Figure 39:

                     Early use of "model" by Filarete (1464) and di Giorgio (1490)

 

 

Antonio Averlino, detto Filarete (around 1461-64)

 

Shortly after Leon Battista Alberti had developed his theory of models, the Florentine, Antonio Averlino, detto Filarete, wrote, around 1461 to 1464, a treaty on architecture in Italian [Tigler, 1963; Enginsoy, 2002]. The original is lost. The content has been preserved in 12 more or less complete mansucripts (15. to 17. century). The first facsimile printing is from 1965 by Yale University Press (History of Art, vol. 16, ed. G. Kubler) with an English translation by John R. Spencer.

 

Spencer writes in the introduction: „The treatise is more than a book of modelli, for it provides the basic rudimenta which should be known to patron and architect alike. The chapters on the materials of construction, together with scattered descriptions of technique and modes of execution, make this treatise a handbook as useful in the shop as in the library“ (xxxvi).

 

On first sight, according to the English translation of the text, Filarete does not use „model“ but „a small relief design of its final form“ („farne uno disegnio piccholo rilevato di legniame“). But in the „Dizionario di Arte“ (2003, 470) we read: Averlino „dichiara a proposito della sua città ideale, la Sforzinda, ‚in mentre si pena apparecchiare queste cose opportune per lo fundamento d’essa, farò il sopradetto modello, o vuoi dire disegno rilevato’ (p. 53)“.

 

 

Francesco di Giorgio Martini (around 1480/90)

 

Probably around 1472 the painter and sculptor, architect and engineer Francesco di Georgi Martini from Siena began his theoretical work on architecture. In 1479-80 he wrote the first wording of his „trattato di architettura“ (preserved in two manuscripts) and finshed it 1486. Three or four years later he completed a much more readable version (also preserved in two manuscripts). All four versions are published only in 1967 by Corrado Maltese. The so-called „Asburnham codex“ of the first phase was presented in a facsimile print in 1979.

 

Di Giorgio made the cognitive aspects of model-building explicit: “Whereas it is  difficult to demonstrate everything through drawings, nor is it at all possible to express many things in words, ... so it is necessary to make a model of nearly every object” (Martini, 1967, I, p. 142).

According to the „Dizionario di Arte“ (2003, 470) Martini used „modello“ also for the measure of columns or buildings („plinto“ and „modulo“).

 

 

Original documents, facsimile and secondary literature

bibliography: architectural models