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The Architecture of Brunelleschi and the Origins of Perspective Theory in the
Fifteenth Century
Author(s): Giulio Carlo Argan and Nesca A. Robb
Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , 1946, Vol. 9 (1946), pp. 96-
121
Published by: The Warburg Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/750311
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF BRUNELLESCHI AND THE
ORIGINS OF PERSPECTIVE THEORY IN
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
By Giulio Carlo Argan
The events
invention of perspective and the discovery of antiquity: these two
have for long been held to mark the beginnings of the Renaissance.
Modern criticism has sharply limited the importance of both events, and
above all of the second: so profound a transformation of the artistic conscience
could not clearly have been caused by external circumstances. It is not so
much needful to decide how far the artists of the early Quattrocento had
penetrated into the objective understanding of space (if indeed one can speak
of such an objective understanding) or into the knowledge of the documents
relating to antique art, as it is to discover the internal necessity that urged
them to seek that knowledge. In fact the same inward impulse is common to
both activities: the search for a more exact knowledge of space and that for
a more exact knowledge of antique art are inseparable, until such time at
least as the study of antique art assumes, as it does in the full maturity of
humanistic culture, an independent existence as the science of antiquity.
It is well known that the new ideal of beauty was defined, classically, as
a harmony of parts, in other words by means of the idea of proportion, which,
according to Vitruvius, is the same thing as the Greek &voxoyl ; and it was
with this same word that Euclid described geometrical congruity, which is
the fundamental principle of perspective. If perspective is the process by
which we arrive at proportion, that is to say, at beauty or the perfection of
art, it is also the process by which we reach the antique which is art par
excellence or perfect beauty.
The classical tradition had been neither lost nor extinguished throughout
the whole of the Middle Ages; on the contrary,, it had been diffused and
popularized. To set oneself the task of rediscovering the ancients, meant
setting oneself to determine the concrete historical value of the achievements
of ancient art, as distinguished from its mediaeval corruptions and populariza-
tions. The activity by which we recognize value is judgment, and judgment
is an act of the total consciousness. Enthusiasm for, or faith in antiquity,
impulses which had had, during the Middle Ages their moments of genuine
exaltation, are henceforth insufficient: the formulation of judgment, since it
implies a definition of the value of consciousness, implies also a definition of
the value of reality, because such a judgment is a judgment of being-and
not-being, of reality and non-reality.
What was sought for in ancient art was therefore not a transcendental
value, but, in opposition to mediaeval transcendentalism, an immanent value,
a conception of the world. The touchstone by which we recognize values is
reality: not a limitless and continuous reality which can be grasped only in
the particular, and in which man himself is absorbed, but nature as a reality
conceived by man and distinct from him as the object from the subject.
96

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THE ARCHITECTURE OF BRUNELLESCHI 97
Nature is the form of reality, in so far as it reveals and m
its full complexity: the laws of form are also the laws of
mental process by which we arrive at the conception of n
as that which leads to the conception of form, that is to
Renaissance begins, so far as the figurative arts are co
artistic activity is added the idea of art as a consciousness o
then that the mediaeval ars mechanica becomes ars liberalis. "Ancient art-
writes D. Frey2-appears to the Western mind as nature, with a heightened
significance whereby the natural becomes the expression of a profound truth
and of perfection. Thus in the West every tendency to naturalistic or rational-
istic development is always referable to a classical source."
The formulation of a common law for nature and for artistic form lies in
perspective: which may in general terms, be defined as the method or mental
procedure for the determination of value. In the writers of the Quattrocento
-excepting naturally in Cennini and Ghiberti-we see clearly the belief that
perspective is not simply a rule of optics which may also be applied to artistic
expression, but a procedure peculiar to art, which in art has its single and
logical end. Perspective is art itself in its totality: no relation is possible be-
tween the artist and the world except through the medium of perspective,
just as no relation is possible between the human spirit and reality-short of
falling back upon the mediaeval antithesis of conceptualism and nominalism
-unless we assume the conception of nature. Hence proceeds that identity
of perspective-painting and science, clearly affirmed by the theorists of the
Quattrocento.
The starting point of the controversy between modernists and tradition-

