HAA 263: History of Interior DesignApril 21st, 2015Reading Response #2: The Florentine Casa

This weeks reading The Florentine Casa enhances a deeper understanding of the Italian residential properties termed palazzos. By definition, a palazzo is an impressive and yet understated three story building in Italy. Far from the Gothic architecture featured in the Late Medieval periods, the palazzo comes to embody a much more refined and simpler exterior aesthetic. A key feature of the palazzo is its three stories and their respective methods of masonry: the ground floor presents rusticated stone work; the first floor features stones that have chisel cut faces; the second floor wears ashlar masonry. What is so captivating to myself and historians alike is how almost every design characteristic of a palazzo can be examined to discover a certain function.Considering the large size of palazzos and the Italians inclination for social gatherings, it is reasonable to assume that the palaces were built with both family living and social interaction in mind. A great indicator of this purposeful design is how well the interior assimilates and impresses visitors inside the palazzo while not disregarding the fact that a family lives inside these palatial palaces. The design of palazzos succeed in creating this harmonious interaction between family life and social welcomings with the creation of the sala and camera.Leading up the sala principale[footnoteRef:0], a visitor must have walked up through a staircase and into a ricetto. In true palazzo fashion, the ricetto did not only serve form but function. The ricetto welcomed individuals who wished to gain entrance into the sala principale. Whats particularly interesting of the sala principale is how comparably less decoration was present than in the camera and scrittoio. Other than a couple of benches to welcome guests, furniture was scarce. Wall decorations followed a similar design motif, only being limited to family crests above doors and fireplaces. Perhaps, the notion for this meager decoration served as an introduction to the decorations that followed in the important camera. [0: The main sala found on the first floor of the palazzo]

While many translations simplify the camera to mean bedroom, old inventories of palazzos have come to reveal that the camera serves a much more complicated purpose than just sleeping. Political and business transactions were often times welcomed in the camera.[footnoteRef:1] Virtually every camera also featured at least one painting of the Virgin and Child.[footnoteRef:2] A great example of how even paint decorations in palazzos can follow form and function is the painted sequence of Virgin and Child by Andrea del Sarto in the Borgherini Palazzo. 12 panels were arranged in such a way where only a visitor entering from the sala would have been able to make out the sequence. The carefully calculated arrangement of the 12 panels (form) was created only to impress visitors (function). [1: One inventory of Francesco Noris house includes: over 40 books in French and Italian, a nautical map, a device for loading a crossbow, a table for writing, and account books] [2: Wollheim, Marta, and Brenda Preyer. "The Florentine Casa." In At Home in Renaissance Italy. London: V & A, 2006.]

Out of the three packets presented in the class so far, I will admit that this packet has been my favorite in its ability to portray palazzos as very calculated design pieces. These careful calculations are explicit in how the design of the typical palazzo followed form and function by creating an interaction between home life and social life while at the same time impressing visitors. One fact that I enjoyed and excluded in the analysis above that embodies such a notion is that the floor above the piano nobile was built in order to retain the unique exterior proportions. It was not necessary to build this floor as historians note that many of these rooms were not of great importance, but it was necessary for palazos to retain their unique proportion which leads into the palazzos captivating characteristic: each design served a purpose.