Gothicmed
Encyclopedia
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
project carried out within the Culture 2000
Culture 2000
Culture 2000 was a 7-year European Union programme, which had among its key objectives to preserve and enhance Europe's cultural heritage. Its duration was between 2000 and 2006, and it had a budget of €236.5 million....
programme and headed by the Ministry of Culture of the regional government of Valencia (Valencian Community
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
), Spain. The aim of the project is to gain further insight into Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
in the Mediterranean, to connect researchers working separately in different countries, and to disseminate the values of this chapter in architectural history.
The main objectives are the creation of a Transnational Cooperation
Cooperation
Cooperation or co-operation is the process of working or acting together. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony, side by side, while in its more complicated forms, it can involve something as complex as the inner workings of a human being or even the social patterns of a...
Network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
of Mediterranean Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
through travelling exhibitions
Art exhibition
Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or...
, the creation of scale models and a website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
. In particular, the purpose of the site is to facilitate a virtual
Virtual
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real....
access to some monuments that are not easy to visit physically or in a very poor state of preservation. In fact, some do not exist anymore but have been rebuilt with computer-aided architectural design of remaining elements.
The following institutions have also taken part in this project: Directorate of Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
and Postbyzantine Monuments (Greece Ministry of Culture), Arsenale di Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
(Italy), Hipocausto-Gabinete de Prestaçao de Serviços (Portugal), International Tourism Institute (Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
) and Instituto Cervantes
Instituto Cervantes
The Cervantes Institute is a worldwide non-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes , the author of Don Quixote and perhaps the most important figure in the history of Spanish literature...
(Spain). Numerous institutions (museums, universities, institutes) as well as individual researchers have also participated in this project.
Mediterranean Gothic
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Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, the Bellver on Majorca, and the Castel Nuovo
Castel Nuovo
Castel Nuovo , often called Maschio Angioino, is a medieval castle in the city of Naples, southern Italy. It is the main symbol of the architecture of the city...
in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
; in the cathedrals in Nicosia
Nicosia
Nicosia from , known locally as Lefkosia , is the capital and largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center. Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, with the southern and the northern portions divided by a Green Line...
, Palma de Majorca, Girona
Girona
Girona is a city in the northeast of Catalonia, Spain at the confluence of the rivers Ter, Onyar, Galligants and Güell, with an official population of 96,236 in January 2009. It is the capital of the province of the same name and of the comarca of the Gironès...
or Albi; in the churches in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, Évora
Évora
Évora is a municipality in Portugal. It has total area of with a population of 55,619 inhabitants. It is the seat of the Évora District and capital of the Alentejo region. The municipality is composed of 19 civil parishes, and is located in Évora District....
or Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
; in the fourteenth century palaces in Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
, Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
or Valencia
Kingdom of Valencia
The Kingdom of Valencia , located in the eastern shore of the Iberian Peninsula, was one of the component realms of the Crown of Aragon. When the Crown of Aragon merged by dynastic union with the Crown of Castile to form the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Valencia became a component realm of the...
, certain common stylistic features emerge that link them to this period in the history of architecture that we have come to call the Gothic. In reality, parallel to the re-emergence of classical
Classical architecture
Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...
forms, a coherent Gothic period emerged in the Mediterranean from the early 13th century until well into the 16th century.
Picking up the thread of a chapter of architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
whose monuments are scattered around a vast geographical area, and whose historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
is shared among different countries, is invariably a team effort. Currently, different teams of researchers are working independently in different groups. This project's goal is to create a network of research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
and dissemination
Dissemination
To disseminate , in terms of the field of communication, means to broadcast a message to the public without direct feedback from the audience. Dissemination takes on the theory of the traditional view of communication, which involves a sender and receiver...
on Mediterranean Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
that will enable this knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
to be shared and spread.
