COLLEGE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY SABE A.A. 2018 ......6. Leon Battista Alberti 7. De re aedificatoria : On the Art of Buillding 7.1 Prologue and Book 1 7.2 Book 6 7.3 Book9 8. Concinnitas

Dr. Manlio MICHIELETTO 1

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSABEA.A. 2018/19

ARCHITECTURAL THEORY_I

| THE REDISCOVERY: LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI |

INDEX

1. The Renaissance2. The Discovery3. The Beginning4. The Renaissance(s)5. The End (?)6. Leon Battista Alberti7. De re aedificatoria : On the Art of Buillding

7.1 Prologue and Book 17.2 Book 67.3 Book9

8. Concinnitas

ARCHI THEORY_I‐LECTURE_0043

06

09

13

19

22

23

35


35

40

56

68

1. The RenaissanceThe term Renaissance, literally rebirth, was first usedretrospectively by Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) an Italian artistand critic in his book The Lives of the Artists, published in1550, in order to define what he saw as a break with thebarbarities of gothic art.

4


1. The RenaissanceVasari had claimed that the arts had fallen into decay withthe collapse of the Roman Empire and argued that it wasTuscan artists, beginning with Cimabue (fl.1240-1301)and, more significantly, Giotto (fl.1267-1337) who beganto reverse this decline.

According to Vasari antique art was pivotal to the rebirth ofItalian art, both in inspiring the imitation of nature and as amodel for the construction of ideal forms that couldsurpass the 'imperfections' of nature.

5


1. The RenaissanceGiottoThe artist who takes the biggest step away from theMedieval style of spiritual representation in painting in theearly 14th century is Giotto.

Giotto is perhaps best known for the frescos he painted inthe Arena (or Scrovegni) Chapel.

6


2. The DiscoveryAlthough the Renaissance was a much broader intellectualupheaval than can be defined by any one region orhumanist perspective, there are ample reasons for givingprecedent to the developments of central Italy.

The very word ‘‘humanist’’ (umanista) first came to beapplied there to someone teaching the classical languagesand literature, and more specifically to those celebratingthe classical authors with their emphasis on human abilitiesand intellectual accomplishments.

7


2. The DiscoverySecond, the first attempts to revive an architecturallanguage from the imperial Roman past first took placethere.

Therefore the traditional account of the Italian Renaissancebeing born in the year 1416 – when the Italian PoggioBracciolini came upon a Vitruvian manuscript in the Swissmonastery of St. Gall – has a certain symbolic necessity,notwithstanding its anecdotal flavor

8


2. The DiscoveryPoggio Bracciolini and the Swiss monastery of St. Gall

9


2. The DiscoveryThe legend also underscores two vitally important points ofthe fifteenth-century Renaissance.

1. First it was more than an Italic revival of a style onItalian soil; it was a startling revelation of a near-forgotten past.

2. Second, it was a recapturing of ideas that was seen ashaving momentous consequence for the reformationand reconstitution of artistic principles.

10


3. The BeginningThe treatise of Vitruvius indeed became the cornerstone ofthis classical revival.

If some fifteenth-century humanists, such as Leon BattistaAlberti, were critical of the Roman’s lack of philosophicalrigor and eloquence – ‘‘his speech such that the Latinsmight think that he wanted to appear a Greek, while theGreeks would think that he babbled Latin’’ – this viewpointaltogether disappears by the second quarter of thesixteenth century, by which time a veritable cult of scholarshad gathered around the words of this particular classicaloracle.

11


3. The BeginningOne interesting technological innovation furthered thisprocess.

Alberti had his manuscript of the mid-fifteenth centurycopied by hand with limited distribution, that is, preciselyaround the time that Johann Gutenberg in Strasbourg wasperfecting the ‘‘tools’’ of his printing press.

The proliferation of the printed word allowed themovement to take shape quickly and reverberate withintellectual developments taking place elsewhere inEurope.

12


3. The BeginningJohann Gutenberg and the printing machine

13


3. The BeginningThe treatises of Vitruvius (De Architectura) and Alberti (Dere aedificatoria) were first printed in 1486.

The first illustrated Latin edition of Vitruvius was publishedby Fra Giocondo in 1511, and the first Italian translation ofCesare Cesariano appeared in 1521.

