Ivan Zholtovsky's Italian Expeditions: Itineraries Reconstruction. 1908–1913

Abstract

The article presents some new materials and information about Ivan Zholtovsky's research trips across Italy. According to the architect himself, in the period from the late 1890s to 1926, he went abroad "in order to study architecture" thirty-six times; the destination or transit point for most of the expeditions was Italy and especially the Veneto region. Architectural measurements, sketches and photographs of antique and Palladian buildings made by Zholtovsky during his travels and the publications he acquired have always aroused great interest among Russian and then Soviet architects. Despite circumstantial evidence of a significant volume of the "Italian archive", to date, only a small part of it has been identified. In the last decade, there has been a steady increase in interest in Zholtovsky's legacy: researchers regularly undertake archival research and attempts to recreate the journey routes and overall picture of the architect's stay abroad. Nevertheless, only Zholtovsky's last trip to Italy in 1923-1926 is well documented and comprehensively reviewed in publications. Information about the rest of his travels is presented fragmentarily. The author focuses on Zholtovsky's Italian trips in 1908-1913. The article presents some new archival materials from the Museum of History of the Moscow School of Architecture at the Moscow Architectural Institute (MARCHI Museum), on the basis of which an attempt to reconstruct itinerary and the list of objects visited by Zholtovsky was made. A detailed analysis of these materials allows one to see Zholtovsky's own interpretation of the architecture of antiquity and the Italian Renaissance in his projects of the first quarter of the 20th century.