alists at the beginning of the Quattrocento seems to me to be notably indicated
in a passage, probably not devoid of polemical intentions, in the Pittura of
Alberti: "no man denies that of such things as we cannot see there is none
that appertaineth unto the painter: the painter studieth to depict only that
which is seen."
On the other hand, according to Cennini, a typical representative of the
traditionalist school, the painter's task is "to discover things unseen, that are
hid beneath the shadow of things natural." The exact interpretation of the
passage, which has been variously explained,3 is to be found in Chapter
lxxxvii of the same "Libro dell'Arte," where it is suggested to the painter
that: "if thou wouldst learn to paint mountains in a worthy manner, so that
they be like nature, take great stones which be rough and not cleansed and
draw them as they are, adding light and shade as it shall seem fit to thee."
Since the result to be aimed at is a symbol of the mountain, the object
(the stone) has no value in itself, apart from its external configuration,
1 For the nature-form relation in Renais- 3 E. Panofsky in Idea (Teubner ed., Berlin,
sance thought see E. Cassirer, Individuo e 1924), P. 23 and note 94 has given a Neo-
Cosmo, tr. Federici, Florence, La Nuova ItaliaPlatonic interpretation of this passage of
ed., p. 251. Cennini; it is, however, a question of
2 D. Frey, L'Architettura della Rinascenza, mediaeval Neo-Platonism in the Plotinian
tradition.
Rome, 1924, p. 7.

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98 GIULIO CARLO ARGAN
analogous to that of the mountain. The

logical; but the difference, which consi
in space, is of no interest to the painte
picture is not spatial, and indeed take
that image with others in obedience to a r
principally in obedience to a "manner"
with his masters, that is, with tradition. F
datum (the stone) the artistic process is
infinity or in abstraction, of what signi
neighbouring stone and the far-off mou
When, on the other hand, Alberti affirms
painter, he does not refer to the mecha
limited notions that derive from it, but
The eye may be considered as a mechan
recording mechanism: instead the sense
of intelligence. Alberti, though he den
painter can extend beyond the limits of th
that the artistic process does not begin, as
visible things, only to end in an abstractio
sphere of sensory experience as a proces
that very experience will not be comple
reflection.
Cennini restricted the painter's contac
as to leave the widest possible margin
the limits of reality coincide exactly with
any value to tradition considered as a
reference to direct experience. It is true
with reality (the stone which is copied as
is only because tradition is transmitted
are the lives of men. For Alberti, life is
nor transmits a universal inheritance, bu
its own finite nature, that is, in the compl
it arrives at a point where it has the value
We have already pointed out that w

nature as the limit or definition of real
personality was contemporaneously in p
also is, and feels himself to be, nature; b
as he has already detached himself from
within which he recognizes himself are
understand of reality, that is by natur
same act, are governed by the same law
with the creation, but with the Creator
The man of the Renaissance, in this Pla
himself in nature, necessarily focussed his
his own native sensory capacity, upon h
remarked that the opposition which the t

