[A theme to add in: the vigilance of the owner makes the villa productive. See lecture in Renaissance Villa. See also Matteo Palmieri (Prosatori volgari, p.384) who also cites the wise saws of forefathers. The eye of the owner feeds the horse. ]
The second aspect of Alberti’s disaffection with religion was a matter of faith. His scepticism left a reduced ambit for specifically religious observance. Moral life was found to thrive or wither on either side of the divide between religion and secularism.
Alberti’s response to this state of things included giving secular space a kind of reverential character, putting the religious on public display and creating religious architecture out of non-architectural elements. The response looks in all cases to visibility as the solution of the problem. The first of these actions seeks a set of virtues that belong equally in the religious and the secular context. Where the light enters, candour prevails, and morality and social harmony flourish. Alberti returned repeatedly to the task of representing such a state of things.
A prominent theme in Renaissance architectural historiography has been the central plan. It has been connected with mysticism in the period, and rationalism; [2] it has been seen as a metaphorical image of God, and of Man.[3] The dome that covers it could hallow and ennoble its human occupant, or it could be read as the promise that the soul of man would be freed on the Final Day of the burden of its mortal companion. It could mark a spot – perhaps celebrate an occasion where God was in direct contact with the world – or it could serve as a rarified symbol, pointing to things beyond place and time.[4]
Such variety of interpretation of the central plan is not as contradictory as it would be in other contexts, for the central plan attracts to itself paradox, dichotomy and meetings of opposites. The dome-builder’s central argument contradicts the commonsensical statement, that Man and God, and reason and spirit, are opposites. The reader simply finds him/herself assenting, text by text, as one by one they assert different interpretations, and a strange reconciliation is achieved. Writings about the central plan do not either agree or cancel one another out; they disagree and coexist. Given then the propensity of the form to generate multiple readings, it seems legitimate to consider it here in another light again. The prompting to do so comes from a reading of Alberti and an identification of one of his central concerns.
Often enough, it has been remarked that the central plan frustrates the practice of the liturgy of the Christian Church. The implication of the charge is that the Renaissance pursuit of a more perfect geometry brought with it a neglect of functional considerations and a failure of respect for traditional usages.[5] Here, it will be suggested that more than oversight was involved; that the central plan pointedly contains a polemical note that is actually subversive of the kind of religion whose evolution had eventually fixed and installed the traditional liturgy within a longitudinal geometry. In other words, it will be possible to argue that the central plan was conceived by some, especially Alberti, not just in terms of its own abstract perfection, but functionally, as a container of people and as the representation of a particular social and religious ideal that ran counter to established ritual piety. A simpler and purer form should supersede that which had been elaborated through time. The argument must be assembled out of a number of somewhat dispersed elements. And what follows is the argument that the central plan was treated as a metaphor and was a pretext for addressing a multitude of social, religious, moral, philosophical and metaphysical questions. These questions generated values that could be expressed in terms analogous with the central plan in church architecture.
First of all, however, it should be remarked that, notwithstanding its appropriateness to various notions current in the Renaissance period and its frequent appearance in ideal planning, the central plan served for few churches actually built in the fifteenth century.[6] There are, S. Sebastiano in Mantua, S. Maria delle Carceri in Prato, and later, S. Maria della Consolazione at Todi and S. Biagio at Montepulciano. The Tempietto of Bramante is, of course, the centralised building par excellence; but it is almost too small to count as a space – the essence of the centralised congregational plan. Indeed, of the others mentioned, only Santa Maria della Consolazione is so large that a primary congregation function must be conceived for it. There are examples of centralized structures being appended to traditional longitudinal ones, for example S. Maria degli Angeli and SS. Annunziata in Florence, the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, S. Maria delle Grazie in Milan –Florence Cathedral even. But since they imply differentially privileged places, they complicate the present discussion and can be put aside in the meantime.
The importance of the central plan is attested more by the hopes of artists to build them than by their success in getting them off the drawing board. Filarete and Francesco di Giorgio imagined churches built according to the form.[7] In particular, it was Leonardo da Vinci who, in his sketchbooks, worked on the theme and its multitude of variations.[8]
In fact, the central plan appears more often in two dimensions than in three. Historians measure the strength of the obsession with the form more from its appearance in paintings and drawings than in bricks and mortar. Brunelleschi’s lost perspective panel of the Florence Baptistry was, of course, the realisation, in a sense, of the centralised plan. It cannot have appeared too different from one of the most famous centrally-planned buildings of the fifteenth century – again existing only in paint – that in the middle of the Ideal City View, in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino [fig.]. There are many minor examples in painting and marquetry of centrally-planned churches and chapels. More prominent examples of such buildings in narrative painting are the temples behind Perugino’s Charge to St Peter or Giving of the Keys in the Sistine Chapel [fig.], Raphael’s Sposalizio in the Brera [fig.] and Perugino’s version of the same subject at Caen [fig.].
Of course, the theme of the central plan might have remained historiographically peripheral were it not for the fact that the most ambitious project of the Renaissance period seems to have grasped at the opportunity to realise it. Caradosso’s medal of 1506 celebrating the start of the work [fig.] and Bramante’s famous half-plan in the Uffizi (Uffizi 1)[fig.] suggest that St. Peter’s in Rome was, as one stage at any rate, to be centrally-planned. Michelangelo evidently believed that Bramante’s plan was for a centrally-planned building, for his own deliberate revival of it was centrally-planned.
It is in connection with St. Peter’s as, in very general terms, a centrally-planned building that we come across a document indicating that also a social ideal was implicit in the choice of the form. Michelangelo wrote a letter, criticising the proposals that Antonio da Sangallo the Younger had in place when he took over the work in 1546.
…Bramante was as excellent an architect as any who had existed from ancient times onwards. He prepared the first plan for St Peter’s, not full of confusion, but clear and distinct, luminous and free-standing, so that it did not interfere with any part of the [Vatican] palace; and it was considered a beautiful thing, as can still be seen; so that whoever has departed from the design of Bramante, as Sangallo has done, has departed from the truth… By that circle [the ambulatory] which he makes outside it, he firstly takes away all the light from the building of Bramante, and not only this, but in itself it has not got any light at all; and there are so many dark hiding places above and below that they are most convenient for the commission of countless crimes; such as hiding outlaws, coining money, ravishing nuns, and other villainies, so that in the evening when the church has to be closed it would take twentyfive men to find out all those remaining hidden inside…[9]
This narrative of catastrophic decline from architecture to anarchy is remarkably direct in this text. Nevertheless, whether Michelangelo is exaggerating or exhibiting signs of hysterical pessimism, he insists upon the linkage between social behaviour and architecture.
Specifically, Michelangelo was criticising Antonio da Sangallo’s addition of ambulatories around the church [fig.]. They would increase the footprint of the building at the expense of the Vatican Palace. They would block some of the windows for which Bramante’s plan made provision. And in themselves they would be dark warrens. He does not explain just why the church would become the resort of criminal elements. But it is easy to see how, in general, dark alleyways and corners are congenial places for such people.
Michelangelo’s broader implication, perhaps, is that the ambulatories offer a welcome to cupidity. In fact, Sangallo’s purpose was largely to provide for pilgrims; to enable them to make a circuit of the arms of the church without disturbing the services. In practice, pilgrims would be beckoned on their journeys by opportunities to do homage to relics and to claim indulgences from them. If Michelangelo held a dim view of such practices, he could easily argue that they were only a little short of the criminal acts that he ennumerated. Christ expelled the money-changers from the temple.
It follows that there was another church from which criminality would be banished. Bramante’s plan, and Michelangelo’s own, would perform social cleansing and deny space to the turpitude that Sangallo’s fostered. The properties of this church were that it be light and without hiding places.[10] To use the words of Michelangelo’s letter, it would be ‘clear and distinct, luminous and free-standing’. The Renaissance central plan, again generally considered, has just this quality – that all is visible. Michelangelo aimed consciously to have it: to deny the purpose also to Bramante as he had his conception represented in the Caradosso medal would seem unnecessary.
