Burns Quattrocento Architecture and the Antique

8/3/2019 Burns Quattrocento Architecture and the Antique

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H . B U R N S

In approaching the question o f th e sources of early Quattrocentoarchitecture one must begin by recognising that even if Brunelleschian d his contemporaries ha d wanted to ignore all th e architecturebetween the Arch o f Constantine an d their own time, they couldhardly have done so, as they ha d always lived surrounded by post-antique bl;ildings, an d their patrons constantly required buildings

conforming to traditional local types. It is also to be borne in mindthat architects (in any period) are potentially open to visual sug-gestions from an y source whatever, so that an architect's ideas areno t by any means solely derived from buildings, bu t in this periodma y come from frescoes, paintings, coins, reliefs, ivories, manuscriptillustrations, mosaics, an d so on. All of these may carry renderings ofbuildings, all of them ma y have been produced at any time from thatvery da y back to antiquity, an d any of them, even th e most recent(as also th e most recent buildings) may contain motifs which derivefrom the antique. I t is easy to underestimate th e richness an d com-plexity of the architectural tradition stemming from antiquity an dth e abundance of sources available to Quattrocento architects, justas, on the other hand, it is easy to underestimate the ability of peopleto ignore things right in front of their noses, if they are not interestedin them. '

Something of the complexity of th e position of th e renaissanceartist in relation to the antique has been expressed by th e adoption ofth e useful terms Survival an d Revival.1 These categories are no tadequate in themselves to give a full account of th e Quattrocento'srelationship to the antique. While some motifs do apparently survivethroughout the Middle Ages, others were revived in the Quattro-cento on th e basis of antique versions, or of pre-Renaiss ance revivals,or on the basis of a combination of both. Survival an d Revival in theQuattrocento are thus closely linked: even corrupt versions, em-bodied in tradition, of antique motifs, were important as they madeeasier the assimilation of the pure antique form. And perhaps evenmore important was the way in which the antique deposit in medievaltradition9ften di d much to determine the Quattrocento interpreta-tion of the antique, no t only by influencing the way in which artistslooked at ancient architecture, bu t in some cases by providing thedirect sources of the new style. Something of the sort certainly1 Andre Chastel, Introduction to the section 'The Renaissance and Antiquity' , in Studies

in Western Art, II (Princeton, [963); also James S. Ackerman, 'Sources of the RenaissanceVilla' , pp. 6-18 in the same volume.

Q . U AT T R O C E N T O A R C H I T E C T U R E

happened in Lombardy an d in Venice, bu t the obvious, incontro-vertible case is that of Brunelleschi and the Florentine Baptistery.Here a Romanesque work was accepted as a true antiquity, an d itsdecorative language preferred to that of the monuments of Rome.My earlier point, that of th e relationship between Survival an dRevival, can be illustrated by a Romanesque capital recently found

in th e excavations in the nave of the Duomo in Florence.1

I t isremarkably similar to th e half-column capitals used by Michelozzoon the lantern of the Duomo. Th e fact that Michelozzo ma y havetaken the type straight from the antique, an d no t known a version ofit from th e demolished Santa Reparata, does no t alter the force o fth e example: antique motifs may be imitated from post-antiqueversions of them, or may be taken straight from the antique, or aknowledge of th e post-antique version may have led to th e antiqueoriginal being observed an d imitated.

Not only Romanesque, bu t also Trecento architecture (and pain-te d architecture) contained survivals an d revivals of th e antique

which were influential in the Quattrocento. Th e lack of informationas to what architects thought in the second half of the Trecento shouldno t lead us to characterise th e whole period as 'Gothic', an d henceto overlook th e possibility that the architectural revival of antiquityof the Quattrocento may be just as indebted to the period precedingit as is t h e ' revival of antiquity' of the humanists. Coluccio Salutati(born in 1331) describes th e Baptistery at th e turn of the century as'templum non graeco no n tusco more factum, sed plane romano' an dhis words open up th e strong possibility that th e architects of hisgeneration were capable of making equal, or more refined, stylisticdistinctions. 2 I t may even be that, like Michelozzo in the next cen-tury, they deliberately gave their works no w a 'Tuscan', n


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3 Th e Pantheon:a

an d } , Antonio da Sangallo the YOllnger:c, Francesco di Giorgio


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5a Orcagna's tabernacle (detail), Orsanmichcle, Florence

5h Screen from the Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence


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6a Purtal, Palazzo Medici, Florence 7aOl d Sacristy, Sa n Lorenzo, Florence

(ib Portal. Palazza Gondi, Florence 6c Sarcophagus of the Apostles.G1"olle Vaticane, Rome

7 b;'Baptistery, Pad Ia


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Bo Giouo, Capital ii"OIIl Ascension vIIh ( Fi'(]II/f,clil!

