Mattia Camellini says:
CHURCH AND DOMINICAN CONVENT OF S. MARIA DELLE GRAZIE. MILANO
The refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie forms an integral part of this architectural complex, begun in Milan in 1463 and reworked at the end of the 15th century by Bramante. On the north wall is The Last Supper, the unrivalled masterpiece painted between 1495 and 1497 by Leonardo da Vinci, whose work was to herald a new era in the history of art.
The fresco was commissioned in 1495 and completed in 1487. The representation by Leonardo da Vinci depicted the moment immediately after Christ said, 'One of you will betray me'. The 12 Apostles reacted in differing ways; their movements and expressions are magnificently captured in Leonardo's work. He focused on the impact of Christ's words on the Apostles and on their reactions. This broke with the traditional representation of the past, upsetting some ideas.
The genius of the artist is seen especially in the use of light and strong perspective. The three windows behind the table companions and the landscape beyond create a luminosity that set against the backlight illuminates the characters from the side as well. The result is a combination of a particular classically Florentine and chiaroscuro perspectives.
Mattia Camellini says:
HISTORIC CENTRE OF ROME, THE PROPERTIES OF THE HOLY SEE AND S. PAOLO FUORI LE MURA.
Founded, according to legend, by Romulus and Remus in 753 BC, Rome was first the centre of the Roman Republic, then of the Roman Empire, and it became the capital of the Christian world in the 4th century. The World Heritage site, extended in 1990 to the walls of Urban VIII, includes some of the major monuments of antiquity such as the Forums, the Mausoleum of Augustus, the Mausoleum of Hadrian, the Pantheon, Trajan’s Column and the Column of Marcus Aurelius, as well as the religious and public buildings of papal Rome.
The extraterritorial properties of the Holy See that make up this World Heritage site comprise a series of unique artistic achievements - Santa Maria Maggiore, St John Lateran and St Paul Outside the Walls. These properties exerted considerable influence on the development of architecture and monumental arts throughout the centuries in a large part of the Christian world.
The Lateran Treaty concluded in 1929 between Italy and the Holy See established that a number of properties termed 'extraterritorial' and situated on Italian soil remained the exclusive property of the Holy See. In addition to the three great churches, there are several remarkable palaces: the Cancelleria (1483-1517), the Palazzo Maffei, the Palazzo di San Callisto and lastly, the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide, renovated by Bernini and Borromini.
Mattia Camellini says:
HISTORIC CENTRE OF FLORENCE.
Built on the site of an Etruscan settlement, Florence, the symbol of the Renaissance, rose to economic and cultural pre-eminence under the Medici in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its 600 years of extraordinary artistic activity can be seen above all in the 13th-century cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore), the Church of Santa Croce, the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace, the work of great masters such as Giotto, Brunelleschi, Botticelli and Michelangelo.
Built over the Roman city, the historic centre of Florence may best be described as a treasure chest of works of art and architecture. Defined by the 14th-century walls, and built up thanks to the enormous business and economic power which Florence achieved, the two succeeding centuries were Florence's golden age.
The spiritual focus of the city is the Cathedral Piazza of Santa Maria del Fiore, with Giotto's campanile on one side and the Baptistry of St John in front, with the Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti.
Mattia Camellini says:
PIAZZA DEL DUOMO. PISA
Standing in a large green expanse, Piazza del Duomo houses a group of monuments known the world over.
These four masterpieces of medieval architecture – the cathedral, the baptistry, the campanile (the 'Leaning Tower') and the cemetery – had a great influence on monumental art in Italy from the 11th to the 14th century.
Mattia Camellini says:
VENEZIA E LA SUA LAGUNA
Founded in the 5th century and spread over 118 small islands, Venice became a major maritime power in the 10th century. The whole city is an extraordinary architectural masterpiece in which even the smallest building contains works by some of the world's greatest artists such as Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and others.
Venice is a unique artistic achievement. The city is built on 118 small islands and seems to float on the waters of the lagoon. The influence of Venice on the development of architecture and monumental arts has been considerable. Venice possesses an incomparable series of architectural ensembles illustrating the age of its splendour. It presents a complete typology whose exemplary value goes hand-in-hand with the outstanding character of an urban setting which had to adapt to the special requirements of the site.
