol. 2, 1927-1934, 660.
18
Walter Benjamin, The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire,
trans. Howard Eiland, ed. by Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2006), 174.
19
We know that at the time Brecht wrote this (note 18), he had just returned to the
security (personal and emotional) of Augsburg, having failed to make any
impression in Berlin (six times the size of his more familiar Munich). Brecht was
left feeling lost and forgotten in a city whose vastness consumed individuals into a
single mass. See Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks, The Cambridge Companion to
Brecht (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
20
William Morris, Lesser Arts of Life (London: Electric Book Company, 1877), 9.
21
A distinction between what David Pye described as the (hand-made)
‘workmanship of risk’ and the (machine-made) ‘workmanship of certainty’: David
Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1968).
22
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 804.
23
Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol. 2, 1927-1934, 732.
24
Benjamin, The Writer of Modern Life, 78.
25
Carlo Ginzburg, Myths, Emblems, Clues, trans. John and Anne C. Tedeschi
(London: Hutchinson Radius, 1990), 120.
26
See Francis Galton, Fingerprints (London: MacMillan and Co., 1892).
27
Benjamin, The Writer of Modern Life, 77.
28
Chapman, Emotionally Durable Design, 118.
29
Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol. 2, 1927-1934, 487.
30
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 9.
31
Ibid., 205.
32
Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol. 2, 1927-1934, 489.
12 Touching Stories of Bodies Past
__________________________________________________________________
33
Ibid., 489
34
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 858; Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol. 2, 1927-
1934, 487.
35
Benjamin, The Writer of Modern Life, 79.
36
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 9.
37
Ibid., 834. See also Georges Didi-Huberman, Ninfa Moderna: Über Den Fall
Des Faltenwurfs, trans. Michaela Ott (Zurich: Diaphanes, 2006).
38
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 204.
39
Ginzburg, Myths, Emblems, Clues, 102-103.
40
Tim Ingold, ‘Footprints through the Weather-World: Walking, Breathing,
Knowing,’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16.s1 (2010): S128.
41
Juhani Pallasmaa, Encounters (Helsinki: Rakennustieto, 2012), 2:42.
42
‘[B]ecause he alone was able to read, in the silent, nearly imperceptible tracks
[…] a coherent sequence of events.’ Ginzburg, Myths, Emblems, Clues, 103.
43
Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: A Case of Identity,’
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, edited 14 March 2014, 155, viewed on 30
November 2014, http://sherlock-holm.es/; Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Sign of
Four,’ The Complete Sherlock Holmes, edited 14 March 2014, 70, viewed 30
November 2014, http://sherlock-holm.es/.
44
Mike Gubser, Time’s Visible Surface: Alois Riegl and the Discourse on History
and Temporality in Fin-De-Siècle Vienna (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University
Press, 2006), 144.
45
Alois Riegl, ‘The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Its Origin,’
trans. Kurt W. Foster and Diane Ghirardo, Oppositions. 1903 ed. Kurt W. Foster
(New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1982), 21.
46
Riegl, ‘Modern Cult of Monuments,’ 34.
47
Ibid., 38.
48
Ibid., 34.
49
Ibid., 38.
50
Ibid., 24.
51
Ibid.
52
Ginzburg, Myths, Emblems, Clues, 125.
53
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological
Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, trans. Edmund Jephcott, Rodney
Livingstone, and Howard Eiland, ed. Michael William Jennings, Brigid Doherty,
and Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press 2008), 40.
54
Riegl, ‘Modern Cult of Monuments,’ 42.
55
Ibid., 32.
56
Chapman, Emotionally Durable Design, 116-117.
Anthony R. Brand 13
__________________________________________________________________
57
Pallasmaa, Encounters, 2:50.
58
Juhani Pallasmaa. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses (Chichester:
John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 35.
59
‘Let us be of good cheer, for I see the traces of man,’ from Pollio Vitruvius,
Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture [De Architectura]. 25BC. trans. Morris
Hicky Morgan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914).