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as a first definition of personality is not that between ma
that between man (vir) and fate (fortuna); nature is "an or
to man but akin to him, and dowered with intelligence, an
he may extend his personality."1 From the opposition of v
which derives from the Scholastic view of man's struggle f
constant assaults of evil, the moral quality of personality
Pisano, Giotto, Dante, Petrarch, were, during the Trecento
sentatives of this dramatic conception of life as a struggl
Nature, conceived as full and lucid sensory experience, pres
conception of personality; it is a reality already grasped an
and so clear and transparent that the human person, that
and image of the perfection of the divine creation, can see its
as in a mirror. But this inspired, and indeed profoundl
in which man becomes aware of his own naturalness, is n
is not that moment, it is the series of such moments. If we st
the moral quality of personality; if, that is, we consider it
end, there immediately arises the problem of the relation
activities, to its initial naturalness and to its final aim. A
already the problem of history as a consciousness of its o
fact if the final aim is complete self-knowledge, the whole lif
consist in retracing its natural life, hitherto empiric, to a
an ideal genesis. Burdach's interpretation of the Renaissan
tion or rebirth in the antique (in a Christian, that is in a
thus given its full force: the process of this palingenesis i
which we are enabled to rediscover our true nature, and s
empiric to a systematic conception of the world. Thus the
identity of nature and history to the mediaeval identificat
tradition, finds an historical justification, before it finds a
the monuments of ancient art the artists of the Quattrocen
their own Latin nature in its most essential characteristics. Even that first
description of humanity as virtus in opposition to fortuna then assumes
precise historical significance; the very one that Petrarch gives it when h
proclaims that Roman virtz& will take up arms against the furore of t
"barbarian" invaders. It is the rational light of history that dispels th
darkness of hostile fate. This idea of Latin virtus is undoubtedly active in
Cennini, when he points out that Giotto "changed art from Greek into Lati
and made it modern": the term "Latin" cannot certainly correspond to an
concrete figurative experiment, but only to the moral order of values. To
oriental mysticism in fact Giotto opposes a religious sentiment that fulfi
itself in drama, that is to say in action, and that can be measured in t
activities of practical life.
Of Brunelleschi, Manetti says that "he restored that fashion in building
which is called Roman or antique" "for before him these were all German
1 G. Nicco, introduction to the criticalwhich it follows that "only in his history can
edition of the De Prospectiva Pingendi of Piero
man give proof of his freedom and creative
della Francesca," Sansoni, Florence, I942,
power" see E. Cassirer, op. citb, p. 73-
p. I7. 3 K. Burdach, Riforma, Rinascimento, Umane-
2 For the conception of life as activity, from simo, tr. Cantimori, Sansoni, Florence, 1933-

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and were called modern." In Manet

the place of the Greeks, of whom
out, they were the natural heirs. Fo
sense, for Manetti it has a negativ
for Manetti non-actual, since the
has become the equivalent of the m
value of history is already implici
inquiry is, however, revealed by th
to determine whether Brunelleschi had rediscovered or invented the con-
structional laws of the ancients, laws being taken to mean both their technica
expedients and their "musical proportions," that is to say symmetry an
perspective; "those who might have taught him these things had been d
for hundreds of years: and they are not to be found in writing, or if they b
found they may not well be understood; but his own industry and subtle
did either rediscover them or else were themselves the discoverers." It is
significant that the same thought is to be found also in Alberti: "If this
was ever described in writing we are those who have dug it up from und
ground, and if it was never so described, we have drawn it from heaven.
To rediscover or to invent, to find the law of ancient art or of nature, ar
one and the same thing; the same process by which we establish the conc
tion of nature leads us on to establish the conception of beauty, or of art
perfection, and to recognize it as historically manifest in Roman art. Gran
that the investigation of nature and the investigation of history are insepara
the problem, which has tormented modern idealist critics, of the relati
between pictorial and scientific perspective, or more simply between art
science, at the beginning of the Renaissance, loses its importance. It
already been remarked that perspective is not a constant law, but a mom
in the history of the idea of space: whence it follows that the problem of sig
in passing from optics to geometry, passes from the objective to the subjecti
sphere.1 It is certain, in any case, that the conception of the homogeno
quality of space is first set forth in the figurative arts, and then, consequen
in the physical and mathematical sciences.2
To our modern consciousness it seems obvious that, if the opposite h
occurred, art would have lost all creative power in the mechanical proce
of application and deduction. In judging thus it assumes as an absol
principle a characteristic peculiar to Renaissance art, and fails to see
historical significance: before the Renaissance the value of art lay no
creation, but in repetition, in continuing the tradition by remaining wit
it, instead of breaking out of it in order to renew it. The value of creativ
which the aesthetic theory of the Renaissance recognizes in artistic achie
ment, derives from the idea that nature is ordered and therefore created
the artist. The novelty or originality of a work of art is such only in so
as the work of art emerges from tradition, and in emerging from it, contradi
it; and since tradition is no longer a dogma, but an object of criticism, th
can be neither invention nor creation except through the medium of a critica
1 G. Nicco, op. cit., p. 29. tion of reality, E. Panofsky's essay "Die
2For the systematic exposition of Perspective
the als symbolische Form" (Vortrdge
der Bibl. Warburg, IV, 1924-25) is essential.
problem of central perspective as an abstrac-

