迈向公平的风景园林：以健康促进为目的的帕拉第奥式别墅设计

著：（加）菲昂·伯恩 译：罗融融

0 引言

健康是一种积极而非中立的状态。世界卫生组织（The World Health Organization, WHO）将健康定义为“一种在身体、心理和社会交往等各方面都表现良好的状态，而不仅仅是没有疾病或身体强壮”[1]。WHO认为环境因素和个体因素通过相互作用而决定健康状态，并且逐渐认识到接触大自然可以显著地促进整体健康。从WHO的定义来看，促进健康所涉及的途径包括“生理过程（清洁的空气等）、物理过程（体力活动）、社会过程（增加社交接触的可能性）和心理过程（如放松和恢复）”[2]。在这个框架内，解释自然环境促进人类健康的两个最有影响力的理论是“注意力恢复理论”和“瞭望－庇护理论”。归根结底，自由呼吸这一基本和普遍的权利对于任何健康衡量标准都是必要的，因为如果没有清洁的空气和畅通的呼吸，健康生活就无从谈起[3]。

多年来，建筑师和风景园林师一直在寻求通过环境设计以促进健康，并取得了不同程度的成功。其中最著名且最常被模仿的便是16世纪威尼斯贵族和设计师的作品，他们通过修建乡村别墅来改造内陆地区，并将自身置于同自然的和谐关系之中[4]。在被改造之前，低洼的威尼斯内陆地区是蚊子的重要栖息地。尽管不像罗马平原那样糟糕，但仍被认为是不健康的场地（图1）。直到19世纪，人们才知道疟疾是通过蚊子传播的。但在16世纪，疟疾（意大利语：mal’ aria）被认为是由恶劣的空气条件所导致的。人们普遍认为，沼泽和潮湿土地中腐烂的有机物会产生通过空气传播的毒物[5]。在一座别墅庄园的设计中，通过风景、花园和建筑的布局来重新分配空气、水和土地的使用权限，并由此影响相关的人类活动和动植物生存，所有的一切都是为了使少数拥有特权的庄园主享有洁净的空气和健康。这种乌托邦式的建设行为通过改变物理环境来调节空气状况，并最终影响所有生物的健康。

1 威尼斯内陆地区地图，显示了埃莫别墅和圆厅别墅与历史上已知疟疾感染范围的位置关系A map of the terraferma showing the location of the Villa Emo and Villa Almerico in relation to known historic extents of Malaria

笔者以安德烈亚·帕拉第奥于16世纪在威尼斯郊外的内陆上所建造的两座著名别墅为研究案例，以此揭示一种持续的压迫制度和场地使用的不平等性是如何影响环境与个人健康的。在这两个案例中，促进健康的设计都会与相应的、故意营造的压抑环境形成对比。笔者将这项研究的重点集中在呼吸不平等上，即在空气良好的环境中自由呼吸的机会分配不公。此外，笔者表明在16世纪的威尼斯，少数拥有土地的特权阶层的健康是建立在剥夺许多普通民众和弱势群体健康权利的基础上的。威尼斯精英们要想保持健康并生活在健康的环境中，就必须剥夺其他人同样的权利。在这个前提下，通过限制其他人的呼吸使自己的自由呼吸成为可能，而为确保自己获得新鲜空气而采取的措施会使其他环境变得糟糕。

为健康而设计无疑是当前人类所面临的挑战，尤其是在试图结束一场导致全球范围内数百万人因呼吸终止而过早丧生的新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）疫情时。本研究将揭露过去的不公正问题，以帮助减轻和避免结构性不平等的进一步扩张。人们必须意识到，在这个时代，以牺牲大多数人的健康为代价来换取少数人的健康是不可取的。

1 内陆地区的开发

现代资本主义诞生于15—16世纪的城邦中。例如，中世纪威尼斯共和国建立了强大且利润丰厚的重商主义制度，贵族们因此获得了可观的个人财富。随着热那亚共和国扩大跨大西洋航运的范围，贸易路线开始多样化，被称为贵族的威尼斯精英们开始将利润投资于城市防御工事以外的领域。随着威尼斯在大陆上取得领土并将之称为“terraferma”（内陆，以示这片坚实的土地与威尼斯岛屿区的区分），共和国开始在此发展农业经济。这一变化使得威尼斯统治者吉罗拉莫·普里利（Girolamo Priuli）对这些放弃海上活动转而投身乡村生活的贵族表示失望。而事实证明，土地投资比航运更加有利可图[6]，尤其是将沼泽地边缘开垦后用于农业生产。

尽管在此前沼泽地是归个人所有，但协调、资助和实施水利计划的工作已成为公众关注的话题，1501年威尼斯成立水利部就证明了这一点。在该部门的建议下，测量工程师作为一种新兴的职业出现，职责是通过调控广阔低洼地区的水力状况来提高土地生产力。大量的、人为控制的排水行为彻底改变了环境[4]。排水和灌溉改变了水与土地之间的相互关系，将沼泽变成田地，从而减少了疟疾的发生。如今我们认识到实施排水行为可以消除蚊子的滋生地。然而，对于16世纪的威尼斯人来说，为了净化有害空气并使土地健康，就要让水循环起来，并清除土地上的腐烂物质。经常被引用的希波克拉底的著作《空气、水与场所》（Airs,Waters,Places）中将这一观点建立在一个经典理论之上，即“空气是水和植物传播疾病的载体”[7]。因此，要达到环境健康的状态，必须避免出现死水、被污染的空气和腐烂的植被。在内陆地区的土地上进行建造时，建筑师应试图避免将住宅选址在不健康的场地上，并通过场地改造去克服现有的不利自然条件。在这种情况下，出于对健康设计的考虑，建筑和自然应相互联结，不再是分离的领域，这种相互联结的作用在别墅建造过程中表现得最为明显。

“别墅”是指从事农业生产的建筑物和土地的结合体。当在内陆上建造时，我们可以专门将别墅称为乡村别墅（villa rustica或country villa）。然而，“Rustica”只是后来用于将大陆地区与沿海区域相区分的一个术语，在沿海区域建造的住宅被称为海上别墅（villa maritima），并不在本文的研究范围之内[8]。作为农业生产的重要场所，别墅庄园包括合理组织的耕作农田，用作打谷的庭院、谷仓或农房，以及业主或“主人”的临时住所。庄园主的住宅通过在生活区的上部或下部空间中储存多余物资以发挥农业功能，例如将收获的农作物存放到阁楼上，将葡萄酒储存在地下。这样一来，住宅建筑空间的层次划分就成了别墅所具备的生产、储存和安全等功能的象征[9]。

16世纪最著名的别墅建筑师是安德烈亚·帕拉第奥。他的作品对欧洲和北美的建筑及园林发展产生了深远影响，许多历史学家都对他留存下来的作品进行了深入研究[4]。本研究聚焦其建筑、景观、花园和健康之间的关系，由此可证实：创造良好的健康状况是帕拉第奥设计时的重要驱动力。然而，帕拉第奥式的别墅设计在实现健康生活环境的同时也产生了结构性不平等。笔者将以水和农业劳动为背景探究埃莫别墅，基于空气和视觉控制的角度剖析圆厅别墅，以此证明在设计中健康的决定性要素并非与政治无关。相反，在不断尝试去构建一个健康世界的过程中，要能意识到不平等现象的出现。

丹尼斯·科斯格罗夫（Denis Cosgrove）在《帕拉第奥式风景》（The Palladian Landscape）一书中写道：“与人世间通常的情况一样，最弱势的、在社会中占有资源最少的群体往往负担最重，而富裕和有权势的贵族庄园主——包括威尼斯首府和地方上的庄园主，以牺牲弱势群体的利益为代价来积累土地和财富。”[4]就如同对待土地和财富一样，也许只有剥夺他人享有健康的权利，才能保全自身的健康。然而，如果事实并非如此，那么当今设计师所面临的挑战就是必须解决和抵制科斯格罗夫口中的这种“通常”。我们应认识到过去的建筑师和风景园林师致力于建造的环境一定程度上有违健康公平性，要关注和思考如何消除这些结构性不平等所带来的遗留问题，并避免在未来继续对社会中最弱势群体的健康权益造成影响。

