We haven’t done an architectural history category post in awhile, so I thought we’d look at one of my favorite influential churches, that of Santissimo Nome di Gesù all’Argentina in Rome. Don’t worry, we’ll just call it Il Gesù, literally “The Jesus” in Italian from now on. As I remarked in my photographs of the…
Category: Architectural History
Posts of Historically significant buildings and concepts
Renaissance Architecture, Part Two
Meanwhile, in Urbino, the Della Rovere family was laying the groundwork for the High Renaissance when their son Giuliano became Pope Julius II, bringing along the architect Donato Bramante and painter Raphael with him to Rome. Their ducal palace in Urbino, which I’ve looked at before, was a center of Humanist learning, focusing on ancient…
Renaissance Architecture, Part One
It’s come to my attention that there is not a strong grasp of what Renaissance architecture really is, judging by all the flippant labeling of many buildings around America as “Renaissance Revival.” So what exactly is Renaissance architecture in the context of Italian history (note there is also French, German, etc. variants, as well)? Let’s…
The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, Fulton, Exterior
I was digging around in the vault and found some old photos of the time we visited Fulton, Missouri, and saw the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, which is not an everyday occurrence. On the campus of Westminster College, the church was disassembled after being seriously damaged during the London Blitz in World…
The Luxembourg Palace
Another influential palace is the Luxembourg, constructed by Marie de Medici, the Florentine wife of Henry IV, who was assassinated. Their son was Louis XIII, and after numerous plots against by his own mother, he finally exiled her out of the kingdom. The famous Marie de Medici cycle was designed to fit in a giant…
The Tuileries: A Lost Palace in Paris and Its Influence on St. Louis Architecture
You’ve probably never heard of the Tuileries Palace, but it’s actually one of the most important places in French history over the last five hundred years, and its influence on the architecture of what has become known as Second Empire in the United States and St. Louis is hard to overstate. First of all, it…
The Roebling Bridge, Between Cincinnati and Covington
One of the most important bridges in the history of architecture and engineering spans the Ohio River in between Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky. Opened in 1866, years before the revolutionary Eads Bridge in St. Louis, it served as the important prototypical step for the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Construction faced the same challenges:…
Domes in the Day and Night
These are some grainy old iPhone photos of two of my favorite buildings in the world that I took back in 2018, the Pantheon in Rome, and the Duomo of Florence. I’ve been thinking about traveling a lot lately, and wondering when I be able to get back to Europe. Both were revolutionary in their…
McLean Mausoleum, Bellefontaine Cemetery
I’ve always enjoyed the McLean Mausoleum in Bellefontaine Cemetery. It’s perhaps an understated example of the Egyptian Revival in funerary architecture in local cemeteries, but there are other reasons I like it. The most obvious being, if you look closely, is that the obelisk towering over the mausoleum sits above thin air, as the window…
Villa d’Este, Tivoli, Latium, Italy
Rising up quickly from the Roman campagna where Hadrian’s Villa can be found, you hit towering mountains, and the train snakes through gorges and canyons. A waterfall can be spotted off in the distance, and after a tunnel or two, you realize the train station for town of Tivoli is right by that cascade. After…