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THE ARCHITECTURE OF BRUNELLESCHI ror
approach to tradition. The ordering or creation of nature is there
an act of authority but an act of reason. The power of invention or of
comes to the artist not from the grace of God, but from the integ
own consciousness, from the lucidity of his historical vision.
Cennini can take pleasure in making clear his own descent from
way of an uninterrupted tradition that passes through Agnolo an
Gaddi; for the artists of the Quattrocento, beginning at Masaccio
the great, isolated protagonist of the Trecento: the tradition that
in his art merely altered and obscured its value, a value which crit
should determine. Even for Giotto art was mechanical, a craftsman
but the judgment of posterity recognizes in that "fare" an ideal a
it denies to that of imitators and followers, from the very fact th
such. To this "making" or "producing" the art of the Renaissan
not abstract speculation but "genius," "invention" ;' the artist in th
of invention is conscious of the novelty of what he is doing, and so
is a "making" accompanied by judgment or the attribution of val
There thus arises the idea of the artist-hero, a coryphaeus or pr
of history; but he is this in so far as he is conscious of the value o
activity, that is, in so far as he is himself an historian. His work
continuity of tradition to justify itself in history, just as it emerges
confusion of matter to justify itself in nature. The mental process
the same act, eliminates matter and chronicle (or tradition) by jud
as values, is, as we have said, perspective. This process is clearly d
by Alberti. Remember Ghiberti's dictum: "nothing can be seen
light." Though it is here considered as a physical phenomenon, th
still a divine emanation or irradiation, a first cause which is refl
things and reveals them. Alberti on the contrary wishes to clarif
of things: "we call that a thing which occupies a place." Clearly if
in nature exists in space, space also is nature; in fact it is the pri
nature since the place which things occupy is necessarily anteced
things. This may seem to imply a serious objection to the necessi
Alberti categorically affirms, of limiting the domain of art to the
must deduce from it that the experience of the senses is not prim
secondary. Reason is therefore the basis of life, even of the life of
In fact: "large, small, long, short, high, low, wide, narrow, lig
luminous, shadowy and all qualities of that kind-which because the
may not be added unto things, the philosophers are wont to call
are such that all knowledge of them is made by comparison." It is
by reasoning that the accidents are distinguished from the substance o
But this substance is not, as has been assumed, their plastic fo
volume: volume is perceived through the medium of light and sha
and width, and these qualities, too, have been placed among the a
"ingegno"
1 In Albertian terminology the faculty that and mathematical rationality, and
for or
simultaneously investigates and invents, theinnecessity of artistic creation as an
other words sums up and synthetizes the of the first, see Lionello Venturi,
expression
moments of speculation and of action is critica d'arte, Italian ed., Florence,
Storia della
"ingegno." For the distinction between 1945, P. 128.

