L'architettura dei Carmelitani Scalzi in età barocca. Principii, norme e tipologie in Europa e nel Nuovo Mondo

The middle age Carmelite Order, reformed by the mystical nun Teresa d’Avila in Spain at half sixtheenth century, matured original and autonomous bulding rules and figurative politics in the crucial passage bettween ‘500 and ‘600, and between european urban convents and missionary foundations in the colonial countries of America. Large number of churches and convents in Spain, Italy and other european and american countries are connected to general typologies and principles as poverty, sobriety, humilty, expression of the spiritual aims of the Order, also explainable as the actual translation of the traditional Vitruvian categories of firmitas, venustas and utilitas. The result is a functional, humble, simplified, proto-razionalist architecture, often carried out by internal tecnicians, nevertheless not destitute of symbolical intentions and spectacular outcomes as Cornaro Chapel in S. Maria della Vittoria mission’s seminary in Rome. The volume examines the Order throughout Italy, but also takes a wider look at Carmelites in Europe and the New World, surveing a large number of churches and convents, and fleshing out the more general principles and typologies of their architecture.