The measure of the ideal. The painted architecture of the città ideali

Abstract: The present study focuses on the panel paintings kept in Urbino, Baltimore, Berlin, and the city of Sforzinda described and drawn by Filarete. This work aims to explore both metrically and virtually the environment of the Città Ideale. The remarkable correspondence of these works to a perspective logic is the starting point for applying a geometrical restitution of perspective, in order to submit these painted spaces to metric and volumetric analyses. The deconstruction of the urban structure into its architectural components allows for a speculation on the specific functional role of the ‘ideal cities’ in the urban context. This study focuses on the so-called Città Ideale of Urbino. It is reproduced by using three-dimensional images, created using both a traditional wooden maquette, scale 1:50, as well as a geometrical digital model. An animation, extracted from this digital model, breaks the fixed perspective and move the viewpoint into the space of the Città Ideale with the purpose of evaluating its perspectival relationships and spatial connections. These connections are produced by the experimental space sequences.