EDRA42ChicagoMay 25, 2011

The Origins of the Belvedere: Living in the Distant View of Landscape Phyllis J. Henderson, AAIA, LEED A.P.PhD CandidateDepartment of Design, Construction and PlanningSchool of ArchitectureUniversity of FloridaGainesville Floridaptaco@ufl.edu

Never before has there been greater emphasis in society to embrace the natural environment and to make as little impact as possible on the ground we walk on. The time to reconsider the relationship between built space and natural space has been rapidly approaching and is now eminently upon us. The discussions that underlie the specific correlation between architecture and nature reveal hope for a fresh approach toward meaningful dwelling. The architectural object that stands poised to pioneer that endeavor is the belvedere.

Originating from and literally meaning “beautiful view” in Italian, the belvedere commands the unique position in the built environment designed and constructed precisely for the enjoyment of a view or intellectual connection to the landscape. In 18th-century French garden theory, the belvedere means “a place where you discover a beautiful view” and “a pavilion erected on a site where you discover a beautiful view.”1 A modern scholar compared the belvedere to "the place where one goes to verify that the landscape really looks like a postcard."2 He was speaking of a built object situated within the landscape such that the visitor could enjoy the beauty of the natural view. This belvedere was sited with such specificity that, without the intervention, the postcard-like view would have been entirely impossible. The belvedere provided both an access point and perceptual balance; a place between being in nature and being without nature altogether.

The concept of the constructed belvedere gleans its original richness from early domestic Italian architecture. The ancient atrium house, or domus, was an inward facing city house; a windowless structure derived from Etruscan tomb architecture.3 Hot summers and disease within the

1 Michel Conan, Dictionnair Historique de l’Art des Jardins (France: Hazan, 1997), 38.2 Andre Corboz quoted in James Corner, Recovering Landscape : Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 80.3 David James Stanley II, "The Origin and Development of the Renaissance Belvedere

in Central Italy," a PhD

cities caused those who could evacuate to take up more “healthy” country residences along the Bay of Naples.4 These country villas and their subsequent Hellenistic transformations5 mingled together the later compact platform-villa with the less restricted seaside villas of the first century BC.6 These villas, now unencumbered by the lack of space, were allowed to spread out and connect with nature at an unprecedented level that was impossible within the city.

ANCIENT ROMAN BELVEDERE The earliest architectural forms of belvedere were most certainly

conceived from familiarity and need. Belvedere forms were based on other structures within the city, construction advances of the day and aesthetic preference. There is no doubt that some belvedere forms were born from basic needs, such as to create a stronghold foundation for construction along a mountain slope.7 However, while familiarity and necessity were certainly part of the story, the desire for the view was a major force behind the site selection, axial arrangement, and final elevation of the building. These attributes of architecture have the potential to reveal common threads of a culture that fostered a deep appreciation for the view.

This chapter discusses four types of belvedere; the Basis Villa Belvedere at the Villa of the Mysteries from the late 3rd century B.C., the Portico Belvedere at the House of the Faun at Pompeii in the 2nd century B.C. which has an internal focus and the Villa of Poppaea from Oplontis also from the 1st century B.C. whose Portico Belvedere has an external focus. Also discussed is the Tower Belvedere at the Villa of Diomede at Pompeii in the 1st century B.C. which bears an attached belvedere and the Tower Belvedere at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum in the 1st century B.C. which is clearly detached from the building. Lastly, this chapter examines the emergence of the Combination Belvedere in a Villa Complex with a look at Hadrian’s Villa in Tibur dating from 117-138 A.D.

One of the earliest and most well-known buildings recovered from the ancient world is the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii (Figure 1). The Villa of the Mysteries is also one of the most obvious and well documented examples of a Basis Villa Belvedere. The villa, known as a villa suburbana or country house, underwent several renovations prior to the eruption in 79 A.D.8 Each change marked an increasing desire for the view within the

dissertation of Pennsylvania State University (1978), 10.4 Judith Harris, Pompeii Awakened : A Story of Rediscovery (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 11.5 Stanley II, 12.6 Axel Boëthius and J. B. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), 319.7 Wilhelmina Mary Feemster Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii : Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius, vol. I (New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas Bros., 1979), 1: 287.8 Stanley II, 5.

