82 What is Architectural History?
tools for placing the architect in his or her intellectual and
professional context and for ordering the chronology of his
or her practice. Much of this material is the stuff of all
manner of histories, and architectural history borrows exten-
sively from those historiographical strategies that privilege
evidence that might otherwise be considered incidental and
minor.
As limited as these two examples and the questions they
pose may be, they have extended applications in studies
concerning architecture as a setting for social and cultural
12 Poster advertising the Exhibition of Seventy Drawings by
Francesco Borromini from the Albertina of Vienna at the Gabinetto
Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome, 1958–9.