Bibliography
Benjamin, Walter. Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings Volume 2 1927-1934,
edited by Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland and Gary Smith. Translated by
Rodney Livingstone. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,
and Other Writings on Media, edited by Michael William Jennings, Brigid
Doherty, Thomas Y. Levin. Translated by Edmund Jephcott, Rodney Livingstone,
and Howard Eiland. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
2008.
Didi-Huberman, Georges. Ninfa Moderna: Über Den Fall Des Faltenwurfs [Ninfa
Moderna: Essay on Falling Drapes]. Translated by Michaela Ott. Zurich:
Diaphanes, 2006.
14 Touching Stories of Bodies Past
__________________________________________________________________
Doyle, Arthur Conan. ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the
Beryl Coronet.’ The Complete Sherlock Holmes, edited 14 March 2014. Viewed 30
November 2014. http://sherlock-holm.es/.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. ‘The Sign of Four.’ The Complete Sherlock Holmes, edited
14 March 2014. Viewed 30 November 2014. http://sherlock-holm.es/.
Focillon, Henri. The Life of Forms in Art [La vie des formes]. Translated by
Charles Beecher Hogan and George Kubler. 1934. New York, NY: Zone Books,
1992.
Ginzburg, Carlo. Myths, Emblems, Clues [Miti emblemi spie: morfologia e storia].
Translated by John and Anne C. Tedeschi. London: Hutchinson Radius, 1990.
Gubser, Mike. Time's Visible Surface: Alois Riegl and the Discourse on History
and Temporality in Fin-De-Siècle Vienna. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University
Press, 2006.
Morris, William. Lesser Arts of Life. London: Electric Book Company, 1877.
Viewed 9 July 2014.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/auckland/docDetail.action?docID=2001601.
Anthony R. Brand 15
__________________________________________________________________
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. Chichester:
John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
Riegl, Alois. ‘The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Its Origin.’
Oppositions. 1903. Edited by Kurt W. Foster. Translated by Kurt W. Foster and
Diane Ghirardo. 21-51. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1982.
Sommer, Robert. Tight Spaces: Hard Architecture and How to Humanize It.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1974.
Thomson, Peter, and Glendyr Sacks. The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. 2nd ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
*****
Such attributes that the human eye, the master of ceremony, perceives clearly,
understanding the adequacy or dissonance of the proportions of the environment in
which it is plunged, creates amazement, pleasure or even a sense of inhospitality
and unfitness in the mind of the user, the owner of the house. For example, walking
under the shades created by the giant order adopted in the Broad Street Station
(Richmond, Virginia)12 will suggest different emotions in comparison to the same
action in the space, vertically compressed, of the I Ching Pavilion.13 With their
20 Space and Time in Narrative and Expositive Paths
__________________________________________________________________
contrasting measurements and proportions, both of these structures encourage
different moods and ideas as dictated by their antithetical atmospheres.
It is important to emphasise that this concept of the adequacy of proportions
comes from the idea of classical aesthetics, in which an exact agreement with the
rules and measurement of nature represents the necessary conditio sine qua non for
a definition of beauty, to which each composition should aspire. For example, the
ideas of reciprocity and relativity connect the different buildings of the Acropolis
in Athens and the observer, so that the the perception of the right proportions of the
buildings, reinforced by the optical illusions typical of the Greeks, is maintained by
the visitor.14 In the same way, when considered in light of Le Corbusier’s
argument, the Wall of Pecile of Villa Adriana,15 in which the masonry becomes an
auxiliary geometrical plan in the perception of the observer, is able to reveal the
depth of the same building, in relation to the width of the hilly landscape.
These kinds of issues, linked to the appropriateness and rightness of the space
measurement inside the perceptive experience of the architecture, deserve deeper
analysis. As already mentioned, the term measurement characterises only the
abstract meaning of dimension, while the adoption of other locutions, such as
adequate measurement or corresponding measurement, needs the use of a second
term, in this case an absolute, in order to make a persuasive association between
the metrical values and the observer.16
When is it that a measurement can be said to be adequate? And corresponding
to what?
