Die Faszination des Masslosen. Der Turmbau ze babel von Pieter Bruegel bis Athanasius Kircher.

This interesting study of Tower of Babel imagery in sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Netherlandish painting and graphic art began as a dissertation (University of Hamburg, 1990-91). In a brief introduction to the problem of Babel's tower as the first "skyscraper" and to the fascination with the extravagant in architecture that spawned it but by no means died with it, the author touches upon, among other things, the uses of Babel's image in modern advertising and political satire. The body of the text is comprised of three chapters on "The Aspect of Fascination with Technology" (the Elder Bruegel and his follower Lucas van Valckenborch), "Utopia and Reality" (Babel as the origin of the building trades and professions), and concludes with a discussion of the publication of Turris Babel by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (Amsterdam, 1670), which treats the second tower constructed at Babel and represents it as an authentic milestone in the history of architecture. This section is of particular interest in relating Kircher's Babel study to his previous book on Noah's Ark as actual naval architecture, and to contemporary designs for new construction in the guise of the Temple of Solomon and other biblical structures.

The best-known paintings discussed are those by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Vienna and Rotterdam, undated), Lucas van Valckenborch (Munich, 1568), Roelant Savery (Nuremberg, dated 1602), and the engravings by Philipp Galle after Maerten van Heemskerck (1569), which show both the construction and the deconstruction of the Tower.

Briefly relating Bruegel's works to previous examples of Flemish and Dutch Towers of Babel as discussed by others, the author stresses Bruegel's unique preoccupation, not with the disastrous fate of the tower as described in the book of Genesis but with the accurate depiction of various construction materials and techniques, in particular with contemporary mechanical hoists and cranes of several sorts. A large projection of uncut rock at level five of the nine-story structure alludes to Nature as transformed by human effort. The important point is made here that both Alberti and Filarete recommended to builders that it is better to make a structure too large than too small, for a huge structure will ensure the ruler's fame in generations to come and will serve as a sign of the prosperity of his reign.

Wegener identifies a wave of "Babel-inflation" immediately following Bruegel - about 180 more paintings of the subject concentrated in the area around Antwerp, many of them simply copies of Bruegel's Rotterdam painting. While it might have been expected that many of these would have political significance, characterizing Nimrod as the first tyrant and drawing parallels with contemporary Spanish rule in the Netherlands (as was the case with a number of broadsheets of the day) this was not true of the paintings, few of which depict the destruction of the tower. Bruegel's Protestant follower Lucas van Valckenborch is featured here: an immigrant to Germany for religious reasons, he nevertheless painted four Tower of Babel pictures (Munich, Paris, Mainz, Koblenz), all of them devoid of anti-Spanish sentiment and three of them showing the tower as nearing completion.

Although it seems likely to the reviewer that Philip II's endorsement of the Polyglot Bible, published in Antwerp by the Plantin press in eight folio volumes (1568-1572) would go a long way to explain "Babel inflation" (which seems confined to the Antwerp area during those very years), this study is nevertheless a most useful and interesting one.

JANE CAMPBELL HUTCHISON University of Wisconsin, Madison