2 范佐洛地区埃莫别墅的水体、灌溉和劳作

埃莫家族是从公共资助的非耕地改造中获利的威尼斯贵族家庭之一。早在水利部成立的半个世纪之前，特雷维索平原上就已经修建起了一条灌溉渠，使得该地区处于水力控制之下。在范佐洛地区，乔治·埃莫（Giorgio Emo）是最早的土地所有者之一。他的儿子莱昂纳多·迪·乔瓦尼·埃莫（Leonardo di Giovanni Emo）继承了田产，并于1509年获得了更多土地，进而通过不断投资庄园农业来获得盈利。莱昂纳多的努力取得了成效，两代人之后，他的孙子莱昂纳多·迪·阿尔维斯·埃莫（Leonardo di Alvise Emo）委托安德烈亚·帕拉第奥在他继承的庄园中心建造一座新别墅。这座帕拉第奥式别墅的建造始于1555年前后，标志着对该处家产的再次投资[10]。意料之中的是，帕拉第奥在设计中将别墅建筑作为家族持续繁荣的显性象征来打造。虽然建筑的外立面处理和凉廊的柱式排列都较为简朴，并未直接体现家族财力，但建筑物的形制还是体现出得当的土地管理和较高的农业生产力水平[10]。在帕拉第奥的设计中可以看到“地窖、粮仓、马厩和其他从属于别墅的空间，都分布在住宅两侧”，两个翼从住宅中心对称地向外延伸（图2）。虽然以两翼作为农房是典型的别墅建筑布局，但埃莫别墅的两翼显得尤其长[10]。这不同寻常的长度意味着有大量盈余的收成，需要占用额外的储存空间。换言之，两翼农房的长度代表了积累的财富。

2 埃莫别墅轴测图，展示了真实存在的和想象中的风景The Villa Emo, showing the real and imaginary landscape

此外，埃莫家族对繁荣的重视从别墅建筑延伸到对周围的田地和作物的选择上。利用附近的运河，埃莫家族将水引到庄园里灌溉田地，这种做法符合别墅选址的一贯原则。例如，帕拉第奥谈到选址时曾说过：“如果没有可通航的河流，就必须想办法在其他流动水体附近建造别墅；最重要的是远离死水，因为它们会产生非常糟糕的空气。”[11]通常，将流水引到别墅场地有助于种植小麦，以此满足公众的日常生活所需。居民对小麦的高需求一开始的确推动了配水渠的建设。然而，在埃莫别墅，灌溉农作物并不是为了满足威尼斯人的饮食需求，而是利用密集的灌溉来培育水稻，而这种奢侈的农作物能迅速销往国际市场且利润极高[4]。通过利用公共基础设施来积累个人和代际财富在精英阶层中变得如此普遍，以至于威尼斯共和国近半数的水稻种植在16世纪末被宣告终止[4]。

种植奢侈的农作物并非用于满足当地居民的饮食需求，这本身就是一种不公平，然而水稻种植还存在其他负面影响。一方面，无论从所需工人的数量还是耕作的体力需求来看，水稻种植都属于劳动密集型农业。此外，住在埃莫别墅主干道对面的工人处于非常糟糕的境地，因为他们没有自己的土地，而且在新开发耕地的雇佣劳动制度下，雇主通常用现金来支付工资[12]。如果因小麦短缺造成食品价格上涨，那么他们所获得的现金工资甚至难以支付一顿能果腹的餐食。另一方面，水稻的种植除灌溉外还需要积水形成水田，正如帕拉第奥所警告的那样，这会增加感染疟疾的风险。更糟糕的情况是，积水的存在使工人无法在排水良好的麦田中通过套种橄榄树或葡萄藤而获得遮阴。结果就是工人缺乏食物、住房和土地的保障，这迫使他们在不健康的环境中劳动的同时损害了个人健康。罗伯特·萨拉雷斯（Robert Sallares）描述了在罗马以南平原农田中类似的情况，并重申了雷纳托·曼穆卡里（Renato Mammucari）的严肃论断，“在饥饿直接造成的死亡和疟蚊可能导致的死亡之间，后者几乎总是首选……男人们为了谋生可以不畏死亡”[13]。埃莫家族用暴利为自己的快乐和健康买单，却最终葬送了许多人的生命。

壁画是庄园住宅中的一项重要开支，通过一系列壁画对墙后存在的外部景观进行想象与描摹，贵族既能观赏美景又远离任何带有威胁的疟疾区域。而这与现实情况存在着巨大差异，这些画作不仅描绘了在绝对富足的情况下极度理想化的健康生活，还将田间劳作的情景从画面中完全抹除。如果正如讨论的那样，园林绘画是对世界的理想化表达，那么16世纪威尼斯贵族在乌托邦式的幻想中彻底否认了使他们的生活方式成为可能的劳动阶级的存在[14]。这种抹除画面的行为延续了多年前罗马学者马库斯·特伦蒂乌斯·瓦罗（Marcus Terentius Varro）所描述的趋势，他提道：“别墅庄园越是被界定为以市场为导向、以利润为驱动的企业，就越应该将农业从家族获利手段中拆分出来并加以掩盖。”[8]事实上，瓦罗对别墅庄园的描述已经被当代学者所推广，他们普遍质疑景观和园林设计，认为“‘景观’一词总是掩盖了存在农村劳动力和社会不平等的事实，将乡村变成逃避现实的风景，而非一个工作的场所（或者一个真正意义上的‘工人’被隐藏的地方）”[15]。在别墅内部通过图像抹除以展现理想化景观的逻辑实际上也体现在了别墅建筑外部的世界中，尤其是在周围的花园里。

虽然帕拉第奥对埃莫别墅原始花园的描述很少，但他确实提出了几点意见：“在建筑结构”或建筑平面图的后面，“有一个占地约80个特雷维索广场（意大利语：campi trevigiani）大小的方形花园”，大约100英亩（约40.47 hm2），“中间有一条小河，这使场地变得美丽且令人愉悦”[11]。这一“美丽”的水景提醒我们，室外花园与在室内想象的景色一样，都是我们对周边景观的理想化缩影[16]。花园的重建保障了周围广阔农田的灌溉和耕作。但花园与周边景观（例如田地、果园或厨房花园）的不同之处在于，从最初的构思开始，它就被设定为一个休闲和劳动的场所。14世纪佛罗伦萨作家乔万尼·薄伽丘（Giovanni Boccaccio）率先将花园描述为一种特定的类型，他曾表示“在花园中不应考虑劳作”[17]。然而我们知道，如果缺乏管护，景观将不会维持“令人愉悦”的状态，尤其是一个规模如此之大的花园。因此，将花园与周边景观区分开来的根本问题不是劳作与否，而是因劳作产生的想象会使花园与众不同。花园是介于豪华住宅和耕种田地之间的过渡空间，精英们在这里参与了劳作，尽管他们的劳动并没有形成实质上的生产力[6]。毕竟，生产力能将锻炼与田间劳作区分开来，而对精英阶层来说劳作是非必需的。因此，花园不再用作生产用途，转而用作进行散步、游泳、吃饭、交谈和睡觉等疗愈活动[14]。这种观点也得到了罗马诗人昆图斯·贺拉提乌斯·弗拉库斯（Quintus Horatius Flaccus）的认同，对贺拉提乌斯而言，“花园的价值不在于生产力，而是能够从城市生活的烦躁和忧虑中得到喘息，享受胜人一筹的花园生活乐趣”[14]。现在就很容易理解花园是如何体现社会地位的了：解除部分土地的生产用途是财富过剩的明显表现，尤其是在劳动者无法拥有任何属于自己的土地的情况下。当然，花园对城市压力的缓解机制仍待进一步研究。

