The French Connection: Philibert de l'Orme Reads Francesco di Giorgio Martini PDF

Preview

Summary

The French Connection: Philibert de l'Orme Reads Francesco di Giorgio Martini E RI C WOLF he Sienese artist and architect Francesco di 'Camini." Though the Frenchman's plate is equipped with Giorgio Martini was among the earliest ovens and called a "grande cuisine," it rec...

Description

The French Connection: Philibert de l'Orme Reads Francesco di Giorgio Martini E RI C WOLF he Sienese artist and architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini was among the earliest important architectural theorists of the Italian Renaissance. While his treatises were not published until the nineteenth century, Italian architects were familiar with them in the Quattrocento and Cinquecento. How the theory espoused in these texts informed the architectural production of the times has been studied, at times, in great detail. I The influence of Francesco di Giorgio Martini's writing outside the Italian peninsula, however, has been largely ignored— unlike that of such later works as the architectural treatises of Serlio, Vignola or Palladio. This is largely understandable since Martini's theory is not as coherent or readily reduced to a pattern book as these later texts. This phenomenon of Italian trattati being used primarily as pattern books is particularly apparent in France, where Serlio was not merely imported but even translated; commentaries on Serlio's theory were published very soon after the first printing of his Book IV in 1537. 2 Yet, just as Martini's theoretical works were anomalous in the canon of Italian trattatistica, so, too, did sixteenth-century France witness the appearance of a singular and anomalous architectural thinker in the person of Philibert de l'Orme. Perhaps the fundamental element unique to Philibert's architectural writings was a desire to reconcile, in theoretical terms, native French construction with the fashionable Italianate tastes. Such a program could only be attempted by an architect well versed in the building traditions of France and, at the same time, familiar with contemporary Italian architecture, both first hand and from written theory. It is interesting thatamong the many sixteenthcentury architectural treatises, the one that most closely follows the general prescriptive theoretical approach of Martini's trattati was not Italian? Philibert de l'Orme's text of 1567, the Premier tome de I'architecture, was written in French by a Frenchman. 4 IVhiIe this treatise, like its Italian contemporaries, draws heavily upon Serlio and stresses the importance of the proportions and ornament of "the Orders, " even introducing new "French Orders," it spends a great deal of time on more technical aspects and broader theoretical issues. Much of the technical investigation in Philibert's written work explores construction problems unique to native French architecture, such as stereotomy. However, in his broader theoretical prescriptions is found a return to geometric diagrams for proportioning secdons, plans and elevations, much in the same vein as those used by Martini.

'Camini." Though the Frenchman's plate is equipped with ovens and called a "grande cuisine," it recalls Martini's illustration from the later version of the treatise. This is not to suggest that the image on page 275 of Book IX need be clearly derived from Martini's drawings of "Camini. " Such an image could easily have been derived from many surviving examples of the large medieval kitchens to be found in French monasteries and chateaux—without any knowledge of Italian sources—such as copies of Martini or Barbaro's VitruviusNevertheless, the drawing suggests that Philibert may have had access to a copy of Martini's later treatise. This proposition is strongly encouraged by another, far more interesting plate in Philibert's treatise that requires the French architect to have had such access. This plate is found on page 235 of Philibert de l'Orme's Livre VIII de ['architecture. It is a sectional diagram of a threeaisle basilican church that corresponds very closely with a drawing from folio 41 recto of Codex Magliabechianus (fig. I, compare fig. 2). 5 Philibert's inclusion of this drawing is most interesting from the point of view of this study. For in this treatise alone—among all the published architectural treatises of the sixteenth century—is found a direct quotation from Francesco's theory of ecclesiastical architecture. This inclusion not only reveals that an architect of the caliber of Philibert still found Martini's geometric systems viable almost a century after their development but also indicates how far Martini's architectural theory had traveled. As the Italian treatises of the period tended not to publish proportional diagrams, they cannot be used as evidence as to whether or not such systems were used by designers laying out plans, sections and elevations. Philibert clearly did use such schemes in practice, as evidenced by his complicated schemes for cutting masonry, which were necessitated by his continuation of the French stereometric tradition. Philibert's Premier tome de I'architecture of 1567 thus suggests that at least some of Martini's theory of ecclesiastical architecture still had currency in the sixteenth century, as far from Martini's central Italian home as France. That this plate in Philibert's treatise is derived from Francesco's drawing found in Codex Magliabechianus or a copy therefrom, rather than another descendant from a common archetype, is suggested by various evidence. The correspondence between Philibert's diagram and the one found on folio 41 recto of Codex Magliabechianus is almost exact. However, the generative geometry of the two proportional schemes is not the same. Different line segments, produced by different means, are used by the two theorists to generate the springingheights of the vaults of the nave and side aisles as well as the

Wolf. "Ihe French Connection: Philibertde l'Orme Reads FrancescodiGiorgio Martini." ComingAbout... A FestschrififorJohn Shearman. Edited by Lars RJones and Louisa C. Matthew, pp. 313— 15Cambridge, Massachusetts: Han•ard University Art Museums, 2001. 2001 Copyright heldjointly by Eric Wolf and President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. ISBN 1891771-11-6.

