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History Test 3 Study Guide
Key Terms for Chap 23
14
Architecture
Undergraduate 2
11/08/2011

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Term
Leone Battista Alberti
Definition
(1404-1472): Playwright, musician, painter, mathematician, scientist and athlete as well as architect and architectural theorist, many have seen Alberti as the ultimate example of the Renaissance ideal of the ‘complete man’.
Term
braccio
Definition
an arm’s length): unit of measure equal to approximately 23 inches common in the Italian Renaissance, but with a different exact dimension in each region of the country.
Term
corpo transparente
Definition
the transparent (invisible) body of a Renaissance palazzo. (See hypostyle matrix). Both are associated with the ideal building in the mind as understood in Neoplatonic theory.
Term
golden section
Definition
the ratio of 1:1.618+ (an irrational number generated by adding the diagonal of 1/2 of a square to 1/2 of the length of its side to produce a rectangle of this ratio.
Term
harmonic proportions
Definition
the proportional series of the untempered musical scale and the putative universal harmony: 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, etc.
Term
hypostyle matrix
Definition
the matrix of vertical and horizontal lines (ideal beams and columns) constituting the three-dimensional grid of equal sized cubes which define the ideal volume of a Renaissance palazzo. The hypostyle matrix defines the corpo transparente
Term
intercolumnation
Definition
the space between columns
Term
irrational number
Definition
a number whose exact value cannot be calculated. A prime example is the diagonal of a square. By the Pythagorean theorem, if the side of the square is one unit, the diagonal is equal to the square root of 2, an irrational number.
Term
noble rooms
Definition
in Renaissance architectural theory, rooms which exhibit the highest degree of cubicity.
Term
opus reticulatum
Definition
diamond pattern of facing stones originated by the Romans for walls with a concrete core.
Term
piano nobile
Definition
(the noble level): the main living floor of a palazzo, usually one floor above the ground floor. In Europe, floors and elevators are numbered starting (with 1) from the piano nobile level rather than the ground floor, as is common the United States.
Term
Sebastian Serlio
Definition
(1475-1554), painter and architect, author of l’Architecttura, the first book on architecture whose aim was practical rather than theoretical.
Term
rustication
Definition
the use of roughly shaped stone faces to create texture and shadow
Term
squaring the circle
Definition
using a geometrical construction to create a square exactly equal in area to a given circle. Such a construction has been proven to be impossible in geometry, but it can be approximated by various procedures.
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