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Moreover it is clear that in making h

to exhaust all the possible forms o
had been stripped of all its acciden
void in space left by its disappear
But Alberti knows that if painting
impossible to separate the thing fr
an accident until it is known "by
and illimitably long, and illimitabl
between width, length, and depth;
if we did not establish the relatio
therefore that the idea or substanc
but that position is determined pre
proportionately (per comparatione)
it re-absorbs and eliminates the m
a system of proportional relations.
This is indeed the function of "de
linked with the colouristic matter
the Trecentesque tradition it was p
rhyme and that rhythmic cadence
line to an already formulated colou
is the edge of the surface, that is th
can we say that it belongs more to
the thing than to space) because its f
of acting as a link and solder betw
in fact, emptiness cannot be though
conceived of separately from the
Paolo Uccello wish to represent t
reduce perspective to the Trecente
now becomes clear for a recourse
description of geometrical forms a
which all.sensible forms are derive
or pure metrical relations which in
space. It is not by chance that Alb
those which his master, Francesco Fi
by Plato: a representation "ab omn
The conception of design, as the co
designation of the absolute value of
the conception of perspective: pers
in so far as it is absolute represen
representation and invention may
of the
1 On the impossibility thought
of of Cusa
imagining spa
as empty, or as anin
"enclosing
the earlymedium
decades th
o
who
encloses nothing" see certainly
Cassirer, knew
op. cit., p. 28
Alberti's conception Cassirer's fundamenta
of cognitione per co
paratione, the basiscit. To G.
of the Nicco,
theory oftoo, w
prop
on the
tion, is certainly related to development of
the idea express
by Cusanus (De treatises
Docta from Euclid to Piero della Fran-
Ignorantia Io.
cesca, Le Arti,
"Comparativa est omnis V, 1942, no. 2, p. 59-
inquisitio, medi
proportionis utens." On the great importa

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THE ARCHITECTURE OF BRUNELLESCHI 10o3
no representation, but only mechanical imitation, if the imag

replace the object and become a substitute for it as a v
reality, just as nature, as a representation of reality, becomes
reality for the thought of the Renaissance.
II
If we admit that the artistic process has a basis of historical thought, the
origin of the fundamental ideas of Renaissance Art-perspective and design-
must be sought in the work of an artist-hero: only through such a medium
could these ideas have any positive effect on the subsequent course of artistic
development. The "trattati d'arte" themselves, though ostensibly concerned
with a theoretical definition of the idea of art, are in reality the first attempts
at a history of art as a history of the artists, because their criterion is no other
than a generalization from those works of art in which they perceive an
absolute value. The formulation of the principle of perspective, or the inven-
tion of perspective, are ascribed by general consent to Brunelleschi: the first
person of that artistic trinity which is completed by Donatello and Masaccio.
On this point Manetti is uncompromising: "in those times he brought to
light and himself put into practice that which painters to-day call perspective
because it is a part of the science that consists in placing those diminutions
and enlargements that appear to men's eyes from afar or close at hand, both
skilfully and fittingly ... and from him originated the rule which is the mean-
ing of all that has been done from that time to this."
It is interesting to note the distinction that Manetti makes between the
originating intuition of Brunelleschi and the codification or application of it
which the "dipintori" have successively ("oggi")drawn from it. The distinc-
tion is not purely chronological. For the painters, perspective is the law for
making "houses and plains and mountains and landscapes of every kind, and
in every place, with figures and other things of such a size as befits the distance
from which they are observed." Had Brunelleschi elaborated this rule as a law
of vision, Manetti would not have so accurately distinguished the Brunel-
leschian principle from the interpretation which has later been given to it
by other painters, who have applied it to a consideration of the external
world that has clearly no connection with architecture. It is thus impos-
sible to distinguish Brunelleschi's researches on perspective from his artistic
activity, that is to say, from his architecture: it is from this, as Manetti points
out, that the painters deduce their law of vision. This means that, since
architecture is free of any necessity to "imitate" reality, the formal discipline
of architecture must precede and condition the painter's contact with reality;
he will indeed study reality, because the painter's realm is the visible world,
but he will do so through the formal patterns of architecture. This is, we
think, the historical origin of the principle that architecture is the basis or
mother of all the arts: a principle easily reducible to the other (of design as
the common root of all the arts), which will be clearly formulated in the
Cinquecento. Architecture, indeed, as an art free from any necessity of
imitating reality, is design itself: representation separate from "ogni materia."