重新关注到自然环境作用于健康的各种机制，包括生理、物理、社会和心理过程，花园无疑是一个促进整体健康的空间，前文已经涉及花园在生理（水系的组织）、物理（运动）和社会（权力和财富的展现）等方面的作用，此外还必须考虑劳作中的心理过程。雷切尔·卡普兰（Rachel Kaplan）和史蒂芬·卡普兰（Stephen Kaplan）的“注意力恢复理论”是解释绿色空间促进健康的最受欢迎的理论之一。虽然卡普兰夫妇直到1989年才发表他们的基础著作《自然的体验：基于心理学视角》（The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective），但有人认为，健康的心理决定因素在漫长进化过程中变化不大。如果这一说法成立，那么应该可以认为如今环境对健康的作用路径与16世纪无异。

“注意力恢复理论”认为，人类有直接和间接两种不同的注意力模式。当一个人在精神上专注于手头的任务时，直接注意力是活跃的；而当大脑处于休息状态时，间接注意力是活跃的。该理论基于以下论断：当一种注意力模式活跃时，另一种可以得到恢复。因此，对于日常工作中需要直接注意力的城市居民来说，当身处自然之中时，可为其提供一个调动间接注意力并恢复直接注意力储备的机会。正如前文所述，贺拉提乌斯阐明了同样的观点，他认为花园的最大价值是“从城市生活的烦躁和忧虑中得到喘息”。因此很容易得出以下结论：对于威尼斯贵族来说，花园是一个有助于整体健康的空间。然而，当谈及16世纪在别墅庄园田间劳作的工人时，“注意力恢复理论”需要被重新论证。因为根据这一理论，可以合乎逻辑地进行推论：劳工通过不断重复的近乎机械化的农耕活动，在自然中度过了更长的时间，因此将成为社会上最健康的阶层；他们只需要每隔一段时间进行一次剧烈的直接脑力活动，就可以恢复耗尽的间接注意力。显而易见，这种情况与事实相去甚远——虽然那些田间劳作的人完全沉浸在大自然中，但只有精英才能享受自然的疗愈作用。正如詹姆斯·阿克曼（James Ackerman）所述：“历史上几乎没有证据表明那些别无选择，只能留在当地的农民或奴隶体验到了别墅文学中描绘的乡村生活的魅力。事实上，正是劳动者额头上的汗水使庄园主们享受到了田园生活的乐趣。”[6]

埃莫别墅通过调控水来灌溉高产的稻田，出口大米所产生的利润又用来投资建筑和花园的物理空间与象征意义，从而改善了家族的健康。然而，相应的设计决策会直接影响更多个体的健康。灌溉田地的积水增加了因感染疟疾而死亡的可能性，而劳动者在不断努力争取食物和住所的过程中牺牲了他们的身体健康。这个例子表明，抛开个体所处的社会和政治环境来讨论自然的健康供给是毫无意义的。当然，有感染疟疾风险的不仅是劳动者。虽然富有的威尼斯人通常可以通过在城郊别墅避暑以减少感染风险，但疟蚊的传播方式仍然与威尼斯人的观念一致，即疟疾是由危险的死水散发出的水汽扩散所致。正如即将看到的那样，为了应对糟糕的空气质量，帕拉第奥在圆厅别墅中延续压迫和呼吸不平等的空间模式以维持庄园主健康。

3 维琴察圆厅别墅的空气、地坪高度和监视

1565年，神父保罗·阿尔梅里科（Paolo Almerico）从梵蒂冈的宗教事务中退休后回到威尼斯内陆家中，委托帕拉第奥在维琴察市郊1/4英里（约0.4 km）处设计他的新居——著名的圆厅别墅（Villa Rotonda）。该建筑成为帕拉第奥最负盛名的作品，甚至被称为文艺复兴时期建筑中最有影响力的典范[18]。该设计体现出与埃莫别墅的几个显著差异，正如帕拉第奥所描述的那样，圆厅别墅甚至不符合对别墅的传统定义。它既没有用于打谷的庭院，也没有与之相对应的向两翼延伸的农房，取而代之的是一个坐落在花园和农田之间的避暑别墅。因为没有相邻的服务建筑，主体住宅可以围绕中央圆厅形成双边对称的4个入口（图3）。这种新颖的乡村住宅设计手法使得帕拉第奥在1570年出版的《建筑四书》中将圆厅别墅归类为其他联排别墅，而不是埃莫别墅这样的内陆别墅。尽管如此，圆厅别墅确实坐落在一个宽敞的有围墙限定的花园中心，四周被农田包围。在保罗·阿尔梅里科之后，第二任庄园主决定增设一座农业服务用房，这进一步证实了这些土地的重要性。另一位著名的威尼斯建筑师文森佐·斯卡莫齐（Vincenzo Scamozzi）设计了这座新的附属建筑，它位于通往圆厅的西北通道一侧。

3 圆厅别墅轴测图，强调从地坪高度以上进行视线控制The Villa Rotonda, emphasizing visual control from elevation

除了建筑上的区别以外，埃莫别墅和圆厅别墅之间最显著的差别在于相对高程。埃莫别墅的场地相对平坦，而圆厅别墅则处于平缓上升的山坡顶部。用帕拉第奥的话来说：“这个场地是所能找到的最宜人和最令人愉悦的地方；因为它位于一座小山丘上，可达性高，旁边就是一条可通航的河流——巴齐里奥内河。”[11]在埃莫别墅案例中已经论述过：水资源管理是环境健康的决定要素之一。在圆厅别墅中，笔者将论证通过地坪高度和空间组织实现对空气的调节，从而改善环境和庄园主的健康。与此同时，由于对空气的管理并不公平，导致更严重的健康风险、持续的监视和对农业劳动者以及别墅仆人的进一步压迫。

帕拉第奥在一份选址说明书中详细阐述了圆厅别墅建造在小山坡顶部的优势。正如前文所述，帕拉第奥建议“首先要远离死水，因为它们会产生非常糟糕的空气”，他补充道：“如果建在高处和令人愉悦的地方，我们可以轻易地避免糟糕的空气。空气会因风的不断吹动而移动；而地表由于坡度的倾斜，可以清除所有有害的水汽和湿气。”[11]对于威尼斯人来说，凉爽干燥又循环流通的空气，如同流动的水体一样，被认为是最健康的环境条件，而通过地坪高度的提升就能很好地将之实现。帕拉第奥进一步敏锐地指出，在高地上，“居民们健康快乐，保持着良好的肤色，不受蚊虫和其他因沼泽静水腐烂所衍生的小动物侵扰”[11]。虽然当时的人们并不知道蚊子会传播疟疾，但帕拉第奥的观察阐明了蚊子与引发疟疾的环境状况或不健康的空气状态有着较大联系。正是由于这种正确的关联，在高地寻求循环流通的空气是一个良好的健康建议。正如罗伯特·萨拉雷斯如今所证实的那样，蚊子“是弱小的飞行者，不喜欢向上飞行，也不喜欢有风的地方”[13]。在考虑威尼斯周围的内陆或罗马周围平原的类似情况时，我们意识到，进入高地是那些能够从低洼的农业耕作区搬离的人的特权。因此，疟疾造成了不平等的局面。在区域范围内，教皇西克斯图斯五世（Pope Sixtus V）甚至出台政策，通过将定居点从低地转移到更健康的山丘来改善人口的整体健康状况。然而具有讽刺意味的是，西克斯图斯五世于1590年参观完一项由他发起的土地开垦项目后死于疟疾[13]。在区域尺度上，迁往高地意味着地形风险的增加。对于圆厅别墅，笔者将探讨通过设计提升高度和透气性所带来的健康效果。

