Romanesque Renaissaince: Carolingian, Byzantine and Romanesque Buildings (800-1200) as a Source for New All’’ Antica Architecture in Early Moder

In early modern times scholars and architects investigated age-old buildings in order to look for useful sources of inspiration. They too, occasionally misinterpreted younger buildings as proofs of majestic Roman or other ancient glory, such as the buildings of the Carolingian, Ottonian and Stauffer emperors. But even if the correct age of a certain building was known, buildings from c. 800-1200 were sometimes regarded as ’Antique’ architecture, since the concept of ’Antiquity’ was far more stretched than our modern periodisation allows. This was a Europe-wide phenomenon. The results are rather diverse in style, but they all share an intellectual and artistic strategy: a conscious revival of an ’ancient’ architecture -- whatever the date and origin of these models.

Contributors: Barbara Arciszewska, Lex Bosman, Ian Campbell, Eliana Carrara, Bianca de Divitiis, Krista De Jonge, Emanuela Ferretti, Emanuela Garofalo, Stefaan Grieten, Hubertus Günther, Stephan Hoppe, Sanne Maekelberg, Kristoffer Neville, Marco Rosario Nobile, Konrad Ottenheym, Stefano Piazza, and Richard Schofield.

Konrad A. Ottenheym is professor for architectural history at Utrecht University (The Netherlands). His publications are focussed on Dutch architecture and architectural theory of the early modern period with a special attention to its relationships with other European regions.