Le Corbusier individuates in man, with his body and his possibilities of movement,
that the comparative term is able to inflect the harmony typical of the classical
proportions and the laws of nature:17 It is as tall as, it is smaller than me, it is
bigger than me, it is much bigger than me... With the synthesis of the Modul-or,18
the body is not only the main character of the architectural experience in place, but
also in power; the means and purpose of a composition which could not be right
and compliant to human needs, whether of a functional or a symbolic nature. The
sensorial perception of the space is no more a simple scale issue, but it involves
different aspects: ‘the size, the dimensions, the scale, the mass of the architectural
building, could be read again related to me,’19 related to the human body.
Images 1-2: Palazzo Altemps: the classic proportions of the statues are references
by which to appreciate the measurements of the museum space.
© 2014, Carla Molinari. Used with permission.
24 Space and Time in Narrative and Expositive Paths
__________________________________________________________________
Notes
1
Bruno Zevi, Saper vedere l’architettura (Torino: Einaudi, 1948), 31.
2
Luigi Moretti, ‘Strutture e sequenze di spazi,’ Spazio 7 (1952): 9-20, 107-108.
3
This refers to the roles and potentialities of narrative structures as architectural
devices, as discussed in Carla Molinari and Stefano Bigiotti, The Storytelling in
Architecture: A Proposal to Read and to Write Spaces (Paper presented at the 5th
Global Conference on Storytelling, Lisbon, 10-16 May 2014).
4
Juani Pallasmaa, Gli occhi della pelle: L’architettura e i sensi (Milano: Jaca
Book, 2007), 26.
5
Martino Stierli, Las Vegas in the Rearview Mirror: The City in Theory,
Photography, and Film (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2013), 123.
6
See Le Corbusier, Verso un’architettura (Milano: Longanesi, 1986).
7
See Bernard Tschumi, ‘Sequences,’ Architettura e Disgiunzione (Bologna:
Edizioni Pendragon, 2005).
8
Moretti, ‘Strutture e sequenze di spazi,’ 9-20, 107-108.
9
Considering this point of view, the composition takes on features similar to
those of a tale and, following the theories of Paul Ricoeur, precise narration could
become a strategic method, redefined in architectural terms, to solve the
contemporary complexity of time-space relationships.
10
Le Corbusier, Il modulor (Milano: Mazzotta Editore, 1995).
26 Space and Time in Narrative and Expositive Paths
__________________________________________________________________
11
Filippo Lambertucci, Esplorazioni spaziali (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2013), 45.
Translation by the authors.
12
In particular, there is a reference to the spatial quality of the Broad Street Station
in Richmond, Virginia as represented in Peter Zumthor, Atmosfere (Milan: Electa,
2nd ed., 2012), 8-9.
13
Ibid., 42-43
14
This refers to the notes of Le Corbusier about the Acropolis, according to which
‘the fraction of a millimeter participates. [...] Deformations which amaze. The
mouldings sag or incline themselves on the vertical axis to be offered in a better
way to the eye.’ Le Corbusier, Verso un architettura, 175. Translation by the
authors.
15
Ibid., pictures 14, 156. Translation by the authors.
16
The hypothesis finds a correspondence in the thought of Purini, according to
which, ‘it is not possible to measure with the same thing which is to be measured.
In architecture, the measurement value is something irreducible to the object to
which it is applied.’ Franco Purini, Una lezione sul disegno (Rome: Cangemi
editore, 1996). Translation by the authors.
17
A thesis proposed also by Lambertucci himself, according to which ‘the last term
of comparison-with the measure- are we, our body, with all its physical features;
the success of a measure that of the system of relations between measurements will
always be compared to those.’ Filippo Lambertucci, Esplorazioni spaziali, 53.
Translation by the authors.
