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Francesco di Giorgio, Constructing Acoustic Spaces.

A Contribution to the Understanding of the Harmonic Concepts

of 15th

Century Architectural Theory.

Read at the Renaissance Society of America, Chicago. April 2008. In “Francesco di Giorgio Martini”, in print. Fink Verlag (end 2010). I.Acoustics as one of Francesco di Giorgio's Concerns

This paper will deal with two interrelated research strings in Francesco’s

writings. First, I will look at the specific, though sparse, references to the

subject in his texts, where he – either acting on Vitruvian suggestions or just

simply applying his original ideas to the legacy of Roman architecture,

considers the use of resonant vases which he regards as requisite for round

buildings. There are concerns as to the authenticity and reliability of the

graphic material in his manuscripts, as well as the expressions coined as

translations for rare and unusual Vitruvian terms, or specific contemporary

technical terms. For example, in the nearly identical Saluzziano and the

Laurenziano Codices1, he illustrates: 1. “vases into which the voice directed

itself, breaking [itself]”; and 2. vases into which the voice “entered and broke”

Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.

1 Saluzziano, f. 14; Maltese 1967, I, fig. 23 p. 256. Both codices are conflated

by Maltese in his 1967 edition, so that the variants from the Laurenziano

Codex are included by him into separate footnote quotations.

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- “vasi dove la voce ronpendosi” (verb is missing). The legend beside the

drawing reads, in the more complete Laurenziano (fig. 1):

“Vases with lid … allowed the voice, which had traveled [from] one to the

other vase, to go out. Steps where the copper vases were located, into which

the voice entered, spreading to the ears of the [spectators?, audience? – here the

folio is damaged]. A canal through which the voice, breaking, travelled

quickly”2.

He also assigns legends in his drawing to the step (“grado”) and the “lid of the

vase” (“capellamento del vaxo”).

There is a second instance where Francesco proves knowledgeable about

acoustics: in a different context (in the Sienese S. IV. 4 Codex) he advises

patricians, particularly the owners of palaces, on an instrument, which we

might call the first “bugging device” of the Early Modern era: an instrument

consisting in a tunnel in the walls,

“Through which the Lord easily hears everything that, in his absence, is being 2 Martini 1979, I, 112 (Laurenziano). Saluzziano, f. 14 with drawings, see also

Maltese 1967, I, fig. 23, p. 256: “vasi dove la voce ronpendosi” (Maltese adds

that in Laurenziano, f. 13r, “è un disegno di dettaglio di vaso risonatore col suo

chapellamento, che in T [=Saluzziano] manca”): “Vaxi chon chapellamento …

giendo l’un l’altro la voce uscire feva[n?]. Gradi dove e vaxi henei [fi]tili posti

inne’ quali la voce [defun]dendosi agli orecchi degli a… perveniva. Canale de

la voce ronpendo corre. grado. capellamento del vaxo”.

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said in his house. Dig a concavity in the wall as demonstrated in the drawing,

in the form of a blind window in the thickness of the wall and continuing in a

narrow tube. This tube should arrive to a place in which the Lord, putting his

ear, will hear everything, even if spoken softly … “ (Maltese 1967, II, 352)3.

Problems of acoustics crop up in numerous places of Francesco’s manuscripts,

not only when they deal with theatres. According to Mussini (2003, IX), the

Saluzziano Codex is the result of a “rethinking” [ripensamento] of the treatise

structure, along with materials and designs accumulated over several years and

beginning with 1482: it is thus worthwhile determining whether the wealth of

materials concerning the shape of resounding or harmonic spaces is the result

of particularly recent investigations and discoveries in this field (either the

study of examples from antiquity, or of the Casa del Mantegna, as Rosenthal

(1962, 327-48) once proposed, or what he calls an “edificio in Tiboli”, building

in Tivoli (Maltese 1967, I, 89v.) ?); discoveries which deserve more attention 3 “per lo quale el signore sente facilmente tutto quello che in casa, lui absente,

si dice, in questa forma: faccisi una concavità la quale sia come una finestra

murata che sia in la grossezza del muro e vada per piccolo tubolo, e nella

parte superiore si facci una concavità nella forma disegnata, che pervenga ad

uno luogo dove el signore accostando l’orecchia odirà il tutto benché si parli

piano, perché le spezie del sono o voce in quello loco angusto si fortificano e in

uno certo modo la virtù dispersa si unisce e fortificasi, come la esperienzia ci

dimostra”.

