L'architettura o il convitato di pietra

Either the term venustas shall be abandoned and replaced, or its meaning must be updated and its etymon and history betrayed. Both ways promise to be difficult, whereas a scientifically sensible third chance is given, i.e. to keep on using this term, while accepting its present contradictoriness. The venustas refers to the concepts of measure and proportion and therefore to the commensurability between the whole and its parts. In view of Bigness, or the Problem of Large this commensurability fails. Architecture is then supposed to turn into a finite border capable to describe and measure the infinite. Its metaphor is the hedge described in Giacomo Leopardi's poem L'Infinito. The issue of autonomy/heteronomy of architecture is finally dealt with.