ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the concept of magnificence as it was used to legitimize major building projects. Discourses on overwhelming architecture, often relying on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, emphasize that their founders, primarily political leaders, demonstrated an extraordinary ability to create such marvels and, in so doing, strengthened political order. We find this concept in tributes to the Amsterdam town hall, the Huis ten Bosch in The Hague, and the Vrijburg Palace in Recife, Brazil. The praise awarded these buildings give us first-hand insights into how poets, as Vondel, Huygens, and Barlaeus, perceived the buildings as awe-inspiring expressions of harmonious power eliciting sublime feelings. Artists in their turn emphasize the sublimity of the town hall, Huis ten Bosch, and Vrijburg by experimenting with the rendering of perspective and the use of color and light.