Roman culture. While original atrium houses stood flat on the ground, this villa was already displaying a developing trend in the late 3rd century B.C. to raise the building off the ground in reverence for the beautiful view that lay in the distance. The terrace, or basis villae, built for the enjoyment of the view was ample and would have been large enough for walking or strolling. In addition to the open garden terrace, a porticoed terrace rests along the perimeter of the house on three sides, offering opportunity for a covered stroll and a framed view through the portico.

At the Villa of the Mysteries, a strong correlation arose between the belvedere and the active, ambulatory participation of the visitor. While the two L-shaped terraces were believed to contain hanging gardens (roses, most likely, as the soil here was rather shallow),9 the space around the perimeter certainly encouraged active participation in both the garden view at hand as well as the distant view of the Bay of Naples to the southwest. In addition to the open garden terrace, a porticoed terrace rests along the perimeter of the house on three sides, offering opportunity for a covered stroll and a framed view through the portico. The belvederes here were designed with a constant visual exchange at play; a persistent, intentional shuttling between the remote view and the immediate.

The second type of belvedere, the Portico Belvedere, bears a spatial duality that places it among the most versatile and widely incorporated belvederes. Portico Belvederes are roofed colonnades, either internal or external to the main structure. The Portico Belvedere “could run around a central courtyard or the building's exterior, providing a sheltered and shaded place from which to admire the garden or the wider landscape and the view beyond.”10 The House of the Faun is an example of a villa with an internally focused Portico Belvedere that runs along the perimeter, enclosing the central courtyard of the peristyle garden. The House of the Faun is unique; it is one of the largest residences discovered in Pompeii and it holds two impressive peristyle gardens with Portico Belvedere enveloping the perimeters.

The Portico Belvedere provided an important culmination of the distant framed axial view from inside the house. Surrounding the peristyle garden on all four sides, the quadriporticus belvedere provided views of the garden from any angle. This highly kinetic spatial condition functions much in the same way as the “fulcrum” of the atrium within the residence.11 The long, linear form of the Portico Belvedere acts as a grand promenade, promoting the ambulatory participation of the guest within the natural space of the garden. The ever-changing framed view of the garden speaks to the desire for a paralaxial experience in motion, similar to the striking 9 Jashemski, Appendices, 2: 282.10 Anne Jennings and Museum of Garden History, Roman Gardens (London: English

Heritage in association with the Museum of Garden History, 2006), 24.11 Filippo Coarelli, Alfredo Foglia, and Pio Foglia, Pompeii (New York: Riverside Book Co., 2002), 347.

Portico Belvedere discovered at the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis. The villa opened majestically to the countryside, uniting with the view of the sea and mountains and overlooking its own parklike setting.12 This type of villa, called a maritime villa, was the subject of many small paintings found on walls within peristyle gardens during the excavations in Pompeii.13 The third type of belvedere is the Tower Belvedere. The Villa of Diomede is one of the few Pompeian villas to have Tower Belvederes noticeably incorporated into the architecture. Although the two Tower Belvederes on the north and south corners of the peristyle garden are detached from the main villa structure, they are unquestionably designed as part of the immediate context, to be seen from inside the residence and from within the garden. The fact that the Tower Belvedere at the Villa of Diomede served the purpose for the view was common among scholars: “The plan incorporated a colonnaded atrium surrounded by rooms and apartments and a magnificent sunken garden enveloped by a porticoed terrace. At the eastern and southern corners of the garden, two tower belvederes provided panoramic views of the bay.”14

The Tower Belvedere at Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum stands in complimentary opposition to the clearly attached belvedere at the Villa of Diomede. In late 1748 or early 1749 well diggers came across what turned out to be the belvedere at the Villa of the Papyri. For the next six years, the site was explored by tunneling. The Tower Belvedere is utterly alluring as the belvedere positions itself as a true destination for viewing, defining the termination of a long, straight axis as an integral part of the spatial complex, literally linking the house with the landscape. The stroll from the main villa, through the nearly 330 foot long peristyle garden, along the 260 foot axis toward the belvedere must have resembled a ritualistic procession. The varied and plentiful natural views encountered during the walk would certainly have provided both distant and immediate views, consistent with other villas of the time. The ambulatory nature of the procession leading to the Tower Belvedere presents strong support for the important connection existing between the belvedere and the active participation of the view in nature.