When the central plan is thought of in Michelangelo’s terms, it becomes possible to compare it with other spaces which have a similar character. Light and open spaces in general become comparable with the centrally-planned church. The church that Michelangelo has in view is not morally dissimilar to the rural ride that Alberti describes in De re aedificatoria. The visibility of things is the nub of probity:
Outside the city the following rules should apply: they must be spacious and open, and have views in all directions; they must be clear, and free of any water or rubble; they must leave brigands no place to hide or to lay in ambush; they should not have side roads entering from every direction, exposing them to robbers. [11]
The idea that good social conduct is encourage by visibility is also expressed elsewhere by Alberti:
The crossroad and the forum differ only in size. In fact the crossroad is but a small forum. Plato recommended that at every crossroad there be a space where nurses with children could meet occasionally and be together. I believe that the purpose behind this was not only to strengthen the children in the fresh air, but also to encourage the nurses to be neat by exposing them to the eyes of so many curious observers, and make them less sloppy, since they are eager for praise. The presence of an elegant portico, under which the elders may [stroll] or sit, take a nap or negotiate business, will be an undoubted ornament to both crossroad and forum. Furthermore, the presence of the elders will restrain the youth, as they play and sport in the open, and curb any misbehaviour or buffoonery resulting from the immaturity of their years.[12]
Giannozzo Alberti, in Book 3 of De familia, makes self-presentation for public scrutiny a key quality of the ideal place to live. He has been asked what are the most important, and lists good air, food and wine. And would he settle there, asks Leonardo. Giannozzo replies, ‘Dove io bene mi riposassi e bene fussi veduto.’ (p.233, l.1202-3) He would wish to be able to settle down and be well-regarded. Battista, the principal interlocutor in De iciarchia, Book II, connects openness and honesty in speakers and writers: ‘L’omo grave, circunspetto, dato alla virtù, ornato di buon costumi, mai fra’ pensieri suoi accetterà deliberazione alcuna quale e’ recusasse esporla e palesarla a tutti e’ suoi amici e nimici. E così noi che instituimmo esser simile a loro, esplicaremo a noi stessi e’ pensieri nostri non con altra mente che se tutti e’ nostri amici e nimici in presenza ci vedessero.’[13]
An insolent carelessness of scrutiny is found in the delinquent. In the dialogue, Cena Familiaris, Battista observes of people addicted to gaming, “Giuocano dove a caso soviene loro, spesso su qualche desco sordido e puzzulente, in luogo alioquin frequentato, né si curano essere veduti e biasimati da molti.”[14] For him, the piazza was an admirable provision in a city because good citizens acted publicly there. They could be expected to be praised for their good conduct, and bad behaviour was open to universal reprimand.[15] In Book IV of De familia, Adovardo expresses impatience with theorists of conviviality. Talking of benevolence and friendship, he says, ‘Ne puossi bene averne dottrina solo dai libri muti e oziosi. Conviensi in mezzo alle piazze, entro a’ teatri e fra e’ privati ridutti averne altra essercitazione e manifesta esperienza.’[16] The piazza was the scene and expression of civilisation itself. It is against the background of this truism that Alberti set one of the speeches of Momus, the nature of whose eponymous anti-hero is to act offensively and in contradiction to harmony and decorum. He praises the vagabond life: ”I won’t allow that kings enjoy the use of riches more than beggars: the theatres belong to beggars, the porticoes to beggars – in fact, every public place belongs to beggars! Others wouldn’t dare sit in the forum and bicker with a slightly raised voice. Afraid of the raised eyebrows of their elders, others don’t dare do anything lawless or immoral in public, they’ll do nothing of their own free will and choice. While you, beggar, will lie lounging round the forum, shouting freely, doing whatever takes your fancy.’[17] Momus would as cheerfully tell blue jokes to the vicar. Alberti expressed the matter of praiseworthy conduct in the piazza in De Familia:
Non in mezzo agli ozii privati, ma intra le publiche esperienze nasce la fama; nelle publiche piazze surge la gloria; in mezzo de’ popoli si nutrisce le lode con voce e iudicio di molti onorati. Fugge la fama ogni solitudine e luogo privato, e volontieri siede e dimora sopra e’ theatri, presente alle conzioni e celebrità; ivì si collustra e alluma il nome di chi con molto sudore e assiduo studio di buone cose sè stessi tradusse fuori di taciturnità e tenebre, d’ignoranza e vizii.[18]
The piazza is both literal and emblematic. Alberti has it that idleness (ozio) is opposed to energetic moral conduct. It seeks out dark places (tenebre) as opposed to the spotlight (alluma) of approval that falls upon virtue acted out in public. Social disengagement, darkness and ignorance are, for Alberti, closely connected. Sofrona, in the short dialogue of that name, responds to Battista’s accusation that women are shrill and unintelligent by saying that, if they should be freed from their domestic prison and should interact in public life, it would be a different story. ‘Ché se così fusse a noi licito non starci sedendo solitarie in casa in ombra, ma crescere fuori in mezzo l’uso e conversazion delle persone, che credi? Oh Iddio, qual sarebbe e quanta la prudenza nostra maravigliosa e incredibile!’[19] Michelangelo says of the church what Alberti says of the piazza.
To seek to remove oneself from public scrutiny was reprehensible, whatever the arena. The piazza is scrutiny’s emblematic theatre. The church, for Alberti, was also a public space. He expressed his disapproval of those members of the modern clergy who turned it into a hiding place rather than one of openness. At the end of a brief history of Christianity in De re aedificatoria, he says, ‘There followed the practice of our own times, which I only wish some man of gravity would think fit to reform. I say this with all due respect to our bishops, who, to preserve their dignity, allow the people to see them scarcely once in the year of festivals, yet so stuff everything with altars, and even … I shall say no more.’[20] Michelangelo might almost have had this passage in mind when he wrote to Bartolomeo Ferratino about St Peter’s. Alberti’s criticism here is of reclusive clergyman and – more crucially – the disengaged Church.
*[ Cf.Gianozzo on what the villa does for morality: Vedendomi spesso, raro [the peasants] peccarebbono.’ p.243, Furlan. The moral issue is the same. Della famiglia is about government. Visibility is also a concern that Giannozzo Manetti’s description of Nicholas V’s project for the Vatican returns to several times. The church of St Peter is going to be lighter and the public are going to see the pope and the spectacle better; and the pope himself is going to see better: “In summitate vero tribunae solium pontificale altius eminebat, ut et ipse ab omnibus circumstantibus videretur, ac pariter omnes astantes sedentesque videret.” (Magnuson, 358, Smith O’Connor para 46)]
The terms of Alberti’s criticism of the Church are those same ones contrasting the openness of the piazza with secret and dark places. In addition, the idea of public space that polices itself – light, and without obstacles to vision and scrutiny – was important in religious and secular terms. As well as utility, it prompted the paving of squares and streets – a task undertaken in a multitude of instances thoughout the period. The creation of areas where citizens could act with social as well as physical poise seems to have been a laudible undertaking. Certainly, it was shaming for one’s city to be unpaved.[21] Here, is suggestion for a reading of those posturing figures in the city backgrounds of so many later fifteenth-century paintings: their athleticism signifies the stable and true surface upon which they move and is to be understood as a sign of decorousness – a social and even a moral value.
