Architectural Temperance examines relations between Bourbon Spain and papal Rome (1700-1759) through the lens of cultural politics. With a focus on key Spanish architects sent to study in Rome by the Bourbon Kings, the book also discusses the establishment of a program of architectural education at the newly founded Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.
Victor Deupi explores why a powerful nation like Spain would temper its own building traditions with the more cosmopolitan trends associated with Rome; often at the expense of its own national and regional traditions.
Through the inclusion of previously unpublished documents and images that shed light on the theoretical debates which shaped eighteenth-century architecture in Rome and Madrid, Architectural Temperance provides readers with new insights into the cultural history of early modern Spain.
Introduction: Architectural Temperance 1. Spain and Rome in the Early Eighteenth Century, 2. Italian Grandeur, 3. Metropoli Dell’ Universo, 4. Iberian Architects in Rome, 5. Santissima Trinità Degli Spagnoli in Via Condotti, 6. Bourbon Patronage and Italian Influence, 7. The Written Word and the Artifact
Biography
Victor Deupi teaches the history of art and architecture at the School of Architecture and Design at the New York Institute of Technology and in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Fairfield University. His research focuses on cultural politics in the early modern Ibero-American world.
"Deupi's book is a work that shows how important it is to propose a clear argument from the beginning, and how to defend it admirably and synthetically without losing depth and conviction. His prose is a breath of fresh air among the many specialized works on architecture that tend to confuse erudition with a convoluted and cumbersome style. In just under two hundred pages, he is able to address the issue without exhausting it, leaving the reader eager for more investigation - a rare virtue in academic literature. Furthermore, the author is able to arouse interest by constantly involving the reader with didactical questions that reinforce the arguments throughout the book … Deupi offers us a very enjoyable and scholarly work on a complex subject without resorting to clichés or the kind of Italo-centric visions that all too often prevent us from taking a balanced view on the role of Spain in the history of art." — Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira, Acta Artis, Spain