The fourth type of belvedere is the Combination Belvedere in a Villa Complex. Hadrian’s Villa at Tibur, built in several stages from 117-138 A.D. stood as a monument to the grandiose design vision of the Emperor Hadrian. The complex was conceived as a series of interconnected villas that extended along the peaks of several hills through a careful sequence of basis villae terraces. Three superimposed basis villae terraces projected northeastward with a view towards the Apennine Mountains. From every vantage point, “single and double-storeyed (sic) porticoes exploited views of the gardens, valleys, and mountains that surrounded the villa.”15 The tower 12 Jashemski, 1: 314.13 Ibid., 1: 300.14 Stanley II, 8.15 Ibid., 9.

belvedere, known as Roccabruna, was constructed on the westernmost peninsula from which panoramic views of both the villa and the countryside could be simultaneously enjoyed. 16

RENAISSANCE BELVEDERE Individual typologies of the basis villae terrace belvedere, loggia

belvedere, freestanding belvedere and combination belvederes each advanced through the Renaissance, deliberately following the transformation of human perception toward nature and current trends in literature and art. The relationship between architecture and landscape reached a culmination rather than a rebirth during the Renaissance. The primal question of man’s relationship to nature revived the ancient theme of pastoral landscape as it illustrated the compassion between the human and natural realms. Poetry and art theory, modeled on ancient sources, inspired sophisticated and nostalgic fantasies about human life in harmony with nature, rustic tranquility and characterized visual expression of pastoral ideals that depicted deep views of the countryside.17 The belvedere followed suit.

The new desire for the increased depth of view was demonstrated at the Farnesina Palace in what can be considered the first type of belvedere in the Renaissance: the Illusionary Belvedere. When the large hall was converted into a loggia belvedere with a panoramic view behind a double colonnade, the modification was a direct result of the continuation of the experiments in perspective made by the north and east Italian artists.18 The interior contained a series of trompe-l'oeil frescoes depicting views of Trastevere and Rome. These illusionary scenic panoramas functioned within the same spirit as the constructed loggia and terrace belvederes; opening the room toward the landscape, the Illusionary Belvedere commands movement of the eye across the vast distance depicted in the scene. The views are joined through the use of perspective and a continuous horizontal basis villae terrace belvedere. The terrace belvedere appears in each fresco and commands the room through the panorama, inviting the viewer to "step out" and enjoy the vista.19

The panorama came to fruition in the fifteenth century and attempted to represent the full view of the landscape. The most extensive views were achieved by using the elevated viewpoint, or the bird’s eye view.20 The belvederes of the Renaissance supported the pursuit for the bird’s eye view,

16 Ibid.17 Robert Cafritz, Lawrence Gowing and David Rosand, Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape (Washington, D.C., New York: Phillips Collection in association with the National Gallery of Art; C.N. Potter: Distributed by Crown, 1988), 17.18 Lise Bek, Towards Paradise on Earth: Modern Space Conception in Architecture: A Creation of Renaissance Humanism (Analecta Romana Instituti Danici. Supplementum; Odense: Odense University Press, 1980), 211.19 Stanley II, 97.20 Gina Crandell, Nature Pictorialized: "The View" In Landscape History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 73.

rising to even greater heights as country villas became more luxurious. Belvederes became more integrated into the formal spatial systems of the villa, reaching a physical and theoretical cohesion in experimental gardens during the Renaissance. The spirit of the belvedere became enraptured with the purpose of exaggerating nature. The loggia and basis villae belvederes became ideal spaces for the enactment of theatrical performances against a backdrop of the distant landscape and leisurely promenading. The new Renaissance villas, which were based on ancient Roman prototypes, incorporated loggia belvederes, but also revived the second type of belvedere during the Renaissance, the basis villae terrace belvedere.

