L'antico nei disegni di Giuliano da Sangallo: rilettura e rianalisi dei rilievi e delle rappresentazioni.

In the context of historical and architectural investigations related to archaeological excavations, attempts have been made to take into account as a documentary source the drawings of antiquity, whose credibility has previously been called into question. Rather than being used for the understanding of the buildings they represent, the archaeological survey drawings served as a parameter for defining taste, influences, and themes of culture between the 15th century and the last quarter of the 16th century. To rediscover and recognize the status of the Antique during the Cinquecento, it was chosen to do so from the drawings of Giuliano Giamberti, da Sangallo, who was the architect of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and figure between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, within the Humanism and the Renaissance movements. An architect like Giuliano da Sangallo, eager to take advantage of the lessons of Antiquity, could benefit – in a unique and unrepeatable way – from the observations of the forums before the excavations of the popes. His corpus of drawings bears witness to a constant relationship with Antiquities, which is not limited either to the limits of the Urbs or to a «classical» chronology. It will be necessary to verify the working hypotheses, with further results due to careful research of archives, aimed at the precise knowledge of the ancient excavations carried out at the Renaissance, in order to reach to determine if possible, the landscape variations caused by this widespread activity as well. We did it by choosing from case studies such as the drawings of the triumphal arches, the Aemilia Basilica and the Septizonium. An attempt was made to “purify” Giuliano’s drawings by relying on his hypotheses of restitution, and distinguishing “graphic restoration” by a design work already present and attempting to solve some shadowy areas in the lexicon of graphic conventions.