The piazza features frequently in Renaissance art, sometimes dotted with figures and groups, as in the pictures by Perugino and Raphael already mentioned. At other times, as in the Urbino City View, it is empty of people [fig.]; but they can be imagined. The use of the one-point perspective construction allows the viewer to see and – more importantly – understand its extent and limits; and it thus holds no secrets. These are scenes that exclude the possibility of surreptitious acts going undiscovered. The result is that social peace is assured.[22] Everything is candid. The idea that the piazza is a place of virtue, protected by virtue and under virtue’s scrutiny is nowhere made clearer than in the City View in Baltimore.[fig.] It is a habitable and an allegorical city. Pure water is collected from the fountain in the middle of the piazza at the four corners of which are columns supporting statues of the Cardinal Virtues.[23]
The fifteenth-century equivalent of plein-aireism – emulating the limitless acccessibility to visual enquiry of Flemish landscape backgrounds – in Piero’s Triumphs of Federigo and Battista Sforza in the Uffizi, stands in exhilarating contrast to the closed and emblematic content of the foreground.[fig.] The virtues that accompany the prince and his wife are made visible for miles around, and their public role rather than their function as mere decoration of personality – as mere flattery – becomes insistently implicit. What could have been epithets are made into qualities – real things rather than imputations. The openness and luminous nature of the scene carries a promise of civic virtue, of Good Government. The triumphant progress of Virtue that Alberti described in Momus should be consistent with an ekphrastic reading of Piero’s Triumphs.[24]
Openness is the virtue of the piazza, and it lends that virtue to people who will act out their lives within it. Praise of life lived publicly (and unease about the value and nobility of the cloistered life) is a recurrent theme in the period.[25] Poggio Bracciolini, for example, praised Republican Rome as a place of free men engaged in the political life of the state. Their arena was the forum, where he pictured public debate going on. The coming of the Empire, however, saw the decay of the life of the forum.[26] It is perhaps fair to conjecture that he had a visual image of that decayed state of things – the victory of barbarianism in the form of the ruins of the Forum Romanum.[27] Where there had been light there was now darkness, particularly of the intellectual kind.[28]
The piazza is emblematically the scene of human life observed compassionately, and inviting moral judgement in Alberti’s De Pictura/Della pittura. Alberti locates the painted action, the historia/istoria upon the pavement that he constructs mathematically using the costruzione legittima.[29] Of course, the painter was not obliged to create a flat piazza for his drama; but it could be argued that Alberti conceived the action and the place of the action in terms of a single homogeneous space. The embracing essence is visibility. Alberti said as much: ‘The painter seeks to imitate only that which is visible.’[30] What is literally or metaphorically hidden – behind the rood screen or in the crypt as well as in Eternity or Heaven – is not the stuff of painting. It is even possible to suggest that, for Alberti, it was not the stuff of the moral life either.
A space of public congregation was conducive to social harmony and morality. The secular space of the piazza had similar properties to the space of the church, provided the latter made visible the activities of its occupants. Alberti hints at this state of things in his prologue to Della pittura. He describes Brunelleschi’s dome for Florence Cathedral as ‘ample to cover with its shadow the entire Tuscan people’.[31] The image that this passage conjures up is the Madonna della Misericordia, the Madonna sheltering the faithful under her mantle. The Church as an institution and the church as a building both embrace everyone. Alberti seems to have been inspired to write this passage (whether it be read as a specific calling-up of the image of the Madonna della Misericordia or not) by the unity of the space under the dome. The people is one people because each is visible to all. The Hebrew temple performed a similar act of unification: ‘… una enim gens uno consensu et instituto religioni dicata uno erit deo tuta et munita.’[32] The visibility of piazza and church are connected in the passage where Alberti pronounces upon where the church should be located.
Finally, you should situate the temple in a busy, well-known, and – as it were – proud place, free of any profane contamination; to this end it should address a large, noble square and be surrounded by spacious streets, or, better still, dignified squares, so that it is perfectly visible from every direction.[33]
He was surely thinking of visibility in moral as well as optical terms.
Visibility of these two kinds seems also to have been part of his aim for the church of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua. In his letter probably of 1470, to Lodovico Gonzaga, the marquis of Mantua, he recommended his own design for the building, listing its advantages over an earlier one. Practical, aesthetic and moral considerations are mixed together: it would be ‘…more spacious, durable, grander and brighter [lieto].’[34] The word lieto, combines notions of joy and lightness. In intending a light space, Alberti was proposing an emphatically congregational use for the church. This dogmatism on Alberti’s part becomes clear when his recommendations for Sant’ Andrea are set in the context of his thinking in De re aedificatoria. As has been seen, in Book VII, Chapter 4, he explained that the church, in general, consisted of a sacramental and a congregational space – the one, light and containing depictions of meritorious conduct; the other dark and containing matter for the eye not of sense but of intellect.
There is a useful connection of values to be drawn between Alberti’s prologue to Della pittura praising the congregational place and a passage in De re aedificatoria. In Book VIII. Chapter 7, Alberti has recourse to irony to defend buildings for popular resort and display – ‘show buildings’. These are theatres and circuses:
Nor dare I criticize pontiffs or any other moral teachers for their well-considered condemnation of the use of show buildings.[35]
He then goes on to present Moses’ view on the matter, which runs quite counter. A discriminating judge would know whose view should command more respect.
Moses is praised for being the first to gather his entire nation into a single temple on feast days, and for bringing them together at set times to celebrate the harvest.[36]
Moses’ action prefigures the communion service of the Christian Church, as it was acted out in the early days.[37]
His motive, I might suggest, was but the desire to cultivate the minds of the citizens through concourse and communion, and to make them more receptive to the benefits of friendship. Thus to my mind our ancestors established show buildings within their cities as much for functional reasons as for any festivity or pleasure. And surely, if we think the matter over carefully, we find frequent cause to regret that so splendid and useful an institution is now long obsolete.[38]
It is difficult to think that Alberti has overlooked, and the attentive reader is to pass over, the fact that an institutional building type did exist to bring about concourse and communion. That any church building should be so arranged as to inhibit such usage would be regrettable. Florence Cathedral, as completed by Brunelleschi, made just the provision of which Alberti approved. Brunelleschi’s building of the dome of Florence Cathedral can be thought of as reviving Mosaic and Early Christian religion.
Alberti’s delight in Santa Maria del Fiore is clear from his prologue to Della Pittura, where Brunelleschi’s dome is singled out for especial praise, and from the passage in Profugiorum ab aerumna, where Agnolo Pandolfini describes it in terms of the season of Spring.[39] Alberti gathered together his affirmative feelings in an act of theatre that he coopted the cathedral to perform in 1444, when he organised the Certame Coronario. It was a poetry competition with the theme of amicizia. That dome that had embraced the entire Tuscan people in the Prologue was now a crown about the heads of the celebrants of friendship, a universal value – for the poems were to be in the vernacular. Alberti’s own poem must have drawn the audience’s attention to the moral action of the dome. His ideas and feelings about Santa Maria del Fiore constitute, as has been said above, a golden thread in his thinking, and are therefore allocated a separate chapter.
In the meantime, there can be noted a tone of didacticism. Alberti has conceived the cathedral, and especially the centrally-focussed part beneath the dome, as in singular architectural concordance with the principle around which the event assembled itself. The whole action and scenario combined in what, we might suggest, was Alberti’s attempt to make an addition to the liturgy. The poets took the place of the clergy to raise hymns in praise of the human bond and to inspire the audience to make fellowship the lamp of their lives. The Certame Coronario was surely produced in order to realise afresh the liturgy of the early Christians when, inspired to amicizia about the common table, they were fired to return to their daily lives in the spirit of charity.[40]
This was radical theatre to a remarkable degree. In what it did not include, it carried a message of rejection of the established liturgy.[41] Alberti inserts, in place of divine intervention, a mere simile. The emotion of those who can imagine the crown is not less heightened than that of those who assert the reality of the Divine Presence. In fact, the inspiring and instructing drama has been accessible without belief or faith being required of the witnesses. Alberti grounds the moral life, through the liturgy of the Certame Coronario, beyond the reach of supernaturalism. He seems to have aimed at nothing short of the invasion of the sanctum of the clergy and the reframing of the functions of the Christian Church in a return to earliest practices.
Considered in this way, the Certame Coronario was surely intended to be a recurring occasion. What were required were new poets, voices eager to dedicate themselves anew to the articulation of the meaning and affect of amicizia. Where were they to come from? The answer must be; from the constituency of the virtuous. If the clergy would participate, it would not be ex officio. Alberti would expect them to emerge, no doubt, from the class of which he was a member, that of civic humanists.
The Certame Coronario was a project of quite astounding intrepidity and ambition. It stands as Alberti’s attempt to fashion a Christian Renaissance. If undoing the depredations of the barbarians demanded the excavation of the works of the ancient Romans, the recovery of the values of the early Christian Church required the removal of the centuries’ accretions of self-seeking piety and redundant ritual.
