ABSTRACT
The ambiguous Renaissance term disegno, which means both drawing and design, was explicated through the telling metaphor of pregnancy in fifteenth-century Florentine architect Filarete’s book on architecture. Often coupling disegno with fantasticare, Filarete proposes a practice of architectural representation akin to dreaming, which he narrates through the design of Sforzinda. Renaissance theories and lexicons on artistic creativity place dreaming and pregnancy on a common ground, both as passive recipients of divine inspiration. This chapter contextualizes Filarete’s use of the term disegno with his gender-specific implications as further introduced in his anthropomorphism. In Filarete’s analogy of body and building, not only Sforzinda is referred as the “child” of the architect and the patron, its design geometry reflecting the equilibrium and perfect harmony of the cosmos further fit into Renaissance interpretation of body. Filarete’s cosmological approach can be traced to his origin of architecture story, which he incorporates into the Fall of Adam. Making a roof of his hands to protect himself from the rain signifies the first form of architecture, which is to find our place in the cosmos.