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because they refer to contemporary acoustical studies and to the behavior of

sound waves, and their consonances or dissonances.

Interestingly Francesco proves being knowledgeable about the behavior of

sound waves, which he recognizes as traveling in a concentric pattern, much

like ripples of water in a pool: “like … when we throw a stone into a sea,

where endless circles spread in the ripples, as if moving from a centre towards

the farthest place: thus behaves the voice in the air”4.

Francesco understood that the way in which a body reacts to movement is

basically identical or follows the same rules, as those of a solid body reacting

to sound: he also drew on this specific knowledge about the transmission of

sound, or respectively, of movements through solid agents in devising his

designs for various kinds of military buildings and fortifications. One century

later, these scientific acquaintances would trigger the work that led to the first

scientific revolution.

An entire chapter of the Magliabechiano Vitruvius is devoted to an

introduction of the concepts of acoustics5: there Francesco explains that the

sound produces “innumerable circles of waves which originate in the centre

and expand, when the spatial restrictions, or some other obstructions do not 4 “come… gittato el sasso in nel pelago, che infinite circulazioni in nell’onde,

come quasi dal centro partendosi a’ luoghi più estremi defundendosi, così la

vosce in nell’aria fa” (Saluzziano, 14r., Maltese 1967, I, 54; for further

experiments on throwing stones into a liquid, cf. Maltese 1967, II, 358).

5 Biffi 2002, 38 (f. 30r, from Vitruvius V, 3, 6).

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impede them from reaching their destination”.6 In this Vitruvius commentary,

he further even compares (translating Liber V, chap. 3, 8) the art of building of

Antiquity to the construction of organs: he declares that, like in the

construction of organs with copper or horn, the ragioni – which are the

proportions – “of theatres were built by the Ancients in order to amplify the

sound”.7

Some of the round buildings, that Francesco studied over a long period, were

the amphitheatra: they were on the one hand all’antica, and simultaneously

6 “innumerabili circhuli de onde che chreschano dal cientro

grandisimamente [This word added later by Francesco to the text] e va[n]no

dilatandosi, se lla angustia de luogo none impacia” (Biffi 2002, 39).

Magliabechiano, f. 30v: “P(er)ché la vocie sí chome uno spirto de aire si

muove chone i(n)finite ritondationi di circoli, chosì chome in una aqua morta

gitandovi una pietra nascano inumerabili circhuli de onde che chreschano dal

cientro gransisima me(n)te e vano dilatandosi, se lla angustia de luogo none

impacia hovero qualche ofensione, che no lassa le disegniationi di quelle

honde pervenire all fine.”

7 “Peroche[´,] chome gli organi si riducieno in perfetione nelle lame di rame

hovero di chorno, e alla chiareza del suono delle chorde, chosi le ragioni de

teatri sono chostituiti dagli antichi per armonia ada agumentare la vocie”

(Biffi 2002, 39).

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served as models for modern projects, which he depicts and describes in the

Saluzziano Codex and which were not at all of stage technical relevance. This

codex briefly anticipates in an interesting way another of Francesco’s

important strings of investigation: the circular or octogonal courtyards or

interiors in private buildings; or, on the other hand, some of the buildings he

includes in his typologies are contemporary, as in the Saluzziano Codex (fig. 4)

and feature spaces which he calls “chortili e piazze”. One might name the

semicircular, or nearly circular examples such as Ferento near Viterbo, one of

the few examples with a still surviving scaena (Saluzziano, 71r-72r). He

revisits in the same treatise later the theatres, in the context of a general

analysis of ancient Roman theatrical buildings. Francesco gets then again to

this subject in the Magliabechiano Codex where he re-interprets Liber V, chap.

4 by Vitruvius from a contemporary perspective, definitively explaining the

phenomenon of the resounding vases, as what is basically the physical

phenomenon of resonance of overtones: the voice “will produce a further

consonance which is akin to itself, i. e. adapted to itself”. 8 We still have no

idea about where and how he learned this.