在帕拉第奥的《建筑四书》的插图中，标注了埃莫别墅和圆厅别墅的底层高度分别为11英尺和10英尺。需要说明的是，该标注采用的是以往的维琴察尺寸，每英尺可能更接近14英寸，而不是如今的12英寸（现1英寸=0.025 4 m）。此外，帕拉第奥将他设计的大部分别墅都抬高到了周围土地之上。与帕拉第奥同时代的建筑师塞巴斯蒂亚诺·塞利奥（Sebastiano Serlio）在其《建筑七书》第六册中解释了抬升别墅的重要性：“我一直认为城市外的房屋（以及城市内的房屋，只要相邻的建筑物不受此限制）应从地面上被抬升。这样做是为了让建筑外立面更宏伟，底层房间更健康，同时使地下室发挥作用，成为别墅中所有仆人的工作间……”[19]

他的建议非常明确，抬升的地坪使建筑立面具有象征意义的优势，改善了室内环境的健康状况，并利用了相应的半地下空间。对塞利奥而言，他强调将一座典型的别墅抬高5英尺（1英尺=0.304 8 m），将地下室再下沉5英尺，这使得帕拉第奥式建筑显得更加宏伟。但无论如何，这个建议体现了一种明显的呼吸不平等：通过迫使为他们服务的人进入地下室这种不健康的环境，主人、家人和客人在地上楼层的房间内获得健康。帕拉第奥通过将该案例与人类信仰进行类比，为这一不平等做法寻求合理化解释：

“正如我们称颂的造物主所告诫的那样，最美丽的事物应置于最明显、醒目的地方，而不那么美的东西要加以隐蔽；所以在建筑中也是……因此，我认为在建筑结构的最底层也就是地下室中，可以布置地窖……仆人室、洗手间、烤箱和存放日常用品。”[11]

这个论点可能在16世纪足够有说服力，但今天它并不成立，特别是因为地下空间布局仍然体现了以往的压迫模式。例如隐蔽门廊（cryptoportio）旨在隐藏奴隶的地下服务通道，或在私人监狱（ergastulum）中用锁链囚禁奴隶迫使其在地下过夜或被判处长期劳作[8]。无论是哪种情况，对于被关押在地下的仆人或奴隶来说，都受制于封闭的、视线无法看出去的地下空间。除了形成地下服务空间外，抬高别墅底层还有另一个好处，那就是看向别墅外部的视点提高，使得广阔田野中的劳动者清晰可见。

帕拉第奥除描述圆厅别墅位于一座小山顶上，一侧被河流包围的位置外，进一步阐述了圆厅别墅的选址。他写道：“在另一边，周围环绕着最令人愉悦的斜坡，看起来像一个非常大的剧院，并且经过精心栽植，有着最优质的果实和最精致的葡萄藤。因此，从别墅的每个角落都可以欣赏到最美丽的景色，其中有些景致互为遮掩，有些则更为开阔，而有的景致视线深远直至消失于地平线。”[11]当今天读到这段话时，我们倾向于想象风景本身是美丽的，但仔细看，会发现帕拉第奥强调了农田突出的视觉效果。事实上，在帕拉第奥去世后20年，克劳德·洛兰（Claude Lorrain）和尼古拉斯·普桑（Nicolas Poussin）才出生，他们通过对疟疾肆虐的罗马平原的绘画创作，继续塑造西方的风景观念[20]。在别墅中观赏劳动者的工作，是一种既定的令人愉悦的审美范式。早在多年前，几代有影响力的罗马作家就强调了这一模式，其中包括马尔库斯·图留斯·西塞罗（Marcus Tullius Cicero）、小普林尼（Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus）和马格努斯·奥勒留斯·卡西奥多鲁斯（Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus）。卡西奥多鲁斯曾称赞一座别墅拥有许多房间，可以看到人们“迷人地劳动”[8]。更直接的是，我们可以从塞利奥的建议中认识到“有些人希望不断地查看他们的农民在做什么，并密切关注他们的来来往往”[19]。塞利奥建议将劳工宿舍靠近主体住宅但保持分离。当然，持续监视劳工的劳动并不是良性的行为；反过来看，这是在行使一种控制工人行为的权力。圆厅别墅的显著特点之一是对周围景观的开放性。帕拉第奥早期的许多别墅都有围墙，在帕拉第奥之前，别墅通常被设计为带护城河与炮楼的防御工事。在认识到乡村中的威胁、风景和安全之间的关系时，圆厅别墅可以被理解为一种新的权力展示形式。视线从圆厅别墅内部向外，掠过一片片田地投向远方，而田地中有许多劳工在劳作。然而，尽管财富和获得食物的机会极度不平等，但庄园主声称不需要人身保护。考虑到安全问题和人身威胁，从田地到圆厅别墅的视线同样重要。别墅的抬升使劳工始终处于庄园主的视野之中，并建立了持续监视的关系。因此，圆厅别墅成为“心理征服”的典型，通过投射庄园主的权力和影响力，使整片土地上人们的生活都受其影响和控制[14]。

前文讨论了“注意力恢复理论”，这是关于自然接触对心理健康促进机制的既有理论。另一个理论是杰·阿普尔顿（Jay Appleton）在1975年出版的《景观的体验》（The Experience of Landscape）中提出的“瞭望–庇护理论”。该理论推测人类在进化过程中形成了一种既希望看到外界同时又不想被外界看到的景观偏好，或者更确切地说，通过同时拥有开阔的视野和隐秘的居所这两种可以看得见的保护，人们得以免受威胁，从而有更大的机会保持健康。这一理论与从圆厅别墅向外眺望时所看到的“美丽景色”非常吻合。然而，该理论忽略了讨论在更为复杂的社会和政治因素影响下，权力是如何决定各阶层对不同高程空间的使用这一问题。例如，人们都知道控制高地对军事成功的重要性。同样，当阿普尔顿描述“将前景延伸到花园庇护所以外的乡村”，然后“合乎逻辑地基于美学目的对更广阔的景观进行改造，最初是通过将道路延伸到围墙的界限之外而实现的”。当然不能如此理想化地相信，将景观与基础设施和农业用地结合全然是出于美学的目的[21]。如果像阿普尔顿所说，早期的景观设计是“将房屋或城堡延伸到户外的一种形式”，那么还应记住罗马历史学家普布利乌斯·科尔涅利乌斯·塔西陀（Publius Cornelius Tacitus）的言论：“以前，不良自然条件通常是被回避或克服，自然是……被控制的；一种新的空间表达方式是（寻求）将户外环境驯化。”[21-22]换句话说，被驯化的不仅仅是自然，还有仆人和劳动者，他们从身体和象征意义上都与自然息息相关。精英们为了自己的利益而调节空气，而对于内陆居民来说，这意味着他们要么屈服于被俯瞰的监视中，要么隐藏在看不见的地下室。在这两种情况下，大多数人在精神上和身体上都处于不健康的状态。建筑和景观使个人处于被监视的负面心理影响之中、面临感染疟疾的更大风险和遭受蓄意的不人道待遇。由于这一观念所带来的持续影响，使人充分认识到16世纪建筑、园林和景观中隐藏的压迫历史是有研究价值的。以劳伦·帕特里奇（Loren Partridge）的结论为例，他认为：“圆厅别墅成为文艺复兴时期最具影响力的建筑作品，也是全世界数百座政府大楼的设计蓝本。广受欢迎的原因在于政府希望宣扬的理念与设计所传达出的信息密切对应——稳定、集中、等级、统一与和谐，以及地球（以方形和立方体为象征）和天堂（以圆形和半球表示）之间的协调。”[18]

显然，设计所表达的不仅仅是稳定性、层次感与和谐，透视关系也很重要。对于某些人来说，圆厅别墅代表着压迫、监视、征服、不平等和风险，而这主要是通过对地坪高度的严格把控以及随之而来的对大气和健康空气的调节而实现的。

