Popular in Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Titus Quinctius Flamininus’ “Italian triumph”

McGill University Michael Fronda

Arts and Humanities

Lincoln and the Jews

Brandeis University Jonathan Sarna

Arts and Humanities

Amputations and Convalescence

University of Western Australia Emily Brink

Art

Language, Sound, and Image in Wallace Berman’s Aleph, 1956–1966

University of San Diego Chelsea Behle Fralick

Arts and Humanities

Early Modern Natural Law Theories

University of Copenhagen Knud Haakonssen

Art

Maternity: Mothers and Children in the Arts of Africa

University of California Santa Barbara Herbert Cole

Drawing on the past: Palladio, his precursors and knowledge of ancient architecture

View more insights in Arts and Humanities - Art - Art History

View more figures from University of Birmingham

View the page of David Hemsoll

Read the Study

David Hemsoll discusses the methods used by Palladio in the drawing and reconstruction of ancient monuments in Rome

Image courtesy of interviewee. June 19, 2024

Recently Viewed

Log-in or Sign-up to Faculti
Currently viewing this subject insight as a guest. You have insight(s) remaining for this month.

AI is building Key Quotes, Points, Transcriptions...

Export as PDF

The article discusses the influential architect Andrea Palladio, highlighting his significant impact on architecture in Britain, Europe, and the United States during and after the 17th and 18th centuries. While Palladio is renowned for his buildings and extensive drawings, the article challenges the common belief that he solely created accurate drawings of ancient structures based on personal measurements. Instead, it argues that Palladio likely based his illustrations on the works of earlier architects, leading to inaccuracies in his representations.

The author posits that Palladio's approach involved replicating features from previous drawings, many of which were themselves flawed. The article provides examples of Palladio's misalignments, particularly in his illustration of the Temple of Bacchus, suggesting he relied on inaccurate earlier drafts. It also discusses the methods Palladio used, including adaptations of designs according to his expectations rather than strict representations of the ruins.

Moreover, the article notes the collaborative nature of architectural knowledge during the Renaissance, showing how relationships with fellow architects, such as Antonio da Sangallo and others, influenced Palladio's works. The findings emphasize that many surviving architectural drawings resulted from collective efforts, leading to improved accuracy over time. Overall, the article seeks to clarify the complexities behind Palladio's drawings and the historical context of Renaissance architecture, recognizing that much of the knowledge accumulated during this period laid the foundation for modern archaeology.

Language:

Export as PDF

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.155 --> 00:02.295
The article I wrote is about Palladio.

00:02.515 --> 00:06.295
And a compelling reason to write about Palladio is

00:06.295 --> 00:08.135
that he was one of the most acclaimed

00:08.675 --> 00:11.495
and consequential architects of all time.

00:12.355 --> 00:15.695
And he had immense influence, as everybody probably knows on

00:16.275 --> 00:19.415
the 17th and 18th century architecture of Britain,

00:20.275 --> 00:23.495
Europe in general, the United States and elsewhere,

00:24.035 --> 00:26.615
and also the architecture of later times as well.

00:27.765 --> 00:32.465
Um, he is, he's known for his buildings,

00:33.015 --> 00:36.985
also his treatise, his great many surviving drawings,

00:38.125 --> 00:39.865
and it is the treatise

00:39.865 --> 00:44.105
and the drawings that I'm focusing on in my article.

00:44.485 --> 00:47.785
The thing is, he's, he's not only a very famous architect,

00:47.785 --> 00:50.505
but he's also a claim for his remarkable,

00:50.985 --> 00:53.785
apparently remarkable knowledge of the architecture

00:53.785 --> 00:57.745
of antiquity, which is seen in his treatise illustrations

00:58.565 --> 01:02.185
and in a good many of his drawings.

01:03.205 --> 01:04.345
And he's widely thought

01:04.365 --> 01:07.345
to have acquired all this knowledge himself, which is

01:07.345 --> 01:09.065
what he claims in the treatise.

01:09.905 --> 01:12.325
And it's been imagined that he

01:14.175 --> 01:15.335
measured antiquities

01:16.235 --> 01:20.375
and produced drawings of antiquities entirely by himself,

01:21.325 --> 01:24.065
the drawings of temples providing the basis

01:24.165 --> 01:25.865
for the illustrations in the treatise.

01:26.625 --> 01:29.845
So this is the point of view of the recent past,

01:30.665 --> 01:34.845
and it is often today repeated or implied.

01:35.345 --> 01:39.205
And so it's imagined that Palladio traveled around Rome

01:39.265 --> 01:43.645
and other places principally by himself and simply measured

01:43.945 --> 01:47.205
and drew the ancient buildings that he saw.

01:47.385 --> 01:49.725
So that's what people sort of, sort of have the back

01:49.725 --> 01:53.165
of their minds when they talk about his images

01:53.345 --> 01:54.485
of ancient buildings.