8b Capital from the Ol d Sacristy,Sa n Lorenzo. Florence

Hr r:iuliano cia SangaJlo, the Ionic Order aftt'r Alberti

ga Taddeo Gaddi, Presentalitm (!l/he. Virgin (detail)

gh Nave, Sa n Lorenzo, Florence


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10 . a, ' ' ' ' indow of Apse, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice; b, Pazzi Chapel,Santa Croce, Florence; c, Sarcophagus (detail), Camposanto, Pisa;

d, Masaccio, Madonna and Child (derail of th e throne)

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Th e Palazzo Medici, begun in 1444, is a good example of a buil-ding whose intended all'antica character is no longer very obviousoI t seems medieval enough: its rustication an d general proportionsrecall Palazzo Vecchio, its biforate windows, as Professor Gombrichhas observed, ar e only modernisations, that is antiquisations, of acommon medieval type. 1 An d even its massive, all'antica cornice is

close to th e massive cornices which crown Orsanmichele an d theLoggia dei Lanzi, while th e modillions which support its projectionare Trecento rather than truly antique in their profile.

But what di d Michelozzo an d Cosimo an d their contemporariesthink about th e palace? Some indication is given by what FlavioBiondo says about it. Biondo, as he himself does not fail to pointout, was unusually well qualified to say whether a building wascomparable to th e works of th e ancients, as he almost certainly knewmore about Roman topography than anyone then alive, with thepossible exception of Alberti. He writes:

Quid quod privatae aedes suae [Cosimo's] recens in via lata extructae, Romano.rumolim principum et quidem primariorum operibus comparandae sunt: quin ego ipse,qui Romam meis instauravi scriptis, affirmare non duhito nullius extare privatiaedificii principum in urhe Romana reliquias, quae maiorem illis aedibus prae seferant operis magnificentiam. 2

Th e fact that in the sentence before Biondo speaks of the marblecolumns in Sa n Lorenzo (PI. 9 b), whereas in reality they ar e ofpietra serena, only emphasises his identification of th e major works inth e r1ew style with th e great works of th e ancients. In both cases thebuildings made an impression on him which called forth' a compari-son with the monuments of ancient Rome- in th e case of PalazzoMedici explicit, in the case of Sa n Lorenzo, by th e use of an imagean d marble columns-which whether based on a lapse of memory, ormerely on literary conventions of architectural eulogy, serves to callto mind antique magnifitence.

Flavio Biondo was not an architect, bu t he does belong to thesmall number of humanists who, through their writings an d theirintimacy with th e great, ha d enormous influence in forming con-temporary ideas about antiquity. An d if Biondo thought that thepalace was comparable to the edifices of ancient Rome, Cosimo1 E. H. Gombrich, From the Revival of Letters, p. 80.2 Italia /llustrata, the section on Florence (P.305 of the 1559 Basle edition of Biondo's

works). -

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H . B U R N S

almost certainly thought so toO.1 Bu t to return to th e original point.As an artist Michelozzo would probably have ha d a richer set ofvisual criteria for what was or what was not all'antica in architecturethan would Biondo. One of these criteria (probably shared withBiondo) would have been the use of th e round arch- the changefrom pointed to round would have been for Michelozzo no

alteration bu t one which altered th e whole style of the bUIldmg.Again, if Michelozzo ha d seen antique representations of rusticatedbuildings with round-topped windows, like that phagus 174 (PI. 6c), he could have consIdered ?esIgnas a very close reproduction of an anCIent Roman palace. Fmally,the door of the palace (PI. 6a), where the voussoirs are containedwithin an archivolt and are not keyed into the horizontal courses,ma y to us seem more medieval (it occurs for instance on PalazzoVecchio) an d less antique than th e solution where such a keying intakes place. I t must have seemed so to Giuliano da Sangallo when hedesigned th e portals of Palazzo Gondi about 1490 (PI. 6 b). All th e

