It was time to flee. With the plague raging in Florence, Giovanni Rucellai, the brother-in-law of Lorenzo de Medici, decided to remove his family to Perugia to wait out the crisis in a safer place. Then, with his family safe, he made a pilgrimage in 1450 to Rome, planning to spend a month in the city. He had come to do penance for his sin, but he noticed that Rome was in the midst of a new building program. He wondered what was going on. Rucellai wanted to find out. But first, he had to find a tour guide who knew the city well and could direct him to the beautiful spots and critical pilgrimage sites. He knew just the man: Leon Battista Alberti. He would be the perfect guide; no one knew the city better.
In 1443, when Alberti first arrived in Rome, it was in bad shape, suffering from decay and neglect. It was a shell of its former glory. It was in a state of almost total disrepair: the aqueducts were destroyed, the city was without water, and the seven hills of Rome were deserted. Whatever small population remained, it lived near the Tiber River for water and huddled in the shadow of the Vatican for security. The Forum and Palatine Hill were deserted, save for pigs and sheep roaming freely around the ancient ruins. Over the centuries, this deserted area became a giant stone quarry, supplying materials for home construction near the Tiber.
But Alberti had a vision for the city: to reweave its urban fabric, to make it a cornerstone on which to build a new urban civilization. He had seen what a city could be like from his time in Florence, and he wanted Rome to be such a city. So he went right to work. Alberti knew the first step was surveying the city and determining his building priorities. So, out of necessity, he invented a surveying tool. Then, standing on top of Capitoline Hill, one of the original seven hills of Rome, Alberti discovered the coordinates of Rome’s boundaries, its main monuments, its churches, and the path of the river. A year later, in 1444, he published his findings in Desciptio urbis Romae, the first cartographic mapping of the city.
When Rucellai arrived, Alberti had been thinking about Rome for years. Undoubtedly, he would have taken his guest to Capitoline Hill, the site of his initial surveying, to begin the tour. Standing on the plaza, Alberti would have pointed to the new façade and tower of the Palace (Palazzo Senatorio), designed by him. He might have explained that he improved these architectural features to demonstrate the importance of justice in the city, making these buildings stand apart from other lesser buildings on one of the most critical historical hills.
After walking around the plaza, one can imagine that Alberti and Rucellai might have climbed to the top of the Palace to get the best view of Rome. Alberti would have pointed out the Forum just below them and the Pantheon to the west from that vantage point. He may have even pointed to the old Trevi Fountain, an essential fountain in reconstructing Rome’s aqueduct system and mentioned his involvement in the project. And he may have told Rucellai that Rome would never have been repopulated without water.
As Alberti shared his excitement for the city and what he was doing to restore it, Rucellai must have understood that this was more than stone and mortar; more than building just for building’s sake, more than construction for personal glory or to show off the wealth of the city. Instead, Alberti talked about designing a city that speaks and tells a story to everyone who visits this city. He wanted Rome, like Florence, to paint a picture of beauty, order, and virtue; to tell the story of a city that reflects the City of God, despite the sin and frailty of its inhabitants or the rulers who built it.
The more Alberti talked, the more excited Rucellai became. His time with Alberti had exceeded his expectations for his visit to Rome. He never dreamed he would get a personal glimpse into a vision for Rome that would turn it into one of the world’s great cities over the next two hundred years. Sometime later, when he was ready to publish his pilgrim journal from his time in Rome, he organized his book to reflect this new exciting vision for Rome, an idea that told a story. His journal was the first written testimony that documented the origin of this architectural philosophy. After Rucellai returned home, he contacted Alberti and offered him the commission to finish Santa Maria Novella, an important church in Florence. Alberti’s influence was about to spread even further.
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With the sun setting on the ancient pillars, producing a warm glow on the tan hews of the sandstone, and the dusty walkways crisscrossing the Republican Forum, we strolled along Via Del Corso to Capitoline Hill, our destination for the evening. We located the back stairs, which, until the 16th century, was the only paved access to the hill. Climbing the stairs, we paused at the top to see the mythical founders of Rome, Romulus, and Remus, suckling the she-wolf, immortalized high atop a pillar.
