Robert Nelson, with the rigor of a traditional romanticist, centers the lecture on the theatrical origins of balconies and contrasts against their current relationship with public space and their subsequent decline in both the public and architectural domain in recent years. Using baroque poetry as a means of extrapolation, Nelson explores the compositions of both Giambattista Marino and Francesco Petrarca to better understand the phenomenology and iconography surrounding the word ‘balcony’ that has only been further enchanted by their work. Nelson’s use of these borrowings exudes to more than merely the inference of an erudite man. Examining the origin of the word that lay dormant amongst works from antiquity, Nelson embellishes the realization that the balcony is more than a grandiose platform up in the sky where “man would convene to the gods cloaked amongst the cosmos” (Nelson) or where leaders would stand elevated in both power and class dictating to the public below, but describes…show more content… It should be noted that Nelson is a critic of the arts and such uses language as a puppet to express that which most cannot. Highly articulate sentences and propositions evoke and communicate the passionate premise to which Nelson communicates, his visual style lending itself directly from his writing. He states “we must romanticize the question” (Nelson) when empathizing the endemic relationship of a balcony to the streets, yet the content he refers to that is the underpinnings of his lecture becomes clouded amongst a romanticist
