Encyclopaedias and Architecture in the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

Rather than mirrors of the world or, rarely, trees, many of the summae of knowledge composed between the mid-sixteenth century and the early years of the seventeenth century were intended as buildings or imaginary constructions within which portions of reality, fragments of learning, symbols or elements of knowledge were given form, unity, order and completeness. Aware of this, their authors often declared themselves, to be not specialists, but rather architects and perspectivists, capable of transferring a paradigm, a design which was primarily in their minds, to pre-existing materials or elements, thus making the resulting work, the building of knowledge, conform to this design. The titles they gave their works are the first confirmation of the “architectural” or “scenographic” role assumed by the authors.¹