In this lagoon covering 50,000 km2, nature and history have been so closely linked since the 5th century AD when Venetian populations, to escape barbarian raids, found refuge on the sandy islands of Torcello, Iesolo and Malamocco. These temporary settlements gradually became permanent and the initial refuge of the land-dwelling peasants and fishermen became a maritime power. The small island of Rialto was chosen as the headquarters of the new city.
Mattia Camellini says:
IL CENTRO STORICO DI SAN GIMIGNANO
'San Gimignano delle belle Torri' is in Tuscany, 56 km south of Florence. It served as an important relay point for pilgrims travelling to or from Rome on the Via Francigena. The patrician families who controlled the town built around 72 tower-houses (some as high as 50 m) as symbols of their wealth and power. Although only 14 have survived, San Gimignano has retained its feudal atmosphere and appearance. The town also has several masterpieces of 14th- and 15th-century Italian art.
San Gimignano bears exceptional testimony to the civilization of the Middle Ages in that it groups together within a small area all the structures typical of urban life: squares and streets, houses and palaces, wells and fountains. San Gimignano is situated in the Val d'Elsa, 56 km south of Florence. Its walls and fortified houses form an unforgettable skyline, in the heart of the Etruscan landscape. San Gimignano was a relay point on the Via Francigena for pilgrims journeying to and from Rome. Originally under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Volterra, it became independent in 1199 when it acquired its first podestà. The free town, known as San Gimignano delle Belle Torri, entered into a long period of prosperity that lasted until 1353, when it fell under the sway of Florence. In 1262 an enceinte measuring 2,177 m, later to be reinforced with five cylindrical towers, girdled the small town.
Mattia Camellini says:
CITY OF VICENZA AND THE PALLADIAN VILLAS OF THE VENETO
Founded in the 2nd century B.C. in northern Italy, Vicenza prospered under Venetian rule from the early 15th to the end of the 18th century. The work of Andrea Palladio (1508–80), based on a detailed study of classical Roman architecture, gives the city its unique appearance. Palladio's urban buildings, as well as his villas, scattered throughout the Veneto region, had a decisive influence on the development of architecture. His work inspired a distinct architectural style known as Palladian, which spread to England and other European countries, and also to North America.
Vicenza represents a unique artistic achievement in the many architectural contributions from Andrea Palladio integrated within its historic fabric and creating its overall character. Through its architecture, the city has exerted exceptional influence on architectural and urban design in most European countries and throughout the world.
Mattia Camellini says:
CRESPI D'ADDA
Crespi d'Adda in Capriate San Gervasio in Lombardy is an outstanding example of the 19th- and early 20th-century 'company towns' built in Europe and North America by enlightened industrialists to meet the workers' needs. The site is still remarkably intact and is partly used for industrial purposes, although changing economic and social conditions now threaten its survival.
The first company towns were built in Europe in Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, to house the large workforces assembled by the new generation of entrepreneurs to work in their factories, which were established close to sources of raw materials, power, etc. It was not until the creation of the national market following political unification that they were set up in Italy. Crespi, in Capriate San Gervasio (Bergamo), is the most characteristic and complete of these.
Mattia Camellini says:
FERRARA, CITY OF THE RENAISSANCE AND ITS PO DELTA
Ferrara, which grew up around a ford over the River Po, became an intellectual and artistic centre that attracted the greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries. Here, Piero della Francesca, Jacopo Bellini and Andrea Mantegna decorated the palaces of the House of Este. The humanist concept of the 'ideal city' came to life here in the neighbourhoods built from 1492 onwards by Biagio Rossetti according to the new principles of perspective. The completion of this project marked the birth of modern town planning and influenced its subsequent development.
Ferrara is an outstanding planned Renaissance city which has retained its urban fabric virtually intact. The developments in town planning expressed in Ferrara were to have a profound influence on the development of urban design throughout the succeeding centuries. The brilliant Este court attracted a constellation of artists, poets and philosophers during the two seminal centuries of the Renaissance. The Po Delta is an outstanding planned cultural landscape which retains its original form to a remarkable extent.