4 结论

安德烈亚·帕拉第奥的《建筑四书》时至今日仍然是最有影响力的建筑书籍之一。众所周知，他的这部著作对建筑和风景园林行业的影响甚至比其建筑作品更为深远。他的书中最突出的特点是对于精确性和简洁性的重视[23]。正如黛博拉·霍华德（Deborah Howard）所写的那样：“清晰也是写作的精髓。虽然这本书本质上是理论性的，但帕拉第奥的写作却很好地从抽象哲学的表述中抽离出来。”[23]然而，笔者相信正是由于缺乏哲学讨论，在一定程度上引发了人们对书中内容的持续回应。通过拟建和已建别墅的实测图和平面图对比表明，建筑可以脱离文化时代背景、物质景观和政治环境而存在。而实际情况远非如此，在埃莫别墅和圆厅别墅的案例中，帕拉第奥有意通过设计来改善庄园主以及他们所居住的大环境的健康状况。然而，在实施这些建造行为的同时，却因为损害了其他人享有健康环境的同等权利而造成了结构性不平等。

呼吸不平等是一面透镜，有助于探索植物和人类如何在环境中自由呼吸以及相互的作用机制。在埃莫别墅，工人们在种植珍稀水稻的灌溉田里挣扎着呼吸；而圆厅别墅的设计则揭示了贵族们为占据高位和呼吸清洁空气所采取的措施。在这个案例中，别墅通过分配空气、水和土地等资源的使用权限以促进庄园主等少数特权阶层的健康。然而，正如我们所看到的，威尼斯精英们的健康是通过剥夺其他人的同等权利来加以保障的。在全面理解帕拉第奥式建筑对健康的影响之后，同样需要关注当代在创造健康世界的过程中，实践和设计领域出现的不平等现象。鉴于目前在全球范围内为控制空气传播疾病所做的斗争，呼吸和空气循环受到高度关注。然而，呼吸本应是人类之间平等共享的一种行为。正如阿喀琉斯·姆本贝（Achille Mbembe）指出的那样，基于这一事实，可能要“超越纯粹的生物学含义，而将呼吸视为人类共同拥有的东西”，因此可以将呼吸理解为普遍权利的基础和设计生成的驱动力[3]。

图片来源：

图1由 作 者 改 绘 自Luigi Torelli的Carta della malaria dell’Italia（1882年）；图2、3由 作 者 改 绘 自Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi的Le fabbriche e i disegni di Andrea Palladio（1776年）。

（编辑/刘玉霞 李卫芳）

Towards a Landscape of Equality: Design of the Palladian Villa to Control Access to Health

Author: (CAN) Fionn Byrne Translator: LUO Rongrong

0 Introduction

Health is not a neutral state but a positive condition. The World Health Organization (WHO)defines health as “a state of complete physical,mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”[1]The WHO also acknowledges the interplay between environmental and individualized factors in determining health outcomes, and they increasingly recognize that access to nature significantly promotes overall health. Mirroring the WHO’s definition, the pathways involved include “physiological processes(clean air, etc.), physical process (by offering opportunities for physical activity), social process(by increasing the likelihood of social contact)and psychological process (such as relaxation and restoration).”[2]Within this framework, the two most influential theories to explain the positive impacts of natural environments on human health are the Attention Restoration Theory and Prospect-Refuge Theory. Ultimately the fundamental and universal right to breathe freely is necessary for any relevant measure of health, as without both an environment of clean air and unobstructed airways,it is impossible to live a healthy life[3].

With varying degrees of success over the years, building and landscape architects have sought to design environments to realize good health. One of the best known and most frequently imitated efforts is the work of sixteenth-century Venetian patricians and professionals who constructed rural villas to reshape theterrafermaand situate themselves in the center of a harmonious relationship with nature[4]. Before being reshaped by their efforts, the low-lying Venetianterrafermawas a significant habitat for mosquitoes. Though not as bad as the RomanCampagna,theterrafermawas still considered unhealthy (Fig. 1). While it was not until the nineteenth century that mosquitoes were known to transmit malarial disease, during the sixteenth century, malaria, ormal’ ariain Italian, was believed to be an environmental condition of bad air. It was an accepted belief that decaying organic matter in marshy and damp landscapes produced an airborne poison[5]. The design of a villa, including landscapes, gardens, and architecture, was deployed to reorganize the properties of air, water, and land,as well as associated human activities and the lives of plants and animals, all to promote good air and the health of a few privileged landowners. This act of utopian world-building organized the physical environment to control atmospheric conditions,and ultimately the health of all living beings.

This essay will study two of Andrea Palladio’s well-known villas constructed in the sixteenth century on theterrafermaoutside of Venice as a means to reveal a consistent system of oppression and unequal access to conditions that enable environmental and personal health. In both cases, designs to promote health will contrast with corresponding and intentionally designed conditions of oppression. I will focus this study on atmospheric inequality, defined as the unjust distribution of access to breathe freely in an environment with good air. Furthermore, I will show that a positive state of health for sixteenthcentury Venetians was not just made available to a privileged few but actively required the direct negation of healthy conditions for many unknown and unnamed others. A Venetian’s ability to be healthy and live in a healthy environment required dispossessing others of the same rights. In this context, to breathe freely was made possible by limiting the respiration of others, while efforts to secure fresh air resulted in other environments being made unhealthy.

Considering the contemporary challenges of designing for health, especially given the COVID-19 pandemic that has prematurely and permanently ended the breathing of millions of people worldwide, this essay will expose past injustice to help mitigate and avoid further expansion of structural inequalities. Let us endeavour in our time to find it unacceptable that the health of a few comes at the expense of the health of many.

1 Controlling the Terraferma

Modern capitalism emerged in city-states of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The Republic of Venice, for example, had a robust and highly profitable system of mercantilism that saw the nobility acquire considerable personal fortunes. As trade routes began to diversify when the Republic of Genoa expanded transatlantic shipping, the Venetian nobility, known as patricians, began to invest their profits beyond the city’s fortifications.As Venice acquired territory on the mainland, called theterrafermaas a means to distinguish this solid ground from the Venetian islands, the Republic began to develop an agrarian economy. This change prompted Girolamo Priuli, the ruler of Venice, to express disappointment at the number of patricians who had abandoned maritime activities for country life, even though investment in land proved to be more profitable than shipping[6]. This is especially true in the case of marginal marshlands that were reclaimed and subsequently brought into productive agricultural use.

Despite the claiming of former marshlands by private individuals, the work to coordinate,finance, and carry out hydraulic schemes emerged as a subject of public concern, as demonstrated by the 1501 establishment of a Ministry of Water. Advised by the Ministry, a newly emerging profession of surveyor-engineers rendered land productive by controlling the hydraulic regime of vast low-lying territories. The cumulative result of these numerous geometrically regular acts of drainage amounted to a radical environmental transformation[4]. Both drainage and irrigation controlled the interactions between water and land, turned marshes into fields, and consequently reduced malaria. We can recognize today that drainage would have eliminated mosquito breeding grounds. However, for sixteenth-century Venetians,to cure noxious air and make the land healthy required bringing water into circulation and clearing the land of decaying plant matter. The often-cited Hippocratic textAirs,Waters,Placesgrounded this belief in a long-enduring theory that“air was the carrier of disease engendered in water and among vegetation.”[7]Thus, to achieve a state of environmental health, one must avoid stagnant waters, contaminated air, and decaying vegetation.When building on theterraferma, architects tried to avoid siting residences in unhealthy locations and designed site modifications to overcome the existing natural conditions. In this way, architecture and nature were not separate realms but bound by design considerations of health. In no case was this interplay more apparent than in the construction of the villa.

The term “villa” denotes a combination of buildings and land engaged in agricultural production. When constructed on theterraferma,we can refer specifically to the villa as avilla rustica, or a country villa. “Rustica,” however,was only a term later applied to distinguish mainlandterrafermasites from coastal locations,which would be calledvilla maritima, and will remain outside the scope of this study[8]. As the preeminent site of agricultural production, the villa type includes rationally organized working fields, a courtyard which serves as a threshing floor,a barn orbarchesse, and a temporary residence for the owner, or “master,” of the property. The landowner’s residence also serves an agrarian function by storing the excesses of production above and below the living quarters, with gain lifted to the attic and wine stored below ground.In this way, the hierarchical nature of the residence building becomes a symbol representing the power over production, storage, and security that the villa provided[9].