14


3. The BeginningA Vitruvian Academy was founded in Rome in 1542, andseven years later the Venetian Daniel Barbaro began anew, annotated translation of Vitruvius.

The great architect Palladio joined with him in preparingthe illustrations, and their beautifully crafted edition of1556 really bespeaks the highpoint of Vitruvian adulation.

15


3. The BeginningMeanwhile, the classical architectural tradition was greatlyexpanding, as it were, by an ever-widening circle ofhumanist architects and scholars.

The treatises of Alberti, Antonio Filarete, Francesco diGiorgio, Sebastiano Serlio, Palladio, Giacomo Vignola,and Vincenzo Scamozzi were inspired if not modeled onthe treatise of Vitruvius, and all attempted to interpretclassical principles in a modern Italian way.

16


4. The Renaissance(s)From its base in Italy, Vitruvian classicism spread northwardwhere it joined with parallel intellectual and culturalmovements.

Several books of Serlio’s treatise first appeared in France,in fact, and the first major annotator of Vitruvius was theFrenchman Guillaume Philander, whose work waspublished in Rome in 1544, in Paris in the following year.The first French translation of Vitruvius by Jean Martinappeared in 1547, and within a few decades classicismhad fully established itself in France through such architectsas Philibert de L’Orme and Jacques Androuet du Cerceau.

17


4. The Renaissance(s)The same is true of the German-speaking states. WaltherHermann Ryff’s German translation – Vitruvius Teutsch –appeared in 1548, one year after he published his owntreatise on classical architecture.

Antwerp, then part of the Netherlands, became anotherimportant center of Vitruvian publications and classicallearning.

18


4. The Renaissance(s)By the middle of the seventeenth century classicism hasmore or less insinuated itself into every corner of theContinent and Great Britain.

Laurids Lauridsen de Thurah’s Den Danske Vitruvius (TheDanish Vitruvius, 1749), recording a built array of classicalbuildings in Denmark, testifies to its acceptance in theNordic countries as well.

19


5. The End (?)The star of Vitruvius only began to dim first with theMannerism of Michelangelo and then with the gatheringcurrents of the Baroque.

However one wishes to characterize this last period – as thelate phase of the Renaissance or an era distinct – the factremains that beyond such new concerns with geometry,movement, and plastic expressiveness lie still thevocabulary of classical motifs and many of its ideals.

The spirit of antiquity, in fact, would form an important partof architectural thinking for several centuries to come.

20


6. Leon Battista Alberti

21


6. Leon Battista AlbertiAlberti was not only the first great theorist of theRenaissance but he, more than anyone else in this century,personified what came to be known as humanism.

He was a man of great classical erudition.

Born to a Florentine father-in-exile and to a Genoesemother, he studied Greek and Latin in Padua and earned adoctor of law at the University of Bologna.

He seems to have dabbled in the arts in the 1420s, andeven considered a literary career before becoming a clericor secretary, first to Cardinal Carthusian Niccolo Albergati.

22


6. Leon Battista AlbertiIn 1428 the Florentine ban against the Alberti family waslifted and Leon got to see firsthand early Renaissanceworks, especially those of Masaccio, Donatello, andBrunelleschi.

He responded in 1435 with a treatise on painting, Depictura (on Painting), dedicated to Brunelleschi.

23


6. Leon Battista AlbertiBy this date Alberti had already traveled to Rome as asecretary to Pope Eugenius IV, where he became the firsthumanist to prepare a survey of the classical monuments ofthe city.

These archaeological studies formed but a prelude tofurther classical studies in Rome after 1443, and it wasaround this time that he began his architectural treatise, inwhich he now sought to interpret the principles of classicalRoman architecture.

24


6. Leon Battista AlbertiAround mid-century he also turned his attention to thepractice of architecture with a number of importantdesigns, among them the church of San Francesco inRimini (1450–60), the facades of the Palazzo Rucellai(1450s) and Santa Maria Novella (1458–71) in Florence,and the church of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua (begun 1470).