Mattia Camellini says:
HISTORIC CENTRE OF NAPLES
From the Neapolis founded by Greek settlers in 470 B.C. to the city of today, Naples has retained the imprint of the successive cultures that emerged in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. This makes it a unique site, with a wealth of outstanding monuments such as the Church of Santa Chiara and the Castel Nuovo.
Naples is one of the most ancient cities in Europe, whose contemporary urban fabric preserves the elements of its long and eventful history. Its street pattern, its wealth of historic buildings from many periods, and its setting on the Bay of Naples give it an outstanding universal value without parallel, and one that has had a profound influence in many parts of Europe and beyond.
Much of the significance of Naples is due to its urban fabric, which represents twenty-five centuries of growth. Little survives above ground of the Greek town, but important archaeological discoveries have been made in excavations since the end of the Second World War. Three sections of the original town walls of this period are visible in the north-west. The surviving Roman remains are more substantial, notably the large theatre, cemeteries and catacombs. The street layout in the earliest parts of the city owes much to its classical origins.
Mattia Camellini says:
HISTORIC CENTRE OF SIENA
Siena is the embodiment of a medieval city. Its inhabitants pursued their rivalry with Florence right into the area of urban planning. Throughout the centuries, they preserved their city's Gothic appearance, acquired between the 12th and 15th centuries. During this period the work of Duccio, the Lorenzetti brothers and Simone Martini was to influence the course of Italian and, more broadly, European art. The whole city of Siena, built around the Piazza del Campo, was devised as a work of art that blends into the surrounding landscape.
The historic centre of Siena is delimited by a 7km enceinte of ramparts (14th-16th centuries), the route of which follows the contours of the three hills on which the city is built. These walls, with their bastions and towers, are pierced by gates that are double at the strategic points, such as the Porta Camollia on the street of Florence. To the west they embrace the Fort of Santa Barbara, rebuilt by the Medici in 1560 and reconstructed in 1580. The walls themselves, which have been enlarged on several occasions, also include part of the 25 km network of galleries, the bottini, which evacuate the spring waters distributed by the public fountains. Siena doubtless benefited from the experience of the monks of the Cistercian abbey of San Galgano.
Mattia Camellini says:
EARLY CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS OF RAVENNA
Ravenna was the seat of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and then of Byzantine Italy until the 8th century. It has a unique collection of early Christian mosaics and monuments. All eight buildings – the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, the Neonian Baptistery, the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, the Arian Baptistery, the Archiepiscopal Chapel, the Mausoleum of Theodoric, the Church of San Vitale and the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe – were constructed in the 5th and 6th centuries. They show great artistic skill, including a wonderful blend of Graeco-Roman tradition, Christian iconography and oriental and Western styles.
The early Christian religious monuments in Ravenna are of outstanding significance by virtue of the supreme artistry of the mosaic art that they contain, and also because of the crucial evidence that they provide of artistic and religious relationships and contacts at an important period of European cultural history.
Mattia Camellini says:
CASTEL DEL MONTE
When the Emperor Frederick II built this castle near Bari in the 13th century, he imbued it with symbolic significance, as reflected in the location, the mathematical and astronomical precision of the layout and the perfectly regular shape. A unique piece of medieval military architecture, Castel del Monte is a successful blend of elements from classical antiquity, the Islamic Orient and north European Cistercian Gothic. In its formal perfection and its harmonious blending of cultural elements from northern Europe, the Muslim world, and classical antiquity, Castel del Monte is a unique masterpiece of medieval military architecture, reflecting the humanism of its founder, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen.
Frederick succeeded his father, Emperor Henry VI, in 1197 at the age of three. During his reign, which lasted until 1250, he brought order to his unruly kingdom of Sicily, which included much of southern Italy and introduced a period of intense cultural activity known as the 'Southern Renaissance'. He was a man of great culture, at home in several languages, with high attainments in mathematics, astronomy and natural sciences; he brought scholars and artists from the Arab lands, Greece, and elsewhere to his court, had the works of Aristotle, Averroës, Ptolemy and Galen translated into Latin, and founded the University of Naples.
