English summary:
Designing oneself among the virtues and arts – allegorical programs in architects’ portraits and homes of the early modern period
Since the Renaissance, portraits and residential buildings designed by architects for themselves have been important opportunities for architects to situate and assert themselves in complex social and professional environments. With these types of work, statements could be made about status and competences as well as about artistic and ethical ideals. Especially in the early modern period, of great importance for this type of “self-design” were allegories of virtues and arts, which could adorn pictures and buildings. The paper presents a selection of this type of pictorial program. Particularly, they are assessed in relation to the question of how protagonists such as Vignola, Filarete, or Scamozzi engaged with the universal claims of the Vitruvian educational canon, and how they managed to set their own mark in relation to arts and virtues, and in this way to contribute to the changing definition of the architect’s profession.
The lecture will be held in German.