As we turned the corner of the Palace of the Senators, the Piazza del Campidoglio came into view. At the time of Alberti, the piazza was a slopping span of dirt that, when it rained, became a muddy mess. But in the 1650s, Michelangelo was commissioned to build a new piazza, add a new façade to the Palazzo Senatorio, and design a new matching building, the Palazzo Nuevo, to stand opposite the Palazzo die Conservatori, which also got a new façade. The three buildings, forming a U, completed the piazza and would someday become the inspiration for the United States Capitol and many civic squares worldwide.
As my children went to find stairs to climb, the Palazzo Senatorio caught my eye, its strong vertical lines and its dual grand staircases that take visitors up to the second floor. The size and grandeur of the Palace communicated importance; law, order, and justice found their home here.
As I turned to look at the other two buildings, I realized that beautiful buildings were everywhere in Rome. “The object of education,” said Socrates, “is to teach us to love what is beautiful.” Rome was an excellent place to learn. But we weren’t in Rome to see more beautiful buildings; we had seen hundreds over the past nine months. Instead, we were in Rome to begin teaching our kids about the built environment and how the design of buildings, monuments, plazas, and homes communicate what we value. For example, civic buildings communicate law, justice, and virtue; religious buildings, love of God and neighbor; public plazas, civility, and community.
When we understand our telos, our destination, we will construct buildings a certain way; not for glory, power, or decadence, like the Romans did, but for the City of God, to point citizens to their eternal destiny and to live virtuously now. But there is a problem: we have lost the desire to build this way, and we may not even know how to do it. And this is not a good thing. Could it be that we have become so individualistic that we don’t care how our architecture impacts others?
In his Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, Notre Dame professor Christian Smith argues that emerging adults are not interested nor involved in politics, social action, or charitable giving. When it comes to even the slightest involvement in civic life, “the vast majority… are either politically apathetic, uninformed, distrustful, disempowered, or are only marginally politically aware and engaged.” (Souls in Transition, 209) The vast majority is so individualistic and consumed by materialism that it feels no obligation to help anyone but itself.
Alexis de Tocqueville predicted these results, writing in the 1830s. He said that individualism, though necessary, would eventually cut itself loose from morality and religion and would lead to the breakdown in associations, townships, local government, and religion—all of which function as “schools of democracy” and whose success is vital for the survival of democracy. His prescription was to rebuild these “schools” that would bring back the “habits of the heart” needed for democracy. But the problem is that he counted on one of these “schools” being strong churches and small townships built around a town square, surrounded by important civic and religious buildings. And with massive suburban sprawl since 1950, these are gone.
As I thought about the importance of buildings that speak, I wondered: is it possible that the more individualism has increased since Tocqueville’s day, the more we have constructed suburban sprawl to ensure our autonomous living, and this, in turn, has led to even more individualism and lack of civic concern? Is it possible that civic virtue has eroded because, in part, we don’t have the built environment to support it, encourage it, and teach it?
By now, the sun had set, the golden light of the lampposts sparkling in the clean air of the night, giving off an inviting, nostalgic feel. As we stood on the edge of the central oval of the piazza, its curvilinear grid dividing the pavement into twelve compartments (like the twelve Apostles), symbolizing the Dome of Heaven, we peered down the wide terraced staircase leading into the city. At that transcendent moment, we realized Christopher Wren was correct: “Architecture aims at eternity,”
Over the next six days, we planned to visit St. Peter’s, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Novona, and scores of other sites. I wanted my family to hear Rome speak, to tell them of eternity. To be moved by her. But I also wanted this to be more than an intellectual exercise. Yes, these buildings say something important, but they do more. They move our wills to action.
As Alberti taught, the goal of the built environment, like classical rhetoric, was to teach, delight, and move the listener. As Carroll Westfall says, “Only when a listener is moved will he be persuaded to act, live good habits, avoid evil, and love God and his neighbor as himself.”
I wanted my children to become people who care about more than themselves, who care for others and the common good. But for this to happen, buildings would need to do more than speak. They would also need to shape them, to move their wills to action. But how did this happen? I wasn’t sure, but I knew we needed to follow Alberti to Florence to find out.
In Part 3, we will explore how buildings shape us.