25


6. Leon Battista AlbertiSan Francesco in Rimini (1450–60)

26


6. Leon Battista AlbertiPalazzo Rucellai (1450s)

27


6. Leon Battista AlbertiSanta Maria Novella (1458–71)

28


6. Leon Battista AlbertiSant’ Andrea in Mantua (begun 1470)

29


6. Leon Battista AlbertiAlberti possessed literary skills in addition to classicallearning, and he was rather critical of the talents ofVitruvius.

He disliked in particular the architect’s conceptualambiguity and, moreover, he felt that classical theory hadachieved much greater heights of refinement in such writersas Cicero, whose rhetorical concepts he gladly redirectedtoward architectural theory.

30


6. Leon Battista AlbertiNevertheless, he borrowed the 10-book structure ofVitruvius and even organized his study around the threeVitruvian concepts of durability, convenience, and beauty.As the first Renaissance treatise on architecture, Alberti’seffort stands alongside that of Vitruvius as one of the twinpillars of classical theory.

31


6. Leon Battista AlbertiThe first selection from the opening pages of Book 1presents a few of the basic definitions of architecture andits general elements of practice.

His definition of building as ‘‘a form of body’’ consisting ofboth matter and lineaments (lines, or more generallydesign) maps out a philosophical distinction on which histheory of beauty will reside.

Matter relates to nature, but the power to wield lineaments(or make designs) resides in the architect’s mind.

32


7.1 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingPrologue and Book 1“[…] Before I go any farther, however, I should explainexactly whom I mean by an architect; for it is no carpenterthat I would have you compare to the greatest exponents ofother disciplines: the carpenter is but an instrument in thehands of the architect. Him I consider the architect, who bysure and wonderful reason and method, knows both howto devise through his own mind and energy, and to realizeby construction, whatever can be most beautifully fitted outfor the noble needs of man, by the movement of weightsand the joining and massing of bodies. To do this he musthave an understanding and knowledge of all the highestand most noble disciplines. This then is the architect. […]”

33


7.1 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingPrologue and Book 1“[…] First we observed that the building is a form of body,which like any other consists of lineaments and matter, theone the product of thought, the other of Nature; the onerequiring the mind and the power of reason, the otherdependent on preparation and selection; but we realizedthat neither on its own would suffice without the hand ofthe skilled workman to fashion the material according tolineaments.

34


7.1 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingPrologue and Book 1“[…] Since buildings are set to different uses, it provednecessary to inquire whether the same type of lineamentscould be used for several; we therefore distinguished thevarious types of buildings and noted the importance of theconnection of their lines and their relationship to eachother, as the principal sources of beauty; we begantherefore to inquire further into the nature of beauty – ofwhat kind it should be, and what is appropriate in eachcase. As in all these matters faults are occasionally found,we investigated how to amend and correct them. […]”

35


7.1 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingPrologue and Book 1“[…] Let us therefore begin thus: the whole matter ofbuilding is composed of lineaments and structure. All theintent and purpose of lineaments lies in finding the correct,infallible way of joining and fitting together those lines andangles which define and enclose the surfaces of thebuilding. It is the function and duty of lineaments, then, toprescribe an appropriate place, exact numbers, a properscale, and a graceful order for whole buildings and foreach of their constituent parts, so that the whole form andappearance of the building may depend on the lineamentsalone.

36


7.1 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingPrologue and Book 1[…] Nor do lineaments have anything to do with material,but they are of such a nature that we may recognize thesame lineaments in several different buildings that shareone and the same form, that is, when the parts, as well asthe siting and order, correspond with one another in theirevery line and angle. It is quite possible to project wholeforms in the mind without any recourse to the material, bydesignating and determining a fixed orientation andconjunction for the various lines and angles. Since that isthe case, let lineaments be the precise and correct outline,conceived in the mind, made up of lines and angles, andperfected in the learned intellect and imagination. […]

37


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6Alberti’s theory of absolute beauty is of paramountimportance to Renaissance theory in that it lays anintellectual foundation that will remain largely intact foralmost three centuries.

The issue of beauty had been problematic for Vitruvius.On the one hand he made allusions to the harmonic ratiosof Pythagorean musical theory, suggesting there was ahigher cosmic order underlying the judgment of beauty.

38


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6On the other hand he gave architects the right to varyproportions if the ‘‘eye’’ calls for corrections, or as the artsmake progress.