Specifically, the ‘show buildings’ that Alberti recommends are, on the one hand, for ‘leisure and peaceful recreation’ and, on the other, ‘business and military training’.[42] The discussion of Moses’ actions has served as prelude to the identification of architectural facilities for the development of ‘intellectual energy and mental ability’ and ‘toughness and strength of body and soul’.[43] Given the rôle of Moses as mentor here, the temple is to be understood as having functions overlapping with those of theatres and stadia.
Alberti’s introduction of Moses into the discussion of show buildings blurs the distinction between beneficial secular and religious buildings. It also perplexes in the context of an architectural treatise, for, as has been seen, Moses’ principal action in relation to his people was as guide during their nomadic existence in Sinai. He made the tabernacle the centre of communal virtue. But in addition, there is the fact that Alberti finds the benefits of friendship or social cohesion in both kinds of place and describes the Early Christian environment that fostered it almost in the Mosaic terms above. Alberti pictured a better state of Christianity and of society than that of his own days:
In ancient times, in the primitive days of our religion, it was the custom for good men to come together for a common meal. They did not do this to fill their bodies at a feast, but to become humbler through their communication, and to fill their minds with sound instruction, so that they would return home all the more intent upon virtue. […] Everyone would burn with concern for the common salvation and with a love of virtue. Finally they would leave an offering in the center, each according to his means, as a form of tax due to piety and a donation towards those who deserved it. Everything would be shared in this way, as between loving brothers.
Later, when princes allowed these meetings to become public, there was little deviation from the original custom […] There would be a single altar, where they would meet to celebrate no more than one sacrifice each day.
There followed the practice of our own times, which I only wish some man of gravity would think fit to reform. I say this with all due respect to our bishops, who, to preserve their dignity, allow the people to see them scarcely once in the year of festivals, yet so stuff everything with altars, and even … I shall say no more. Let me simply state that within the mortal world there is nothing to be found, or even imagined, that is more noble or holy than the sacrifice. I would not consider anyone who wanted to devalue such great things, by making them too readily available, a person of good sense.[44]
Alberti’s belief that the religious sentiment should be involved with a social one found confirmation again in Hebrew values where he quoted from the law that, ‘… you should be one people, of common feeling and common undertaking, given to religion, and preserved and defended by a single god.’[45]
If public secular space – most prominently, the piazza – and public religious space – the church – could be congregational, with the virtuous conduct that that implies, so long as all was light and visible within it, it becomes possible to suggest that any centralized and, more specifically, circular space would serve as theatre or amphitheatre for such values. There is one particularly celebrated space in early 16th-century architecture which calls out to be interpreted in the light of the present discussion.
Raphael’s Villa Madama was to be built about two axes at right angles to one another. They were to meet in the circular courtyard, half of which stands today. The cross-roads that Alberti describes above resembles the arrangement. Axial symmetry and a loose distribution of functional parts combine in the building. Where there was symmetry, there would be a certain ritual progress to make; and Shearman describes just such a journey, as that of dignitaries, come to visit Rome and, specifically, to present their credentials to the Pope.[46] The place of arrival and meeting was the circular courtyard.[fig.] Once formal welcomes and thanks had been given, guests and those receiving them could disperse themselves about the villa and engage in its various pleasures. The circular courtyard is the nodal point.[47] This is where formality meets friendship, and where they are not to be disentangled one from another. There is a meeting of opposites here. Perhaps this is what civilised social relations are, obedience to rule and freedom implied in its ideal locus, the circle.
Raphael had thought about the possibility of formal and convivial encounter before. The Sposalizio of 1504in the Brera shows a meeting of what might be called social axes.[fig.] A path has been followed by the priest: he has traced a line from the temple in the background and down the axis of the picture plane. It is the route of the ritualistic. Mary’s and Joseph’s groups have followed paths at right angles, parallel to the picture plane and from left and right respectively. All have shifted emotionally from the tone implicit in their journeys, at this place of their encounter. Mary and Joseph, after the cheerful informality of their journeys, now make solemn their bond. Raphael couches it at the point of intersection of affection and solemnity. The priest, by contrast with Mary and Joseph, descends literally and from formality to participate in the human feeling that joins the marriage-couple. He inclines his head and puts his weight into a contrapposto pose, holding the wrists of Mary and Joseph in a somewhat diffident underhand. By this brilliantly simple conception, Raphael shows that the choice may be theirs. The marriage group meets in a loose-ish semi-circle which the observer or celebrant closes into a circle. To trace the spatial and moral routes and to find them met in this place and moment is to celebrate friendship and order in a similar way as at the Villa Madama. Alberti had earlier voiced the spirit in which both actions would be conceived.
A prominent provision of the country house in Alberti’s De re aedificatoria was ‘… a generous reception area for the arrival of guests…’[48] The occasion was to be marked by acknowledged courtesies. Reception hurried or casual was graceless and to be avoided. The space could not be cramped. Piero had felt the same compunction in staging the ‘Meeting of Solomon and Sheba’, an episode in The Legend of the True Cross in S. Francesco at Arezzo. Almost wasteful of available plaster surface for figuration, the architecture of the reception hall precociously takes up half of the picture plane and leaves room for the figures to move and breath. Alberti wrote about the courtyard of the country house as a congregational place. In fact, ‘The most important part is that which we shall call the ‘bosom’ of the house, although you might refer to it as the ‘court’ or ‘atrium’ […] is the main part of the house, acting like a public forum, toward which all other lesser members converge; it should incorporate a comfortable entrance, and also openings for light, as appropriate.’[49] The Latin word, sinus, means a large bowl. Alberti’s metaphor is circular. There is perhaps a recollection in the use of the word of the verse from St Luke (16.22). The theme is charity: ‘And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom (in sinum Abrahae).’
The descriptive terms of Alberti’s country house create the image of an intimate society of friendship under benign guidance. Here, as elsewhere in De re aedificatoria, Alberti invites a reading of architecture in terms of sensibility and morality.[50] The social tone of the country house is of virtue, even a sort of piousness. Presented is an ideal which, he clearly intends, is to operate not just at home, but also at large. In political society and lay religious society, the same moral tone is to be desired. Whilst on the scale of the house he would have a reception space, at the scale of the city he would, as he implies above by referring to a ‘forum’, have a public square: ‘…should ambassadors or legates from some foreign country arrive to request an audience with the senate, it is as well to have somewhere worthy of both guest and city to receive them while they wait.’[51]
The circular courtyard of the Villa Madama would have satisfied Alberti’s requirements admirably. Domestic, political and religious harmony will all be present. Moreover, it has universal access, communication and light. This passage could have been Michelangelo’s text when he preached against Antonio da Sangallo’s iniquitous design for St Peter’s.
So, church, country house and piazza have become overlapping moral-architectural concepts; receiving human beings in visible congregation. Social assembly where all is patent will be harmonious and morally sound. Salvation, for Alberti and Michelangelo, was properly a desideratum for people identifying their interest with that of the rest of society. In holding to this view, they were subscribing in effect to a critique of society and the Church as they found them, where private happiness and personal salvation were being pursued at the expense of civilisation itself.[52] The image of the common weal was the piazza and suchlike places. The arena of salvation for those engaged virtuously with their fellows, acting out Christ’s New Commandment, and being prepared to return, rededicated, to the world – to piazza and cortile – was the church where no nook or cranny gave shelter to self-interest. Michelangelo believed that Bramante conceived such a church in St. Peter’s.
It also existed in embryo, when Bramante designed the Tempietto.[53][fig.10] Perhaps the easiest way to recognise the morally-defined nature of his work there – building and cloister as drawn by Serlio – is to imagine it occupied by different classes of people, bearing their attributes. It is assuredly no place for the nomad with his bundle, nor yet the warrior with his sword, and the merchant with his purse is equally out of place. The proper occupant of the place is not burdened by necessity; he does not fight for his share, nor is he lured by self-interest. Just such a social selectivity had applied in the Ideal City View which he might has seen in his native Urbino.
Here is reason to believe that when Bramante came to designing St. Peter’s, he instituted the same sort of selection process: a single, luminous congregational space would confirm friendship and salvation as a common rather than a personal goal.[54] It was this ideal of Christian society that Michelangelo found betrayed in Antonio da Sangallo’s den of brigandage and selfishness and which Alberti had attempted to describe in his writings.
