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At the beginning of the XVth Century Europe was stepping away of the sacred, humanism was sweeping through the continent, starting with the Florentines and Venetians. Thus far, art had been acceptable as made for the glory of God. It is said that, at that time, the most noble art was architecture and the most noble building was the church. By the coming of Rinascimento, sacral themes were slowly being preempted by the scientific approach with the human, God and nature existing in harmony and cohesion. Italian arti...

Contrary to the southern Europe the first signs of Renaissance in northern parts of the Holy Roman Empire as well as in Poland and Lithuania might be observed only at the beginning of the 16th century. Initially, they were created by Italian teams which came from Florence, Rome and the region of Como. One of the most recognizable marks of that process was the transfer of the Italian craftsmen and architectural solutions, e.g. the team of Bartolomeo Berreci from Florence who built the Sigmund’s Chapel in the capita...

The article draws attention to the social transformation in the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century in Florence. During this time, the position of the guild gradually decreased, and the wealth and importance of patricians grew. The increase in the financial capacity of the townspeople has contributed to the rise of their ambitions. Some of them were aspiring to the role of aristocracy. The only barrier was their origin. Cosimo de 'Medici called ‘the Elder’ was a merchant, banker and human...

In history of architecture and urban planning, there are examples of theoretical projects that had much higher impact on history of building construction art than actual buildings realized by authors of such theoretical projects. During 10th Architecture Biennale in Venice, in 2006, Italian architects presented an original concept of city VEMA, located near Verona and Mantua, positioned on a cross axis along Lisbon–Kiev and Berlin–Palermo line. The model of the ideal city that has crystalized in theoretical archit...

In the Roman Empire, roads were built for trade communications: one of the branches, which took over the Alps, was called Via Sucinaria Romana and it reached the south-east coast of the Baltic Sea, where the Balts’ tribes lived. In the 13th century, German knights subjugated the areas populated by the Balts’ and founded regular planned cities, borrowing urban planning skills from Romans. On March 5, 1562, during the Livonian War the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (Latin: Ducatus Curlandiae et Semigallia; 1562–17...

The article compares the buildings of historical campuses of four technical universities located in areas related to Polish culture. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, several new technical universities were established in Central and Eastern Europe. In 1844, the Technical Academy was opened in Lviv. In 1899, the Russian who were occupying the east and central part of Poland established the Polytechnic Institute in Warsaw. Soon after two technical universities were established in the eastern part of Pruss...

Based on the researches focused on the historic trusses of the sacral buildings in Slovakia, we analysed these trusses in order to uncover their geometric concepts and proportional relations. Several trusses in Bohemia and Moravia were also analysed. The proportional relation of a truss to a building was also taken into account in some cases. The data on the principles used in historic trusses of the sacral buildings, supported with the period literature, were applied to the historic truss of the Gothic Roman-Cath...

This paper considers error mechanics in architectural translation and representations. The investigation is based on two examples. First situation describes Italian architect Giacomo Leoni and published by him in instalments the first complete English language edition of Palladio's I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, which Leoni entitled The Architecture of A. Palladio, in Four Books. Leoni’s publication became a main tool in spreading the essence of Palladio’s style among British and American architects. Original ...