From out of the\nashes rose the world’s most powerful republic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1748, a\nconstruction crew digging on the slopes of Mt. Etna in Italy uncovered what\nappeared to be the ruins of a Roman settlement. They began to excavate, and\nengineers and historians were called in. What they found was more than just a\nsettlement. It was way more. It was in fact an entire Roman city, buried in\nvolcanic ash. It was completely intact and frozen in time, with streets and\nhomes and businesses, artwork and furnishings, markets and spas and temples and\nstadiums, as well as, sadly, the perfectly preserved remains of many the city’s\ninhabitants, who had instantly died the moment that Etna erupted on August 24,\n79AD. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then, in\n1763, the team uncovered a plaque that read, “Rei publicae\nPompeianorum.” That’s the moment when the name “Pompeii”\nseared itself onto the collective consciousness of the world. Soon after,\nwhenever young aristocrats and scholars made their “Grand Tour” of\nEurope, they would add a visit to Pompeii to their itinerary. They would be\namazed. And when they returned home, they would be inspired to create a new\nstyle of design and architecture that we now know as “Neoclassicism.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neoclassicism\ngets its inspiration from the Greek appreciation of humanity and the human\nform, and from the Roman quest for perfect proportion. At its heart are the\nwritings of Marcus Vitruvius, a Roman architect and engineer who literally\nwrote the book on Roman design, “De architectura” in the 1st century\nBC. Vitruvius argued that perfect design proportions are revealed and defined\nby the human body. Specifically, when a person stands with arms extended at 90\ndegrees, a square is formed between the vertical length of head-to-toe and the\nhorizontal length of fingertip-to-fingertip. Meanwhile, if a person stands with\narms and legs extended at 45 degrees, a perfect circle circumscribes their\nlimbs. (Da Vinci would later illustrate this in his famous drawing, Vitruvian\nMan.) Using this perfect circle-square relationship, Vitruvius argued,\narchitects could design the most beautifully simple, perfectly balanced, and\nwell-proportioned buildings. Imagine that: perfect spaces designed for humans,\nby humans, inspired by the human form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now here’s the\nfunny historical twist: just as this Neoclassical rage really got blazing, a\nnew political entity was taking shape halfway around the world. In 1776, a\nbunch of renegade English colonies in America broke free from their mother\ncountry. In 1781, they won their independence. In 1783, they were officially\nrecognized. But then, when they tried to form a new government… they failed\nmiserably. Since they all had been oppressed by the King of England, they all\nshared an instinctive fear of centralized political power. And nobody trusted\nanybody else to wield it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, they\nalso shared a common burning ambition to build something important. Something\nthat could last forever and that might one day be as powerful as, say, ancient\nRome. And so they looked to Rome for inspiration, and for a lasting model.\nAfter years of arguing, in 1789, perhaps inspired by the theories of\nVitruvius, and with a desire to form “a more perfect Union,” they\ncreated a new form of government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was\ncompletely aware of human strengths and weaknesses; it granted but also limited\npower; it was simple yet all-encompassing; and it was perfectly balanced. They\nencapsulated it in a miraculous document they called the Constitution of the\nUnited States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then they\nwent one step farther. Since they were a new country with new thinking, they\nwanted a new name for what they were doing. A new word that signaled their new\nway of looking at things, their new way of working together, and the new forms\nthey would use to build their future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From out of\nfires of Pompeii, something new from something very old: the Americanized\nversion of Neoclassicism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They called it\nFederalism. And it would burn brightly at the heart of this new republic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From out of the ashes rose the world’s most powerful republic. In 1748, a construction crew digging on the slopes of Mt. Etna in Italy uncovered what appeared to be the ruins of a Roman settlement. They began to excavate, and engineers and historians were called in. What they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1724,519,1723,1721,1053,1273,1722],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-federalism","tag-greece","tag-neoclassicism","tag-pompeii","tag-rome","tag-united-states","tag-vitruvius"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/pompeii.jpg?fit=1280%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1493,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions\/1493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}