01:55.865 --> 01:59.115
But it's, this is all highly improbable

01:59.975 --> 02:04.755
and his claims in his treatise are largely untrue,

02:04.775 --> 02:07.715
and that's the point of the article.

02:08.575 --> 02:13.555
Uh, so what is being put forward instead is

02:13.555 --> 02:15.275
that he based his own drawings

02:15.655 --> 02:18.995
and treat his illustrations on the drawings

02:18.995 --> 02:22.245
of earlier architects with a sort

02:22.245 --> 02:24.005
of ulterior goal in mind.

02:24.145 --> 02:27.845
And this would be to amass a corpus of depictions

02:27.865 --> 02:31.165
of ancient architecture that would be without parallel.

02:32.335 --> 02:35.795
So the proposition that I've put forward to

02:36.825 --> 02:40.845
can then be demonstrated by exact drawings

02:41.145 --> 02:42.165
or illustrations

02:43.025 --> 02:46.285
and then identifying features that are obviously incorrect

02:46.945 --> 02:48.815
and looking for earlier drawings

02:48.965 --> 02:51.295
that have the same incorrect features.

02:51.795 --> 02:54.295
So the, the implication is strongly

02:54.445 --> 02:59.015
that he based his own images on previous drawings,

02:59.935 --> 03:03.685
Which turn out very often to have been inaccurate.

03:04.135 --> 03:05.685
Among the treatise illustrations

03:05.685 --> 03:09.365
that he provides are these depictions of temples.

03:10.305 --> 03:14.725
And one of the best examples to illustrate his practice

03:15.505 --> 03:18.445
is his illustration of the circular temple

03:18.465 --> 03:20.285
of backers in the treatise,

03:20.615 --> 03:23.685
which is the building we now know as the church in Rome

03:23.785 --> 03:25.565
of Santa cost stanza.

03:26.385 --> 03:30.285
Um, now what you find is that Palladio's illustration

03:30.285 --> 03:34.975
of this building, which is a building he says he saw has

03:35.915 --> 03:40.175
all sorts of inaccuracies, especially having the spaces

03:40.565 --> 03:44.855
between the interior columns aligning

03:45.285 --> 03:48.175
with the niches in the surrounding

03:48.285 --> 03:50.015
wall, which isn't the case.

03:50.365 --> 03:52.495
They simply don't align in reality.

03:53.715 --> 03:56.175
But the building is shed in this same way,

03:57.655 --> 04:01.105
this same incorrect way in certain earlier drawings,

04:01.715 --> 04:05.385
which implies that Palladio's illustration's illustration

04:05.525 --> 04:08.225
was based on some earlier drawing

04:08.415 --> 04:12.065
that was similarly incorrect,

04:12.065 --> 04:15.065
because it's difficult to understand why if he went

04:15.065 --> 04:17.625
to the building and he saw it, one

04:17.625 --> 04:19.945
of the first things you notice is that the columns

04:20.125 --> 04:22.425
and the spaces between them aren't in alignment

04:22.855 --> 04:24.745
with the niches around the exterior.

04:24.885 --> 04:25.985
It is absolutely obvious,

04:26.365 --> 04:28.865
but somehow that sort of slipped his mind.

04:30.565 --> 04:33.185
But he came to provide his treatise illustration

04:33.725 --> 04:35.065
and he drew it incorrectly.

04:35.245 --> 04:38.105
So there is a sort of reason to explain this feature

04:38.165 --> 04:41.385
and count as other features in the treatise drawings.

04:42.165 --> 04:45.025
So well, there are, there are all sorts of other examples

04:45.025 --> 04:46.705
that bear out this proposal.

04:47.685 --> 04:48.865
So to take just one of these,

04:49.975 --> 04:54.035
he illustrates the now demolished temple of Minerva,

04:54.125 --> 04:57.315
which was situated not very far away from the Roman Forum,

04:58.315 --> 05:01.975
and he shows it as backing onto a circular structure

05:02.495 --> 05:04.655
directly behind it, which is

05:04.655 --> 05:07.895
how it also appears in certain earlier drawings.

05:09.035 --> 05:12.695
But in reality, it didn't have a curving wall.

05:12.715 --> 05:15.295
It was, sorry, it did have a curving wall behind it,

05:16.195 --> 05:19.055
but it was, this wall was offset

05:19.575 --> 05:21.335
a considerable distance to the right.

05:21.875 --> 05:23.415
So showing the curving wall

05:23.415 --> 05:27.775
or the circular structure directly behind the temple is not

05:27.835 --> 05:29.735
how it ever was in reality,

05:30.555 --> 05:34.935
but it is how earlier draftsman thought it to be,

05:35.315 --> 05:38.895
and that is what Palladio has in his own drawing.

05:39.675 --> 05:41.775
So these earlier drawings

05:41.775 --> 05:45.885
therefore explain the, formulation

05:46.385 --> 05:49.845
of the design that he himself illustrated.