The most celebrated villa architect of the sixteenth century was Andrea Palladio. His work has had a significant impact on the development of European and North American architecture and gardening, and many historians have intensively studied his legacy[4]. By focusing on the relationships between architecture, landscape,gardens, and health, this essay will show that achieving conditions for good health was a significant driver of Palladio’s work. However, his villa designs simultaneously produced structural inequalities in accessing those healthy living conditions. I will explore the Villa Emo through the context of water and agricultural labour and the Villa Rotonda through the lens of air and visual control. In so doing, I will show that determinants of health in design are far from apolitical. Instead,our continued efforts to design a healthy world must recognize moments of unequal access.

InThe Palladian Landscape, Denis Cosgrove reminds us that “as usual in human affairs, it was the weakest, those with the smallest stake in society,who paid the heaviest burden, while the rich and powerful, patrician landowners – both Venetian and provincial – amassed lands and fortunes at their expense.”[4]Just as for lands and fortunes,perhaps personal health is secured only by denying it to others. If, however, this is not true, then the challenge for designers today must address and counteract Cosgrove’s “as usual.” Recognizing that building and landscape architects of the past have worked to construct a purposefully oppressive world draws our attention to the need to undo the legacies of these structural inequalities and avoid perpetuating the continued exploitation of the weakest members of our society in the future.

2 Water, Irrigation, and Labour at the Villa Emo at Fanzolo

One of the Venetian patrician families that benefited from publicly-funded improvements to non-arable lands was the Emos. Even half a century before the Ministry of Water’s formation,an irrigation canal had already been built in the Treviso plain, bringing the territory under hydraulic control. Here, in the region of Fanzolo,Giorgio Emo was one of the first landholders.His son, Leonardo di Giovanni Emo inherited this property and acquired more land in 1509,continuously investing in making farming of the estate profitable. Leonardo’s efforts succeeded,and two generations later, his grandson, Leonardo di Alvise Emo, commissioned Andrea Palladio to build a new villa at the center of his inherited family property. Construction of the Palladian villa,which began around 1555, signaled a reinvestment in the property[10]. Not surprisingly, Palladio designed the villa building as a direct symbol of the family’s continuous prosperity from the land.While a display of wealth is not evidenced in the architectural treatment of the exterior façade or in the column order of the loggia, which was rather plain, instead, it is the proportions of the building that communicate proper land management and agricultural productivity[10]. Palladio directs us to see that “the cellars, the granaries, the stables, and the other places belonging to a villa, are on each side of the master’s house,” and these two wings extend symmetrically from the residence at the center(Fig. 2). While adjacent farming wings are typical of villa architecture, these wings are unusually long in the case of the Villa Emo[10]. Their irregular length denotes abundance from a surplus harvest that requires additional storage, and by extension,the wings represent an accumulation of wealth.

Furthermore, the Emo’s emphasis on prosperity extended back out from the villa building to the surrounding fields and the family’s choice of crops. Taking advantage of the nearby canal, the Emo family redirected water to their property and irrigated their fields. This practice conformed to the general advice on villa siting.Palladio, for example, said of site selection that “if navigable rivers cannot be had, one must endeavor to build near some other running water; and above all to get at a distance from standing waters,because they generate very bad air.”[11]Typically,bringing running water to the villa grounds helped grow wheat and secure a domestic supply necessary to feed the general population. Indeed, the high demand for wheat prompted the construction of water distribution canals in the first place. Yet, at the Villa Emo, irrigation was used contrary to the Venetian dietary need. Instead, intensive irrigation helped cultivate rice, an extremely profitable luxury grain quickly sold to an international market[4]. The accumulation of personal and intergenerational wealth through the leveraging of public infrastructure became so widespread among the elite that almost half of all rice cultivation in the Venetian Republic was terminated by proclamation after the end of the sixteenth-century[4].

Growing a luxury crop instead of meeting the dietary needs of the local population is itself an injustice, but rice cultivation had other negative ramifications. On the one hand, rice cultivation was labour intensive, both in terms of the number of workers required and the physical demands of the task. What’s more, the workers, housed across Villa Emo’s main road, were in a highly precarious situation, as they were themselves landless and often paid with cash in aboariasystem of wage labour[12]. If a shortage of wheat drove up the price of food, then cash wages would be much less valuable than a guaranteed meal. On the other hand, the irrigation of fields to grow rice required a landscape with standing water, and precisely as Palladio had warned, this resulted in an elevated risk of contracting malaria. While it is hardly possible to make matters worse, the presence of standing water denied workers the shade that olive trees or grape vines would otherwise give when interplanted in well-drained wheat fields. As a result, workers experienced food, housing, and land insecurity, that weakened their individual health while being forced to labour in an unhealthy environment. Describing a similar situation in the agricultural lands of the RomanCampagnafurther south, Robert Sallares restates this grim summary from Renato Mammucari, “Between the certain death from starvation and the probable death caused by theAnophelesmosquito, the latter was almost always preferred… men defied death in order to make a living.”[13]The Emo family’s excessive profits, spent for their pleasure and good health, ultimately cost many others their lives.

One significant expenditure within the family residence, and distanced from any threatening malarial fields, is a series of frescoes drawn of imaginary views of the exterior landscape that existed behind the walls. In a spectacular inversion of reality, these views do not just depict an exaggerated healthy life enjoyed in a state of absolute abundance but illustrate a total erasure of labour from the fields. If, as argued, garden paintings are an idealized representation of the world, then utopian visions of sixteenth-century Venetian patricians denied the very existence of the labouring class that made their lifestyle possible[14].This pictorial act of erasure continued a trend that had been described many years earlier by the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro, who said,“the more the villa system was refined as a marketoriented, profit-motivated enterprise, the more important it became to make a separation between profits of agriculture… and the means by which those profits were realised, and to gloss over the latter.”[8]Indeed, Varro’s characterization of the villa system has been extended by contemporary scholars who indict landscape and garden design at large and argue that “the term ‘landscape’alwaysveils the reality of rural labour and social inequality,transforming the countryside into escapist scenery rather than a place of work (or a place from which authentic ‘workers’ have been cleared).”[15]The logic of pictorial erasure that represented an idealized landscape inside the villa is also physically built in the world outside the villa building, especially in the surrounding gardens.

While descriptions of the Villa Emo’s original garden are sparse, Palladio does make several comments: “behind the fabrick,” or the architectural plan, “there is a square garden of eightycampi trevigiani,” approximately one hundred acres, and “in the middle of which runs a little river, which makes the situation very delightful and beautiful.”[11]This “beautiful” water feature reminds us that the garden outside, as with the illusory interior views, is defined as an idealized microcosm of the surrounding landscape[16]. The garden reconstructs the essential qualities of the surrounding horizontal expanse of irrigated and cultivated land. Yet, what marks the garden as distinct from the surrounding landscape, for example, the fields, the orchard, or the kitchen garden, is that even from its first conception, it emerges as a site of leisurely labour. “No toil is contemplated in the gardens,” or so remarks the fourteenth-century Florentine writer Giovanni Boccaccio, who is said to have first described the garden as a distinct type[17]. However, we know that a landscape will not remain in a “delightful” state without work, especially a garden at so large a scale.So, it is not a fundamental question of labour that distinguished the garden from the surrounding landscape, but rather it is the imagined qualities of that work that set the garden apart. The garden is an interstitial space, between the luxurious interior and the laborious fields, that the elite participated in cultivating, although without their labour being materially productive[6]. Productivity is, after all,what distinguishes exercise from work in the fields,having the means to labour without the need.Therefore, the garden is removed from profitable use and instead given over to therapeutic activities such as walking, swimming, eating, talking, and sleeping[14]. This sentiment is shared by the Roman poet, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, where “for Horace,the value of his garden lies not in its productive capacity, but in the respite from the irritations and concerns of city living and in the pleasure of social one-upmanship.”[14]The display of social status is now easy to understand: removing land from productive use is a clear display of excess wealth,especially given a context where labourers struggle for resources without access to any land of their own. Respite from the stress of the city is worth examining further.

