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Perspectival Restoration Drawings in Roman Archaeology and Architectural History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Frank Salmon
Affiliation:
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 16 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA, UK. E-mail: .

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the graphic means deployed since the Renaissance to restore the appearance of ancient Roman architecture, and specifically with the use of various forms of perspective. Disdained by architectural theorists from Leon Battista Alberti onwards because of its supposed subjectivity, the perspective nonetheless became a valuable tool in the second half of the eighteenth century for studying Roman architecture and urban form in pristine condition. It remained so until, with the consolidation of a more scientific approach to the discipline of archaeology in the last third of the twentieth century, it was reduced to schematic form and supplemented by isometric and axonometric projectional restorations, notably in English-language histories. The discipline of architectural history has not, however, been well served by this development, and an argument is made here for the retention of perspectival restoration and for the furtherance of the recent development of restorations modelled with the aid of computers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2003

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