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It is now necessary to see how this law "

been done from that time to this" wa
Brunelleschi.
Manetti, a mathematician, says of perspective: "not without reason, just
now did I call it science," for science is making "according to law." The Life
of Manetti is of later date than the Pittura of Alberti and is largely indebted
to it; and one of the most important innovations, in Alberti's treatise, was
perhaps that idea of "knowledge by comparison" which emerges in opposi-
tion to the Scholastic conception of knowledge as scire per causas. Since the
Pittura of Alberti consists of reflections on the great Masters of the early
Quattrocento, and particularly on Brunelleschi, it is to the latter that we may
attribute, not perhaps the formulation, but the first understanding of that
principle which for causes, understood as external moving forces, substitutes
laws, understood as immanent causes which are produced by the reciprocal
co-relation of phenomena. In the architecture of Brunelleschi, therefore,
must be sought the first understanding of design as an act of knowledge or
cognitione per comparatione, that is, the first laying down of that theory of pro-
portion, which in its turn becomes the basic criterion for the understanding
of ancient art.
That Brunelleschi had undertaken some inquiry into the laws of vision
may well be inferred from what Manetti tells us of the two panels on whic
Brunelleschi had depicted the Baptistery and the Palazzo della Signoria. Ye
the very objects depicted, buildings and not landscapes, suggest that thes
studies were not connected with the formulation of a general theory, but with
the concrete, particular figurative and architectonic interests of the artist.
Of the first of these two panels we know that the spectator had to look
at it reflected in a mirror, through an opening cut in the wood, at a distan
proportionate to that at which the painter had placed himself while at wor
moreover, instead of a painted sky there was a background of burnished silver
which reflected the real sky with its clouds moving before the wind. Th
second panel, on the other hand, being too large to permit the use of thi
device, was cut out along the line of the rooftops, and one loooked at
against a background of sky.
Manetti's description is enough to show that the genesis of several ide
on which Alberti was later to build up his perspective theory can be trac
back to Brunelleschi. By means of the device of the hole in the middle of t
picture, the spectator was constrained to look at the painting, reflected in the
mirror, from the same point of view as that in which the painter had plac
himself. The straight line which connects the painter's eye with the centre
the thing depicted is already what Alberti will define as a centric ray: that
the axis of the visual pyramid whose apex coincides with vanishing point.
So far we are still within the domain of vision, though it is even now most
important to observe that for Brunelleschi it is essential that vision shou
have a single and constant point of view: hence the immobility and im
partiality of the artist face to face with truth. But the painting must be
looked at in a mirror; and this is not merely an artifice for making t
spectator's point of view coincide with that of the painter. Alberti, who w
certainly familiar with Brunelleschi's essays in perspective, in fact advises t