He also refers to the anecdote of Lucius Mummius who, after having “ruined 8 Italics are mine. Magliabechiano f. 31r ff., for transcription here used, see the

edition in Biffi 2002, 40-41: “I(n) questa ragione la vocie sparssa dalla sciena

quasi da un cientro rivoltandosi atorno e perchotendo le chonchavità di

ciaschun vaso farà una chonsona[n]tia diciente a ssé idest chonvenie[n]te a

ssé.”

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the theatre of Corinth, brought those vases to Rome”9. This episode therefore

doesn’t seem to have been of his interest only as a scholarly quotation.

As Francesco Paolo Fiore has explicitly emphasized, Vitruvius had indeed

considered machinatio, that is the function of machinae, an integral part of

architecture10, which means that he dedicated his investigations also to

hydraulics, astronomy and acoustics and to the related instruments: a part of

these investigations is witnessed by his surviving work, but it seems likely he

dedicated himself to these sciences more extensively than the sources tell us.

Some of Francesco’s decisive researches had taken place during his mature

activity, ending up in the vast theoretical writings we know. I propose that at

least his late appointment as architect of the King of Naples from 1492 to 1502

might have given him occasion to study ancient theatra and amphitheatra in

Central and Southern Italy. Besides the numerous examples of civic theatrical

architectures from Rome, we must also consider the large and well preserved

theatres for instance in Pozzuoli, nearby Naples, or in Capua, whose bulky,

elliptical Amphitheatrum Campanum, from the 1st cent. A.D., served as a

model for no less a building than the Colosseum, which has been built later and 9 “ruinato el teatro dei Chorinti, portò que’ vasi a Roma” (Magliabechiano

Codex, f. 32v; Biffi 2002, 41-2).

10 The famous Vitruvian quotation is in De architectura I, III, 1. Cf. Fiore

1978, 25.

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is approximately the same size. That Francesco must have been acquainted

with public buildings, for cultural gatherings, or for political activities, from

Campania, is evident from his studies on rotundas from Baiae, or the

Phlegraean Fields, like Uffizi 329r, in which he clearly noted the location of the

so called “tempio d’Apollo”: the neighbourhoods of the lago Cumano, i.e. Lago

d’Averno. Some scholars date Francesco’s first possible trip to the Aragonese

capital as early as 1479 (Ericsson 1980, 27; see also Filangieri 1929).

But the philological and empirical data indicate that Francesco must have

already received crucial impulses for his reinterpretation of the ancient theater

from the humanist Pomponio Leto (Schweikhart 2001, 5), who with his pupils

organized theatre performances in the interiors of Roman palaces from as early

as 1487, during Francesco's late years. Later in Leto’s career, a well known

elaborate theatre was built in Rome on the Capitol Hill in 1513, on the

occasion of the granting of citizenship to Giuliano de’ Medici. This “Capitol

Theatre”11 was reproduced in the Coner Codex, fol. 23.12 11 Janitschek 1882; see also, about this ceremony, Giuliano de’ Medici eletto

cittadino romano ovvero il Natale di Roma nel 1513, Relazione inedita di M.

Antonio Altieri con prefazione e note di Loreto Pasqualucci, Roma 1881; more

recently: Cruciani 1983, 406-434.

12 Ashby 1904, II, drawing 23; and Text, I, 23; and in a drawing by Maarten

van Heemskerck, the theatre has “rows of seats in the foreground (somewhere

at the back of Palazzo dei Conservatori; see Die römischen Skizzenbücher von

Maarten van Heemskerck, 1913, II, f. 12r. The theatre is also cited by Flechsig

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We could therefore agree with Gunter Schweikhart, who stated that Rome had

become under Leo X the “center of performing arts”13. This renewed interest

and knowledge was due also to the heritage and the contribution of Francesco,

who remained a reference theoretician as long as a good edition of Vitruvius

was lacking. In fact, the 1486 edition printed by Sulpicio da Veroli, during the

period when Francesco produced his marvellous theoretical works, was still not

reliable enough.