The basis villae terrace belvedere was exemplified at the Medici Villa in Rome. A profound expression of the original basis villa, the elevated platform adjoining the garden is an ambulatory counterpart to the garden below. The architectural complex is centered on the villa whose gardens are essentially elevated on a great terrace made especially for the enjoyment of the view. The southern end of the garden is unique, as it consists of an additional elevated terrace above the old town wall. An artificial mound was created atop the terrace, with the original intention to provide a fine view from the gardens; however, by virtue of the grand extension of terraces, the Villa Medici would have had a fine view without the addition of this extra height, for the elevated terrace provided exemplary views of Rome and the countryside. In this case, the basis villae terrace belvedere provided a more experiential opportunity to stroll and enjoy the view than the artificial mound created for the same purpose. The addition of an elevated terrace with an artificial mound atop simply attests to the Renaissance desire for increased elevation to achieve the deeper panoramic view of the countryside.

The terrace belvedere began to reemerge at the Villa Medici at Fiesole in 1458. Michelozzo di Bartolomeo transformed the “gentleman’s house” purchased by Cosimo de' Medici and his second son Giovanni into a Renaissance villa. 21 Perched on the mountainside overlooking Florence, the site was chosen specifically for the view; situated on several superimposed basis villae terrace belvedere that gave panoramic view of Arno Valley.22 Designed as a retreat, the villa includes two levels of terraced flower gardens that act as basis villae belvederes for strolling, scholarly contemplation and the enjoyment of the view. Here, the flower garden becomes the belvedere. The terrace belvedere also appeared in paintings such as In Jan Van Eyck’s The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (Figure 2). The basis villae belvedere appears in the distance beyond the loggia belvedere in the foreground; the sense of depth in this work was created by

21 Isabella Lapi Ballerini and Mario Scalini, The Medici Villas: Complete Guide (Prima ed. Firenze: Giunti : Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Soprintendenza specialeper il Polo museale fiorentino, 2003), 78.22 Stanley II, 74.

overlapping geometries generated by the extension of the basis villae belvedere.

The third type of belvedere was the Freestanding Garden Casino exemplified by the Villa Rotunda. This villa is an excellent example of the ever-growing desire for an elevated view through a freestanding belvedere. Elevated high on a hill with four basis villae terraces providing experiential places for walking and strolling, the beautiful natural view stands poised to delight the senses; the ideals of the ancient belvedere, namely ambulatio and elevation, culminated within one building. The rotunda embraced the natural setting through the distant view to cultivated fields in the midst of the changing seasons.23 “It is not, then, a villa at all, in the sense that the others are, but a belvedere. Palladio designed it as if its chief function were to promote gazing at the scenery; as this is done by standing on a hilltop and turning in four different directions - each one taking in about ninety degrees at a time - he started with a circle and extended it radially to four lookouts.”24

The sustained interest in viewing the landscape from even higher points of view, coupled with a persistent nature of the belvedere to provide a kinetic, ambulatory space for the human body to engage in viewing nature from near and far sparked some architects to develop spaces more dramatic in form and introduced a more theatrical flavor to the belvederes of the time. One such example is that of Palazzetto Belvedere of Pope Innocent VIII, a free standing belvedere overlooking both the Vatican gardens and Rome beyond; a place where, in the summer heat, one could dine pleasantly in the shade (Figure 3). 25 The Palazzetto served its original function only for a short time, for the design of Bramante’s Cortile del Belvedere (Figure 4) effectively traded the garden view from the Palazzetto Belvedere for a more theatrical experience within an expansive basis villae terrace. Bramante’s new basis villa terrace brought the motion of the ambulatio together with the Renaissance desire for height and the birds-eye-view.

