Italy and Sicily

The Italian architectural style has been around for centuries and is still regarded as a
classic. The use of arches and columns, as well as ornate appearances, define this style.
Italian architecture is visually appealing due to the use of domes and intricate sculptures.
Due to Italy's division into various small states until 1861, it has a very broad and diverse
architectural style that cannot be simply classified by period or region. As a result,
architectural designs have become extremely diverse and eclectic. Italy is well-known for its
significant architectural achievements, such as the construction of aqueducts, temples, and
similar structures during ancient Rome, as well as the establishment of the Renaissance
architectural movement in the late 14th to 16th centuries.
The distinctions between Italian Byzantine Architecture and its Ancient Roman predecessor
are blurred, with few, if any, differences in many cases. Byzantine architecture existed from
the establishment of Constantinople as the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD to the fall
of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, but by the 11th century, it was little used in Italy.
One of the most striking features of the Hagia Sophia is its enormous dome, which is perched
on an arcade of arched windows in a clerestory and gives the impression of a floating halo
when the light streams in. Byzantine architecture carried on the use of domes that had been
used by the Ancient Romans but were able to build them slightly higher.
Typified by towers, small windows and thick walls, the Italian Romanesque style first
developed at the beginning of the second millennium and lasted around two hundred years.
One of the most obvious features of a Romanesque church is an accompanying bell tower or
the use of semi-circular arches.
 Sicilian Baroque is a distinct style of Baroque architecture that developed in the 17th
and 18th centuries on the island of Sicily, off the southern coast of Italy, during the Spanish
Empire.
Sicily's Baroque architecture flourished, especially after the devastating earthquake of 1693.
Cities had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Beautiful churches and palaces were built in what
is known as the Sicilian Baroque style. Colored marble and mosaic inlay were frequently
used to lavishly decorate the churches. The works of Giacomo Serpotta and his family took
stucco decoration to an unprecedented level. In Bagheria, just outside Palermo, the
Palermitan nobility built baroque villas for their summer residences.
Baroque architecture is a European phenomenon that originated in 17th-century Italy; it is
flamboyant and theatrical, and richly ornamented by architectural sculpture and the
chiaroscuro effect, which is the strategic use of light and shade on a building created by mass
and shadow. The Baroque style was largely restricted to church buildings and palazzi, private
residences for the Sicilian aristocracy. The earliest examples of this style in Sicily lacked
individuality and were typically heavy-handed pastiches of buildings seen by Sicilian visitors
to Rome, Florence, and Naples.
Early in the 17th century, in Italy, a highly theatrical and decorative architectural style known
as baroque first emerged. The Catholic Church, in particular the Jesuits, first introduced it as
a means of fending off the Reformation and the Protestant church with a novel architectural
style that astonished and awed people.
Even at this early stage, however, provincial architects were beginning to incorporate
vernacular features of Sicily's older architecture. By the mid-eighteenth century, when
Sicily's Baroque architecture was distinguishable from that of the mainland, it typically
included at least two or three of the following features of its creations.
References: https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/s/Sicilian_Baroque.htm
https://www.italyreview.com/italian-architectural-styles.html

Egypt and Sudan

Egyptian architecture, which dates back to 3000 BC, is distinguished by post and lintel
construction, massive walls covered in hieroglyphic and pictorial carving, flat roofs, and
structures such as the mastaba, obelisk, pylon, and the Pyramids. Clay or baked bricks were
used to construct houses.
Ancient Egyptian architecture, the architectural monuments created primarily during the
dynastic periods of the first three millennia BCE in Egypt and Nubia's Nile valley regions.
Similar to representational art, architecture sought to preserve forms and conventions held to
reflect the perfection of the world at the moment of creation and to embody the correct
relationship between humankind, the king, and the pantheon of gods.
Stone was commonly used in the construction of temples and pyramids. Mud brick was
commonly used in the construction of houses. The vast majority of structures have flat roofs
supported by external walls and columns. Hieroglyphics, the ancient Egyptian writing
system, were frequently used to cover walls and columns. The Egyptians left thousands of
illustrations depicting daily life in the Old Kingdom. Surprisingly, none of them show how
pyramids were built. A tomb is a four-sided stone structure that symbolizes the sacred
mountain, humanity's universal desire to ascend to the heavens.
Imhotep designed the early stone-built funerary complex at Saqqara (c.2630-c.2611 BC),
which included a stepped pyramid, processional hall with reeded and fluted engaged
columns, courts, and a vast wall containing the entire complex. Stepped pyramids gave way
to smooth-sided pyramids, such as the Gizeh pyramids (mid-third millennium BC). The large
temple complex at Der-el-Bahari (mid-second millennium BC) was designed with three main
levels reached by ramps and long façades of plain square columns that influenced C20 Neo-
Classicism and Rational architecture.

Sudan's architecture reflects the country's geographical, ethnic, and cultural diversity, as
well as its historical periods. Different regional and environmental conditions have shaped
the lifestyles and material culture expressed in human settlements, their architecture, and
economic activities. Sudan has a long-documented history of changing and diverse forms of
human civilization, with significant influences from foreign cultures.
Architectural structures and urbanization date back to the eighth millennium BCE. Cultural
ties with Sudan's northern neighbor, Ancient Egypt, with which it shared long historical
periods of mutual influence, resulted in both Egyptian and distinctly Nubian settlements with
temples. The most notable architectural heritage in the Sudan are the archaeo- logical remains
at Kerma and Napata as well as the remains of ancient Meroe about 180 km north of
Khartoum. These cultures demonstrated sophistication in building materials and construction
techniques.
The Nubian pyramids have a steeper slope as a result of their construction using shadouf. The
shadouf, a simple counterweight crane, was placed in the center, and the pyramid was built
around it, because the crane could only reach
The traditional rectangular or square box-house (bayt jalus) with a flat roof and made of pure
dried clay, sun-dried mud, brick, or cow-dung plaster (zibala) remains Sudan's dominant
architectural type. In their most basic form, wooden frames are only used for the roof,
Architectural structures and urbanization date back to the eighth millennium BCE. Cultural
ties with Sudan's northern neighbor, Ancient Egypt, with which it shared long historical
periods of mutual influence, resulted in both Egyptian and distinctly Nubian settlements with
temples and pyramids emerging in the Kingdom of Kush and its last capital of Mero.

Resources: https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/art-and-architecture/
architecture/egyptian-architecture#:~:text=Egyptian%20architecture%20Architecture
%20developed%20since,of%20clay%20or%20baked%20bricks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Sudan