Some illustrations for an early Northern Italian Plautus edition, (Parma 1510 or

Venice 1518) (fig. 3: Parma) remind for the first time of the frontes scaenae of

Leto, or of those stage scholars that Robert Klein and Henri Zerner (1964, 55)

named the “Vitruvians” (as Fra Giocondo, or further Romans, like Antonio da

Sangallo the Y. or Guillaume Philander) and are certainly inspired by them

(Schweikhart 2001, 7), proving a “conscious desire to reproduce the splendors

of the ancient theatres” as George Kernodle (1944, 160) wrote; unfortunately

the editio princeps (and its reprints) of Plautus’s works, appearing already

during Francesco’s youth (1472 Venice) contains no visual illustration of

theatres: they come up only with the beginning of the 16th century. In the

outskirts of Padua, not long after that, Alvise Cornaro in the obituary he wrote

1894, 41 and was evidently part of the Conservatori palatial complex).

13 “der Mittelpunkt der Theaterkunst” (Schweikhart 2001, 6).

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for himself14, mentioned the stone stage built in the Villa at Este (now

destroyed), which he, as an amateur architect, had planned and belongs to a

clearly Vitruvian, archaeologistic tradition (in fact it had an architectural, flat

back of stage). The export of stage formulas from Rome to the North is well

known: Erik Forssman (1965, 16) has demonstrated the influence of

Baldassarre Peruzzi’s Villa Farnesina main facade (1506) on Falconetto’s

Cornaro Loggia and Odeion, which was evident even in the number of the

arcades, five15. Further, both buildings are frontes scenae with a second storey

which consists of a continuous wall with windows; and at latest since Adolfo

Venturi (1940, XI, 13) the strong analogy of the Odeion facade with Roman

reliefs representing a scaena has been recognised.16

14 Officially written by his grand-nephew Giacomo Alvise Cornaro, but

actually by himself: Fiocco 1965, 200-1.

15 The original theatrical destination of the Loggia has long been recognized:

see Battisti 1960, 106. For a wide recognition of the trends in theatrical

aesthetics in the period 1500 - 1550, see Battisti, Eugenio. Le tendenze

all’unità verso la metà del Cinquecento. In: Bollettino C.I.S.A.P. 10, 1968, 127-

46.

16 According to Schweikhart 2001, 9-10, in the Padua Odeion complex, the

frons scenae during the performances could have been alternatively the facade

of the Odeion or of the Loggia (“Vermutung …, daß auch das Odeo in den

Zusammenhang der Bühne einbezogen wurde”).

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II. Francesco’s Plans for Princely and Patrician Buildings and their

Relationship to the Performance of Sound

If we consider the above, it becomes evident that one of Francesco’s earliest

fields of study, the function and diffusion of sound in architecture must have

been related to his other major concern: designing lavish patrician or princely

residences – so called “di signori” - fig. 2) as we read in Magliabechiano

(Maltese 1967, II, 351, c. 24r.), which are also witnessed in the Laurenziano,

and often make use of a wide range of circular courtyards. Further examples of

courtyards therein show also “resounding” niches, similar to those we will find

in later Italian Odeion buildings. As Pierre Gros has pointed out, Odeion

(approximately equivalent to the other term theatrum tectum, “covered

theatre”) is the ancient definition of the most common form of theatres, the

theatra for all forms of musical dramaturgy (Odeion derives from ’, singing),

in which of course acoustics have always been a major concern.17 Besides, it

has to be pointed out that Francesco was commissioned with completing

Giuliano da Maiano’s large undertaking at the Poggio Reale Royal Palace in 17 Gros 1996, 308. On the other hand, for what concerns these technical

definitions, Gros himself stresses that to the known remains of ancient theatres

“le nom même d’odéon leur a le plus souvent été donné par les fouilleurs et n’a

donc en lui-même aucune valeur démonstrative”. And for what concerns the

roofs, cf. Ibid.: “plusieurs odéons semblent n’avoir été que partiellement

couverts”.

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Naples after the latter’s death in 1490: this palatial complex, now destroyed,

showed an impressive central courtyard with tiers of seats, analogically to

theatrical structures.

