THE HOUSE AS THEATER OF MEMORY: MARIO PRAZ AND HIS HOUSE OF LIFE

Abstract

In classical and Renaissance culture, the tool of memory, used in the art of rhetoric, was linked to architecture: buildings such houses and, in sixteenth-century, theaters, were used as containers of images that could help to remember the correct sequence and development of the speech, and as devices to collect the universal knowledge and to represent the world. With these premises, we could interpret the house as the place we collect, represent, and stage our theater of memories through the spatial arrangement and the furnishing of the interiors. The case study of Mario Praz’s house in Rome and the book that he wrote about it are the tangible manifestation of this way of thinking, designing, and interpreting the domestic interior.

KEYWORDS: :

• house
• theater
• memory
• interiors
• Mario Praz
• autobiography

Notes

1 In my opinion, a perfect example of these rhetorical strategies to organize a discourse is Pliny the Younger’s description of his Laurentine villa, close to Rome (Pliny the Younger 2006, Sherwin-White 1966, Semerani 1991). As is well known, Pliny wrote a letter to a friend, to illustrate the building, describing room by room the characteristics, the architectural features, the connections, the views, and the experiences of that specific building. The sequence is a perfectly organized discourse that mimics the path through the different rooms and places of the house, as in an ante litteram promenade architecturale, that over the centuries inspired the reconstruction of the villa through drawings (the most famous is certainly Schinkel’s proposal).

2 “Peter (of Ravenna) gives practical advice. When discussing the rule that memory loci are to be formed in quiet places he says that the best type of building to use is an unfrequented church. He describes how he goes round the church he has chosen three or four times, committing the places in it to memory. He chooses his first place near the door; the next, five or six feet further in; and so on (Yates, The Art of Memory, 113).

3 “(Johannes Romberch’s) third type of place system (the first: the cosmos, the second: sign of the zodiac) is the more normally mnemo-technical method of memorizing real places on real buildings, as on the abbey and its associated buildings illustrated by a cut” (Ibid., 117).

4 About the role of theater in Venice see the chapter “Venezia: la Repubblica a teatro [Venice: the Republic at the Theater]” in Zorzi (1977, 235-284).

5 “Building on the classical art of memory (…) Napoleon III in particular conceived of the architectural promenade not only to bind his city of Paris into one cohesive unit, but to act as a memory walk through historic monuments and grandiose architectural facades that represented the heroic accomplishments and communal responsibilities of his directorship. (…) Not only was the city its collection of monuments expected to be a source of inspiration, but monumental buildings were as well theatrical backdrops for dramatic representation and enduring civic display” (Boyer 1994, 14-15)

6 https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=recollect&ref=searchbar_searchhint [Accessed 27 November 2020].

7 In this essay the parts omitted and cited in text has been translated from Italian by the author.

8 The Italian academic art theory was informed by the idealism of Benedetto Croce and the materialist/Marxist approach of György Lukács. See Susinno (1987, p. 11).

9 Since 1923, Italian Schools of Architecture had courses on furniture design and interior decoration that reflected the idea of the “total architect” as expressed by Gustavo Giovannoni (1932): the instructors were all architects who taught architectural design and furniture design, focusing on the relationship between the two realms and on an extraordinary and unique integration among the humanistic, artistic and technical disciplines (Bulegato and Dallapiana 2014, 12).

10 “The original form of all dwelling is existence not in the house but in the shell. The shell bears the impression of its occupant. In the most extreme instance, the dwelling becomes a shell” (Benjamin 1999, 220).

11 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/philosophy[Accessed 28 June 2020].

12 On this topic, besides the seminal book by Frances Yates (1963), see also: Curruthers (1990), Rossi (2000), Marot (2013), Boyer (1994).

13 Until 1969 more than three thousand visitors visited Praz’s house (Susinno 1987, 14).

14 The origin of the word “scene”, according to theater scholar Leone de’ Sommi, is the Hebrew scèhonà, which means “contrada” (quarter, street) or “street with several houses” (De’ Sommi 1968, 14. Translated from Italian by the author). About the role of the street as a stage for historical events see Vidler (1986).

15 “Pavane: a stately court dance by couples that was introduced from southern Europe into England in the sixteenth-century.” This dance was characterized by a slow and solemn structure. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pavane [Accessed 28 June 2020]

16 This section has been omitted in the English version of the book.

17 “Mise en abîme: placement at the escutcheon’s center; depiction of the escutcheon itself within an escutcheon; image within an image; story within a story.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mise%20en%20abyme [Accessed 28 June 2020]

18 Some of these paintings belong both to the History and to The House of Life, because were part of Praz’s collection, in a fertile cross-pollination between the two publications.

19 “Coup de théâtre: a sudden sensational turn in a play; a sudden dramatic effect or turn of events.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coup%20de%20th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre [Accessed 28 June 2020].

Patrizio M. Martinelli

M.Arch, Ph.D.

Department of Architecture + Interior Design, Miami University, Oxford (OH), USA

203H Alumni Hall

350 E. Spring Street

Oxford, OH 45056

[phone] office

[email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8715-910X

Patrizio M. Martinelli since 2017 is Assistant Professor at Miami University, Oxford (Ohio). He studied at University Iuav of Venice where he earned a Master’s degree in Architecture and a Ph.D. in Architectural Composition. He’s been involved in teaching and research at University Iuav of Venice with grants and fellowships about domestic interiors, adaptive reuse and urban regeneration. From 2007 to 2016 he’s been guest critic in Münster School of Architecture (Germany). His researches have been published in his own monographs and architectural magazines and presented in conferences in Europe and the USA.

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Patrizio M. Martinelli

Patrizio M. Martinelli since 2017 is Assistant Professor at Miami University, Oxford (Ohio). He studied at University Iuav of Venice where he earned a Master’s degree in Architecture and a Ph.D. in Architectural Composition. He’s been involved in teaching and research at University Iuav of Venice with grants and fellowships about domestic interiors, adaptive reuse and urban regeneration. From 2007 to 2016 he’s been guest critic in Münster School of Architecture (Germany). His researches have been published in his own monographs and architectural magazines and presented in conferences in Europe and the USA. [email protected]