Figure 50: The first model theory: Leon Battista Alberti (around 1450/60)

 

German version see:          Die Modellmethode der Renaissance

Abb. 2: Leon Battista Alberti

 

 

The polymath and exiled Florentine, Leon Battista Alberti, was the first to set art and architecture on a scientific basis. In "De pictura" (1435; Italian 1436) and "De  re aedificatoria" (written around 1450/60 in Latin; printed in 1485) he understands art as an area of objective, investigatable laws.

 

At the time when the Dome of Florence was being finished, in „De re aedificatoria“ (2. book, 1.-3. chap; 9. book, 8-10. chap.) is described in detail the use of models (Rudolf Wittkower, 1949; Franco Borsi, 1975, 329-334; Roland Müller, 1988; Henry Millon, 1995; Bernd Evers, 1995; S. di Pasquale, 1998; Anthony Grafton, 2000; Branko Mitrovic, 2005).

 

Alberti did not use the neo-latin word „modellus“ but the word „modulus“, namely for 3D-models as well as for the Vitruvian measure. The translation into English was only in 1726, into German in 1912; an new English translation is of 1988.

 

 

Amendability of models

 

The most important advantages of the use of models are vividness, manipulability and amendability. Alberti says: „And there you may easily and freely add, retrench, alter, renew, and in short change every Thing from one End to t’other, till all and every one of the Parts are just as you would have them, and without Fault“ (Book II, chap. I, 1755, 22).

 

He also recommends producing copies, so that the original model is preserved, even when the architect plays with changes in the copies.

Alberti advises the architect: „Be sure to have a compleat Model of the Whole, by which examine every minute Part of your future Structure eight, nine, ten Times over, and again, after different Intermissions of Times“ (Book IX, chap. VIII, 1755, 203.) This is only riskless if the original model – embodying the idea – has been preserved separately.

 

Alberti reports his own experience:

“I have often conceived of projects in the mind (multas incidisse persaepius in mentem coniectationes operum) that seemed quite commendable at the time; but when I translated them into drawings (ad lineas redegissem), I found several errors in the very parts that delighted me most, and quite serious ones; again, when I return to drawings (perscripta), and measure the dimensions, I recognize and lament my carelessness; finally, when I pass from the drawings to the model (modulis exemplaribusque), I sometimes notice further mistakes in the individual parts, even over the numbers” (Book IX, chap. X, 1988, 317)

 

That means: The final – or „ideal“ - concept of the building is substituted by tentative and therefore imperfect drafts which have to be amended step-by-step. Architecture is a continuous endeavor.

 

 

Models should express the spirit of the inventor

 

The architect doesn’t only gear to the divine creation, but he is also an inventor. Models should not express the „hand of the producer“ (fabri manum) but the „spirit of the inventor“ (inventoris ingenium) (Book II, chap. I).

 

For more complete texts on models in „De re aedificatoria“ see Fig. 37 and 38.

 

 

On original documents, facsimile and secondary literature

bibliography: architectural models