Pliny the Elder and the Emergence of Renaissance Architecture

Peter Fane-Saunders holds a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham. His main research interest is the classical tradition - particularly works of art and architecture that derive their inspiration from the ancient world. His work has been published in various European academic journals. Formerly, he was Rome Fellow at the British School at Rome.

1. Pliny the Elder and his place in antique and mediaeval writings on architecture; 2. Initial explorations: Petrarch, the Mirabilia Urbis Romae and Flavio Biondo; 3. The manuscript hunter and the librarian: Poggio Bracciolini and Giovanni Tortelli; 4. A new system: Pomponio Leto and his school; 5. Emerging doubts; 6. Pliny and Leon Battista Alberti: two 'architectural histories'; 7. Pliny, Filarete and the ideal patron of architecture; 8. 'Aldus and his dream book': the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili; 9. A more down-to-earth Pliny; 10. Mixing the traditions: the curious case of Cesare Cesariano; 11. Developments in the Veneto: the Vitruvian commentaries of Daniele Barbaro and I quattro libri by Andrea Palladio; 12. Standing before the marvels: Ciriaco d'Ancona and Pliny's 'Opera mirabilia in terris'; 13. In the mind's eye: drawings of Plinian wonders, from Leonardo to Antonio da Sangallo the Younger; 14. From paper to stone: rebuilding Pliny's architectural marvels; Final thoughts: Pliny's influence on the Renaissance understanding of ancient architecture.