same, ;the Palazzo Medici portal. solution does have antique prece-dents: especially in Roman bridges like the Ponte Amato on the Via an d Michelozzo ma y well have been consciously imi-

tating such an antique type.So far 1 have only discussed borrowings from the antique in which

the motif remains largely unchanged in th e process. Such (apart fromDona.tello's practice of creating new types by unprecedented combin-ations of genuine antique motifs) is usually th e case with capitals, an ddecorative detail. But the larger an d more complex the antiquescheme which a Quattrocento architect examined, the more likelyhe alter an d misinterpret it when he consigned it to hismeriit>rf' or his sketchbook, an d th e process of alteration would con-tinue if he then sought to imitate the building in his own work.

Francesco di Giorgio's dra,wings, although they all probably be-long to the last quarter of the century, provide many instances of theimportance of subjective factors in the Quattrocento's approach tothe antique. His on-the-spot drawings from the antique in the Uffizi1 Cosimo of course also knew Rome and had probably been guided round the monuments

by Poggio (see Krautheimer, Ghiberti, pp . 32


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H . B U R N S

Plan, Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence (after Sanp"aolesi)

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2 Plan, Baptistery, Padua (after Guiotto)

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Th e Ol d Sacristy in Sa n Lorenzo (PI. 7a, Figs. I an d 4), builtbetween 1421 an d 1428, admittedly, in plan at least, has parallelswith certain Roman tombs. Bu t I think there can be little doubt as toits immediate source. Th e Baptistery of Padua Cathedral (PI. 7 b,Figs. 2 an d 3) would have been known to many Florentine visitorsan d residents of the city, no t least because of its dedication to SanGiovanni. Like th e Ol d Sacristy, in plan it consists of a large square,with a smaller square attached to it. Both squares are surmounted bydomes, an d both domes rest on pendentives. In both buildings acylindrical drum on the outside conceals th e curvature of th e dome. Inthe interiorofboth, round-topped windows appear in similar positions. 1

Th e Paduan Baptistery in its basic structure is thus very closeindeed to the Ol d Sacristy. I t does of course lack the articulation ofits interio r wall surfaces with pilasters an d entablature, which is oneof the most striking an d original features of Brunelleschi's style. Aprecedent, however, for this too can be found in Padua, and wasdoubtless known to Brunelleschi: the treatment of the end wall of th eArena chapel is th e same as that of the corresponding part of the Ol dSacristy, as regards its general scheme, save that in Giotto's work th etwo arches are not quite concentric.

Saalman has noted the independence of the capital type whichBrunelleschi adopted in th e Ol d Sacristy (PI. 8 b) an d continued touse throughout his career, from th e usual antique Corinthian capita1. 2

Despite th e fact that he must often have seen th e antique type, hepreferred to use a simplified an d rationalised version of it. This, itwould appear, he did not invent, as it is more or less identical to c apitalspainted by Giotto in th e Peruzzi Chapel in Santa Croce (PI. 8a).31 M. Guiotto, 'I I Battistero di Padova', Palladio, VlI (1943) j M. Checchi, L. Gaudenzio,

L. Grossato,Padova

1961),pp.

575-82.Th e

measurementsof the

tw.

buildingscorrespond so closely (they are both squares of about 11'5 m.) as to suggest that theFlorentine structure is not simply influenced by the Paduan Baptistery, bu t is actually areplica of it, perhaps produced at the specific request of the patron. (I t is also true,however, that 11'50 m. is approximately equal to the round figure of 20 bTaccia.) Gio-vanni d' Averardo's part in the creation of the Sacristy was clearly more than financial.J'his is implied by Antonio Manetti , Vita di Filippo di SeT Brunellesco, ed. E. Toesca(Florence, 1927), pp. 62-3, and demonstrated, as regards the iconography of the Sac-risty, by H. Kauffman, DonatelkJ (Berlin, 1935), pp.85-6. There is arecord of Gio-vanni's appointment as ambassador to Padua an d Venice in 1404 (B. Dami, GiovanniBicci dei Meilici (Florence, 1899), p.28). On Florentines in Padua see R. Cessi, 'GliAlberti di Firenze in Padova. Per la storia dei Fiorentini a Padova', ATChivioStoricoItaliano, ser. 5, XL (1907), 233-84, an d especially p. 238.

