Abstract
Within the visionary complex of La Scarzuola in Montegabbione, in the province of Terni, the Galleria delle Carceri, (Gallery of the Prisons, or of the Underworld), designed by Tomaso Buzzi between the 1960s and 1970s, represents an episode of extraordinary compositional and symbolic refinement that has been largely overlooked by critical studies. Conceived as a “museum of enemies” poised between scholarly citation and biting irony, the gallery explicitly dialogues with the great models of Renaissance and Baroque solid perspective, as well as with Piranesian influences, while declaring the ambition to transcend their canons through the invention of a ‘double’ perspective.
This paper, the result of a surveying campaign conducted on the built structure and archival research on unpublished documents and autograph drawings, reconstructs the design genesis of the work and interprets its geometric-perceptual functioning through interpretive diagrams. The analysis demonstrates how Buzzi’s innovation lies in the application of an original perspective mechanism that is not limited to simulating greater depth on a horizontal plane, but combines two distinct vanishing points to create the illusion of a descending gallery, making the perceived path longer and steeper than reality. Capable of merging the humanist tradition with his own autobiographical restlessness, the architect transcends the purely personal realm to deliver a radical reflection on illusion as an essential, and dramatic, component of the human experience.
Citation
Cotana, F. (2026). Tomaso Buzzi’s Gallery of Prisons at La Scarzuola: ‘Double’ Accelerated Perspective as a Symbolic and Perceptual Device / La Galleria delle Carceri alla Scarzuola di Tomaso Buzzi. La prospettiva accelerata ‘doppia’ come dispositivo simbolico e percettivo. In M. Balzani, M. Incerti, F. Maietti, L. Rossato, F. Raco (Eds.), Disegno furioso. Atti del 47° Convegno Internazionale dei Docenti delle Discipline della Rappresentazione / Furious Drawing. Proceedings of the 47th International Conference of Representation Disciplines Teachers (pp. 93–120). Roma: UID Press. ISBN 9791282811040.