05:51.275 --> 05:54.285
Very good. So many examples, not only whole buildings,

05:54.285 --> 05:56.885
but also the details of buildings which simply don't

05:57.055 --> 06:00.805
Correspond to the details of those buildings

06:00.805 --> 06:02.205
that still survive.

06:02.585 --> 06:05.245
So somehow something happened

06:05.785 --> 06:07.205
and the something that happened was

06:07.205 --> 06:09.845
that Palladio used other people's drawings on which

06:09.905 --> 06:13.045
to base his own depictions palladio's drawings

06:13.045 --> 06:14.405
of bath complexes.

06:14.865 --> 06:16.605
And they are remarkable

06:17.545 --> 06:22.005
and they certainly constitutes a remarkable set

06:22.625 --> 06:26.635
of such images, many

06:26.635 --> 06:29.235
of which Palladio intended him to publish himself,

06:30.175 --> 06:31.675
and many of which were actually

06:31.675 --> 06:33.035
published in the 18th century.

06:33.255 --> 06:37.515
And because they came into the popular sphere as it were,

06:39.065 --> 06:42.275
they then had some influence on the way subsequent scholars

06:42.275 --> 06:44.475
have conceived of these complexes.

06:44.615 --> 06:47.155
So that that's the sort of process that's happened.

06:48.245 --> 06:53.045
And they do indeed, provide his set of images do,

06:53.185 --> 06:55.925
do indeed provide ground plans of several complexes

06:55.925 --> 06:57.805
that have now almost van vanished.

06:58.345 --> 07:01.605
So among those, there are the bars of Nero, the bars

07:01.665 --> 07:04.365
of Titus, the baths of Traian

07:04.945 --> 07:07.525
and the baths of Constantine.

07:07.945 --> 07:10.885
And in sort of modern day studies, you,

07:10.885 --> 07:15.645
you often see Pilates drawings standing for the original

07:16.465 --> 07:20.065
compositions of these complexes.

07:20.885 --> 07:24.065
So what you can say is that the drawings are reliable

07:24.365 --> 07:27.665
to an extent, but only to an extent

07:28.375 --> 07:31.305
because they were largely based on other people's drawings

07:32.285 --> 07:35.505
and which were themselves defective.

07:36.375 --> 07:39.835
Um, and these other drawings,

07:40.885 --> 07:42.035
could have been defective

07:42.495 --> 07:45.635
or could it be thought of as being defective.

07:46.095 --> 07:48.395
And that was the problem that Palladio was facing.

07:49.295 --> 07:51.195
Um, as I've said

07:51.195 --> 07:54.755
before, it didn't stop the Palladio drawings gaining an

07:55.035 --> 07:57.635
accepted authority as reconstructions

07:57.705 --> 07:59.315
that can be relied upon.

07:59.815 --> 08:04.235
So time and time again, Palladio provides the information

08:04.235 --> 08:07.035
that you cannot see on site today.

08:07.575 --> 08:11.595
So that's where we are. So he did various things

08:11.625 --> 08:14.115
with these drawings of bath complexes.

08:15.325 --> 08:18.215
Sometimes he produced near replicas

08:18.315 --> 08:22.445
of other people's surveys, which would seem to be the case

08:23.115 --> 08:27.455
with his drawing of the plan of the bars of Traum,

08:28.145 --> 08:31.095
which had been meticulously surveyed by a group

08:31.095 --> 08:34.895
of French draftsmen perhaps just a little while previously.

08:34.905 --> 08:38.135
There are really very few drawings at all of this complex,

08:38.195 --> 08:40.815
but the ones that survive are the Palladio drawing

08:41.595 --> 08:45.055
and the drawing produced as the result of a survey

08:45.685 --> 08:49.535
very obviously by, a group

08:49.535 --> 08:51.295
of French draftsmen.

08:52.245 --> 08:53.545
So that's one thing he did.

08:54.665 --> 08:56.945
It's sometimes possible too to

08:57.255 --> 09:01.065
following the evidence of padio zone surviving drawings

09:01.925 --> 09:03.185
to see how some plans

09:03.405 --> 09:07.425
of bath complexes were based on presumably earlier surveys,

09:07.885 --> 09:10.345
but these were then creatively completed.

09:11.145 --> 09:14.165
So there's, you know, you can sort of trace a pattern

09:14.165 --> 09:16.925
between an earlier drawing the Palladio drawing,

09:17.065 --> 09:19.805
and you can see that what Palladio does is he takes the

09:19.805 --> 09:23.165
earlier information and he kinds of puts it together

09:23.275 --> 09:25.045
with a few invented ideas

09:25.185 --> 09:28.085
to create his own version of the complex.

09:28.105 --> 09:31.005
And that's the case very much with his drawings of the bars

09:31.105 --> 09:35.165
of Niro and the baths of Titus.