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Recall the Barbaro brothers’ motto at Maser: Nil tecti sub tecto: Nothing is concealed beneath our roof
De re, VIII, 8: Sub divo –aiebat Celsus physicus – commodius exercemur quam in umbra.’ Celsus, the physician, says that it is better we exercise in the open air that indoors. Orlandi/Portoghesi 755.
Della famiglia, Furlan, p.55: ‘La natura, ottima constitutrice delle cose, volle nell’uomo non solo che viva palese e in mezzo degli altri uomini, ma certo ancora pare gli abbia imposta necessità che con ragionamento e cion altri molti modi comunichi e discopra a’ medesimi uomini ogni sua passione e affezione…’ (connects the present theme with the Historia)
Della Famiglia, Furlan, p.252. Giannozzo will be candid with his factors. They, seeing that nothing is hidden from them, will be honest in their dealings.
[De re, V, 2; reception spaces in houses should be centrally-located and like vestibules and porticoes – public places. Candor and mutual and self regulating belong there. There’s a good passage to quote.]
There’s the theme that links the house and the church: the house is, properly, holy. Explain via the case of Giannozzo, in Della Famiglia, the representative of early Christian and Hebrew virtue. In De re, there will be one people, one temple and one altar. Giannozzo will have one roof, one fire and one table. The tone is present in the description of the house in De re where there will be a chapel and the receiving of guests with Christ-like benevolence (see also, Della Famiglia, Furlan, 233).
Della famiglia, p.19, Furlan; discussion of how vice hidden, grows. Light, it follows, makes virtues grow. Darkess, the reverse. Recall the Intercoenalis “Suspitio’.
Wilkins, p.60. The honest man is self-revealing. He is a social creature. [Furlan, p.55]
On the good man as like a place of public resort (p.221), and vice versa.
For servants being careless when they’re not being observed, see Furlan, p.288, Lionardo.
Furlan, p.296, Lionardo: on how it’s difficult to tell one’s friends from enemies ‘in tanta ombra di fizioni, in tanta oscurita di volunta, e in tante tenebri d’errori e vizii…’
Della famiglia [Furlan, 243], going back and forth to the villa frequently, ‘…quelli lavoratori, vedendomi spesso, raro peccarebbono, e a me portarebbono piu amore e piu riverenza.’
For the importance of witnesses as a disuasion from bad conduct, V, 7, De re, 363, the placing of nunneries in places not too remote.
P.P.Vergerio. De Ingenuis moribus, introd. ‘This duty, common indeed to all parents, is specially incumbent upon such as hold high station. For the lives of men of position are passed, as it were, in public view; and are fairly expected to serve as witness to personal merit and [page 97] capacity on part of those who occupy such exceptional place amongst their fellow men.’
Again, PP Vergerio: What a warning is here conveyed [page 105] of the critical judgments which posterity passes upon Princes! They live in a light in which
nothing can long remain hid.
Giannozzo says (p.233), in answer to Leonardo’s question, ‘E quivi vi fermeresti?’’ ‘Dove io bene mi riposassi e bene fussi veduto.’ (l.1201-3)
The notary and his client, making an agreement that all can see and check for legality, live ‘in piazza’. It’s where literacy – meaning under universal scrutiny – exists too. Adovardo, in Bk IV of Della famiglia, insists upon morality being tested in piazza: “You have to live in the world, however, and deal with the actual ways and habits of men.”(p.266, Furlan, p.351). In Bk III of De pictura, the painter puts his picture before the public, for judgement and advice (para.61)
See Francesco Alberti’s (1401-79) poems in Lirici Toscani del Quattrocento a cura di Antonio Lanza, They refer quite often to moral action ‘in piazza’.
Momus Book II 49: in praise of the vagabond life: ”I won’t allow that kings enjoy the use of riches more than beggars: the theatres belong to beggars, the porticoes to beggars – in fact, every public place belongs to beggars! Others wouldn’t dare sit in the forum and bicker with a slightly raised voice. Afraid of the raised eyebrows of their elders, others don’t dare do anything lawless or immoral in public, they’ll do nothing of their own free will and choice. While you, beggar, will lie lounging round the forum, shouting freely, doing whatever takes your fancy.’(cf Lucian, The Parasite, trans. Guarino 1418) The degree of the offensiveness of this conduct is the greater because we know that Alberti believes that one should be civilised by being kept in public view.
See stuff on Sixtus IV for a discussion of morality ‘in chiostro’ and ‘in piazza’ – historia. Buildings can have this sort of morality.
Vergerio, De ingenuis moribus, says, near the beginning, that boys should be encouraged to look at themselves in a mirror so that, if he has a noble aspect, he may be mindful to act in accordance with it and, if he hasn’t, to cultivate the inner man by way of compensation. Later on, he says that the criticisms of our friends is like a true mirror.
Cena Familiare: On gambling. Battista says:
Giuocano dove a caso soviene loro, spesso su qualche desco sordido e
puzzulente, in luogo alioquin frequentato, n* si curano
essere veduti e biasimati da molti. (see version in this machine) See also the passage in Momus where the vagabond life is praised because the vagabond need have no fear of anyone as he makes a nuisance of himself in the piazza.
Openness is a good thing. However, gossip, as a product of idleness, is to be reprehended. See, De iciarchia, p.9 (electronic) He pictures those whose vices assemble around gossip, going out at night. ‘Niuno di loro mai vide levare il sole; anzi perduto in quel buio gran parte del dì…’See above, c.p.200
De Porcaria Conjuratione (Opera Inedita et pauca …, p.262): ‘Cognitis apud pontificem per indicem, quae agerentur, visum est noctem ipsam dissimulare, quod intelligeret multos occultandi facinoris spe concursoros ad scelus nocta, si quidturbarum concivissent, qui in luce quiescerent.’
Palladio Book II, good on the grain being kept distant from the master’s quarters because of its dustiness, but its need yet to be within sight.
Momus IV, 102. ‘The notebook advised that all resources should be divided into three piles. The ruler should make one pile of good and desirable things, another of evil, and a third pile consisting of things that are in themselves neither good nor evil. He should distribute these as follows. He should order Industry, Vigilance, Zeal, Diligence, Constancy and other gods like them to fill their pockets from the pile of good things, then empty their pockets freely at crossroads, in porticoes, theatres, temples, fora and all public places, offering the good things to whomever they met and handing them over graciously and gladly to whoever wanted them. Envy, Ambition, Pleasure, Laziness and Cowardice and other gods like them should fill their pockets to the brim with evils, and should go about disbursing them spontaneously to whoever wanted them. The things that were neither good nor bad would be good for those who used them well and bad for those who used them badly; these included riches, honors and such things as mortals sought. These should all be left to Fortune’s judgement. She should fill her hands with them, and decide who should receive them and how much to give to each one, as the fancy took her.’
Momus, II, 2. The practice (of prayer) spread, thanks to the even-handed kindness of the gods, until fathers and adults began to say prayers, too. Initially their prayers were righteous and of the sort that could be made openly in public, with the approval of friends and enemies alike, and so the gods heard their prayers freely and with good will. Then it transpired that even kings and wealthy republics grew used to making demands on the gods in prayer. (compare the candour of the early Christians passing into the quest for individual salvation)
On candour/light. Intercoenalis, Suspitio. Truth and reason attempt to remove the plant that has grown in the flames on the altar and, with its broad leaves was threatening to extinguish the fire. Janus advises that they take it outside. As soon as it saw the sunlight, it vanished from sight. It was Suspicion. (One wonders, if Alberti is being straight in saying that the sanctuary of the temple should be dark.) Suspicion is to be taken out at the roots (which, in truth, it doesn’t have), not by the removal of the leaves. Causes, not symptoms.
The effects of darkness in the horse’s stable. De equo animante (Albertiana, Vol.II, 1999, p.225: ‘We shan’t omit to say that we understand, then, that if it remains inactive for a long time, especially in a dark stable, the horse will become completely incapable of action, and, before all noises, even little ones, and all objects that one presents to his unexpecting vision, and nervous, timorous and unable to move.’ To be connected with ideas of government, his statement in the anonymous Life, that Alberti applied himself, but with an invisible artistry to gracefulness – walking in the city, horseriding and speaking. The arts are of self-government, of government and rational government (ie a system that involves reciprocity among citizens). Grafton concentrates upon these activities as forms of performance (in which case, of course, nothing is gained from ennumerating them).