2 H. Saalman, 'Capital Studies', p. 115.a Th e capitals appear in the Ascensionof he Evangelist. Th e capital of Brunelleschian type

published by M. Gosebruch, RomischesJb. f . Kunstgeschichte,VIII

(1958), p. 78, fig. 40,as being about 1200, in fact almost certainly should be dated about 1449.

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3 Section, Baptistery, Padua (after Guiotto)

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n I 2 J 'I "llH'trcs

4 Sectj,on, Ol d Sacristy, Sa n Lorenzo, Florence (after Sanpaolesi)

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I f one turns to other buildings by Brunelleschi, the same pictureemerges: repeated borrowings from the Veneto, from Trecentopainting an d architecture , from the Tuscan Romanesque, but not fromth e antique. San Lorenzo in plan recalls Santa Croce and Santa Trinita.Its nave (PI. gb) recalls th e church of th e Apostoli in Florence, an deven more th e various representations of the Temple in Jerusalem inTrecento frescoes of the Presentation, in Santa Croce. 1 Th e earliest ofthese is by Taddeo Gaddi in the Baroncelli Chapel (PI. ga): here notonly are there columns carrying round arches, bu t even entablatureblocks placed bet ween capital an d arch, as in Sa n Lorenzo and SantoSpirito. Th e Pazzi Chapel is an adaptation of the Ol d Sacristy schemeto the chapter-house plan which appears already in Florence in theSpanish Chapel at Santa Maria Novella. Th e windows an d wall panels(PI. lOb) ma y well be modernisations of a Gothic motif, occurringfor instance on the apse ofSS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice (PI. lOa).

Brunelleschi's later works have. been seen as showing a muchstronger an d more explicit influence of the antique. Th e more

plastic an d monumental handling of th e later works ma y derive froman increasing interest in this aspect of ancient architecture, bu t oncemore, strikingly close medieval pa rallels ca n also be found for BruneI-leschi's later compositions. Th e continuous in-and-out movement ofth e semicircular chapels of Santo Spirito is paralleled by that in thenorth wing of he atrium of San Marco in Venice where, incidentally,there is also a parallel for th e decoration of th e pendentives of thePazzi Chapel with tondi containing the Evangelists.

Th e placing of paired half-columns between deep semicircularniches on th e exedrae at th e base of th e Florentine cupola (PI. I I b),has parallels in th e Veneto, for instance on th e apse of th e cathedral

at Murano, and in th e atrium of Sa n Marco. Admittedly in thesecases the columns do no t carry a straight entablature, as in Brunel-leschi's structure . An almost exact parallel, however, is to be found in anillumination in a Byzantine manuscript in Copenhagen (PI. I I a).2 Itwould be far-fetched to suggest that this very image was Brunelleschi'ssource, bu t as Byzantine architectural backgrounds ar e almost alwaysconstantly repeated types, it would no t be unreasonable to suggestthat Brunelleschi knew another version of it. Th e case anyway oncemore emphasises the range of possible sources available to architects.1 Th e temple appears twice in the Baroncelli Chapel an d once in the Rinuccini Chapel.2 Royal Library, Copenhagen, Cod. 6, fo. 83v. See Kurt Weitzmann, Die Byzantinische

Buchmalerei des 9 und 10 Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1935), p. 26 an d fig. 198.


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5 Plan, Santa Maria degli Angioli, Florence (after Giuliano da Sangallo)

6 Transept, Duomo, Florence


I want finally t o consider Santa Maria degli Angioli, Brunelleschi'sunfinished octagonal church (Fig. 5), which is always regarded as th emost completely antique of his works, while the so-called temple ofMinerva Medica in Rome, or similar centralised ancient buildings,is usually cited as its source. l Brunelleschi may well have known thetemple of Minerva Medica, an d it may have increased his awarenessof the possibilities of a polygonal structure with chapels attached toeach of its sides. But a precise non-antique source for Brunelleschi'sdesign exists, which he undoubtedly knew very well indeed, an dwhich is much closer to the Angioli than is th e temple of MinervaMedica. For the terminations of the crossing arms of the Duomo inFlorence are half-octagons, with chapels attached to their sides(Fig. 6). If one imagines th e octagon as being completed, th e resultingstructure, apart from th e modelling of the chapel walls, is identical inplan to th e Angioli. I t is true of course that in the Duomo there ar eonly half, not whole octagons, bu t it would be absurd to maintainthat Brunelleschi was incapable of the conceptual agility necessary toimagine th e completed octagon. An d already in th e Trecento free-standing octagonal structures, close to th e Duomo transepts, appearin fresco backgrounds. 2

