Many essays and studies have been recently published on the topic of women’s perception and use of the city, one for all is Il senso delle donne per la città, a recent work by Elena Granata. According to the author, the female gender, culturally excluded from the actual construction of the city, has however created over time its own thought, which is a detached one (being out of the picture), but also a crucial one, thanks to its capacity to concretely redefine spaces, times and roles.
Today's post, however, wants to bring attention to the 'care' for women and their comfort, which clearly emerges from a manuscript from the late sixteenth century, apparently around 1580, the Discorso del modo che si doveria tener nel disegno et edificare le chiese.
It is a fundamental and desperately incomplete text in which Domenico Tibaldi, an architect close to the enlightened cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, provides indications for the construction of churches in the crucial period of refoundation following the Council of Trent. The portico, a theme that is dear to us, becomes a crucial device, as we read in the text:
[the church must be equipped with a portico in front to] defend the doors from the injuries of the winds, waters and snow and also here the People will take great comfort, especially to stop a while to prepare themselves to be able to enter the church with greater devotion and reverence, and women will derive more comfort from it than others.
Therefore, without a doubt pastoral needs moved the architect in the formulation of his precepts, namely to facilitate the concentration that precedes religious services. But, with a little malice, we may conclude that the purpose of the portico is also to guarantee a certain comfort to the intense social relations that normally follow religious services!
Sources
Augusto Roca de Amicis, Il 'Discorso ... nel disegnare et edificare le chiese" di Domenico Tibaldi, in "Storia Architettura", anno VIII, nn. 1-2, gennaio-dicembre 1985, pp. 43-54, in the annex reports the transcription of the text of the whole document.
Elena Granata, Il senso delle donne per la città. Curiosità, ingegno, apertura, Torino, Einaudi 2023
In the image the facade of the Church of Santa Cristina, a typical expression of the conformation of the post-Tridentine churches in Bologna: https://www.bolognawelcome.com/it/luoghi/edifici-religiosi/chiesa-di-santa-cristina