De re, IV, 2: ‘Moreover your city ought to stand in the middle of its territory, in a place from whence it can have a view of all its country, and watch its opportunities, and be ready whenever necessity calls…’ (cf the spider)
V,9. ‘…it becomes the republic to have a place suitable to the dignity both of the stranger and of the city, to receive them in, while they wait for introduction.’
Open space: ‘Moreover, for a still greater addition of reverence and dignity, I would have a very handsome open space left both within and without the walls, and dedicated to the public liberty; which should not be cumbered up by any person whatsoever, either with trench, wall, hedge, or shrub, under very great penalties.’(VII, 2)
‘Lastly, the place where you intend to fix a temple, ought to be noted, famous, and indeed stately, clear from all contagion of secular things, and, in order thereunto, it should have a spacious area in its front, and be surrounded on every side with great streets, or rather with noble squares, that you may have a beautiful view of it on every side.’ (VII, 3)
Light (visibility?) in a noble place is part of the theme of Apologio XXIV. The oil of the vestal lamps laments being consumed and receiving no credit for it from the flame. The flame states that the oil dies with honour in the temple, but not in a place of ill repute. (the message, I suppose, is that those without honour seek praise; those with honour are content to do what it is their nature to do)
Annuli: The forecourt of the mind, one’s brow and features, should be open to all who seek light. Love and truth should shine around it so that every shadow of suspicion and every darkness of hatred are destroyed (Marsh, 215) ‘hoc vestibulum animi, quod est frons et vultus, pateat ultro quaerentibus lucem, flragansque circumfulgeat catitas, veritas, omnisque suspicionum umbra et odii nox intereat.’(Mancini, p.232)
Alberti IX,2, p.792: The whole construction [of the villa] and its presentation, that is to say a factor which in every building contributes greatly to its appreciation, should be perfectly apparent and evident from every point. Exposed to the clear and joyful sky, it should receive great quantities of light, sun and wholesome air. There should not be anything visible from any direction which can annoy by throwing gloomy shadow.’(Mazzini)
Profugiorum [Agnolo]: Un precetto approvano gli antichi a vivere in pura tranquillità e quiete d’animo: che mai pure pensi far cosa quale tu non facessi presente gli amici e nimici tuoi. Ma a me pare potere affermare questo, che chi viverà disposto di mai dir parola non verissima, a costui mai verrà in mente cosa non da volerla fare palese in mezzo della moltitudine, in teatro.
Leonardo points to the mood that the freshness of villa life raises: ‘E anche vi godete in villa quelli giorni aerosi e puri, aperti e lietissimi…“[55] Giannozzo develops the point, identifying the escape that it offers from wickedness: ‘Si, Dio, uno proprio paradiso. E anche, quello che piu giova, puoi alla villa fuggire questi strepiti, questi tumulti, questa tempesta della terra, della piazza, del palagio.’[56]
[2] Robin Evans recently provided a useful discussion of the central plan, accompanied by bibliography. He took, as his starting point, Wolfflin’s formalism in contrast to Wittkower’s symbolism. Wittkower himself had a battle to fight with critics and historians who, as part of their argument for paganism in the period, emphasised formal properties. The battle is largely won, for it is clear nowadays that Renaissance Christian piety was thoroughly real – if different from that of the builders and decorators of Gothic and Romanesque religious buildings. See, R. Evans, The Projective Cast: Architecture and its Three Geometries (M.I.T. Press: Cambridge, Mass., London), 1995, pp.3-47.
[3]Palladio, for example (Quattro Libri dell’Architettura, Book IV, Chap.2), recommended the circular figure as the basis of the plan of a church because is could be taken to represent God: “…it is exceeding proper to demonstrate the infinite essence, the uniformity and the justice of God.”(Isaac Ware ed. (London, 1738), p.82); ‘[la ritonda] e attissima a dimostrare la unità, la infinita essenza, la uniformità, et la giustizia di Deo.'(Georg Olms: Hildesheim, New York, 1979, foreword E. Fossmann, p.6). The circular dome placed over square space recalls Vitruvian Man, who fits into a circle and a square and signifies the perfect simplicity of God’s plan. An imitation of the geometry of Man testifies to his preeminence in the order of earthly creation.
[4]S. Sinding-Larsen attempts to discuss symbol, ritual and space in Iconography and Ritual: A Study of Analytical Perspectives (Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget AS, 1984).
[5]For example, this is the gist of the criticisms made by Giovanni Aldobrandini of the rotonda of SS. Annunziata in Florence in 1470. The activities proper to the choir, chapel and main chapel would interfere with one another. See, F. Borsi, Leon Battista Alberti: L’Opera Completa (Milano: Electa, 1980), p.278.
[6]R.Wittkower (Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (Tiranti: London, 1967), p.20) lists the small number of centrally planned churches built in the fifteenth century and the larger number in the sixteenth.
[7] Filarete’s Trattati contain many illustrations of centrally planned churches. See the facsimile edition of J. Spencer (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1965). For Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s thinking on the theme, see, Trattati di Architettura, Ingegneria e Arte Militare, eds. C. Maltese and L. Degrassi (Edizione il Polifilo: Milano, 1967), Vol.I, Tav.17 to Tav.22 and Vol.II, Tav.235.
[8] See for example, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Leonardo da Vinci, Engineer and Architect, Exhibition catalogue, 22.5.87 to 8.9.87; C. Pedretti, Leonardo Architect (Thames and Hudson: London, 1986).
[9]See above, Architectural Impiety 1, note 1. P. Portoghesi, Architettura del Rinascimento a Roma (Electa: Milan, 1979), pp.209-11, Letter of Michelangelo to Bartolomeo Ferratino, 1555: ‘E non si può negare che Bramante non fusse valente nella architettura, quanto ogni altro che sia stato dagli antichi in qua. Lui pose la prima pianta di Santo Pietro, non piena di confusione, ma chiara e schietta, luminosa a isolata attorno, in modo che non nuoceva a cosa nessuna del palazzo; e fu tenuta cosa bella, e come ancora è manifesto; in modo che chiunque s’è discostato da detto ordine di Bramante, come a’ fatto il Sangallo, s’è discostato dalla verità; [e se così è, che a’ occhi non appassionati, nel suo modello lo può vedere.] Lui con quel circolo che è (sic) fa di fuori, la prima cosa toglie tutti lumi a la pianta di Bramante, e non solo questo, ma per se non a ancora lume nessuno: e tanti nascondigli fra di sopra e di sotto, scuri, che fanno comodità grande a infinite ribalderie; come tener segretamente sbanditi, far monete false, impegniar monache e altre ribalderie, in modo che la sera, quando detta chiesa si serrasi, bisognerebbe venticinque uomini a cercare chi si restassi nascosto dentro, [e con fatica gli troverebbe in modo starebbe]. Ancora si sarebbe quest’altro inconveniente, che nel circuire con l’aggiunta che il modello fa di fuora detta [sic] composizione del Bramante, saria forza di mandare in terra la cappella Paolo, le stanze del Piombo, la Ruota e molte altre: nè la cappella di Sisto, credo, riusirebbe netta. Circa la parte fatte dal circulo di fuori, che dicono che costó centomila scudi, questo non è vero, perché con sedicimila si farebbe, rovinandolo poca cosa si perderebbe, perché le pietre fattevi e fondamenti non potrebbero venire più a proposito, e migliorerebbesi la fabbrica dugentomila scudi a trecento anni di tempo. Questo è quanto a me pare e senza passione; perché il vincere mi sarebbe grandissima perdita. E se potrete far intendere questo al Papa, mi farete piacere, chè non mi sento bene.]’ G . C. Argan and B. Contardi, Michelangelo Architect (Thames & Hudson: London, 1993), p.273), more plausibly, date the letter to 1546-47.
