Le Porte d'Architettura Rustica di Orazio Perucci

Abstract

The collection Porte d’architettura rustica was published posthumously in 1634, perhaps in Bologna, but it was conceived presumably in the early XVII century. It is a work known to historians, but not yet properly studied, nor is studied its author, Orazio Perucci from Reggio (1549-1624), a painter versed in architecture, but whose design activity is not testified by any evidence or documented works. Conceived as a series of portals designed for civil architecture (palaces and gardens) and as a casuistry of “extravagant” models, the collection follows the example of the fortunate book Libro Extraordinario, although without the same success and editorial circulation. Many refined inventions by Perucci refer to suggestions from Sebastiano Serlio, but also to the models of portals by Vignola and Michelangelo, which appeared in the early seventeenth-century editions of the Regola, and to experimentations by Tibaldi