Furthermore, in Naples at around the same time, in 1488, Giuliano da Sangallo

had designed a plan for a similar structure for King Ferdinando of Aragon,

which is preserved in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Libro di Giuliano da

Sangallo).18

In some classical typologies, such as those for ancient Roman villa urbana and

suburbana, we could find spaces like the rotunda of “Hall of Academia”, at

Villa Adriana (fig. 4; and compare fig. 5: Triconchion, in the same Villa); or

the Atrium in the Piazza d’Oro (ibid.): they are exactly the typologies of

buildings which Francesco has sorted out on his recognitions of the Villa, as

we realize from his plan of the Rotunda in Uffizi 319r and v; Vitruvius besides

names spaces, which he calls the Oeci corinthii, and which are, according to

Francesco’s Saluzziano, the same as exhedrae, (“quello medesimo sono”):

therefore circular spaces with columns (as Francesco writes, “hoeti tretastili”,

i.e. tetrastili; Maltese 1967, I 84 [f. 20r]). Finally, the halls which, as Francesco

informs, the Greeks have named cyzicenae, which were usual to the Greek, but

rather unusual to the Roman building habits. Francesco interprets them, not

coincidentally, as spaces with a circular ground plan (circini) – which they

were not. In the Florence Magliabechiano Codex II.I.141 Vitruvius (Biffi

2002, 56 and more specifically 59), they are identified more precisely as 18 “Modello d’un palazzo per il re di Napoli” (Marchini 1942, pl. X).

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particular porches, “which the Greeks call cyziceni, from a Black Sea [=Pontic]

city near Constantinople: they face North, … and have porches in the middle.

They are of sufficient width and length, that two triclinia can face each other

on each end of them”.19 Because they are pleasantly cool spaces (they always

face North), they are associated with the pinacothecae, exhibition spaces

especially for painting (this is one of the first mentions of museum architecture

in a theoretical work in the Modern Era, of course aware of the recent

acquisition of the Capitol museum collections in Rome); if their cultural

purpose was not immediately evident, at least their prestigious character, and

thus their suitability for official gathering and public speeches, was. After all, it 19 This name stems from the city of Cyzicus, in Caria, near the Sea of

Marmara, ibid. 56: “Gli ezi chori(n)ti e tetrasti, chiamati egiti…”; “Anchora si

fano a modo none italicho ezi [oeci] che i Greci chiamano ciziseni: cità

dacicho [=dacica], cità di Po(n)to preso a Gostantinopoli. Questi si fano

guardare al setantrione, e masime guardare a’ luoghi verdi, ed avere porti i.

mezo. Ed esi sono chosì longhi e larghi che due tichrini a l’inchontro l’uno de

l’altro cholochati posino guardarsi, ed àno da lato destro e sinistro e.lume

delle finestre, sì che dai teti p. li spati delle finestre si veghino le verdure”. And

more generally 59: “E nei portichi che guardano verso el setantrione sono e

portichi cisiseni e lle pinachoteche; i(n) verso l’oriente sono le bribioteche; el

‘exedre verso l’ocidente, idest stanze da sedere; i(n)verso el mezodì le stanze

quadrate chosì amprie che facil me(n)te i(n)ne si posino esare quattro

tichrini…”.

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can not be casual that one of the still actually disputed attributions of the three

famous scaenographia paintings of Berlin, Baltimore and Urbino is Francesco

(no proposed name is convincing to date, but the relationship with the Urbinate

circle has been recognised, and the Urbino one certainly stems from the church

of Santa Chiara, in the same city)20.

Today archaeologists have a better idea of what these so-called oeci cizyceni

looked like. They were rather half-open spaces that afforded a view through a

colonnade (but this is also implied by Francesco’s allusion to the presence of

porches) towards a park, a garden or a courtyard: in Adolf Hoffmann’s recent

essay on Villa Adriana they are described as spaces designed to impress and

receive guests (fig. 5): „Contrary to the playful, nearly phantastic curved

experiments in the Piazza d’Oro, the ample colonnade of the ‘Latin Library’

had rather the very explicit task to direct the main hall, used as representative

reception space, towards the garden and to relate the latter to the interior of the

building, and finally to catch from outside as much light as possible, much in

the tradition of the oeci cyziceni“21 (later – “nachträglich” – they were 20 See Krautheimer 1994, 254. That Francesco has to have been interested in

scaenography is also assumed by some recent theories of Quattrocento

painting, which tend to attribute him the authorship of the architectural

backgrounds in the S. Bernardino panels by Pietro Vannucci (see Teza 2004).