[10] Bringing more light into Old St Peter’s was an aim of the remodelling that was proposed in the time of Nicholas V. In the new crossing, wrote Giannozzo Manetti, “Haec parva testudo in summitate sua idcirco patens et aperta relinquebatur, ac in modum laternae apertabatur, ut lumen undique clarius et apertius per totum asatium [?] diffunderetur.” Torgil Magnuson, Studies in Roman Quattrocento Architecture, Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1958, p.358.
[11]Rykwert et al, IV, 4, p.105; Orlandi, L’Architettura: ‘Extra urbem omnino servanda haec sint; ut patula et apertissima ad omnem circumaspectum siet; ut impeditionibus cum aquarum tum ruinarum sit libera et expeditissima; ut latrines ad insidias captandas nullae penitus latebrae, nulli secessus relinquantur;ut in eam non passim undevis aditus ad populations pateant…’.(p.305)
[12]Rykwert et al, VIII,6, p.263; Orlandi L’Architettura: ‘Trivium et forus sola differunt amplitudine. Pusillus nimirum est forus trivium. Iubebat Plato ad trivium haberent spatia, ubi nutrices cum pueris interdiu convenirent essentque una. Credo id quidem, quo et pueri validiores redderentur usu aurae liberioris, et nutrices laudis studio essent lautiores et minus, inter tot eius ipsius rei observatrices, errarent negligentia. Certe ornamento erit et triviis et foro, si aderit elegans porticus, sub qua patres <deambulantes> considentesve aut meridient aut mutua inter se officia praestolentur. Adde quod ludibundam et certantem spatiis laxioribus inventutem patrum praesentia ob omni lascivientis aestatis improbitate et scurrilitate deterrebit’.(pp.713-15)
[13] De iciarchia, Book II, p.226. l.25-31
[14] Opere Volgari a cura di Cecil Grayson, Vol. 1, Bari: Laterza, 1960, Cena Familiaris, p.353, l.8-11
[15]The idea that a circular space has no hiding place is stated with regard to the amphitheatre which, Alberti believes, ‘…was originally built for the hunt; this is why they [the ancients] decided to make it round, so that the wild beast, trapped there and baited, with no corner in which to retreat, would be easier for the hunters to provoke.’ (Rykwert et al, VIII, 8, p.278); ‘Amphitheatrum venationum gratia in primis positum interpretamur, eaque de re placuisse rotunda facere, quo illic conclusa et vexata fera, cum nusquam inveniret angulum, ubi sese reciperet, promptius a concertantibus promoveretur.'(Orlandi, L’Architettura , p.749) Was a connection to be drawn between this circular building and a centrally-planned church? It is probably fanciful to suggest that Alberti was thinking of metaphorical heretics here (though it might be recalled that, in the 1360s, Andrea Bonaiuti, in the Spanish Chapel of S. Maria Novella in Florence, represented the conquest of herisy as a wolf hunt). But he does conclude the passage, after describing various ways in which animals were baited, with an odd statement: ‘I have also discovered that in theatres and amphitheatres emperors used to cast apples into the crowds, and release little birds, so as to incite childish squabbles among those who grabbed them.’ (ibid.); ‘Comperio etiam in theatris atque amphitheatris solitos principes populo spargere poma et dimittere aviculas, quibus raptorum rixae pueriles excitarentur.'(Orlandi, L’Architettura , II, p.751) He is accusing the emperors of infantilising the people. It is possible to imagine priests doing the same thing, with different treats. As hs been seen, there is reason to believe in Alberti’s anti-clericalism. [Ref. Laecedemonii in De familia.]
[16] Romano, Tenenti, Furlan, p.354, l.873-76. See above, Darkess and Light, note 13, for references to the impropriety of solitude, the life that flees the piazza.
[17] Momus, II, 49
[18] Romano, Tenenti, Furlan, p.226, l.967-75
[19] Grayson, III, Sofrona, p.270)
[20] Rykwert et al, VII, 13, p.229; Orlandi, L’Architettura, p. 627-629
[21]The bogginess of the streets of Mantua was an embarrassment to the marquis Lodovico Gonzaga during the Council of 1459. For some notices of some arrangements that he made to pave streets and squares, see, C. Vasic Vatovec, Luca Fancelli Architetto, Epistolario Gonzaghesco (Uniedit: Firenze, 1979), pp.214-22. Argan and Contardi refer to the tradition which holds that the remodelling of the Capitoline Hill in Rome was prompted by the events of 1536, when Charles V was to be received at the capitol. Bad weather had left the unpaved area an embarrassing quagmire.(p.252)
[22]This point holds broadly. It would be wrong however, just for the sake of simplicity, to neglect a subtle note that is sounded in the Urbino City View. The half-opened door of the ‘baptistry’ implies a mystery to be penetrated. In general, though, such thoughts have no place. They seem to be absent from the two other most celebrated ideal city pictures, in Baltimore and Berlin. In fact, the reclusive ‘baptistry’ stands in relation to the open piazza as does Alberti’s cella to his portico.
[23]The figure rear right has a cornucopia and a basket of fruit on her head. She would normally be identified simply as Plenty. But, in company with the other Virtues who clearly represent Temperance, Justice and Fortitude, the prudential nature of good husbandry comes to mind for the fourth Virtue, and she is identifiable as Prudence.
[24] See above, Faith and Belief, note 6.
[25]Alberti believed that a life lived in open society would also engender the intellectual improvement of women. He wrote, in Sofrona, : if women ‘fosse licito non stare sedendo solitarie in casa, in ombra, ma crescere fuori in mezzo l’uso e conversazione delle persone, qual sarebbe e quanta la prudenza loro maravoglioso e incredibile.’ (G. Mancini, Vita di Leon Battista Alberti (Bardi Editore: Roma, 1971 (reprint of 1911 edition)), p.141) The metaphor is-half botanical and half-urbanistic. There is perhaps an implication that cloistered men stand in just such need of improvement.
[26] Poggius Bracciolini, Opera Omnia, ed. R. Fabini, Vol.I (Bottega d’Erasmo: Torino, 1964 (Facsimile of 1538 Basel edition)); see for example ‘Defensiuncula Poggii Florentini Contra Guarinum Veronensem. Ad Franciscum Barbarum, S.D.P.’; ‘…postquam Romani imperij potesta ad unius arbitrium pervenit, cecidit mos patrius, ut parum in foro, nihil apud populum, minimum ageretur in senatu quod eloquentiam requirere videretur.'(p.371)
[27]Poggio Bracciolini wrote one of the most famous and impassioned descriptions of the tragic spectacle of the Forum Romanum in ruins. See, Historiae de Varietate Fortunae, quoted in The Portable Renaissance Reader, ed. & introd., J. Ross & M. McLaughlin (Penguin, 1982), p.380.
[28]E. Panofsky (‘”Renaissance”-self-definition or self-deception?’ in Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (Almqvist & Wiksell: Stockholm, 1965), p.10) cites a passage from Petrarch’s Africa, in which the poet equates light with the recovery of the ancient past and darkness with the barbarian interregnum: ‘At tibi fortassis, si – quod mens sperat et optat -/Es post me victura diu, meliora superunt /Secula: non omnes veniet Letheus in annos/Iste sopor! Poterunt discussis forte tenebris/Ad purum priscumque iubar remeare nepotes.'(Africa, IX, l.453ff,)
[29]Leon Battista Alberti, Opere Volgari, Vol.III, a cura di Cecil Grayson (Laterza: Bari, 1973), Book 1, pp.36-41
[30]ibid.: ‘Solo studia il pittore fingere quello si vede.'(p.10): ‘Nam ea solum imitari studet pictor quae sub luce videantur'(p.11). The Latin could be translated as, ‘For the painter applies himself to the imitation only of those things which are visible in (natural) light.’
[31]Ibid., p.8: ‘…ampla da coprire con la sua ombra tutti e’ popoli toscani…’
[32] Orlandi, L’Architettura, VII, 5, p.559; ‘… for you should be one people, of common feeling and common undertaking, given to religion, and preserved and defended by a single god.’ (Rykwert et al, p.199)
[33]Rykwert et al, VII, 4, p.195; ‘Demum, ubi templum colloces, esse oportet celebre illustre et, uti loquuntur, superbum, et ab omni profanorum contagio expeditum. Ea re pro fronte habebit amplam et se dignam plateam, circuetur stratis laxioribus vel potius plateis dignissimis, quoad undevis praeclare conspicuum sit.'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, II, p.549)
[34]See, E. Johnson, S. Andrea in Mantua: The Building History (Penn. State Univ. Press: University Park, London, 1975), Appendix II, doc.1, p.64 and Fig.12: ‘…più capace, più eterno, più degno, più lieto.’