09:36.485 --> 09:39.425
But in the case of the baths of Constantine,

09:40.465 --> 09:44.325
which have entirely disappeared, he did something else

09:44.755 --> 09:46.965
because it's reasonable to conclude

09:47.635 --> 09:50.645
that he altered the likely layout so as

09:50.645 --> 09:54.045
to make it conform more to his expectations of

09:54.045 --> 09:55.845
what a bar complex ought to look like,

09:56.515 --> 10:01.005
because it is significantly different from drawings

10:01.005 --> 10:03.165
of the complex produced beforehand.

10:04.305 --> 10:06.765
So the, which are all consistent

10:06.765 --> 10:08.405
with one another, broadly speaking.

10:08.625 --> 10:11.205
So it's as if he sort of looked at these and said,

10:11.665 --> 10:14.525
or one of them and said, this doesn't look right to me,

10:14.985 --> 10:16.765
bar complexes ought to look different.

10:17.145 --> 10:20.365
And he reconstructs the plan,

10:20.545 --> 10:22.805
in the way in which he thinks it ought

10:22.825 --> 10:24.045
to have been arranged.

10:25.295 --> 10:26.875
Um, and that's interesting

10:26.875 --> 10:29.315
because you know, if you look at book books on Roman

10:29.475 --> 10:32.155
architecture and the bars of Constantine,

10:32.705 --> 10:35.995
it's usually Palladio's plan that is reproduced

10:36.695 --> 10:37.995
and it just cannot be right.

10:38.415 --> 10:40.635
In this article I mentioned three other artists,

10:40.685 --> 10:43.675
architects who seem to have had sort of particular resonance

10:44.185 --> 10:45.555
with Palladio.

10:46.415 --> 10:48.635
So one of these is

10:49.175 --> 10:52.875
the Verona architect McKayley Sam McKayley,

10:53.945 --> 10:57.965
who was very much Palladio's early career model,

10:58.145 --> 11:00.645
and Sam McKayley gained a formidable reputation

11:00.945 --> 11:03.045
for his drawings of antiquities.

11:03.065 --> 11:07.565
So that's reported at the time, even though none

11:07.565 --> 11:09.645
of his drawings actually survives.

11:10.185 --> 11:14.725
Um, but nevertheless, it is likely that many

11:14.725 --> 11:19.525
of Palladio's earlier drawings that is the ones he produced

11:19.625 --> 11:23.005
before he first went to Rome in 1541

11:24.065 --> 11:26.605
are copies of originals

11:27.425 --> 11:29.085
by someone else or other people.

11:29.945 --> 11:31.205
And these originals,

11:31.305 --> 11:34.565
or many of them would most likely have been produced

11:34.945 --> 11:36.325
by Sammy Kaley.

11:36.345 --> 11:38.125
So he's a sort of early model,

11:38.545 --> 11:40.805
but he's also an early instance.

11:41.705 --> 11:45.045
He provides an early instance of pal Palladio copying

11:45.745 --> 11:47.045
the drawings of others.

11:47.625 --> 11:51.205
And that is seen, for example, in the very many drawings

11:51.745 --> 11:52.885
of the antiquities

11:52.885 --> 11:55.885
Of Verona that he produces, which are likely

11:56.465 --> 11:59.725
to have been copied from drawings from by someone else

11:59.825 --> 12:03.325
and in all likelihood drawings by Sam McKayley.

12:03.545 --> 12:06.045
So that would be the sort of connection.

12:06.875 --> 12:10.965
Then I mention in particular Antonio Daan Gallo,

12:11.305 --> 12:15.565
the younger, and what we need to know is

12:15.565 --> 12:17.645
that San Gallo was the leading architect

12:18.105 --> 12:21.325
and antiquarian in Rome up

12:21.325 --> 12:24.445
until his death in 1546,

12:25.265 --> 12:28.645
and Palladio would've got to know him very well

12:29.375 --> 12:33.325
while Palladio was in Rome during the 1540s.

12:33.925 --> 12:36.205
Palladio is basically a professional climber,

12:36.265 --> 12:38.685
so if there's a sort of good reason to get to know someone,

12:38.965 --> 12:41.565
Palladio will take advantage of the good reason

12:42.145 --> 12:43.285
and get to know the person.

12:43.505 --> 12:46.085
And no doubt San Gallo will be very flattered

12:46.085 --> 12:47.085
to have all this attention.

12:48.845 --> 12:51.995
Sanga was probably instrumental in acquainting Palladio

12:52.625 --> 12:55.955
with his own drawings and also with the drawings of others.

12:57.015 --> 13:00.395
And it's interesting to observe that it was San Gallo

13:01.055 --> 13:05.115
who had first realized that most ancient temples conformed

13:05.135 --> 13:07.115
to similar theoretical models

13:08.145 --> 13:10.235
involving peripheral columns

13:10.895 --> 13:15.035
and steps sometimes at the sides as well

13:15.375 --> 13:16.635
as the fronts.

13:17.015 --> 13:18.955
So just to unpack that a bit,

13:19.615 --> 13:22.595
if you read the ancient treatise of Vitruvius, that is

13:22.595 --> 13:25.955
how you can understand temples to have been organized.

