Scarpa - Language of Venice : Circles

Brion Cemetary1

Staircase - Fondazione Querini Stampalia (Author)

Fanlight Detail - Rio della Misericordia (Author)

Fanlight Context - Rio della Misericordia (Author)

Circles feature frequently in Venice. Whether it be the drum of the domes of San Marco, or the window grills along the Fondamenti and Calli.

This elementary shape is inevitable in its representation in architecture however the motif of interlocking circles adds greater interest and meaning.

The sun and moon, the two sides of a coin, the positive and the negative. Conjoined circles show inter-relation and inter-dependence.

Perhaps this points to why Carlo Scarpa made use of this motif in the entrance to the cemetary of the Brion family.

The motif, known in Latin as 'Vesica piscis' (fish bladder) appears in religious art. 

Its Italian name 'Mandorla' means almond and is used by Christian artists to depict the whole body haloes of Christ and the Virgin.

Wikimedia Commons

As a descriptor of embrace, of love and inter-relation, the mandorla can be inferred in scenes such as that of the meeting of the mothers of Christ and John the Baptist, Mary and Elizabeth.

Wikimedia Commons

An image of incarnation.

A destruction of exclusivity.

Are the Sacred and Profane mutually distinct or is there a mandorla to be found between them; perhaps we know it as 'society'.

1 https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9d/5e/9b/9d5e9b214c5c1d89e51ec276530ba853.jpg