Returning our attention to the various pathways to health provided by natural environments, including physiological, physical,social, and psychological processes, the garden is unequivocally a space that promotes overall health.Having already touched on some physiological(organization of water), physical (exercise), and social (display of power and wealth) aspects of the garden, we must consider the psychological processes at work as well. Rachel and Stephen Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory is one of the most popular frameworks to explain the health benefits of green spaces. While the Kaplans did not publish their foundational textThe Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspectiveuntil 1989, it is argued that psychological determinants of health have longstanding evolutionary causes.If this is true, then we should witness the same environmental pathways to health operating today as in the sixteenth century.

The Attention Restoration Theory argues that humans have two distinct modes of attention,direct and indirect. Direct attention is active when one is mentally focused on a task at hand, while indirect attention is engaged when the mind is at rest. The theory is grounded by the assertion that when one mode of attention is active, the other can recover. Thus, for the city dweller whose daily tasks demand direct attention, time in nature provides an opportunity to engage indirect attention and restore their depleted reserves. As we have already seen, Horace has articulated the same principle,with the greatest value of his garden being a “respite from the irritations and concerns of city living.”We can comfortably conclude that for the Venetian patrician, the garden is a space that contributes to overall health. However, when we consider the day labourers in the fields of a sixteenth-century villa, the Attention Restoration Theory requires reevaluation. According to the theory, we could logically conclude that by spending extended time in nature, repeating agricultural motions made automatic through repetition, labourers would be the healthiest class in society. They need only to engage in strenuous direct mental exertion every once in a while, to recover their depleted indirect attention. This situation is, of course, far from the truth. While those who worked the fields were immersed fully in nature, its healing qualities were only available to the elites. As James Ackerman recounts, “history records little evidence that farmers, peasants or slaves – who have no option but to stay put – experienced the charms of rural life depicted in the villa literature. Indeed, it was typically by the sweat of the labourer’s brow that the delights of rusticity were made available to the proprietors.”[6]

The Villa Emo controlled water to irrigate highly productive rice fields. Exporting rice generated profits later invested in the architecture and gardens’ physical and symbolic structures,which improved the family’s health. However, the same set of spatial decisions directly impacted the health of many more individuals. Standing water on the irrigated fields increased the likelihood of dying by contracting malaria, and labourers exchanged their physical wellbeing in a constant struggle to secure food and shelter. This example has shown that the affordances of health that nature provides are meaningless without acknowledging the social and political circumstances that structure an individual’s life. Of course, it is not just labourers that risk contracting malaria. While wealthy Venetians could generally reduce their exposure by spending the summer at their villas outside the city, mosquitoes still spread in ways that matched the Venetian’s belief in the dispersion patterns of vapours emanating from dangerous stagnant waters. As we will see, in an attempt to counter the unhealthy qualities of air, Palladio’s Villa Almerico conferred health to the landowner while continuing patterns of oppression and atmospheric inequality.

3 Air, Elevation, and Surveillance at the Villa Almerico at Vicenza

Upon returning home to the Venetianterrafermaafter retiring from religious service in the Vatican, the priest Paolo Almerico,commissioned Andrea Palladio to design his new residence a quarter-mile outside the city of Vicenza. Construction on his home, which came to be known as the Villa Rotonda, would have begun shortly after Almerico’s retirement in 1565.The work that Palladio conceived remains the most celebrated of his villas, even called the most influential example of Renaissance architecture[18].The design displays several notable differences from the Villa Emo, and as described by Palladio,the Rotonda does not even conform to the conventional definition of a villa. It has neither a courtyard for threshing grains nor opposingbarchesseextensions. Instead, only a summer residence sits among gardens and agricultural lands. Without adjacent service buildings, the primary residence can capitalize on four bilaterally symmetrical entries mirrored around a central domed room (Fig. 3). This novel approach to a country residence led Palladio to count the Villa Almerico among other town-houses instead of withterrafermavillas, such as the Villa Emo, in his 1570I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura(Four Books Architecture). Nonetheless, the Villa Almerico did sit at the center of a generous walled garden surrounded by working fields. After Paolo Almerico, the second owner’s decision to add an agricultural service building is further evidence of the importance of these lands. Another famous Venetian architect, Vincenzo Scamozzi,designed the new outbuilding to sit alongside the northwestern approach to the Rotonda.

Beyond architectural distinctions, the most notable difference between the Villa Emo and the Villa Almerico was their relative elevations.The Villa Emo site was relatively flat, whereas the Villa Almerico was at the top of a gentle rise.In Palladio’s words, “the site is as pleasant and as delightful as can be found; because it is upon a small hill, of very easy access, and is watered on one side by theBacchiglione, a navigable river.”[11]As has been established in the example of the Villa Emo, controlling water was a determinant of environmental health. At the Villa Almerico,I will argue that controlling air, achieved through both elevation and architectural organization,improved the health of the environment and of the landholders. Simultaneously, strategies to manage the atmosphere were unequally distributed and led to more significant health risks, constant surveillance, and further oppression of agricultural labourers and villa servants.

Palladio elaborates on the advantageous qualities of the Rotonda’s situation at the top of a small hill in a general description of site selection.As has been already noted, Palladio advised,“above all to get a distance from standing waters,because they generate a very bad air,” which,he continues, “we may very easily avoid, if we build upon elevated and cheerful places, where the air is, by the continual blowing of the winds,moved; and the earth, by its declivity, purged of all ill vapours and moisture.”[11]For Venetians,cool and dry blowing air, like running water, was believed to be the healthiest situation and could be best secured through elevation. Palladio makes a further perceptive remark that at heights, “the inhabitants are healthy and cheerful, and preserve a good colour, and are not molested by gnats and other small animals, which are generated by the putrefaction of still fenny waters.”[11]While remembering that mosquitoes were not known at the time to carry the disease malaria, Palladio’s observation clarifies that mosquitoes were secondarily associated with the environmental expression of malaria, or a state of unhealthy air.Due to this correct association, the advice to seek circulating air at elevation is a healthy suggestion.As Robert Sallares confirms today, mosquitoes “are weak fliers, dislike flying upwards and dislike windy locations.”[13]Rather immediately when considering theterrafermasurrounding Venice or the similar relation of theCampagnaaround Rome, we are aware that access to elevation is a privilege for those who can remove themselves from the lowlying agricultural fields. Malaria, then, creates a topography of inequality. At a regional scale, Pope Sixtus V even initiated policies to improve the population’s overall health by shifting settlement from low areas to the healthier hills. Ironically,however, Sixtus V died in 1590 of malaria after visiting one of his land reclamation efforts[13]. At regional scales, access to elevation corresponds to topographies of risk. Returning to the Rotonda, we will consider the health consequences of designing to gain height and permeability to air.

Illustrations of the Villa Emo and the Villa Almerico in Palladio’sFour Books of Architectureannotate the villas’ ground floors at eleven feet and ten feet, respectively. For clarity, each foot is an outdated Vicenza measure likely closer to fourteen inches instead of our twelve. Moreover,Palladio raised the majority of his villas above their surrounding lands. A contemporary of Palladio, the architect Sebastiano Serlio explains the importance of lifting a villa in the sixth book of hisSette Libri dell’Architettura(Seven Books of Architecture):“It has always been my opinion that houses outside cities (and also those inside cities, provided neighbouring buildings are not a constraint to this) should be raised above general ground level.This is so as to give grandeur to the appearance,healthiness to the ground-floor rooms and so as to have the commodity of the underground rooms which will provide for all the servants’ workrooms for the house...”[19]

His advice is clear, elevation provides a symbolic advantage, improves the interior environment’s health, and opens a corresponding semi-submerged cavity. For his part, Serlio prescribes lifting a typical house by five feet and sinking the underground rooms by another five feet, which makes Palladio’s measure seem even grander. In any case, this advice demonstrates a clear atmospheric inequality: rooms on the main floor for the master of the house, his family and guests, gain access to a healthy environment by forcing those who serve them into an unhealthy situation. Palladio rationalizes this inequality by comparing the case to the human body:

As our Blessed Creator has ordered these our members in such a manner, that the most beautiful are in places most exposed to view, and the less comely more hidden; so in building also…I approve therefore that in the lowest part of the fabric, which I make somewhat underground,may be disposed the cellars… servantshalls, washhouses, ovens, and such like things necessary for daily use[11].