An examination of Brunell esc hi's sources does no t call in questionth e generic antique inspiration of much of what is new in his archi-tecture. Bu t it does raise the problem of wh y he did not imitate theantique more literally, an d of what he thought of those of his con-temporaries wh o did, as well as th e question of his attitude towardsth e architecture of the Trecento an d th e Veneto. It is much morelikely than not that Brunelleschi went to Rome and studied itsmonuments on one or more occasions. Manetti's account, though it

may be wrong in plac41g the famous visit immediately after"thecompetition for the Bapti stery gates,_ has in its detail a ring of truthabout it. 3 And it is almost inconceivable that Brunelleschi, eve n withhis extreme independence of mind, should have thought of him-self as doing som ething other than reviving th e 'ancient manner of1 L. H. Heydenreich, 'Spiitwerke Brundleschis', Jb. der preus;:;ischen Kunstsammlungen,

52 (1931),6-7. W. an d E. Paatz, Die Kirchen von Floren;:;, III (Frankfurt am Main,1952), however mention the Duomo -as a source.

2 Forinstance in Santa Croce in the Baroncdli Chapd (the Meeting with St Anne) and in theRoad to Calvary in the Sacristy.

3 Manetti, Vita, pp. 22-3, is clearly anachronistic, an d influenced by Alberti (see Saal-man, 'Capital Studies', pp. 114-15) wl1ereas the passage on p. 21 on the use of strips ofparchment does not sound like an invention.


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But this he must have conceived as lying in general princi-'''''',.''''." ..... so that he felt no need to copy ancient plans or details literally,

but instead moulded his ne w style ou t of generic all'antica principles,combined with specific motifs taken from th e Tuscan Romanesque,from the Trecento and th e Veneto. And consciously or unconsciously,apart from th e Baptistery (in any case a subjective, no t an objective,antiquity) he undoubtedly avoided direct quotation from the antique.

Brunelleschi's approach was no t shared by his contemporaries.Michelozzo, though he employed a Brunelleschian vocabulary onoccasion, ciesigned in both a Trecento an d in a completely all' anticastyle. 2 Masaccio on at least one occasion quotes a specific antiquearchitectural motif: the recessed columns of th e throne of tb-e PisaMadonna (Pl. lo d ) IOC), already in th e

in the Siena Baptistery relief brings a range ofall' antica detail into play, which has no parallel in Brunelleschi'swork. Manetti's account of Brunelleschi's hostility to th e portalsadded by Donatello in th e Old Sacristy is well known (PIs. 7 a an d12 b), and whether Manetti's account is true or not (there seems noreason to doubt it) their dainty, slightly clumsy, slightlyquaintmonu-mentality is certainly ou t of keeping with Brunelleschi's approach towall design. 4 Th e portals conflict not only with Brunelleschi's archi-l Within Brunelleschi's own lifetime, flat-topped doors and windows are referred to in the

Innocenti and Annunziata documents as all'anticha. (For the information about theAnnunziata I am indebted to Miss Louisa Bulman; for the Innocenti, see M. C. MendesAtanasio and G. Dallai, 'Nuove indagini sullo Spedale degli Innocenti a Firenze',Commenlari, XVII (1966), doc. XIV, p. l O r . )

2 See H. Saalman, 'The Palazzo Comunale in Montepulciano', Zeitschrift f Kunst-geschichle, XXVll l (1965), I . ). .

3 Masaccio thus anticipates ttaphael, PeruzzI Mlchelan el hISuse of the recessed column. For

acaracterisation 0 t e architecture of the throne:

Eve BorsooJ{-'-A-iioieon""tIasaccio in Pisa' , Burlington Magazine, em (1961), 212. Th epanel was in Pisa (Martin Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools (London, NationalGallery, 2nd ed. 1961), pp. 348-51) and the rosettes which decorate the lower part ofthe throne may well derive from Bonannus's bronze doors of Pisa Cathedral.

