This book introduces new dimensions of thinking about architectural theory. Investigating Renaissance pneumatic architecture with respect to other disciplines of arts and sciences, the collected essays substantiate the thesis that pneuma (air, wind, spirit, soul) is a fundamental link in establishing harmony between the human body, a building and the cosmos.

While much of the modern scholarship of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been devoted to the mathematics of ideal architecture, this book recontextualizes essence, wind and ventilation as principles of classical building, and shows that one of the primary goals of Renaissance architects was to harness the powers of pneuma so as to foster the art of well-being. This volume, written by leading architectural historians and scholars, delineates ancient and Renaissance theories and practices of pneumatology, and indicates a link to contemporary environmental questions. It examines Anaximenes, Hippocrates, Galen, Trento, Romano, Alberti, Serlio, Palladio, Scamozzi and other thinkers and humanists. The essays also illustrate the most famous examples of hygienico-therapeutic villas, including Rotonda, La Rocca Pisana and Eolia, a pneumatic model of Renaissance Venetian architecture.

Content - Illustration credits, List of contributors, Acknowledgements, Foreword, 1 Aeolian winds and the spirit of Renaissance architecture Academic Eolia revisited, 2 Chasma ges: Delphic pneuma and the cult of Asklepios, 3 "Study the warm winds and the cold" Hippocrates and the Renaissance villa, The role of the winds in architectural theory from Vitruvius to Scamozzi, 5 Making visible the invisible signs of air in architectural treatises, 6 Poetry and "spirited" ancient sculpture in Renaissance Rome: Pomponio Leto's Academy to the sixteenth-century sculpture garden, 7 The winds in the corners: Giulio Romano, the elements and the Palazzo Te's Fall of the Giants, 8 The breath of cities, Index