Some Reasons for Traveling to Italy

Peter Wilson

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English

Massachusetts Inst of Tec
28 February 2023

Architecture; History

"In Some Reasons for Traveling to Italy, architect Peter Wilson offers a Grand Tour of Grand Tours, providing an idiosyncratic guidebook to architectural (and other) wonders of Italy, illustrated by his own witty watercolors and sketches. Wilson chronicles the reasons that people throughout history have traveled to Italy-ranging from ""To Be the Subject of an Equestrian Painting by Uccello in Florence Cathedral"" to ""To Rebuild Herculaneum in Malibu"" (the desire of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in the 1970s)-while giving readers a deeper understanding of Italy's architectural habitat and cultural mythology.

In Wilson's narratives and anecdotes, place names function as talismans; the events may not tally with recorded history, or with the exact topographies of actual places. Wilson offers historical reworkings, appropriations, and an architect's scrutiny of certain Italian tropes. He recounts that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, set out ""To Flee England Out of Embarrassment"" after breaking wind when he bowed to Queen Elizabeth I; French novelist Stendhal went ""To Discover an Anti-France""; and an English architect went ""To Get Some Ideas for a Mausoleum."" At the first Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1980, a dapper architect found that he had come to Italy ""To Fall Overboard in a White Suit,"" the artist Cy Twombly went simply ""To See,"" and Wilson himself found that he was ""Captured by the Ospedale Degli Innocenti,"" enchanted by the sight of Brunelleschi's architrave.

An idiosyncratic guidebook to architectural (and other) wonders of Italy, accompanied by the author's own witty illustrations.

In Some Reasons for Traveling to Italy, architect Peter Wilson offers a Grand Tour of Grand Tours, providing an idiosyncratic guidebook to architectural (and other) wonders of Italy, illustrated by his own witty watercolors and sketches. Wilson chronicles the reasons that people throughout history have traveled to Italy-ranging from ""To Be the Subject of an Equestrian Painting by Uccello in Florence Cathedral"" to ""To Rebuild Herculaneum in Malibu"" (the desire of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in the 1970s)-while giving readers a deeper understanding of Italy's architectural habitat and cultural mythology.

In Wilson's narratives and anecdotes, place names function as talismans; the events may not tally with recorded history, or with the exact topographies of actual places. Wilson offers historical reworkings, appropriations, and an architect's scrutiny of certain Italian tropes. He recounts that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, set out ""To Flee England Out of Embarrassment"" after breaking wind when he bowed to Queen Elizabeth I; French novelist Stendhal went ""To Discover an Anti-France""; and an English architect went ""To Get Some Ideas for a Mausoleum."" At the first Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1980, a dapper architect found that he had come to Italy ""To Fall Overboard in a White Suit,"" the artist Cy Twombly went simply ""To See,"" and Wilson himself found that he was ""Captured by the Ospedale Degli Innocenti,"" enchanted by the sight of Brunelleschi's architrave."

By: Peter Wilson
Imprint: Massachusetts Inst of Tec
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 171mm, Width: 114mm,
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9780262047265
ISBN 10: 0262047268
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 28 February 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Peter Wilson is an architect based in Mu?nster, Germany. He is the founder, with his wife Julia Bolles, of the architectural firm BOLLES + WILSON, architects of many significant buildings across Europe.