18
The modul-or is not based solely on the forms of man, but the relationship
between the body and the golden rule becomes a useful architectural tool and
represents the true link between the tabula rasa of the modern and the classical
worlds. It is the aesthetic value of machinery and engineers, as opposed to the
classical canons architecture. Ideally, it is a meeting point dispersed over time:
human abstraction and severe rule.
19
Peter Zumthor, Atmosfere, 49. Translation by the authors.
20
See Sandro Ranellucci, Allestimento museale in edifici monumentali (Roma:
Kappa Ed., 2006).
21
Scoppola Francesco and S.D. Vordemann, Museo Nazionale Romano - Palazzo
Altemps (Roma: Electa, 1997), 9. Translation by the authors.
22
For more information about the exposition on Palazzo Altemps, see Matilde De
Angelis and Alessandra Capodiferro, eds., Palazzo Altemps, le collezioni (Milan:
Electa, 2012).
23
Le Corbusier, Verso un architetettura (Milan: Longanesi, 4th ed., 1973), 52.
Translation by the authors.
Stefano Bigiotti and Carla Molinari 27
__________________________________________________________________
24
The language here is taken from the description of the planning process of the
Osenfont House. Mauro Moriconi, ‘Le misure di Le Corbusier,’ Spazio e Società-
Space and Society 87 (1996): 30. Translation by author.
25
This refers to the definition of modulus given by Vitruvio, De architectura, 1,2,4
according to which the measure is used for thinking about a building and consists
of a rata pars, a precise physical quantity, useful in determining the
commensurability of the architectural object.
26
For further information about the relationship between classical standard and
proportions, see Erwin Panofsky, ‘Storia della teoria delle proporzioni,’ Il
significato delle arti visive (Torino: Einaudi, 1962).
27
For further information, see Serena Baiani and Massimo Ghilardi eds., Crypta
Balbi – Fori Imperiali. Archelogia urbana a Roma e interventi di restauro
nell’anno del Grande Giubileo (Roma: Edizioni Kappa, 2000).
28
The intervention was articulated into phases and lots that will be progressively
restored and incorporated into the inner part of the exhibition itinerary. In 2000, the
first functional lot was inaugurated. It constitutes the centre of the new museum
nucleus and hosts much of the evidence found during the excavation phases. More
recently, a new path was open through most of the block to the height of the city in
the period of Augusto.
29
This refers to the idea of a relationship between content and container as
discussed by Brandi in Cesare Brandi, Teoria generale della critica (Torino:
Einaudi, 1974).
30
Ranellucci, Allestimento museale in edifici monumentali, 53. Translation by the
authors.
Bibliography
Baiani, Serena and Massimo Ghilardi, eds. Crypta Balbi – Fori Imperiali.
Archelogia urbana a Roma e interventi di restauro nell’anno del Grande Giubileo.
Roma: Edizioni Kappa, 2000.
Coates, Nigel. Narrative Architecture. Chichester: Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2012.
28 Space and Time in Narrative and Expositive Paths
__________________________________________________________________
Moriconi, Marco. ‘Le misure di Le Corbusier.’ Spazio & Società – Space and
Society 76 (1996): 28-37.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. Gli occhi della pelle. L’architettura e i sensi. Milano: Jaca
Book, 2007.
Panofsky, Erwin. ‘Storia della teoria delle proporzioni.’ In Il significato delle arti
visive, edited by Renzo Federici, 43-69. Torino: Einaudi, 1962.
Queysanne, Bruno. ‘Alberti e la misura.’ Spazio & Società – Space and Society 83
(1998): 40-47.
Stefano Bigiotti and Carla Molinari 29
__________________________________________________________________
Language: English
AUBREY F. G. BELL
Oxford
B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET
MCMXVII
TO
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Antonio Coelho Gasco in his Conquista, Antiguidade e
Nobreza da mui insigne e inclita Cidade de Coimbra (Lisboa,
1805) drew the following rash picture of her from an ancient
portrait at Coimbra: “This very saintly lady was of gigantic frame
and very stout, very white and very red, with a long face and large
serene green eyes, nose rather low with wide nostrils, head long
and beautiful.”
