Francesco Borromini and the Crisis of the Humanist Universe,or Manfredo Tafuri on the baroque origins of modern architecture

摘要

The historical and historiographical study of the life and works of Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) played a crucial part in Manfredo Tafuri's emergence as a major figure in the field of architectural history of the latter twentieth century. The 1960s was a decade that spanned, for Tafuri, from his graduation from the Scuola Superiore di Architettura in Rome, to his attainment of a position at the Istituto Univer-sitario di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV). It witnessed his earliest forays into the crowded world of Roman architectural historiography, and it saw him discover, and then articulate, the terms on which historical knowledge could have a new, critical bearing on contemporary architectural culture. He studied architects and historians of architecture alike from an appreciation of their intertwined roles and complex relationships: a theme he documented in his major theoretical, historiographical and historio-logical work of that decade, Teorie e storia dell'arch-itettura(1968).