Architecture And The Senses In The Italian Renaissance

"This is the first study of Renaissance architecture as an immersive, multisensory experience, combining first-hand experiences with historical analysis. Questioning the universalizing claims of contemporary architectural phenomenologists, David Karmon emphasizes the infinite variety of meanings produced through human interactions with the built environment. He reconstructs the Renaissance understanding of the senses, examines how architecture and the senses shaped daily practices and contributed to new forms of understanding, and presents literary and visual sources that provide abundant evidence for sustained attention to the multisensory experience of the built environment in the Renaissance world. By exploring how the 'experiential trigger' of architecture creates a multi- faceted dynamic experience between the object and the individual, Karmon's book offers a new and innovative approach to the study of Renaissance architecture"--