Art, Architecture, and the Advent of Modern Engineering
Guest Lectures
•
58m
Dr. Wayne Kalayjian
Join structural engineer Wayne Kalayjian, author of Saving Michelangelo’s Dome, for a fascinating discussion on Renaissance art, Enlightenment thinking, and the birth of modern engineering practice.
In 1742, when the legendary dome atop St. Peter’s Basilica—designed by artist and architect Michelangelo—cracks and threatens to collapse, its fate is left in the hands of Pope Benedict XIV and three mathematicians. How did their revolutionary (and controversial) use of science and mathematics lead to the birth of engineering as we practice it now? What were their pioneering ideas? How has the profession of engineering shaped our modern society?
As part of the story, we will discover and discuss some the great cultural movements of our times: the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution; along with the key personalities of their day—some famous, others little-known—like Michelangelo, Domenico Fontana, Pope Benedict XIV, Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Robert Hooke.
Up Next in Guest Lectures
-
Siena: Picturing Civic History
Dr. John Paoletti
Siena’s greatest impact on the history of art occurred in the 13th through the 15th centuries. During this time the city’s painting, sculpture and architecture constantly reinforced ideas of history as a determinant for the future, of religion – places, ceremonies, institutions...
-
Competition and Collaboration: Keys t...
Dr. Gary Radke
The history of Florentine Renaissance art is full of famous competitions, but collaboration was essential, too. Learn how artists and patrons worked with and against one another to get the best from one another. Examples will range from the early fifteenth to sixteenth century, i...
-
Campania Felix
Esteban Nigro
Magna Graecia is the name given in Antiquity to the territory occupied by Greek settlers in the south of the Italian peninsula and in Sicily in the 8th century BC. And just as we all sometimes must name things provisionally, the Greeks also initially called many new cities “neapol...