21 „Im Gegensatz zu den spielerischen, nahezu phantastischen

Kurvenexperimenten der Piazza d’Oro, hatte die ausschwingende Kolonnade

der ‘Lateinischen Bibliothek’ eher die ganz zielgerichtete Aufgabe, den wohl

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frequently furnished with an outside staircase [“Freitreppe”] „“as a sign of a

direct continuity between the interior and the garden space“).22

Manfredo Tafuri (1993, 384) once suggested that all the reflections related to

central round buildings could have been so relevant in 15th cent. architecture,

that they even influenced Antonio da Sangallo’s projects for Villa Madama,

which should be compared with some examples from ff.s 17 and 18, of

Francesco’s Laurenziano Codex, in which the cortile is octagonal or round; or

that they could have influenced Peruzzi also in his design for a lavish Palace in

Rome, for Count Orsini di Pitigliano (Uffizi 456Ar) to be built among the ruins

of the Baths Agrippae, on which Peruzzi carefully noted the proportions

(“canne 10 palmi 8 ! tucto el diametro”) of the remarkable central circular

hallway; the drawing is dated between 1520-27.23 Incidentally we might call to

mind here that also Antonio da Sangallo has been interested in the shape of

theatre spaces, as we can see from his stages preserved in the Gabinetto dei

als repräsentativen Empfangsraum genutzten Saal in der Tradition der oeci

cyziceni in den Garten ausgreifen zu lassen, diesen gleichsam in die

Architektur hineinzuziehen und zugleich möglichst viel Licht in den Raum zu

holen” (Hoffmann 1998, 68).

22 “als Zeichen direkter Vermittlung an der Grenze zwischen Innenraum und

Gartenfläche”, ibid., footn. 22.

23 But see with regard to this also some other of Peruzzi’s most remarkable

projects (e.g. U 349 A r).

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Disegni degli Uffizi (fig. 5).24

Indeed Francesco’s pupil Peruzzi was involved on his turn in designing the

Villa Madama project (before 1518). He had also worked in Martini’s Sienese

workshop: he possibly also on his turn depicted the Ferento Theatre during this

period, as we understand from his drawings U 387 A r., 364 A v. (see Wurm

1984, no. 63, 97, 98, 99), because it was presumably Francesco who

rediscovered or at least studied it the first. It is obvious that Peruzzi was

interested in planning numerous palatial schemes, as much as Francesco was,

endowed with either polygonal, or circular courtyards. He did not deal with the

typology of villa with rotunda; rather he used the round, or circular forms for

courtyards, as he could get suggested by familiar Roman extant temples

(“tempio rotondo prossimo al teatro di Pompeo”, Maltese 1967, I, 283;

Saluzziano, f. 84r). See also, as a comparison, Peruzzi’s ground plans for less-

known or never built villas, like U 552A v (fig. 6)25 or Francesco’s in Uffizi

326v. As a matter of fact, central plans for circular spaces seem to have become 24 First reproduced in J.S., On a Design by Sangallo, in The Mask, X 1925,

151-160, Pl. 11 (no possibility to decypher the author’s name). Uffizi, A 835r.

25 Repr. in Wurm 1984, no. 152. For Raphael’s plans for Villa Madama and

their similarity to Francesco’s inventions, see the drawings U 273 A and 314

A; and also Antonio da Sangallo the Y., U 179 A, where at least two parts of

the project, the cavea on the left end and the rotunda, are spaces for

performance; and Scamozzi, Venezia 1615, 269: with a reconstruction of

Varro’s Laurentinum Villa.

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an obsession on several occasions and we find a large amount of them among

his drawings: such as a design for New Saint Peter’s, “secondo la oppenione di

Messer Antonio della Valle”, 1520, in which the nave suddenly widens in an

enormous, disproportionately vast semi-circle26.

Are some of Francesco’s, and his pupil’s Peruzzi27, inventions just due to 26 Repr. in Wurm 1984, no. 111: dated just “after 1520”.

27 Elliptical or oval spaces mostly appear in Peruzzi's drawings in designs for

civil architecture. For example in the complex project for S. Giovanni dei

Fiorentini, (U Arch. 510; and U Arch. 553 A r, “Monastery with hospital”; or

simply monastery, U Arch. 349A r), further for the plan of S. Giacomo degli

Incurabili (never executed), and for the Cappella dei Teatini on Colle Pincio

(U Arch. 452). Contrary to what Lotz has argued, the latter is not really an

ellipse at all, but is simply a large square onto which two perfect semicircular

apses have been added at both ends. See also Peruzzi extraordinary plan for a

non-identified oval building with nearly whole-circle-apses, in drawing U

Arch. 4137, from Peruzzi’s last years. In the chapels grouped around the centre

(inspired by those of the Pantheon) the symmetry axis is given by the lines on

which the geometrical construction of this ellipse is based: they are therefore

structural and connecting lines in a scheme Lotz called an “ovales Pantheon.”