This argument may have been sufficient in the sixteenth century to excuse the subjugating of others, but it will not hold today, especially because the underground service area remains bound to previous architectural modes of oppression. Thecryptoportico, for example, underground service tunnels designed to hide slaves from view, or theergastulum, where chained slaves were confined underground overnight or more permanently sentenced to work[8]. In each case, for servants or slaves, to be held underground was to be spatially confined while being removed from view. In addition to producing an underground service space, there was another consequence of raising the villa’s ground floor. Views out from the villa were lifted and rendered labourers in the expansive fields highly visible.

After describing the Rotonda’s location at the top of a small hill and contained by a river on one side, Palladio elaborates further on the siting of the Villa Almerico. He writes, “on the other [sides] it is encompassed with most pleasant risings, which look like a very great theatre, and are all cultivated, and abound with most excellent fruits, and most exquisite vines: and therefore, as it is enjoys from every part most beautiful views,some of which are limited, some more extended,and others that terminate with the horizon.”[11]When we read this passage today, we are inclined to imagine that it is the perspective of the landscape itself that is beautiful, but looking carefully, we see that Palladio emphasized the theatrical activity of cultivating the fields. Indeed, it would still be two decades after Palladio’s death that both Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin would be born and go on to shape Western notions of landscape through their paintings of the intensively malarial RomanCampagna[20]. Organizing views from a villa to enjoy watching labourers at work was instead an established mode of aesthetic pleasure emphasized years earlier by several generations of influential Roman writers, including Marcus Tullius Cicero, Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), and Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus.Cassiodorus famously praised a villa for its many rooms that provided views of people “charmingly laboring.”[8]More immediately, we can read Serlio’s advice that “there are some who wish to survey continually what their peasants are doing and to keep an eye on their comings and goings.”[19]Serlio advises placing the labourers’ dormitories close but separate from the primary residence. Of course, continuous surveillance is not a benign act; instead, it is an exercise of power to control the workers’ behaviour. One of the distinguishing qualities of the Villa Almerico is its openness to the surrounding landscape. Many of Palladio’s earlier villas included a perimeter wall, and before Palladio, villas were commonly designed as fortified units, complete with moats and defensive towers.In recognizing a relationship in the countryside between threats, views, and security, the Rotonda can be read as a new form of the display of power.From inside the Rotonda, views extend out to the horizon across fields occupied by a large labour force. However, despite the extreme inequality of wealth and access to food, the owner asserts no need for physical protection. Regarding safety and pacifying threats, the view from the fields to the Rotonda is equally important. The elevation of the villa places it in constant view and establishes a relationship of ongoing surveillance. The Villa Almerico, then, acts as a model of “psychological subjugation” by projecting the owner’s power and influence over others’ lives out across the landscape[14].

Earlier, we discussed the Attention Restoration Theory, an established description of a psychological pathway to health improved by exposure to nature. A second framework is the Prospect Refuge Theory that Jay Appleton developed in his 1975 publicationThe Experience of Landscape. The theory predicts that humans have an evolutionary preference for landscapes that confer the ability to see without being seen.Or, more specifically, we have the most significant opportunity to be healthy when visually protected from threats, both by having expansive views and places to hide. This theory aligns well with the“beautiful views” made available to those looking out from Villa Almerico’s prospect. However, the theory omits a discussion of the more complicated social and political implications of how power operates across differential access to elevation.None of us, for example, are unaware of the importance of controlling high ground for military success. Similarly, when Appleton described “the extension of the prospect into the countryside beyond the refuge of the garden,” which then “led logically to the modification of the wider landscape also for aesthetic purposes, initially by extending the avenues beyond the limits of the enclosure,” we cannot be so idealistic to believe that subjecting the landscape to infrastructural and agricultural control was done for detached aesthetic purposes[21]. If early landscape design, according to Appleton, is “a kind of extension of the house or castle into the open air,” we should also remember the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus’ observation that “where nature had formerly been avoided or overcome, it [is]… controlled; and a new kind of spatial expression [seeks] to domesticate the open air.”[21-22]In other words, it is not exclusively nature that is being domesticated but also servants and labourers who are physically and symbolically bound to nature. For theterrafermapopulation,the elite’s control of the air for their benefit meant being either subjugated to constant observation from above or hidden from view underground.In both cases, the majority become subjected to an unhealthy environment, both mentally and physically. Architecture and landscape expose individuals to the psychological impacts of surveillance, to greater risk of contracting Malaria,and to deliberate inhuman treatment. In part because of its lasting significance, recognizing this history of oppression ensconced in the architecture,gardens, and landscape of the sixteenth century is a worthwhile endeavour. Take Loren Partridge’s conclusion, for example, where he argues that: “The Villa Rotonda became the most influential example of Renaissance architecture. It constitutes the ursource of literally hundreds of governmental buildings throughout the world. This enormous popularity resulted from the close correspondence between what governments wanted to believe they represented and what the design expressed –stability, focus, hierarchy, unity, harmony, and mediation between earth (symbolized by the square and cube) and heaven (signified by the circle and hemisphere).”[18]

Clearly, the design expressed more than stability, hierarchy, and harmony. Perspective counts. For some, the Villa Rotonda would have represented oppression, surveillance, subjugation,inequality, and risk, primarily through the formal command of elevation and consequent control of atmosphere and healthy air.

4 Conclusion

Andrea Palladio’sFour Books of Architectureremains one of the most influential books on architecture. His writing is known to have had a more significant impact than his constructions on the professions of building and landscape architecture. What characterizes his book above all else is the emphasis of his wiring on precision and brevity[23]. As Deborah Howard writes, “clarity is also the essence of the writing.Although the book is essentially theoretical,Palladio’s text is refreshingly free from abstract philosophizing.”[23]However, I believe it is partly this lack of philosophical discussion that elicits new responses to the work. The measured and detached architectural plans of proposed and constructed villas suggest that architecture can be divorced from a cultural moment, a physical landscape, and a political environment. Nothing is further from the truth. In the case of the Villa Emo and Villa Almerico, Palladio made intentional design decisions to improve the landowner’s health and the health of the larger environment that they occupied. However, these acts of construction simultaneously produced structural inequalities in accessing the same conditions of healthy living.

Atmospheric inequality is a lens to explore the free access to and control of respiration in plants, the breathing of humans, and the air patterns of environments. At the Villa Emo,labourers struggled to breathe in irrigated fields of luxury crops. Through the Villa Almerico, we explored patricians’ efforts to occupy elevated positions and breathe clean air. In both cases, villa organized the properties of air, water, and land to promote a few privileged landowners’ health.Still, as we have seen, a Venetian’s ability to be healthy was secured by dispossessing others of the same rights. More completely understanding the consequences of Palladio’s architecture on health calls for a comparable focus on contemporary practice and ongoing designed inequality in access to a healthy world. Given the current struggle to control airborne disease transmission globally,breathing and the circulation of air are rendered highly visible. Yet respiration is also an act shared between us. As Achille Mbembe notes, by this fact,we might “conceive of breathing beyond its purely biological aspect, and instead as that which we hold in common,” we might conceive breathing as the foundation of a universal right and a generative driver of design[3].

Sources of Figures:

Fig. 1 adapted from Luigi Torelli’sCarta della malaria dell’Italia, 1882. Source: Fionn Byrne, 2021. Fig. 2-3 adapted from Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi’sLe fabbriche e i disegni di Andrea Palladio, 1776. Source: Fionn Byrne,2021.

(Editors / LIU Yuxia, LI Weifang)