Bramante retained the traditional basis villae belvedere view over planes on a lower level. However, in keeping with the growing demand for more height, more drama and more control over nature, he also initiated a unique interpretation of architectural space as viewing space. By changing the outward view from the interior to a view inwards towards the central point of the composition, Bramante enlivened a design concept that would come to full culmination through the evolution of the villa during the later sixteenth century. 26 Free-standing garden casinos were eventually strategically placed within the garden as a terminal viewing point and

23 Robert Tavernor, Palladio and Palladianism (New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, 1991), 78.24 James S Ackerman, Palladio, The Architect and Society (Harmondsworth,: Penguin, 1966), 70.25 Stanley II, 103.26 Ibid., 105-106.

conversely from which one could enjoy a view back over the gardens toward the villa.27

The culmination of the theatrical exaggeration of nature was expressed in the fourth type of belvedere: The Combination Belvedere in a Villa Complex at the Villa Aldobrandini, built in 1598. Known for its Baroque “tonality” the villa marked a turning point in the relationship between buildings and nature, adding to the fundamental character of the belvedere.28 The Villa Aldobrandini complex began with the stylistic conceptions of the Renaissance and ended with sweeping melodies of the Baroque. The ultimate result was a lively articulation of experiential belvederes positioned for the interaction of the visitor with the immediate garden at hand, the palace in the near view and the view of Rome in the distance.

The planning of the villa garden around a group of buildings in the Renaissance typically followed the “canon” of horticultural rules which the architects of the time hardly challenged since a large part of its rules went back to ancient Roman times. The bosco served as a focal termination to be viewed at a distance from the palace. The flower garden maintained an internal relationship to the palace and the ability to provide a landscape experience to visitors and a view to both the palace and the bosco. Thus, the flower parterre became an external room to the palace. The ambulatory nature of the parterre invokes long strolls with far away glimpses to the bosco on one hand and nearby view of the palace on the other. In this case, the raised garden becomes the belvedere, functioning on the same level as the basis villae belvedere.

The theatrical nature of the Baroque used the natural and designed landscape as stage set and backdrop. The belvederes became instrumental in guiding the visitor through the complex. This form of movement through the site has its roots in the original belvedere; to provide the viewer with a place to stroll while shuttling visually between the remote landscape and the nearby garden. Baroque garden design takes the ambulatory nature of the belvedere and expresses it theatrically. The theoretical and architectural growth of the Renaissance belvedere was a complex evolution rather than resurgence. Where the ancient Roman belvedere stood quietly in coexistent reverence of the view, the late Renaissance and early Baroque belvedere played upon the theatrical exaggeration of nature, representing the cultural trend in literature and art of the time. Through the transition from ancient to Renaissance, the primary attributes of the original ancient belvedere remained and indeed intensified. The belvedere continued to be ambulatory and physical, maintaining a constant visual play between near, far, framed and panoramic. The belvedere remained an important part of a complex spatial 27 Lise Bek, Towards Paradise on Earth: Modern Space Conception in Architecture: A Creation of Renaissance Humanism (Analecta Romana Instituti Danici. Supplementum; Odense: Odense University Press, 1980), 159.28 Carl Ludwig Franck, The Villas of Frascati, 1550-1750 (London: Tiranti, 1966), 9.

system, increasing in theatrical nature; and finally, the belvedere of the Renaissance grew upward, surpassing previous heights, culminating in the representation of landscape depicted from the bird’s eye view and panorama.

BELVEDERE IN EARLY U.S. SETTLEMENTSAs the Grand Tour became more common, travelers from all over

Europe became familiar with idyllic Italian pastoral paintings. English landowners during the late Renaissance and early Baroque learned to see the way painters saw; and they craved the views depicted in the paintings they encountered in Italy. They began to apply to landscapes the same criteria with which they had learned to judge paintings. “The consequence of this was revolutionary: nature and the garden traded places. The garden came to look like the nature depicted by painters such as Claude and Rosa: irregular and full of variety. This garden was an illusion of nature, for this was a nature that was designed, bounded, and kept; an enclave surrounding the residence and called "the landscape garden." 29

A pivotal example of the English landscape garden at Stowe marks a transition from the Italian pastoral to the idyllic imposed upon the new world freshly cultivated in America. The gardens at Stowe, particularly the Elysian Fields, contained several temples within a natural park-like setting, where the ambulatory nature of the place was designed to create a narrative that could be discovered by the most well-read visitors. While the narrative of the Elysian Fields were based on the myth of Elysium, the paradise for heroes of the gods, a young Thomas Jefferson was searching for a new narrative for the United States, one that would exude the moral virtues of paradise and freedom.