Lotz 1955, 12, 26. Finally, a specific study should be dedicated to Francesco’s

“resonant” designs for temples and religious architecture which are of course,

as much as the civil ones, concerned with the use and the performance of sound

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“literary suggestions” (from ancient literary sources – Pliny, or Flavio

Biondo’s Roma instaurata or Roma triumphans of 1444 and 1459,

respectively) as sometimes argued (already since Maltese)? Or do they have

more to do with the limitations and concerns of urban residential planning in

the late 15th century? I favour the latter alternative: Francesco does not just deal (that is basically of the spoken word) and of music, as we read in Saluzziano

10v, Maltese 1967, I 37: “Anco la musica necessaria pare per le conferenzie

[from confero, it. conferire, “correspond”] e proporzioni di ciascuno edifizio. E

così come la musica ha le sue pause longhe, massime, brevi e simibrevi, che

tutte proporzionatamente corrispondano, così in ciascuno edifizio si richiede.

E quando in nella musica una desonante nota sia, tutto el canto è descordante,

così interviene in ciascuno edifizio, non avendo le sue conferenti

corrispondenzie incomposto e discordante essar el fa. Sí anco in ne’ treati e

spettaculi vasi fittili enei li antichi usorno con alcuni vacuati sporti, in ne’

quali la voce rompendosi le procreate parole agli urecchi degli auditori

perveniva. E così udiva colui della superficia come chi in infima parte era. E

pertanto i tretacordi d’essa musica in tale arte si ricerca”. We find similar

statements in Laurenziano, Ashburnham 361, 13r: “Innella sommità del treato

el tetto vi sia acciò che la voce in esso si refretti. La longhezza della scena a

missura dell’orchestra e l’orchestra colle sue triangolar facce e in ciascuna la

figurata rapresentazione a ghuisa di bilichato (perno) emicicro al popol

dimostrare” (This transcription is without Maltese’s integrations, from Marani

1979 facsimile edition).

19

19

with the problem (later much promising and fruitful) of building rotundas in

villas. He rather, for several reasons, investigates the functions of lavish

circular or polygonal spaces, conceived as highly representative, in the

geometrical center and in the symbolic-representative center of civil

architecture (Saluzziano, f. 19v). Since antiquity the circular form has

traditionally been associated with solemnity, if not with the Gods; besides, its

suitability for the performance of voice and sound might have met important

needs of the patrons, who were inclined to use the central spaces of their

residences for various forms of allocutiones and/or for artistic purposes

(poetry, music, even early forms of opera).

The Cortile of the villa of Laurentinum of Pliny, hypothetically reconstructed

later by Vincenzo Scamozzi (as mentioned – see note 25), which the Roman

writer describes as having a porticus, a courtyard, in form of the letter D, is not

independent from such problematics: Pliny refers to it as a “porticus in D

litterae”28 – and a similar one is visible in a detail on Francesco’s already

mentioned folio from Saluzziano Codex (f. 19v). But in his inventions for

contemporary buildings, courtyards recur very frequently: in the Saluzziano

Codex, he makes several specific references to the forms of the atria and the

casamenti,29 indicating the proportions with which they should be built and

their relationship to the form of the city, thus involving the concepts of 28 Pliny, Letter to Gallus, 2, 17 (Loeb Classical Library, Letters, I, Cambridge-

London: Harvard Univ. Press 1961, 153).

29 Schweikhart 2001, 7.

20

20

contemporary urban planning:

“The square courtyards have to be built according to four kinds of proportions.