13:26.015 --> 13:30.675
And basically San Gallo applied that lesson to the ruins

13:30.675 --> 13:32.875
of ancient Rome so that he was able

13:32.895 --> 13:35.315
to reconstruct these buildings according

13:35.415 --> 13:37.075
to ancient principles.

13:38.015 --> 13:41.315
Uh, this format, the columns around the whole building

13:41.655 --> 13:45.355
and steps sometimes around the whole building is the format

13:45.425 --> 13:48.955
that Palladio often followed for his own reconstructions

13:48.955 --> 13:51.635
of temples, of the kinds that you see in his treatise.

13:52.095 --> 13:56.155
So there, there's a sort of chain of links

13:56.155 --> 14:00.875
that eventually culminates in the Palladio, the drawings

14:00.875 --> 14:03.875
that Palladio produces himself in the treatise.

14:05.015 --> 14:09.905
Then thirdly, I make a particular point of Rio,

14:10.245 --> 14:14.025
partly because Rio features quite prominently in current

14:14.305 --> 14:17.745
literature on Palladio, the Rio was the contemporary

14:17.745 --> 14:19.625
of Palladio's, and several

14:19.685 --> 14:24.185
of Rio's drawings are really very like some of palladio's

14:25.005 --> 14:29.065
to the extent that it has been proposed exceptionally,

14:29.065 --> 14:30.305
because it's not, this sort

14:30.305 --> 14:31.665
of thing is not normally proposed.

14:32.575 --> 14:35.225
It's been proposed anyway that Rio's drawings

14:35.425 --> 14:38.905
provided Palladio with points of departure for drawings

14:38.905 --> 14:40.625
of his own, the same antiquities.

14:41.665 --> 14:43.925
But the reality of

14:44.475 --> 14:47.085
this relationship is probably much more complicated.

14:48.095 --> 14:50.675
So for example, the very similar

14:50.715 --> 14:52.325
Drawings by the Rio

14:52.825 --> 14:57.205
and Palladio of the temple complex of Hercules,

14:57.585 --> 15:02.525
but Tivoli are both of them probably dependent on the survey

15:02.945 --> 15:04.005
of this complex,

15:04.665 --> 15:08.645
but have been conducted by Antonio Dasan Gallo previously.

15:08.785 --> 15:12.355
So the similarity is not really one of, in this case,

15:12.425 --> 15:15.635
it's not one of Palladio copying Rio

15:15.655 --> 15:17.515
or even Rio copying Palladio.

15:17.515 --> 15:21.435
It's because they both take their, information from

15:22.275 --> 15:26.035
a very, respectable survey previously established.

15:27.165 --> 15:32.015
Um, and then this all matters,

15:32.325 --> 15:35.865
because explaining the connections

15:35.865 --> 15:37.585
between surviving drawings

15:38.715 --> 15:41.775
and also trying to explain the ancestry of drawings

15:42.705 --> 15:46.655
helps us understand better how architects

15:47.175 --> 15:48.935
actually interacted with one another,

15:50.065 --> 15:54.005
and also how knowledge of ancient architecture

15:54.755 --> 15:56.965
gradually began to accrue.

15:57.625 --> 16:00.965
So rather than saying lots of individual artists all went

16:00.965 --> 16:02.565
to Rome and they all made their own drawings of,

16:02.665 --> 16:06.765
of ancient buildings, you can start to see how

16:08.045 --> 16:11.345
one architect takes advantage of the achievements

16:11.345 --> 16:14.625
of another architect to produce, let's say, a better drawing

16:14.685 --> 16:17.065
or a more accurate drawing, and you can

16:17.065 --> 16:18.825
therefore have a succession

16:18.885 --> 16:22.825
of incremental improvements seen in drawings

16:22.885 --> 16:25.105
by successive architects.

16:25.685 --> 16:28.705
The research of the article, this debunks the idea

16:28.705 --> 16:32.705
that Palladio came up single-handedly with the drawings

16:32.705 --> 16:35.465
of reconstructions of buildings that he explored,

16:36.015 --> 16:38.305
including the ones he published in his treatise.

16:38.655 --> 16:43.535
Just to sort of unpack that a bit more, if you go

16:43.535 --> 16:46.215
to Rome and you see these ancient buildings, you become

16:46.215 --> 16:49.135
to realize, except that most scholars don't realize

16:49.725 --> 16:53.255
that you can't just go around, Rome with a tape measure

16:54.035 --> 16:55.815
and sort of measure a few things

16:55.955 --> 16:59.425
and then draw, make drawings of them.

16:59.885 --> 17:04.785
Um, measuring a building properly requires a team of

17:05.335 --> 17:09.145
dedicated people engaged on the task.

17:09.885 --> 17:11.745
It also requires a great deal of time,

17:11.875 --> 17:13.745
which Palladio didn't have.