Figure 1. Philibert de l'Orme, Section Diagram of a Three Aisle Church, 1567 (Philibert de l'Orme, Premier tome de I 'architecture, Paris, 1567, Livre VIII, p. 235). Photograph: author.

Three-Aisle Church (Codex Magliabechianus 11.1.141 Photograph

central portal. Yet the fundamental construction lines in the two projects exhibit an uncanny resemblance: both consist of a square divided into four triangular quadrants by forty five degree lines from the corners intersecting at the center. Superimposed on this scheme is a semicircle springing from the base which intersects the center point of the square. Furthermore the elements of the two diagrammatic representations of churches are identical. These elements consist of barrel-vaulted naves and side aisles, one central portal and a strange crowning element, also barrel vaulted, over the central nave vault. Martini labeled this element puteo. The only additions in Philibert's rendering are the inclusion of wall thickness and roof-lines above the aisles. Philibert applies a grid over the entire drawing where Francesco merely implies one with small pen marks along the base of his drawing. These grids not only divide the diagrams in the same way but are also unusual in that they divide the drawing into squares, seven by seven. The number seven is not particularly common in systems of ideal proportions of the Renaissance, yet it is fundamental to Francesco's anthropo morphic proportional system since, according to Vitruvius, it is the height in modules of the Doric column and, thus, of a man. Another vestige of Martini's drawing found in Philibert's print is the semicircle springing from the bottom corners of the square which is tangent to the horizontal center line of the section. While in Martini's drawing this semicircle is part of the generative geometry of the springing height of the vaults of the aisles, it serves no apparent purpose in Philibert's plate. Philibert derives the corresponding springing height from his line segment QG, which is absent in Martini's drawing. This line segment QG is located by the intersection of vertical line

A further link between the drawing in Codex Magliabechianus and the print in Philibert's Livre VIIIis found in the labeling of the geometric points of the diagrams. In both images the points of the spfinging of the central vault are labeled from left to right O and P, even though these points are not in the same place in the two designs. That these two schemes are actually quite different, yet preserve such strong similarities as this, could be explained by suggesting that a series of copies of the drawing in Codex Magliabechianus existed between Martini's original and Philibert's eventual version of the drawing. To this day, Gustina Scaglia has identified at least nventy nine surviving copies and fragments of the treatise preserved in Codex Magliabechianus.é That many more copies existed in the sixteenth century that are now lost or unaccounted for can safely be assumed. It is likely, therefore, that some of the differences between the original version of the drawing and Philibert's final redaction might have already occurred in a lost phase of the image's transmission from Quattrocento Urbino to sixteenth-century France. The differences between the two images can partially be explained by considering the different styles and agendas of the two architectural theorists. Philibert's drawing, by showing wall thickness and including the section of cornices and a finial on the roof, is less diagrammatic than his Italian archetype. Where Martini 's drawing is an abstract proportional diagram, Philibert's print shows the section of a complete hypothetical church. This difference may reflect the general difference in sensibility between the two designers. Philibert seems always to be interested in concentrating on structure and construction in his treatise, following his interestin such notions as stereotomyThis is in contrast to Martini's treatises, which focus on abstract issues of design and offer very little in explanation of how

segment MN of the grid and diagonal line segmentAC.

these systems are to be put into practice.

Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence.

NOTES This article was developed from an idea raised in a paper for a Spring 1995 seminar covering the Renaissance in France that was taught by Henri Zerner at Harvard University. That paper dealt with Philibert while anotherpaper I was working on for professorsJohn Shearman, Howard Burns and Katherine Welch was concerned with the architectural theory of Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Looking at the treatises of the two architects, the similarity of the church section diagram was too striking to ignore. This article, which addresses this connection between the two designers, is based largely on Chapter 6 ofmy doctoral thesis; see EricWolf, "The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Francesco di Giorgio Martini: A Study ofTheory and Practice" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1998). I For an analysis of how Bramante might have used Martini's proportional systems for the layout of the plan of St. Peter's in Rome, see RichardJ. Betts,

'Structural Innovation and Structural Design in Renaissance Architecture, Journal of the Society ofArchitectural Historians, 52 (1993): 5 23. For an analysis of Philandrier's early sixteenth-century French literature dealing with Serlio, see Frédérique Lemerle, "Genese de la théoHe des ordres: Philandrier et Serlio," Revue de ['art, 103 (1994): 33—41. For a discussion of sixteenth-century readings of Martini's treatises and their influence on later architects, see Wolf, 1998, chap. 6. References to Philibert's treatise are from Philibert de I 'Orme: Traités d'architecture (Paris, 1567; repr. Paris, 1988). Philibert's debt to Martini vis-ä-vis this drawing has been acknowledged by Louis Hautecoeur, in his encyclopedic work Histoire de I 'architecture classique en France (Paris, 1965], Tome l, vol. 2, p. 156), 'Till semble avoir connu le Trattato d'architettura civile e militare de Francesco di Giorgio, qui était inédit. Le tracé d'église qu'il a fait graver n' est pas sans relation avec une figure de cet artiste." The depth of this "relation," however, has not been adequately explored. For a list of known copies of the version of Martini's that contains the relevant drawing, see Gustina Scaglia, Francesco di Giorgio: Checklist of Manuscripts and Drawings (Bethlehem, 1992), pp 25 & 34—37; Scaglia callsthis treatise "Trattato Il."...