Vasari on technique

by Giorgio Vasari

[107]. ‘In the times of the Goths;’ ‘German work.’ See Note on ‘Vasari’s Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture,’ postea, p. 133 f.

[108]. It will be seen that in this section Vasari combines two quite distinct things, the so-called ‘Tuscan,’ or as he calls it, the ‘Rustic’ Order, and rusticated masonry, which has nothing to do with the Orders of Architecture, but is a method of treating wall-surfaces. On this see the Note on ‘Rusticated Masonry,’ postea, p. 132. The reason why the ‘Tuscan’ is called the ‘Rustic’ Order, is that, being the simplest and, so to say, rudest of the Orders, it is most suitably employed in connection with walling of a rough and bossy appearance. The shafts of columns are sometimes rusticated to correspond with the walling, as at the Venetian ‘Zecca,’ mentioned ante, p. [56], but the expedient is of doubtful advantage, as the clear upright appearance of the column is thereby sacrificed.

[109]. Vasari says here that the ‘Rustic’ or Tuscan column is six ‘heads’ high. What does he mean by this? There is evidently in his mind the familiar comparison of different columns to human figures of different proportions, a conceit found in Vitruvius (IV, i, 6 f.) and in writers of the Renaissance (see Alberti, De Re Aedificatoria, Lib. IX, c. 7), and so he measures by ‘heads,’ which would apply to a figure but not to a column. ‘Testa,’ ‘head,’ cannot, as the context shows, mean the height of the capital of the column. It really means here the lower diameter of the column. It is this lower diameter (or sometimes half the lower diameter) that is the normal unit of measurement for the proportions of a column. Thus the height of the Tuscan column is given by Vitruvius and by Palladio and other moderns as six times the lower diameter. Though ‘head’ may seem a very curious word with which to describe this, there is no doubt that such is the meaning of it. Alberti, in his tract on the Orders and their proportions, uses the lower diameter as his measure but applies to it this very term ‘testa.’ There is a certain letter from Vasari to Duke Cosimo that deals with the measurements of a column of granite presented to him by the Pope and afterwards conveyed from Rome and set up in the Piazza di S. Trinità, where it carries the porphyry statue by Francesco del Tadda (postea, p. 111). Vasari gives the diameter of the ‘head’ of this column, but notes afterwards that the shaft diminishes from the ‘head’ upwards towards the necking (collarino). Hence there is no doubt about the interpretation of the word in question. See the letter in Opere, ed. Milanesi, VIII, 352.

[110]. The Citadel of Florence. This is not the ‘Belvedere’ fortress on the hill behind the Palazzo Pitti, but the so-called ‘Fortezza da Basso’ to the north of the town, now used as barracks, which the railway skirts just before entering the station near S. Maria Novella. It dates from 1534, and was built by Alessandro dei Medici with the intention of overawing the citizens. It occupied the site of the Faenza gate, and was partly within and partly outside the enceinte of the city. The ‘principal façade’ of which Vasari writes, is still well preserved in the middle of the southern face, opposite the town, and a sketch of it is shown in Fig. 3, but nothing else of interest is said to remain from the Renaissance period.

The masonry of the façade is an excellent example of elaborate rustication, and is very carefully executed in pietra forte. The illustration, Fig. 4, bears out Vasari’s description, and exhibits in alternation round bosses 18 in. in diameter and 4 in. in salience, and oblong diamonds about 3 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. There are worked borders about 1 in. in width round all the lines of juncture, and the scheme is worth noticing.

[111]. Vitruvius in his first book (I, ii, 5) gives directions as to the Orders suitable for temples to different deities. Thus Minerva, Mars, and Hercules are to have temples in the Doric style, etc.; while in the eighteenth century Sir William Chambers, transferring the same idea to modern times, says that Doric ‘may be employed in the houses of generals, or other martial men, in mausoleums erected to their memory, or in triumphal bridges and arches built to celebrate their victories.’ The modern architect is disposed to smile at these restrictions, but there underlies them a sound appreciation of the aesthetic significance of architectural forms.

[112]. The building referred to is the well-known Uffizi palace at Florence. See ante, p. [59].

[113]. The construction described by Vasari is evidently of the kind indicated in the accompanying drawing, Fig. 5. The pieces of the frieze are joggled one into the other so as to form a flat arch, but the construction is kept to the inner part and the face shows vertical joints between the pieces. As this passage in Vasari seems to have escaped the notice of those interested in Renaissance construction, the existence of the device he describes has remained unsuspected and nothing is known about it at the Uffizi itself. The fact is that Vasari’s system has succeeded in one way too perfectly for his purpose. Everything has remained ‘safe and sound,’ and no one of the architrave beams shows signs of failure, so that no technical examination of the fabric has been called for. On the other hand, neither the artificers nor the world at large seem to have benefitted by Vasari’s kindness, for the books do not notice his device. There is no mention of it even in the huge work on Tuscan Renaissance architecture now just completed under the editorship of Baron Henri de Geymüller, nor in Raschdorff’s Palast-Architectur, nor Durm’s Baukunst der Renaissance, though references to it may possibly occur in older books that have escaped our notice. Joggled lintels forming flat arches are of course common enough. The new Parliament Building at Stockholm shows them conspicuously with the actual joints appearing on the face of the building. Mediaeval and Renaissance fireplaces often have lintels of the kind, as in Coningsburgh Castle, Yorks, and Linlithgow Palace.

[114]. i.e. width on the soffit, or, as it might be expressed, in depth from the outer face inwards.

[115]. ‘Sopra la colonna.’ This does not mean strictly the piece vertically above the column, which is the die (dado quadro) already mentioned. It is equivalent to the expression just below ‘sopra le colonne,’ and means simply ‘in the upper part.’ The piece referred to is A, A, in Fig. 5, the ‘pezzo del mezzo’ of the text as quoted below.