17:14.325 --> 17:16.705
And if we think back to the 16th century, we are dealing

17:16.705 --> 17:18.705
with buildings which may look very nice today,

17:18.725 --> 17:21.545
but within, in ruin us

17:21.885 --> 17:24.425
and dangerous states of existence.

17:24.765 --> 17:27.745
So the idea that you sort of turn up at the Bath of Carala

17:27.745 --> 17:29.705
with a measuring rod and a tape measure

17:29.725 --> 17:32.145
and sort of go around the site measuring things

17:32.605 --> 17:35.625
to produce an accurate rendition of the layout

17:36.205 --> 17:38.225
is completely farfetched.

17:38.565 --> 17:43.245
So that's what the article was intended

17:43.425 --> 17:47.395
to do, but it also points to other things too, so

17:48.675 --> 17:52.795
That this sort of research draws our attention to the fact

17:52.795 --> 17:55.235
that the realities of studying ancient architecture

17:55.235 --> 18:00.105
during the Renaissance period to what we, it draws attention

18:00.205 --> 18:03.345
to what we know and what we don't know.

18:04.125 --> 18:08.065
So in particular, it helps us realize that for every drawing

18:08.105 --> 18:11.025
of an ancient building that happens to survive today,

18:12.205 --> 18:16.675
there were hundreds, even thousands of drawings of it

18:16.675 --> 18:17.995
that were produced originally.

18:18.375 --> 18:21.915
So, you know, we have the tiniest traction surviving today

18:22.455 --> 18:27.275
of what was originally produced, of the ones that today

18:28.585 --> 18:31.365
any connections that can be recognized

18:31.465 --> 18:35.055
or inferred are only recognizable

18:35.245 --> 18:37.055
through chance survivals.

18:37.755 --> 18:42.615
So it, it sort of brings you to realize

18:43.165 --> 18:48.055
just how, or almost how seemingly impossible it is

18:48.075 --> 18:51.655
to create a, a, a sort of sense of contextualization

18:51.675 --> 18:53.135
of these individual drawings.

18:54.395 --> 18:58.215
But going beyond that, we can still say that

18:58.975 --> 19:00.815
hypothesized co connections

19:01.395 --> 19:05.495
and discernible patterns can still provide insights

19:06.445 --> 19:07.975
into the much larger world

19:07.975 --> 19:10.095
of Renaissance drawings after the antique.

19:10.945 --> 19:14.845
And so exploring these connections and patterns can

19:15.345 --> 19:18.845
and will increase our knowledge very considerably

19:19.345 --> 19:24.175
of this critically important subject, which was an area

19:24.275 --> 19:27.735
of endeavor that led to the foundations

19:28.195 --> 19:29.855
for modern archeology.

19:30.675 --> 19:32.255
So they produced all these,

19:32.345 --> 19:34.495
these drawings in the 16th century

19:34.675 --> 19:36.655
and gained fantastic knowledge of

19:36.845 --> 19:38.575
what individual buildings were like,

19:38.955 --> 19:41.495
and it was this accruing of knowledge,

19:42.345 --> 19:46.735
which then carried forward into even more exacting studies,

19:47.385 --> 19:51.415
which starts to become what we call archeology.

00:00 - The article I wrote is about Palladio. And a compelling reason to write about Palladio is that he was one of the most acclaimed and consequential architects of all time. And he had immense influence, as everybody probably knows on the 17th and 18th century architecture of Britain,

00:20 - Europe in general, the United States and elsewhere, and also the architecture of later times as well. he is, he's known for his buildings, also his treatise, his great many surviving drawings, and it is the treatise and the drawings that I'm focusing on in my article. The thing is, he's, he's not only a very famous architect, but he's also a claim for his remarkable, apparently remarkable knowledge of the architecture of antiquity, which is seen in his treatise illustrations

00:58 - and in a good many of his drawings. And he's widely thought to have acquired all this knowledge himself, which is what he claims in the treatise. And it's been imagined that he measured antiquities and produced drawings of antiquities entirely by himself, the drawings of temples providing the basis for the illustrations in the treatise. So this is the point of view of the recent past,

01:30 - and it is often today repeated or implied. And so it's imagined that Palladio traveled around Rome and other places principally by himself and simply measured and drew the ancient buildings that he saw. So that's what people sort of, sort of have the back of their minds when they talk about his images of ancient buildings. But it's, this is all highly improbable and his claims in his treatise are largely untrue, and that's the point of the article.

02:08 - so what is being put forward instead is that he based his own drawings and treat his illustrations on the drawings of earlier architects with a sort of ulterior goal in mind. And this would be to amass a corpus of depictions of ancient architecture that would be without parallel. So the proposition that I've put forward to can then be demonstrated by exact drawings or illustrations

02:43 - and then identifying features that are obviously incorrect and looking for earlier drawings that have the same incorrect features. So the, the implication is strongly that he based his own images on previous drawings, Which turn out very often to have been inaccurate. Among the treatise illustrations that he provides are these depictions of temples. And one of the best examples to illustrate his practice is his illustration of the circular temple

03:18 - of backers in the treatise, which is the building we now know as the church in Rome of Santa cost stanza. now what you find is that Palladio's illustration of this building, which is a building he says he saw has all sorts of inaccuracies, especially having the spaces between the interior columns aligning with the niches in the surrounding wall, which isn't the case. They simply don't align in reality.

