Anti-ocular architectural commentary in the 1612 phrasebook ‘Il Passeggere’
(2024) Chicago RSA 2024. Renaissance society of America.
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- Authors
Sik, Daniel 
- Abstract
- Relatively little is known about ‘Il Passeggere,’ a 1612 Italian phrasebook published in London. The author writes under the suspiciously pseudonymous moniker ‘Benvenuto Italiano,’ aiming the text towards a courtly readership. This is evident in both its dedication to Prince Henry, and the polite topics addressed in the dialogues contained; such as fashion, medicine, ethics, and most pertinently, architecture. It seems to have reached this target audience, an edition being documented in the famous Arundel library, and donated to the Royal Society in 1667. Within, the imagined dialogues between Mr Eutrapelus, and Mr Alatheus constitute a vivid architectural commentary. As the gentlemen walk through London and make decisions about where to go, the language employed is decidedly pan-sensory. The gentlemen delve into the negative ethical connotations of magnificent perspectives ‘pleasing the eye;’ they negotiate the intersections between ‘hearing news’ and seeing fashionable architecture; as well as commenting on the ‘putrid smell’ of outdated and unfashionable timber building. Such discourse is certainly modish, the King having prohibited timber building the previous year. Indeed, the phrasebook synthesises a variety of popular opinions on architectural perception for this period, capturing a pansensory snapshot of pedestrian architectural thinking in a perhaps unlikely textual genre.
- Affiliations
Citations
Sik, D. (2024). Anti-ocular architectural commentary in the 1612 phrasebook ‘Il Passeggere’. Chicago RSA 2024. Renaissance society of America. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/240186