Substructiones Insanae
Substructiones Insanae (Latin > "crazy infrastructures") is a phrase first coined by Robert Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). It referred to the attempts of aristocrats to establish their dominance in an area by building magnificent estates. Such attempts, he wrote, often ended in financial ruin as the scale of the project exhausted the fortunes of their owners.
References
The Gentleman's Magazine, No. 63 (May 1793), p. 412.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.