03:53 - But the building is shed in this same way, this same incorrect way in certain earlier drawings, which implies that Palladio's illustration's illustration was based on some earlier drawing that was similarly incorrect, because it's difficult to understand why if he went to the building and he saw it, one of the first things you notice is that the columns and the spaces between them aren't in alignment with the niches around the exterior.

04:24 - It is absolutely obvious, but somehow that sort of slipped his mind. But he came to provide his treatise illustration and he drew it incorrectly. So there is a sort of reason to explain this feature and count as other features in the treatise drawings. So well, there are, there are all sorts of other examples that bear out this proposal. So to take just one of these, he illustrates the now demolished temple of Minerva,

04:54 - which was situated not very far away from the Roman Forum, and he shows it as backing onto a circular structure directly behind it, which is how it also appears in certain earlier drawings. But in reality, it didn't have a curving wall. It was, sorry, it did have a curving wall behind it, but it was, this wall was offset a considerable distance to the right. So showing the curving wall or the circular structure directly behind the temple is not

05:27 - how it ever was in reality, but it is how earlier draftsman thought it to be, and that is what Palladio has in his own drawing. So these earlier drawings therefore explain the, formulation of the design that he himself illustrated. Very good. So many examples, not only whole buildings, but also the details of buildings which simply don't Correspond to the details of those buildings that still survive.

06:02 - So somehow something happened and the something that happened was that Palladio used other people's drawings on which to base his own depictions palladio's drawings of bath complexes. And they are remarkable and they certainly constitutes a remarkable set of such images, many of which Palladio intended him to publish himself, and many of which were actually

06:31 - published in the 18th century. And because they came into the popular sphere as it were, they then had some influence on the way subsequent scholars have conceived of these complexes. So that that's the sort of process that's happened. And they do indeed, provide his set of images do, do indeed provide ground plans of several complexes that have now almost van vanished. So among those, there are the bars of Nero, the bars of Titus, the baths of Traian

07:04 - and the baths of Constantine. And in sort of modern day studies, you, you often see Pilates drawings standing for the original compositions of these complexes. So what you can say is that the drawings are reliable to an extent, but only to an extent because they were largely based on other people's drawings and which were themselves defective. and these other drawings, could have been defective

07:42 - or could it be thought of as being defective. And that was the problem that Palladio was facing. as I've said before, it didn't stop the Palladio drawings gaining an accepted authority as reconstructions that can be relied upon. So time and time again, Palladio provides the information that you cannot see on site today. So that's where we are. So he did various things with these drawings of bath complexes.

08:15 - Sometimes he produced near replicas of other people's surveys, which would seem to be the case with his drawing of the plan of the bars of Traum, which had been meticulously surveyed by a group of French draftsmen perhaps just a little while previously. There are really very few drawings at all of this complex, but the ones that survive are the Palladio drawing and the drawing produced as the result of a survey very obviously by, a group of French draftsmen.

08:52 - So that's one thing he did. It's sometimes possible too to following the evidence of padio zone surviving drawings to see how some plans of bath complexes were based on presumably earlier surveys, but these were then creatively completed. So there's, you know, you can sort of trace a pattern between an earlier drawing the Palladio drawing, and you can see that what Palladio does is he takes the earlier information and he kinds of puts it together

09:23 - with a few invented ideas to create his own version of the complex. And that's the case very much with his drawings of the bars of Niro and the baths of Titus. But in the case of the baths of Constantine, which have entirely disappeared, he did something else because it's reasonable to conclude that he altered the likely layout so as to make it conform more to his expectations of what a bar complex ought to look like,

09:56 - because it is significantly different from drawings of the complex produced beforehand. So the, which are all consistent with one another, broadly speaking. So it's as if he sort of looked at these and said, or one of them and said, this doesn't look right to me, bar complexes ought to look different. And he reconstructs the plan, in the way in which he thinks it ought to have been arranged.

10:25 - and that's interesting because you know, if you look at book books on Roman architecture and the bars of Constantine, it's usually Palladio's plan that is reproduced and it just cannot be right. In this article I mentioned three other artists, architects who seem to have had sort of particular resonance with Palladio. So one of these is the Verona architect McKayley Sam McKayley,

10:53 - who was very much Palladio's early career model, and Sam McKayley gained a formidable reputation for his drawings of antiquities. So that's reported at the time, even though none of his drawings actually survives. but nevertheless, it is likely that many of Palladio's earlier drawings that is the ones he produced before he first went to Rome in 1541 are copies of originals by someone else or other people.