Such freedom assumes that judgments of beauty arerelative and even subjective – a logical inconsistencyunacceptable to Alberti and Renaissance aesthetics.

39


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6From his classical perspective, Alberti prefers the Platonicbelief that there is a higher reality to the physical orphenomenal world, namely Ideas; he accepts as well theNeoplatonic argument that art and architecture cansymbolize these higher Ideas through their adherence touniversal mathematical laws or harmonic proportions.Beauty is thus the correct mirroring of transcendent Ideas,and – as his reference to a passage of Cicero shows – it israrely found, even in nature.

40


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6The mediating element between raw nature (materials) andthe ordering lines of the architect is ornament.

This term possesses a meaning for Alberti quite differentthan its general meaning today. It is indeed something‘‘attached or additional,’’ but it is not inessential orsomething that can be dispensed with.

Ornament is the correct orchestration of the lineaments ofdesign, the judicious choice of the material, and thepolishing and refinement of appearance – in short, thecorporal manifestation of those higher Ideas.

41


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] Of the three conditions that apply to every form ofconstruction – that what we construct should beappropriate to its use, lasting in structure, and graceful andpleasing in appearance – the first two have been dealtwith, and there remains the third, the noblest and mostnecessary of all. “

42


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] Now graceful and pleasant appearance, so it isthought, derives from beauty and ornament alone, sincethere can be no one, however surly or slow, rough orboorish, who would not be attracted to what is mostbeautiful, seek the finest ornament at the expense of allelse, be offended by what is unsightly, shun all that isinelegant or shabby, and feel that any shortcomings anobject may have in its ornament will detract equally from itsgrace and from its dignity. “

43


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] Most noble is beauty, therefore, and it must be soughtmost eagerly by anyone who does not wish what he ownsto seem distasteful. What remarkable importance ourancestors, men of great prudence, attached to it is shownby the care they took that their legal, military, and religiousinstitutions – indeed, the whole commonwealth – should bemuch embellished; and by their letting it be known that ifall these institutions, without which man could scarce exist,were to be stripped of their pomp and finery, their businesswould appear insipid and shabby. When we gaze at thewondrous works of the heavenly gods, we admire thebeauty we see, rather than the utility that we recognize. “

44


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] Need I go further? Nature herself, as is everywhereplain to see, does not desist from basking in a daily orgy ofbeauty – let the hues of her flowers serve as my oneexample. But if this quality is desirable anywhere, surely itcannot be absent from buildings, without offendingexperienced and inexperienced alike. What would be ourreaction to a deformed and ill-considered pile of stones,other than the more to criticize it the greater the expense,and to condemn the wanton greed for piling up stones? Tohave satisfied necessity is trite and insignificant, to havecatered to convenience unrewarding when the inelegancein a work causes offense. “

45


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] In addition, there is one particular quality that maygreatly increase the convenience and even the life of abuilding. Who would not claim to dwell more comfortablybetween walls that are ornate, rather than neglected? Whatother human art might sufficiently protect a building tosave it from human attack? Beauty may even influence anenemy, by restraining his anger and so preventing the workfrom being violated. “

46


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] Thus I might be so bold as to state: No other meansis as effective in protecting a work from damage andhuman injury as is dignity and grace of form. All care, alldiligence, all financial consideration must be directed toensuring that what is built is useful, commodious, yes – butalso embellished and wholly graceful, so that anyoneseeing it would not feel that the expense might have beeninvested better elsewhere. “

47


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] The precise nature of beauty and ornament, and thedifference between them, the mind could perhaps visualizemore clearly than my words could explain. For the sake ofbrevity, however, let us define them as follows: Beauty isthat reasoned harmony of all the parts within a body, sothat nothing may be added, taken away, or altered, but forthe worse. “

48


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] It is a great and holy matter; all our resources of skilland ingenuity will be taxed in achieving it; and rarely is itgranted, even to Nature herself, to produce anything that isentirely complete and perfect in every respect. ‘‘How rare,’’remarks a character in Cicero, ‘‘is a beautiful youth inAthens!’’ That connoisseur found their forms wantingbecause they either had too much or too little of somethingby which they failed to conformto the laws of beauty “

