Decorated Gates
In the book “Architectura de postium seu portalium ornatu vario” a prominent concept I’ve found is the one of decorated gates. The whole book is stuffed with illustrations of gates and especially fancy decorated ones. These illustrations are drawn by hand but in a very precisely manner. If we didn’t know that it is an old book one could think it is a photo album of a person who loves highly decorated doors. I think this decoration is a sign of wealth and power which is why only the upper class was able to afford such gates. Some of them even include some sort of decoration which seems to be the symbol of the family. It is also conspicuous that the decorations are extremely detailed. They are intricate and made over several layers. Including little sculptures of people, animals and other creatures the doors appear really majestic. The decoration of the gates also appear as temples with columns and typical triangular roofs. They certainly are the result of a very professional artist who was creative and also a skilled craftsman. All the different doors have some similarities, but each and every one is unique. For example, two portals have a column on the left and on the left side of the entrance which are supporting the upper part of the construction. Both doors are the center of a big scene with people standing on the “roof” and other decoration around them. This description would apply to many of these gates but when we look more closely we can see that they are very different from each other. Although not all illustrations of the book show decorated gates it seems to be the major theme of the content. Sometimes a closeup of the decoration is drawn to show even more detail. Also singular pillars are illustrated perhaps to steer the attention away from the other stuff so we can focus only on the beauty of the unique columns. Some pages show less decorated gates which are designed in a more ordered and geometrical way but most of the book is filled with seemingly more chaotic but well-done, detailed, interesting portals.
Keywords: Decoration, Gates, Drawings