11:29 - And these originals, or many of them would most likely have been produced by Sammy Kaley. So he's a sort of early model, but he's also an early instance. He provides an early instance of pal Palladio copying the drawings of others. And that is seen, for example, in the very many drawings of the antiquities Of Verona that he produces, which are likely

11:56 - to have been copied from drawings from by someone else and in all likelihood drawings by Sam McKayley. So that would be the sort of connection. Then I mention in particular Antonio Daan Gallo, the younger, and what we need to know is that San Gallo was the leading architect and antiquarian in Rome up until his death in 1546, and Palladio would've got to know him very well while Palladio was in Rome during the 1540s.

12:33 - Palladio is basically a professional climber, so if there's a sort of good reason to get to know someone, Palladio will take advantage of the good reason and get to know the person. And no doubt San Gallo will be very flattered to have all this attention. Sanga was probably instrumental in acquainting Palladio with his own drawings and also with the drawings of others. And it's interesting to observe that it was San Gallo who had first realized that most ancient temples conformed

13:05 - to similar theoretical models involving peripheral columns and steps sometimes at the sides as well as the fronts. So just to unpack that a bit, if you read the ancient treatise of Vitruvius, that is how you can understand temples to have been organized. And basically San Gallo applied that lesson to the ruins of ancient Rome so that he was able to reconstruct these buildings according

13:35 - to ancient principles. this format, the columns around the whole building and steps sometimes around the whole building is the format that Palladio often followed for his own reconstructions of temples, of the kinds that you see in his treatise. So there, there's a sort of chain of links that eventually culminates in the Palladio, the drawings that Palladio produces himself in the treatise. Then thirdly, I make a particular point of Rio, partly because Rio features quite prominently in current

14:14 - literature on Palladio, the Rio was the contemporary of Palladio's, and several of Rio's drawings are really very like some of palladio's to the extent that it has been proposed exceptionally, because it's not, this sort of thing is not normally proposed. It's been proposed anyway that Rio's drawings provided Palladio with points of departure for drawings of his own, the same antiquities. But the reality of

14:44 - this relationship is probably much more complicated. So for example, the very similar Drawings by the Rio and Palladio of the temple complex of Hercules, but Tivoli are both of them probably dependent on the survey of this complex, but have been conducted by Antonio Dasan Gallo previously. So the similarity is not really one of, in this case, it's not one of Palladio copying Rio or even Rio copying Palladio.

15:17 - It's because they both take their, information from a very, respectable survey previously established. and then this all matters, because explaining the connections between surviving drawings and also trying to explain the ancestry of drawings helps us understand better how architects actually interacted with one another, and also how knowledge of ancient architecture gradually began to accrue.

15:57 - So rather than saying lots of individual artists all went to Rome and they all made their own drawings of, of ancient buildings, you can start to see how one architect takes advantage of the achievements of another architect to produce, let's say, a better drawing or a more accurate drawing, and you can therefore have a succession of incremental improvements seen in drawings by successive architects. The research of the article, this debunks the idea

16:28 - that Palladio came up single-handedly with the drawings of reconstructions of buildings that he explored, including the ones he published in his treatise. Just to sort of unpack that a bit more, if you go to Rome and you see these ancient buildings, you become to realize, except that most scholars don't realize that you can't just go around, Rome with a tape measure and sort of measure a few things and then draw, make drawings of them. measuring a building properly requires a team of

17:05 - dedicated people engaged on the task. It also requires a great deal of time, which Palladio didn't have. And if we think back to the 16th century, we are dealing with buildings which may look very nice today, but within, in ruin us and dangerous states of existence. So the idea that you sort of turn up at the Bath of Carala with a measuring rod and a tape measure and sort of go around the site measuring things

17:32 - to produce an accurate rendition of the layout is completely farfetched. So that's what the article was intended to do, but it also points to other things too, so That this sort of research draws our attention to the fact that the realities of studying ancient architecture during the Renaissance period to what we, it draws attention to what we know and what we don't know. So in particular, it helps us realize that for every drawing of an ancient building that happens to survive today,

18:12 - there were hundreds, even thousands of drawings of it that were produced originally. So, you know, we have the tiniest traction surviving today of what was originally produced, of the ones that today any connections that can be recognized or inferred are only recognizable through chance survivals. So it, it sort of brings you to realize just how, or almost how seemingly impossible it is to create a, a, a sort of sense of contextualization

18:51 - of these individual drawings. But going beyond that, we can still say that hypothesized co connections and discernible patterns can still provide insights into the much larger world of Renaissance drawings after the antique. And so exploring these connections and patterns can and will increase our knowledge very considerably of this critically important subject, which was an area of endeavor that led to the foundations

19:28 - for modern archeology. So they produced all these, these drawings in the 16th century and gained fantastic knowledge of what individual buildings were like, and it was this accruing of knowledge, which then carried forward into even more exacting studies, which starts to become what we call archeology.

Faculti AI can make mistakes