In the Mediterranean, stylistic features readily intertwine with its contemporary mediaeval architecture in central
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and northern Europe
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
. However, the buildings are often quite distinct. Not surprisingly, the mediaeval architectural styles in the Mediterranean were built following traditions from the late Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
era. The ruined buildings from the ancient world scattered around the Mediterranean were the building manuals for whoever wanted to read them. The presence of an interesting Manual on Practical Geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, or Geometria fabrorum, conveyed by guilds and workshops, characterise this episode in architectural history.
The oft-repeated quote by Roman
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
architect and treatise
Treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject.-Noteworthy treatises:...
writer, Vitruvius
Vitruvius
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....
, gains meaning once again. Architectura nascitur ex fabrica et ratiocinatione, that is, architecture is born (and thus must be studied) from action and reason. It is obvious that construction technique alone does not define a culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, yet it is also true that its very presence is the product of an initial, decisive choice. Applying reason to it shows the evolution of ideas about and the history of architecture
History of architecture
The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates.-Neolithic architecture:Neolithic architecture is the architecture of the Neolithic period...
. For this reason, the architectural technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
in this chapter in the history of architecture is particularly insightful for us.
Virtual views
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
and architectural landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
in the Mediterranean with travelling exhibition
Art exhibition
Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or...
and conference. The action of Gothic monuments panoramic views
QuickTime VR
QuickTime VR is a type of image file format developed by Apple Inc. for QuickTime. It allows the creation and viewing of photographically-captured panoramas and the exploration of objects through images taken at multiple viewing angles...
are one of the most challenging actions of the project, since it has shown to put in practice a real exchange of experience between photographers of the different participating countries.
Each of the project patners has produced panoramic pictures
QuickTime VR
QuickTime VR is a type of image file format developed by Apple Inc. for QuickTime. It allows the creation and viewing of photographically-captured panoramas and the exploration of objects through images taken at multiple viewing angles...
that are being installed in the virtual gallery of the site. A tour through a borderless, virtual museum
Virtual museum
A virtual museum is a museum that exists only online. A virtual museum is also known as an online museum, electronic museum, hypermuseum, digital museum, cybermuseum or Web museum...
can be made through the open halls, which correspond to each of the sponsors of the project: Valencia Region
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
, Greece, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Alentejo, Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
and the initiatives promoted by the Instituto Cervantes
Instituto Cervantes
The Cervantes Institute is a worldwide non-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes , the author of Don Quixote and perhaps the most important figure in the history of Spanish literature...
. Images of the monument
Monument
A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...
s can be accessed via each of these halls by a virtual tour
Virtual Tour
A virtual tour is a simulation of an existing location, usually composed of a sequence of video images. They also may use other multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, and text....
(panoramic images
QuickTime VR
QuickTime VR is a type of image file format developed by Apple Inc. for QuickTime. It allows the creation and viewing of photographically-captured panoramas and the exploration of objects through images taken at multiple viewing angles...
) or a guided tour (a text written by specialists, accompanied by layouts).
Other sections include a library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
, news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
and links with other related websites.
Upload onto Internet novel images inserted into virtual views of the most prominent monuments in this architectural style. These virtual views have been created through panoramic photographs, pictures galleries and videos. Texts have also been written with other images and drawings by specialists in the field, and the scientific community will have access to specialised books and articles online. GOTHICmed obviously cannot replace seeing and enjoying Mediterranean Gothic architecture firsthand, but it does encourage it to be visited and allows knowledge about it to be enhanced.
Moreover, all the partners have been invited to produce wooden scale models of the Gothic monuments or parts of monuments, like Gothic staircases, in order to be shown in the travelling exhibition which has been the more time consuming activity of the project, since it has been necessary to join efforts of an interdisciplinary team of professionals.
All these models are at a scale of 1/50 and have been displayed on wooden pedestals. A total of 10 models travelled to each of the project's locations in the framework of the travelling exhibition in Valencia (ES), Évora (PT), Palermo (IT), Ljubljana (SI) and Athens (GR).