Jefferson was clearly influenced by English landscape gardens and used his understanding to forge a new ideal in both his home of Monticello and the University of Virginia. Jefferson sited Monticello atop a mountain:

where nature has spread so rich a mantle under the eye. How sublime to

look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow,

thunder, all fabricated at our feet! and the glorious sun when rising as if

out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains and giving life

to all nature.30

Jefferson was convinced that the natural amenities in the new world were not only superior to those in England, but even ideal for the cultivation of an agricultural economy which would support the new aspirations of American society, advocating the celebration and freedom of the simple life. In this 29 Gina Crandell, Nature Pictorialized: "The View" In Landscape History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 112. 30 Jefferson, 3.

context, Jefferson’s view of nature transcended the desire for beauty and entered the realm of attainable virtue. Embracing nature, Jefferson designed Monticello with multiple belvederes, the most alluring being the flower garden that is viewed from two surrounding terraces, depressed into the earth to avoid blocking the view of the landscape from within the house. Similar in to the terrace belvederes of the Villa Medici at Fiesole and the Villa Aldobrandini, the flower garden roundabouts at Monticello act as belvederes. Within the flower garden, Jefferson planned several winding promenades at the top of the mountain punctuated with pavilions at key moments of pause where the view was especially striking. In this case, the flower garden itself functions more like a belvedere than the built terraces or the planned pavilions, as it is elevated, ambulatory and follows a distinct itinerary planned especially for the enjoyment of the surrounding view.

Likewise, Jefferson used this same conceptual framework to establish the University of Virginia (Figure 5). The organizational structure of the campus reflected both the virtuous individuality and freedom that Jefferson envisioned while employing nature in the design. Like the flower garden at Monticello, pavilions were spread out within the landscape in a gardenlike setting, similar to that of Plato's Academy, a unified, harmonious merger of architecture and landscape. Centered on a long rectangular lawn, the school formed a U shape, completely opening out to nature on one end. At the opposite end stood the Rotunda, elevated and majestic; linking the academic pavilions by way of terraces and loggia belvederes that looked out to the landscape. “Each pavilion, like each person, is unique, yet the social grouping has a unity that marks it as an entity, as a university, within nature. Jefferson certainly saw the emergent society of the United States in that way.”31

This symbolic pastoral landscape may also be understood as a turning away from an artificial world that became engulfed in the habits of organized politics in England from which the colonists detached themselves. The pastoral impulse supports “a symbolic motion away from centers of civilization toward their opposite, nature, away from sophistication toward simplicity.”32 This move toward simplicity was certainly within the democratic ideals professed by Jefferson and expressed at Monticello and the University of Virginia where the most prominent building, the Rotunda, is undoubtedly the belvedere. The monumental terrace is raised high on a podium, connecting the basis villae terraces on either side that encircle the lawn. The elevated walk from the Rotunda across the length of the campus brings to view the simple, contemplative pasture poised at the far end of the lawn where sky, earth, and architecture meet.

What the belvedere provides is therefore not an isolated building object, but rather the ambulatory experience of participation within a 31 Michael Brawne and Thomas Jefferson, University of Virginia, the Lawn: Thomas Jefferson (London: Phaidon, 1994), 23. 32 Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 9.

meaningful spatial sequence. With the projected view towards nature, the belvedere provides a means by which human beings re-present the landscape for poetical dwelling.

Figure 1. Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries. Image from Pompeii by Amedeo Maiuri, 1960.

Figure 2. Jan van Eyck, The Madonna and Chancellor Rolin, 1425. Image from Nature Pictorialized:"The View" in Landscape History by Gina Crandell, 1993.

Figure 3. Palazzetto Belvedere of Pope Innocent VIII, 1484. Image from Distance Points: Essays in Theory and Renaissance Art and Architecture by James S. Ackerman, 1991.

Figure 4. Cortile del Belvedere, 1545. Image from Villa Lante a Bagnaia by Sabine Frommel, 2005.

Figure 5. Jefferson, the University of Virginia. Engraving by B. Tanner, 1827. Image from Palladio and Palladianism by Robert Tavernor, 1991.