On the sarcophagus in the Camposanto: R. Papini, Catalogo delle c?se d'arte e di chilO. d'ltalia. Pisa. Ser. I, fasc. II, part II (Rome, n.d.), p. 28; E. Carh and P. E. Anas,11 Camposanto di Pisa (Rome, 1957), p. 58. It was originally in the church ofS. Michele inBorgo: Paolo Lasinio, Raccolta di SarcoJagi .. . del Campo Santo di Pisa (Pisa, 181 4),pp. 7- 8, and tav. XXI; Alessandro da Morrona, Pisa Illustrata, UI (Pisa, 1793), 17!3-9.

There are strong justifications for th e solution chosen by Donatello. Th e Old Sacnsty ISnot the Pazzi Chapel: it is much more of a single-viewpoint composition, not unsuitedto the application of modestly three-dimensional monumental elements on th e principalwall. On the portals see Manetti , Vita, pp. 65-6; Janson, The sculpture oj Donatello(Princeton" 1957), pp. 138-40; an d Margrit Lisner, 'Zur fruhen

Donatellos"

Mllncher Jb. der bildenden Kunst,I X - X

(1958/9), 81-3. Janson s attnbutlOn ofthe portals to MicheJozzo is unconvincing.

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tectural aesthetic, bu t also with his practice of avoiding direct cita-tion of the antique. Donatello must have chosen this form on th ebasis of its antique character: columned an d pedimented portalsfrequently appear on sarcophagi, where they often fram e doors 'withrelief panels. l And it is possible that th e Ol d Sacristy portals ar e th eearliest renaissance architectural work to reproduce a specific Romanmonument: an almost identical pedimented portal, with freestandingIonic columns, is drawn by Giuliano da Sangallo (PI. 12C), whosenote indicates that it was in or near th e hemicycle ofTrajan's Forum. 2I t is also worth observing that even if Donatello did go to Trajan'sForum for th e scheme for the portals, all the same they do have aTrecento precedent, in the portal of a church (PI. 12a) representedby Agnolo Gaddi in Santa Croce. 3 So Brunelleschi might well haveadded to his other objections to the portals that in feeling, if not infinish, they were retardataire, merely stuck against the wall in medievalfashion, an d not related to the general scheme.

What I have said so far touches upon a number of problems con-nected chiefly with the early Renaissance: the question 'of th e in-fluence of he Trecento; the need for an exploration of the intellectualhabits with which architects approached the antique; and the needto be wary of excluding the possibility that an architect was influencedby a conception of the antique (or. even by specific antique motifs)when his work seems basically traditional to us, and, on the otherhand, of excluding th e possibility that beneath an impeccablyall' antica exterior there ma y not be a Trecento tradition. Th e remarksabout th e Palazzo Medici, an d about the very different approachesof Brunelleschi an d Donatello to tradition on the on e hand, an d th eantique on th e other, however inadequate, at least indicate some of

th e possible complexities of the relation of early Quattrocento artiststo th e architectural past.I no w want to conclude by how it came about that the idea

of ancient architecture as a set of principles, rather than as a set of1 Freestanding columns appear also in the portal of the sacristy at Santa Trinita, and

freestanding Ionic columns, carrying a heavy entablature, frame the entrance to thechapel ofS. Zeno in S. Prassede in Rome (the arch above this portal is also reminiscentof th e Old Sacristy arrangement)

2 Vatican Library, Cod. Barb. 4424, fo. 38v (published by C. Huelsen, lilibro di Giulianoda Sangallo, Leipzig, 1910). T. Ashby, Papers oj the British School at Rome, II (1904),no. 65 b, a drawing independent of Giuliano's, as well as the fact that Francesco daSangallo added the measurements on Giuliano's drawing, tell against Huelsen's view(op. cit., text vol., p. 55) that the drawing is imaginative reconstruction, rather than a

record of an actual monument.3 In The Alaking oj he Cross in the Cappella Maggiore,

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rules as to the form of capitals, bases, an d th e rest, came to be over-shadowed by the attention given to th e orders. Th e idea of antiquearchitecture as a set of principles, rather than precedents, is implicitin Brunelleschi's buildings, an d explicit in the architectural theoryof Francesco di Giorgio an d Alberti. Nevertheless it is Alberti whoconstructed the foundations for the sixteenth-century approach, evenif other factors were involved, which cannot be discussed here. I t washe who first undertook the systematic study of the ancient monu-ments, an d of Vitruvius, an d of each in the light of th e other. He isthe first to achieve a reasonably good understanding of the ancientorders, even" if he did no t consider that they need be followed pre-cisely in modern works.