[36] See above, note …
[37]Food and fellowship are the elements of Mosaic religion here. They survive into early Christian times. See below, note ? (p.229).
[38]Rykwert et al, VIII, 7, p.268; ‘Et nostros non audeo improbare pontifices morumque magistros, si consulto spectaculorum usum prohibuere. Moysem laudant, qui unico in templo gentem omnem suorum convenire solemnibus et commessationes statutis temporibus inter se concelebrare instituit. Quid ego hunc spectasse aliud dixerim praeter hoc, ut vellet conciliis et communione civium mitescere animos atque ad amicitiae fructum paratiores reddere? Sic censeo maiores nostros non magis festivitatis iocunditatisque gratia in urbibus spectacula constituisse quam utilitatis. Et profecto, si rem diligenter pensitabimus, multa occurent, cur iterum atque iterum indoleas tam praeclarum utilemque institutum iam tum pridem obsolevisse.'(L’Architettura , II, p.725)
[40] See below, note …
[41] See text and translation above in Momus section
[42]Rykwert et al,VIII, 7, p.268; ‘Nam […] alia ad oblectamenta pacis et ocii, alia ad studia belli et negocii …'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, II, p.725).
[43]Rykwert et al, as above; ‘…certe ingenii mentisque vigor et vis exitatur aliturque, in altero animi viriumque robur et firmitas…'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, II, as above).
[44]Rykwert et al, VII, 13, p.229; ‘Apud maiores nostros per illa nostrae religionis initia optimi viri in communionem coenae conveniebant, non ea re, ut corpus epulis saturum facerent, sed ut convictu mutuo mansuescerent et animo bonis monitis referti domum redirent multo cupidissimi virtutis. […] Flagrabant omnium studia ad communem omnium salutem et ad cultum virtutis. Demum quisque, prout facultatas suppeditabat, offerebat in medium quasi pietati debitum censum et bene meritorum stipem […] Omnia istoc pacto inter eos veluti inter amantissimos fratres erant communia. Post id tempus, cum per principes licuit publice facere, non multo quidem a vetere patrum instituto deviarunt […] Itaque unica tum quidem erat ara, ad quam conveniebant, unicum in dies sacrificium celebraturi. Successere haec tempora, quae utinam vir quispiam gravis, pace pontificum, reprehendenda duceret: qui, cum ipsi dignitatis tuendae gratia vix kalendis annuis potestatem populo faciant visendi sui, omnia usque adeo circumferta reddidere altaribus et interdum… non dico plus. Hoc affirmo: apud mortales nihil inveniri, ne excogitari quidem posse, quod sit dignius sanctiusque sacrificio. Ego vero neminem dari bene consultum puto, qui quidem velit res dignissimas nimium perprompta facilitate vilescere.'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, II, pp.627-29)
[45]Rykwert et al, VII,5, p.199; ‘…una enim gens uno consensu et instituto religioni dicata uno erit deo tuta et munita.'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, II, p.559) [see above]
[46]J. Shearman, “A Functional Interpretation of Villa Madama”, Römische Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, Vol.XX, 1983, pp.13-27.
[47]Another circular reception-space that might be mentioned here is in Mantegna’s house in Mantua. See, E. Marani (& C. Perina), Mantova: Le Arti, Vol.II (Istituto Carlo d’Arco per la Storia di Mantova: Mantova, 1961), pp.47-50.
[48]Rykwert et al, V.17, p.145; ‘…venientem hospitem honestissimis excipiet spatiis.'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, I, p.415)
[49]Rykwert et al, V.17, p.146; ‘Omnium pars primaria ea est, quam, seu cavam aedium seu atrium putes dici, nos sinum appellabimus. […] Itaque sinus pars erit primaria, in quam caetera omnia minora membra veluti in publicum aedis forum confluant, ex quave non aditus modo commodissimus verum et luminum etiam commoditates aptissime importentur.'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, I, p.417) Alberti connects the courtyard directly with friendship by requiring that immediately after it should come the chapel: “There should be consecrated a chapel, immediately visible, with an altar; here any guest on entry may make a pledge of friendship…’; ‘Aderitque primario obtutu religioni dicatum sacrarium cum ara propalam, quo loci ingressus hospes religionem ineat amiciciae…'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, I, p.419) A model of good conduct applicable to clergy and secular ruler is offered here: ‘…the head of the family on his return home may pray to the gods above for peace and calm for his family; then in the vestibule he may embrace anyone who has come to greet him, and consult with friends over any decision to be made, and so on.'(as above, p.146); ‘…et domum pater familias repetens, pacem a superis et suorum tranquillitatem poscat: istoc salutantes amplexabitur; si qua erunt arbitria, de consilio pensitabit amicorum, et istiusmodi.'(as above)
[50]C. Borroughs (From Signs to Design: Environmental Process and Reform in Early Renaissance Rome (The MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass , London, 1990), pp. 6-7) talks of architecure and morality, or more specifically society, being, in Alberti’s view, somehow reciprocally instrumental: ‘Central in the De re aedificatoria … is a conception of an ideal urban environment that can mold human behaviour, while itself determined in important respects by the society that inhabits it.’
[51] Rykwert et al. V, 9, p,131 71): ‘Adde quod , si quando aut legatos aut principes exterarum gentium sibi dari copiam senatus petierint e re publica, […] est locum habere, ubi cum dignitate et hospitis et urbis praesolantem excipias.’(Orlandi, L’Architettura, p.3
[52] The pursuit of personal interests coincided with a decline in both morality, as is clear from Alberti’s history of Christianity above, and civilisation. Alberti, Della famiglia, (in Opere Volgari, ed. C. Grayson (Laterza: Bari, 1960), Vol.I), p.5: ‘Vero, doppo la morte d’Alessandro Grande, subito ch’e principi macedoni cominciarono a procurare e’ suoi propri beni, e aversi solliciti non al publico imperio, ma curiosi a’ privati regni, fra loro subito nacquero discordie. Così adunque finirono non la fortuna, ma loro stultizia e’ Macedoni la conseguita sua felicità, e trovonsi in poco tempo senza imperio e senza gloria.’ Or below: ‘Ma subito che la libidine del tiranneggiare e i singulari comodi, le ingiuste voglie in Italia più poterono che le buone legge a santissime consuete discipline, subito cominciò lo imperio latino a debilitarsi e inanire, a perdere la grazia, decore e tutte le sue pristine forze…'(7). Michelangelo might not have subscribed to the detail of Alberti’s historical analysis, but his letter to Ferratino indicates that he shared Alberti’s thinking about self interest and morality.
[53]The embryo of the design of the Tempietto existed by 1504, the date of Raphael’s Spozalizio, in the background of which is an arcuated building of polygonal plan which nevertheless has the same general configuration as Bramante’s building.
[54]If the virtues of Bramante’s St. Peter’s would have been its civilised and open luminousness, it was not dissimilar to the place of public reception associated with the senate in Alberti’s thinking: ‘… in public halls … every measure must be taken to ensure that a group of citizens may be pleasantly received, decently treated while present, and conveniently dismissed; in particular make sure that there is no shortage of passages, lights open spaces, and other such facilities.’ (Rykwert et al, V,9, p.131); ‘…publicis diversoriis nihil, quod ad civium multitudinem commode excipiendam, honeste detinendam oportuneque emittendam faciat, ulla et parte negligendum est; et praesertim curandum, ut itinerum et luminum et spatiorum et eiusmodi, quae usui ventura sint, ne ullae penitus commoditates desint.'(Orlandi, L’Architettura, I, pp.371-373)
[55] op.cit., p.246, l.1575-76.
[56] op.cit., p.247, l.1580-1583. He talks here of the contentions that arise in the public arena. He should not be taken, however, to despise the piazza.
Alberti etc. 
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