The first type has only orthogonal angles and all sides of identical size and

width; the second one, one side in the size of 1x1,1/3; the third one, of 1x1,1/2;

the fourth one, of 1x2”. 30

To this description follows (on f. 20r) the drawing of such a courtyard,

comparable with the one already seen in f. 18v in the Saluzziano Codex, and in

f. 19v in the Laurenziano Codex (and Saluzziano 20v, Maltese 1967, I, 86). In

both they are repeatedly designated as alternatively “piazza e chortile”,

“chortile e piazza”, in the Saluzziano Codex from the f. 20r on; and there, a

peculiar one is designated “chortile a nnavichola hovero huovolo”.31 30 “I quadrati chortili quattro ragioni da fare sono. El primo ha tutti gli angoli

retti e le facce di pari misura e larghezza. Altri ad un quadro e terzo.

Similmente di quadro e mezzo. Altri di due interi quadri” etc.; among others in

oval form: “E con queste simili ragioni le piazze delle città e castella si dien

costruire. I chortili che a facce o uovolo e a forma navale si fanno, con queste

medesime ragioni composti saranno” (Saluzziano, 20v; Maltese 1967, I, 86).

31 Depicted in Saluzziano f. 20r. See further in the same codex, the depiction of

buildings on the Capitol Hill, actually the Imperial Palaces, which he calls

“Palatio Maggiore in Roma”, f. 82r ff., also containing two “cortile a huovolo”

and four perfectly round ones; and in the Magliabechiano (f. 24; Maltese 1967,

II, 207). Further examples of courtyard solutions from the Sienese ambient can

be found in the 16th cent. in Codex Ashburnham 1828 app. (which is not

21

21

In the Magliabechiano II.I.141 Codex f. 24r and v we have the impressive

“Mansions of Lords” with very interesting solution of centrally-circularly

featured spaces (Maltese 1967, II, 196-208), and from f. 18v on, especially the

drawings at f. 21r, (on 20r the title: “Fondi [ground plans] di case di signori,

in various figures and forms, some of them with ceiling lights” i.e., windows in

the ceiling). 32

To draw some preliminary conclusions: the examples of what I would call

“acoustically virtuous” spaces recur in Francesco’s writings over his entire

career.

Francesco’s reference to antiquity and its use of technological features that

aimed to bestow special significance and functions on specific categories of

spaces in villas (spaces conceived for the scholars, the writers or in any case

for the intellectual professions) will be evidently inherited during the following

century in the currently accepted genealogy of Cornaro’s musical and theatrical

projects, and partially in his realized buildings: this confirms the relevance of

the recognition of an acoustic function to specific parts of civil architectures. Martinian, but by one of his followers, Cataneo), testify to the fact that interest

in such spaces remained widespread even after Francesco’s death. In the

Architettura by Pietro Cataneo, 1567, 109, from the Laurenziano Ashburnham

1828 app., are the numerous round central building.

32 “Fondi di case di signori, in piu figure e forme et alchune con lumi

superficiali”.

22

22

Cornaro, on the occasion of the Odeion enterprise, purported to have the same

humanistic, economic, and architectural interests as Varro, which he unfolded

in his architectural design, evidently modeled on Varro’s villa in Cassino: and

Varro was considered among the most important writers on art from Antiquity

anyway.33 Such variety of leisure spaces, for the so called otium, notably for

performing theatre plays and music, was located in Padua at the same time on

the residential property which Alvise Cornaro had dedicated to his villa and on

the so-called giardini Cornaro accross the main entrance, on the square of the

Basilica del Santo34. Also Cornaro was inspired, like Francesco di Giorgio,

apparently from the very first moment of its conception of an Odeion, by the

discovery of the supposed studio (or working space) for Varro in the mentioned

villa, the Istudio di Marcho Varone as it found itself reproduced, probably for

the first time, in several drawings by Francesco, (Uffizi 322r and twice ibid.,

327r – “lachassa di marcho varone”)35 and shortly later (upon Francesco’s

suggestion maybe) in another drawings by Giuliano da Sangallo, preserved in

the Vatican Codice Barberino (Barber. Lat. 4424, 10r; Keller 1971).

All these facts very clearly demonstrate how important Francesco’s researches

have been for the general development of architecture even in the mature

Renaissance. 33 On the cultural context of the Odeion see more recently also Wolters 1980.

34 Fiocco 1965, plans 64-5; both properties were connected by an underground

passage accross the street, see Ibidem 80.

35 Repr. by Ericsson 1980, 77; Ferri 1885, passim.

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23

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Figure 1

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Figure 2

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Fig. 3

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Figure 4

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Figure 5

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Figure 6