Alberti in fact brought the techniques of humanist scholarship tothe study of ancient architecture, an d he explicitly states, in a highlyimportant passage, that the architect should imitate the humanistscholar by consulting an d recording as many ancient works as hecould. l Alberti's injunction ultimately gave a new, systematic charac-te r to the sketchbooks in which artists ha d already begun recordingancient buildings an d ancient architectural details. 2 Bu t little is .known about th e developments which bridge the gap between Alberti(he died in 1472; his book was first published in 1485) an d th e twomost revolutionary achievements of the early sixteenth century in th efield of the of a sound understanding of ancient architecture: :7rempietto, where the Doric order is used correctly for

the first 'tlnie, and Fra Giocondo's brilliant edition of Vitruviusof 1511.

Just on e fact is clear about this period, namely the importance ofGiuliano da Sangallo as the direct follower of Alberti. He studied the"

antique intensively; he took over, just as Alberti ha d done, wholeantique compositional schemes an d used them in his own designs an dbuildings. 3 Unfortunately it is no t known with any exactness whenGiuliano started making detailed measured drawings of ancient archi-I De re aed. IX, 10 (ed. cit. pp. 855-7). Th e architect's sketchbook would thus become analo-

gous in scope and content to the humanist's notebook: see R. Sabbadini, Il metodo degliumanisti (Florence, 1922), pp. 29-30; R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and its Bene-ficiaries (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 269-73.

2 Giuliano da Sangallo's books of drawings in Siena an d the Vatican in fact bridge the ga pbetween" the old and the new type of architectural sketchbook. Th e Codex Coner(Ashby's publication of it is cited in- note 2, p. 285 above) is a good example of thenew Cinquecento type.

3 H. Saalman, 'The authorship of th e Pazzi Palace, Ar t Bulletin, XLVI (1964), 388-94,esp. p. 392, Clllls attention to the Albertian character of Giuliano's approach.

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tectural detaiJ.1 I t is tempting an d no t implausible to suggest that th echange in the character of Giuliano's drawings from th e antiquecoincides with the printing of the first edition of Alberti's De reaedifieatoria in 1485. A letter has recently been published which indi-cates that Lorenzo de ' Medici's interest in the book so great thathe ha d it read to him, fascicule by fascicule, as i t came off th e press. 2

He would hardly have failed to bring it about that his leadingarchitect was fully acquainted with the work, though it is unlikelythat Giuliano would have needed it brought to his attention. And infact a drawing in Giuliano's small parchment'sketchbook in Siena(PI. 8e), whose significance appears to have been overlooked, defi-nitely establishes Giuliano's knowledge of Alberti's text. 3 For it issimply a graphic presentation of the Albertian description of theIonic order.4

All this raises" the problem of a possible influence of Giuliano onBramante an d th e possibility that it was above all Giuliano who wasresponsible for Bramante's coming to understand the ancient systemof th e orders. Bu t this question cannot in the present state of know-ledge be satisfactorily answered, an d as it carries one beyond thefrontier of 1500 I will simply state it and stop.I Th e question (full of uncertainties) of the dating of Giuliano's drawings is discussed by

Huelsen, Illibro di Giuliano da"Sangallo, text vol., pp. xxv-xxviii.2 Mario Martelli, 'I pensieri architettonici del Magnifico', Commenlari, X V I! (1966), 10 7.3 Siena, Biblioteca Comunale, Cod. s. IV. 8, fo. 35 (published by R. Falb, Siena, 19 02 ).4 Alberti describes th e Ionic base in VII, 7 (ed. cit. pp. 570-3) and the Ionic capital in VII,

8 (pp. 576-83).

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Burns Quattrocento Architecture and the Antique