Professional Documents
Culture Documents
above doors and fireplaces. Perhaps, the notion for this meager decoration served as an
introduction to the decorations that followed in the important camera.
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.2 Virtually every
camera also featured at least one painting of the Virgin and Child. 3 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).
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.
2 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
3 Wollheim, Marta, and Brenda Preyer. "The Florentine Casa." In At Home in Renaissance Italy. London: V & A,
2006.