[2] Isabel Fernandez, Barbara Fernandez, and Isabel Madeira.
Later heroines at home were Isabel Pereira in the defence of
Ouguella against the Spanish in 1644 and Elena Perez in the
similar siege of Monção in 1656.
[3] The Portuguese accounts of these discoveries are most
vivid and minute, a fascinating introduction to the geography of
what is now largely part of the British Empire.
[4] Garcia da Orta introduces him with the words “The Devil
entered into a Portuguese.”
Contents
PAGE
I
King Dinis 1
II
Nun’ Alvarez 17
III
Prince Henry the Navigator 47
IV
Vasco da Gama 61
V
Duarte Pacheco Pereira 79
VI
Affonso de Albuquerque 103
VII
Dom João de Castro 127
List of Illustrations
FACING PAGE
NUN’ ALVAREZ Frontispiece
From the earliest (1526) edition of the Cronica.
PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR 49
VASCO DA GAMA 63
AFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE 105
From Gaspar Correa, Lendas da India, frontispiece to vol. ii. pt.
1.
JOÃO DE CASTRO 129
I
KING DINIS
(1261-1325)
Co’ este o reino prospero florece.
Camões, Os Lusiadas.
Um Dinis que ha de admirar o mundo.
Antonio de Sousa de Macedo, Ulyssippo.
When Henry of the French House of Burgundy became Count of
Portugal in 1095 he merely held a province in fealty to the King of
Leon, but by his son, the great Affonso I’s victories over the Moors it
almost automatically became an independent kingdom. The second
king, Sancho I, who has so many points of resemblance to King
Dinis, further established the new realm, and he and his successors
continued to wrest territory from the Moors. In the reign of the fifth
king, Dinis’ father, Affonso III, the conquest of Algarve was
completed, and the only remaining difficulty was the claim of the
kings of Castille to this region.
Dinis, born on October 9, 1261, was but a few years old when he
was sent to Seville to win the consent of his mother’s father, the
celebrated Alfonso the Learned, to waive his right to the latest
Portuguese conquest. As the shrewd Affonso III had foreseen, he
proved a successful diplomatist. Alfonso X, enchanted with the
grave, courtly bearing of his little grandson, knighted him and sent
him home with all his requests granted.
Thus it came about that when Dinis, to whom his father had given
a separate household but a few months before, ascended the throne
at the age of seventeen, he was the first king to begin to reign over
Portugal with its modern boundaries, from the River Minho to Faro.
Two centuries of great deeds had achieved this result—two more
were to pass before Spain was likewise entirely free of the Moorish
invader—and Dinis now in a reign of half a century (1279-1325) saw
to it that the heroism and sacrifices of his ancestors had not been in
vain.
His tutor had been a Frenchman, Ébrard de Cahors, who now
became Bishop of Coimbra, and the fame of his grandfather Alfonso
X was spread through the whole Peninsula. But, young as he was,
Dinis at once made it clear that he intended to rule as the national
King of Portugal and had resolution enough to withstand the
Castilian influence of his mother and Alfonso X. His first care was to
acquaint himself thoroughly with his kingdom, and he spent the great
part of the first year of his reign in visiting the country, paying
especial attention to the still almost deserted region of Alentejo.
But the first years of his reign were not entirely peaceful, for his
younger brother Affonso laid claim to the throne. Dinis was born
before the Pope had legitimised Affonso III’s second marriage;
Affonso, two years his junior, afterwards: hence the partisans of the
latter affected to consider Dinis illegitimate. The dispute was scarcely
settled when Dinis married Isabel, daughter of Pedro III of Aragon,
who proved so efficacious a mediator in the even more serious
troubles at the end of his reign, and, after sharing his throne for forty-
three years, is still venerated as the Queen-Saint of Portugal.
