The Barolo Palace: medieval astronomy in the streets of Buenos Aires

TL;DR

This paper explores the astronomical and literary symbolism embedded in the Barolo Palace in Buenos Aires, highlighting its unique integration of Dante's Divine Comedy with medieval astronomy and cultural heritage.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of how the Barolo Palace embodies Dante's cosmology and medieval astronomy, a perspective not previously emphasized in studies of the building.

Findings

The Palace's design aligns with Dante's three realms of the Divine Comedy.

It reflects medieval astronomical concepts integrated with Christian theology.

The analysis enhances understanding of the Palace's symbolic architecture.

Abstract

Cultural heritage relating to the sky in the form of sundials, old observatories and the like, are commonly found in many cities in the Old World, but rarely in the New. This paper examines astronomical heritage embodied in the Barolo Palace in Buenos Aires. While references to Dante Alighieri and his poetry are scattered in streets, buildings and monuments around the Western world, in the city of Buenos Aires, the only street carrying Dante's name is less than three blocks long and, appropriately, is a continuation of Virgilio street. A couple of Italian immigrants -a wealthy businessman, Luis Barolo, and an imaginative architect, Mario Palanti- foresaw this situation nearly a century ago, and did not save any efforts or money with the aim of getting Dante and his cosmology an appropriate monumental recognition, in reinforced concrete. The Barolo Palace is a unique combination of both astronomy and the worldview displayed in the Divine Comedy, Dante's poetic masterpiece. It is known that the Palace's design was inspired by the great poet, but the details are not recorded; this paper relies on Dante's text to consider whether it may add to our understanding of the building. Although the links of the Palace's main architectural structure with the three realms of the Comedy have been studied in the past, its unique astronomical flavor has not been sufficiently emphasized. The word of God, as interpreted by the Fathers of the Church in Sacred Scripture, Aristotle's physics and Ptolemy's astronomy, all beautifully converge in Dante's verses, and the Barolo Palace reflects this.