Description: In the mid-1880s, an influential British architectural journal published an article characterizing Renaissance architecture as a corruption of classical architecture. By the turn of the century, however, the same journal praised the Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi as the 'Christopher Columbus of modern architecture.' Relevant for architectural historians, literary scholars and those in Victorian studies, this book examines the conflicting late nineteenth-century characterizations of Renaissance architecture and reassesses them within the formation of a modern, British architectural profession.
Review Quotes:
'In Katherine Wheeler's account of how Renaissance architecture was taken up in both theory and practice by the Victorians, the tightly interlaced relationship between transformations in architectural training, ideology, and identity and the problem of style comes to the fore with fresh clarity and concentrated focus.' The Victorian
'[Her] purpose she has achieved admirably, and in more depth than I have been able to indicate in this short review. It is remarkable, really, and yet another tribute to the power of Ruskin's rhetoric, that Renaissance architecture should have needed a new spokesperson who could explain this development thoroughly and lucidly. But it did, and it has found one here.' Victorian Web
'Renaissance heroes and masterpieces are often accepted wholesale as if their study and celebration has nothing to do with the period in which they are revered. Because of this, books that deal with the historiography of the Renaissance are always welcome additions to the field. Katherine Wheeler's Victorian Perceptions of Renaissance Architecture is no exception.' Journal of Art Historiography