In his differences with Castile, Dinis was successful, both in peace
and war, and it was a tribute to his character and authority that he
was chosen as arbitrator between the claims of the kings of Castille
and Aragon. At home he was confronted by a powerful secular
clergy, by the excessive and growing wealth of the religious orders,
and by an overweening nobility, while his newly conquered kingdom
urgently required hands to till it and walls and castles for its defence.
Dinis dealt with all these problems in a spirit of equal wisdom and
firmness, upholding the rights of the throne and the rights of the
people till he had welded a scattered crowd of individuals into a
nation.
His quarrel with the clergy, who protested that the King had
infringed their rights, was referred to Rome, and in 1289 a formal but
not a lasting agreement was reached.
Two years later the King checked the ever-growing possessions of
the religious orders by a law limiting their right to gifts and legacies.
Their wealth was the result of the great part they had played during
the long conflict against the Moors, but it naturally began to prove
inconvenient to King and people in time of peace. The nobles were
in like case, and Dinis showed the same resolution towards them
and abolished certain of their privileges.
He could protect as well as check. When the Knights Templar
were abolished by the Pope, Dinis secured an exception for Portugal
and reorganised them as the Order of Christ in 1319. Indeed he was
essentially a builder, not a demolisher. In 1290 he founded the
University of Coimbra; in 1308 he renewed and consolidated the
treaty between Portugal and England; in 1317 he invited to Portugal
a Genoese, Manuel Pezagno, to organise his fleet and command it
as Admiral.
He encouraged agriculture, calling the peasants the “nerves of the
republic” and passed many laws to ensure their security, so that in
his reign men began to go in safety along the roads of Portugal,
hitherto infested by brigands, and he divided grants of land among
the poor of the towns. He planted near Leiria the pines which still
form so delightful a feature of the country between that town and
Alcobaça.
Some have called King Dinis a miser, others declare that in his
reign there was a saying “liberal as King Dinis.” It is certain that he
expended his money wisely, and, while no early king ever
accomplished more for the land over which he ruled, he left a full
treasury at his death. The charge of avarice perhaps arose from the
charming legend which so well exemplifies the simplicity of those
times.
The Queen was in the habit of distributing bread daily to a large
number of poor, and Dinis, who perhaps would rather have seen
them digging the soil, forbade the charity. Queen Isabel continued as
before, and one morning the King met her as she went out with her
apron full of bread.
“What have you there?” said King Dinis.
“Roses,” said the Queen.
“Let me see them,” said King Dinis.
And behold the Queen’s apron was filled with roses.
In the matter of buildings King Dinis not only fortified many towns
with castles and walls, but founded numerous churches and
convents. The traveller in Portugal even now can scarcely pass a
day without coming upon something to remind him of the sixth King
of Portugal. The convent of Odivellas, the cloisters of Alcobaça, the
beautiful ruins of the castle above Leiria are but three of many
instances which show how King Dinis’ work survives even in the
twentieth century.
It was said of him that—
Whate’er he willed
Dinis fulfilled.
But he nearly always wrought even better than he knew. He
realised no doubt that Portugal was an all-but-island, especially
when the relations with Castille were unfriendly; but he could
scarcely foresee that of his pinewoods would be built the “ships that
went to the discovery of new worlds and seas”; that a future Master
of his new Order of Christ would devote its vast revenues to the
great work of exploring the West Coast of Africa, the work which
bore so important a share in transforming Europe from all that we
connect with mediævalism to all that is modern; that his embryo fleet
would grow and prosper till Portugal became the foremost sea-
power; or that the treaty with England would still be bearing fruit six
centuries after his death.
The University, too, lasted and became one of the glories of
Portugal, and a source of many of her greatest men in the sixteenth
century. Since the sixteenth century, after being several times moved
from Coimbra to Lisbon and from Lisbon to Coimbra, it has been
fixed in the little town on the right bank of the Mondego and remains
one of the most treasured possessions of modern Portugal. The
quality that explains how so many of King Dinis’ institutions endured