Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence [Hardcover]

Marvin Trachtenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0521555027 | ISBN-13: 978-0521555029

Trachtenberg's book exmines the urban transformation of Florence in the fourteenth century. Focusing on the creation of the Piazza della Signoria and the Piazza del Duomo, he documents in engaging detail how and why urban planners, in league with the civic government, enlarged these urban spaces. Articulating the design principles that served as the foundation for these urban renewal projects, Trachtenberg's book fundamentally revises our understanding of urban planning in the early modern period, countering the received claim that rational planning begins only in the Renaissance. His book also brings a new depth of understanding to the entire visual culture of Trecento Florence, demonstrating how many of the developments in painting, sculpture and architecture of this period form the basis of the achievements of the Quattrocento, particularly the discovery of perspective. Combining both empirical and post-structuralist methods, Trachtenberg's book is among the first, if not the first, to question critically many of the assumptions that have formed the basis of scholarship of Renaissance art since the sixteenth century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...essential for anyone specializing in any of the visual arts, including architecture and urbanism." Choice

"This deeply revisionary study of urbanism, art, and power in early modern Florence is without question one of the most important works of architectural history to appear in many decades....Trachtenberg's exciting, highly suggestive synthesis forces us to see in new ways the profound tranformation of one of the great cities in modern Europe...." Virginia Quarterly

"engaging, forcefully written, and highly polemical book...this elegantly argued, relentlessly single-minded, and extravagantly speculative book rewards the reader with a keen appreciation of the many dialectical nuances informing trecento Florrentine urban planning." Speculum

Book Description

Trachtenberg radically revises our ideas about the origins of rationally planned public space in the European city. The turn occured not in the Renaissance but in trecento Florence, which endowed its monuments with perspectival views (the piazza), in a development allied with other media and part of state practice as a work of art.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (November 13, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521555027
• ISBN-13: 978-0521555029
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 8.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,344,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Award-winning book, October 4, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence (Hardcover)

I am one of Marvin Trachtenberg's students, so I am not the most objective evaluator of his book. However, I wanted to add to the record that it was selected the most distinguished work of scholarship in its field in 1999 by both the U.S. Society of Architectural Historians (it was awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock Prize) and the College Art Association (who awarded it the Charles Rufus Morey prize). Trachtenberg had already been honored with a Hitchock prize in 1973 for his first book, "The Campanile of Florence Cathedral, 'Giotto's Tower'." The last book to win both awards was Richard Krautheimer's now-classic "Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308."

5 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars EL ESPACIO PUBLICO FLORENTINO POR MARVIN TRACHTENBERG, November 16, 1998

By 

Jose Lorenzo([e-mail]) (Puerto Rico, U.S.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence (Hardcover)

IT IS A SHAME THAT A GREAT BOOK LIKE THIS ONE, WITH GREAT QUALITY IN PRINTING HAS SO MANY BAD DRAWINGS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. I HAVE READ THE FORMER ESSAY WRITEN BY TRACHTENBERG, "WHAT BRUNELESCHI SAW" AND THE DRAWINGS AND IMAGES ARE THE SAME FOR THE MOST PART. THERE ARE SOME NEW IMAGES THAT ARE REALLY GREAT AND SOME THAT I MISSED IN THE NEW BOOK. FOR EXAMPLE THE "SKETCHY" PLAN OF PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORIA THAT HE DREW IN HIS FORMER ESSAY, AND IN WICH HE SHOWS OR PROVES HIS THEORY ABOUT THE MESUREMENTS OF THE SPACE IS ABSENT. DID HE REPLACE IT WITH THE SURVEY MAP OF THE SAME PIAZZA SHOWN ON PAGE XIV OF THE PREFACE? I AM, INTRESTED IN HIS MICRO-HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE PIAZZA, LOOKING BACK AT THESE SPACES THAT WEREN'T SO IRATIONALY CONCEIVED. I DID A LITTLE HOMEWORK AND MADE A "BLOW-UP" OF THE SURVEY MAP TO A KNOWN SCALE(1:500m). I STARTED TO CORROBORATE HIS MESURMENTS OF THE PIAZZA AND I FELT THAT ALL HIS THEORY (I HAVE TO ADMIT I LIKED IT) COLAPSED. AS A THIRD YEAR ARCHITECTURAL STUDENT I HOPE THAT SOMEONE WITH MORE SCHOLARSHIP ON THE THEME SHOULD REVIEW THIS BOOK. I HAVE HEARD THAT THE JOURNAL OF ARCHITECHTURAL REVIEW IS INTRESTED IN REVIEWING IT AND I IMAGINE THAT THEY WILL BE MORE CRITICAL. IT IS MY FEELING THAT WITH OTHER DRAWINGS AND MORE POWERFULL ILLUSTRATIONS (I'M NOT SAYING THAT THE ONES THAT HE HAS AREN'T) TRACHTENBERG WOULD MADE CLEARER HIS THEORIES. FOR ALL IT'S SHORT-COMINGS IT IS A BOOK THAT SAYS NEW THINGS ABOUT MEDIEVAL PUBLIC SPACES.