49


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] In this case, unless I am mistaken, had ornamentbeen applied by painting and masking anything ugly, or bygrooming and polishing the attractive, it would have hadthe effect of making the displeasing less offensive and thepleasing more delightful. If this is conceded, ornament maybe defined as a form of auxiliary light and complement tobeauty. From this it follows, I believe, that beauty is someinherent property, to be found suffused all through thebody of that which may be called beautiful; whereasornament, rather than being inherent, has the character ofsomething attached or additional. “

50


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] This granted, I continue: Anyone who builds so as tobe praised for it – as anyone with good sense would – mustadhere to a consistent theory; for to follow a consistenttheory is the mark of true art. Who would deny that onlythrough art can correct and worthy building be achieved?And after all this particular part concerning beauty andornament, being the most important of all, must dependon some sure and consistent method and art, which itwould be most foolish to ignore. “

51


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] Yet some would disagree who maintain that beauty,and indeed every aspect of building, is judged by relativeand variable criteria, and that the forms of buildings shouldvary according to individual taste and must not be boundby any rules of art. “

52


7.2 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 6“[…] A common fault, this, among the ignorant – to denythe existence of anything they do not understand. I havedecided to correct this error; not that I shall attempt (since Iwould need detailed and extended argument for it) toexplain the arts from their origins, by what reasoning theydeveloped, and by what experience they were nourished;let me simply repeat what has been said, that the arts wereborn of Chance and Observation, fostered by Use andExperiment, and matured by Knowledge and Reason. “

53


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9The fullest elaboration of Alberti’s theory of beauty, andindeed of his whole architectural conception, comes inBook 9, when he introduces the Ciceronian notion ofconcinnitas or concinnity.

In his Orator (xxiii), Cicero notes that ‘‘words whenconnected together embellish a style if they produce acertain symmetry (concinnitas) which disappears when thewords are changed, though the thought remains the same’’(Loeb trans.).

ARCHI THEORY_I‐LECTURE_00454


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9Concinnity is that perfect harmony or grace that appearswhen the architect has perfectly composed his design, insuch a way that it demonstrates the three qualities ofcorrect number, outline, and position.

Number relates to the addition or taking away of parts;outline controls their size and configuration; position addsthe criteria of correct placement.

55


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9Alberti was convinced that in concinnity he had found the‘‘absolute and fundamental rule of Nature’’ as well as thedesign secret known to classical antiquity.

And like a good Platonist, Alberti next draws upon thenumerical ratios of Plato’s Timaeus to gather the harmonicratios that should also underlay architecture.

Alberti’s belief in an absolute numerical scheme for beautyand proportion was his most important contribution toRenaissance theory. Through these passages, architecturalbeauty now comes to reside principally in proportions.

56


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] Now I come to a matter with which we have promisedto deal all along: every kind of beauty and ornamentconsists of it; or, to put it more clearly, it springs from everyrule of beauty. This is an extremely difficult inquiry; forwhatever that one entity is, which is either extracted ordrawn from the number and nature of all the parts, orimparted to each by sure and constant method, or handledin such a manner as to tie and bond several elements intoa single bundle or body, according to a true and consistentagreement and sympathy.”

57


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] This work of research and selection is neither obviousnor straightforward in any other matter, but it is at its mostambiguous and involved in the subject about to bediscussed; for the art of building is composed of very manyparts, each one, as you have seen, demanding to beennobled by much varied ornament. Yet we shall tackle theproblem to the best of our ability, as we have undertaken.We shall not inquire as to how a sound understanding ofthe whole might be gained from the numerous parts, but,restricting ourselves to what is relevant, we shall begin byobserving what produces beauty by its very nature.”

58


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] The great experts of antiquity, as we mentionedearlier, have instructed us that a building is very like ananimal, and that Nature must be imitated when wedelineate it. Let us investigate, then, why some bodies thatNature produces may be called beautiful, others lessbeautiful, and even ugly. Obviously, among those which wecount as beautiful all are not such that there is nodifference between them; in fact it is precisely where theymost differ that we observe them to be infused or imprintedwith a quality through which, however dissimilar they are,we consider them equally graceful.”

