The Master of Painted Architecture: Andrea Pozzo, S. J. and His Treatise on Perspective

Abstract

Andrea Pozzo’s illusionistic work is well-known among historians of architecture and art, as is his Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum, published in the last decade of the seventeenth century. Historians have presented the general outline of the treatise and have discussed its valuable descriptions of the author’s own designs. The book’s place, however, in the history of the literature on perspective has received far less attention. This article examines the style and content of the Perspectiva in relation to the broader tradition of perspective writings in Italy. Being a Jesuit played an essential role for Pozzo’s self-understanding; hence it is also natural to ask how common it was for men in holy orders to write on the subject.