Mattia Camellini says:
HISTORIC CENTRE OF PIENZA
It was in this Tuscan town that Renaissance town-planning concepts were first put into practice after Pope Pius II decided, in 1459, to transform the look of his birthplace. He chose the architect Bernardo Rossellino, who applied the principles of his mentor, Leon Battista Alberti. This new vision of urban space was realized in the superb square known as Piazza Pio II and the buildings around it: the Piccolomini Palace, the Borgia Palace and the cathedral with its pure Renaissance exterior and an interior in the late Gothic style of south German churches.
The historic centre of Pienza represents the first application of the Renaissance humanist concept of urban design, and as such occupies a seminal position in the development of the concept of the planned 'ideal town' that was to play a significant role in subsequent urban development in ltaly and beyond. The application of this principle in Pienza, and in particular in the group of buildings around the central square, resulted in a masterpiece of human creative genius.
Mattia Camellini says:
I TRULLI DI ALBEROBELLO
The trulli , limestone dwellings found in the southern region of Puglia, are remarkable examples of drywall (mortarless) construction, a prehistoric building technique still in use in this region. The trulli are made of roughly worked limestone boulders collected from neighbouring fields. Characteristically, they feature pyramidal, domed or conical roofs built up of corbelled limestone slabs. Alberobello, the city of drystone dwellings known as trulli , is an exceptional example of vernacular architecture. It is one of the best preserved and most homogeneous urban areas of this type in Europe. Its special features, and the fact that the buildings are still occupied, make it unique. It also represents a remarkable survival of prehistoric building techniques.
These buildings were constructed using roughly worked limestone boulders collected from neighbouring fields and, later, the large water-collecting basins in the area. They were built directly on the underlying natural rock, using exclusively the drystone technique.
Mattia Camellini says:
ROYAL PALACE AT CASERTA WITH THE PARK, THE ACQUEDUCT OF VANVITELLI AND THE SAN LEUCIO COMPLEX
The monumental complex at Caserta, created by the Bourbon king Charles III in the mid-18th century to rival Versailles and the Royal Palace in Madrid, is exceptional for the way in which it brings together a magnificent palace with its park and gardens, as well as natural woodland, hunting lodges and a silk factory. It is an eloquent expression of the Enlightenment in material form, integrated into, rather than imposed on, its natural setting.
The Committee decided to inscribe this property considering that the monumental complex at Caserta, whilst cast in the same mould as other 18th century royal establishments, is exceptional for the broad sweep of its design, incorporating not only an imposing palace and park, but also much of the surrounding natural landscape and an ambitious new town laid out according to the urban planning precepts of its time. The industrial complex of the Belvedere, designed to produce silk, is also of outstanding interest because of the idealistic principles that underlay its original conception and management.
The park:
www.flickr.com/photos/mattiacam/6395260117/
The royal stairway (Vanvitelli)
www.flickr.com/photos/mattiacam/6395266059/
Mattia Camellini says:
THE SASSI AND THE PARK OF THE RUPESTRIAN CHURCHES OF MATERA
This is the most outstanding, intact example of a troglodyte settlement in the Mediterranean region, perfectly adapted to its terrain and ecosystem. The first inhabited zone dates from the Palaeolithic, while later settlements illustrate a number of significant stages in human history. Matera is in the southern region of Basilicata.
The advent of better tools with the Metal Ages made it easier to dig into the soft calcareous tufo rocks exposed in the gravine (gorges or canyons) and there is evidence from the Bronze Age of the creation of underground cisterns and tombs, and in particular of underground dwellings opening out of a central space (jazzi ). The excavated tufo blocks were used for the construction of walls and towers. The harsh landscape resulted in the growth of a spirit of sturdy independence which was resistant to successive waves of invaders after the Byzantine period.
This structure remained intact until the 18th century. It was the expansion and interventions of the 19th and 20th centuries that rejected the ancient principle of land management based on water supply and drainage and spread to the clays of the plateau above.
Nothing here yet.
You can save a photo or video to a gallery from its detail page, or choose from your faves here.
Comments