59


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] Let me give you an example: one man might preferthe tenderness of a slender girl; yet a character in acomedy preferred one girl over all others because she wasplumper and more buxom; you, perhaps, might prefer awife neither so slender of figure as to appear sickly nor sostout of limb as to resemble a village bully, but such thatyou might add as much to the one as you could take awayfrom the other without impairing dignity. Yet, whichever ofthe two you prefer, you will not then consider the restunattractive and worthless. But what it is that causes us toprefer one above all the others, I shall not inquire.”

60


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] When you make judgments on beauty, you do notfollow mere fancy, but the workings of a reasoning facultythat is inborn in the mind. It is clearly so, since no one canlook at anything shameful, deformed, or disgusting withoutimmediate displeasure and aversion. What arouses andprovokes such a sensation in the mind we shall not inquirein detail, but shall limit our consideration to whateverevidence presents itself that is relevant to our argument.For within the form and figure of a building there residessome natural excellence and perfection that excites themind and is immediately recognized by it.”

61


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] I myself believe that form, dignity, grace, and othersuch qualities depend on it, and as soon as anything isremoved or altered, these qualities are themselvesweakened and perish. Once we are convinced of this, itwill not take long to discuss what may be removed,enlarged, or altered, in the form and figure. For every bodyconsists entirely of parts that are fixed and individual; ifthese are removed, enlarged, reduced, or transferredsomewhere inappropriate, the very composition will bespoiled that gives the body its seemly appearance.”

62


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] From this we may conclude, without my pursuing suchquestions any longer, that the three principal componentsof that whole theory into which we inquire are number,what we might call outline, and position. But arising fromthe composition and connection of these three is a furtherquality in which beauty shines full face: our term for this isconcinnitas; which we say is nourished with every graceand splendor. It is the task and aim of concinnitas tocompose parts that are quite separate from each other bytheir nature, according to some precise rule, so that theycorrespond to one another in appearance.”

63


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] That is why when the mind is reached by way of sightor sound, or any other means, concinnitas is instantlyrecognized. It is our nature to desire the best, and to clingto it with pleasure. Neither in the whole body nor in itsparts does concinnitas flourish as much as it does inNature herself; thus I might call it the spouse of the souland of reason. It has a vast range in which to exercise itselfand bloom – it runs through man’s entire life andgovernment, it molds the whole of Nature. “

64


7.3 De re aedificatoria: On the Art of BuildingBook 9“[…] Everything that Nature produces is regulated by thelaw of concinnitas, and her chief concern is that whatevershe produces should be absolutely perfect. Withoutconcinnitas this could hardly be achieved, for the criticalsympathy of the parts would be lost. So much for this. If thisis accepted, let us conclude as follows. Beauty is a form ofsympathy and consonance of the parts within a body,according to definite number, outline, and position, asdictated by concinnitas, the absolute and fundamental rulein Nature. This is the main object of the art of building,and the source of her dignity, charm, authority, and worth.”

65


8. ConcinnitasIn his treatise on architecture, de re aedificatoria, LeonBattista Alberti (1404 - 72) described Beauty in architectureas concinnitas: a harmony or congruity of the various partsof a building assembled according to principles:summarised by three categories of numerus, finitio andcollocatio .

This term has been interpreted variously and most famouslyin recent times by Rudolph Wittkower.

66


8. ConcinnitasStarting with his and other scholars' interpretations, thisdissertation proposes a new definition for concinnitasbased on studies of Alberti's architectural theory andpractice and the work of his contemporaries.

Chapters 1, 3 and 4 of the dissertation focus on theapplication of numerus and finitio in Alberti's architecturalpractice and observations made here are supported byseparate historical studies of the buildings (be found in theappendices) and survey drawings (bound together at theend of the dissertation).

67


8. ConcinnitasChapter two is a study of the symbolic references, traditionsand themes which appear to underlie the design ofcentralised churches and points raised here are expandedin later chapters.

The third category, collocatio, is examined in the finalchapters when the continuity of tradition in Alberti'sapproach to architecture is outlined within the frameworkof the city and the urban ensemble of church, palace,piazza and loggia.

68


[email protected]

69

Documents

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY SABE A.A. 2018 ......6. Leon Battista Alberti 7. De re aedificatoria : On the Art of Buillding 7.1 Prologue and Book 1 7.2 Book 6 7.3 Book9 8. Concinnitas