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painter to make use of the mirror as a means of checking the a
of his painting. When he speaks of obtaining an effect of relie
tionate use of light and shade, Alberti advises: "and you
mirror a good judge; for, as I know how things that are w
have great beauty in the mirror, so it is marvellous to see h
painting shows itself more ugly in the mirror. So let the m
things which you have taken from nature." It is well known
reverses the image: if the image is unsymmetrical the mirr
defect more apparent, because it removes it from a position
has grown accustomed: if, on the contrary, the image is perfec
reversal will not be able to modify it. In other terms: if the pa
determined and constantly maintained his point of view, t
the direct vision and that of the reflected vision will coincide,
they will diverge. The question, it will be seen, is one o
proportion.
Another important point: Brunelleschi does not paint the sky. In the first
panel he reflects it in a mirror-like surface, in the second he cuts out the wood
so that the real sky can insert itself into the picture. His interest therefore is
limited to things which as Alberti will say, occupy "a place": the sky does
not occupy "a place" and cannot be reduced to measure or known "per
comparatione." Since it cannot be represented, but only imitated, the artist
forbears to paint it. The strict logic of the argument is unexceptionable: but
it is the argument of an architect and not of a painter. If Filippo had wished
to lay down a general law of vision, and one that would therefore be equally
valid for the vision of landscape, he could not have failed to take the sky into
account. He does not take it into account because his reasoning is related
only to architecture, which is a finite space, that, by its own finitude or pro-
portion, gives definition also to the spatial atmosphere in which it is immersed;
and he forbears to paint the sky because buildings stand out against the real
sky and not against a painted background. It remains to be seen what value
Brunelleschi attributed to these exercises in perspective. It is clear that they
had a demonstrative or, as we should say now, a polemical aim. Such
polemics could only have been directed against the art of the late Trecento
tradition, for one thing because these pictorial essays belong to the first phase
of the Master's activity, between the last years of the fourteenth and the first
of the succeeding century. To those painters who were intent only on
decoration, Brunelleschi wished to demonstrate painting as an instrument of
knowledge. One might even ask oneself whether, in that atmosphere of
naturalistic propaganda, the happy invention of the silvery background
which reflects the light of the physical heavens, may not perhaps imply a
satirical and almost irreligious allusion to those shining backgrounds of fine
gold in which the devout painters of the tradition sought to mirror the mystic
light of God.
The technical "miracle" of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (P1. 7a)
has distracted critics not a little from the significance which that long and
strenuous constructive labour holds in the art of Brunelleschi. Since it is

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known that Filippo had originally p

a hemisphere, and that only on secon
scheme laid down in Arnolfo's mod
to be reduced to a mere question
without scaffolding.
Was it really technically impossib
means? One may easily believe tha
cento, no artist would have dared
indeed highly probable that throug
precedence of construction, there m
skill. But it is impossible to believ
successors raised as far as the drum
of the time did not permit them to
What is more, Brunelleschi never
technique. From the outset he had
without scaffolding; he might give
he would not give up his method o
of Brunelleschi's "classicism" has in
represented a formal ideal, later sa
remember that the method of vau
been deduced from the Roman circ
reversed: the most reasonable hypo
a semi-circular vault because it was from such models that he had evolved
his system, and that he returned later to Arnolfo's plan when he had be
persuaded that the system might equally well be applied to domes with
and pointed arches. This method, which the conclusive researches of S
paolesil have shown to be of Roman origin, consists in walling the dome
courses of bricks disposed in a herring-bone pattern. Brunelleschi's fo
ideal did not end in the pattern of the pointed arch or of the single sp
was the ideal of a form capable of sustaining itself throughout the proc
its own growth, of producing the force that sustains it, of disposing its
space by virtue of its own interior structural coherence and vitality, b
natural proportionality, like that of "bones and members."
The herring-bone method of construction is applied in Santa Maria
Fiore, on a much larger scale than it is in any of the ancient models, th
to say, to the measurements of the drum already constructed. The prob
set by Brunelleschi consisted therefore in reducing a gothic dimension to p
portion through the principle of self-support, that is of the autonomy o
form in space. Thus the double vault of the dome finds a justification
only practical but figurative (in the actual words of Filippo "so that it
appear more enlarged and splendid"): the artist feels the need for estab
ing an exact relation between the form of the dome and the various proper
of space that are summed up in it. In the interior the curvature of the surf
of the octagon, sums up and co-ordinates the various spatial trends of
1 P. Sampaolesi, La Cupola di Santa Maria particularly on the dome, see the studies con-
tained
del Fiore ; il progetto, la costruzione, Istituto di in Atti del o10 Congresso Nazionale di
Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte, Rome, Storia
1941. dell'Architettura, held at Florence in
On sundry Brunelleschian problems, butand published by Sansoni in 1938.
1936

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a-Brunelleschi, Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence (pp. x05 ff.) b-Lantern

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8
a-Brunelleschi, Pazzi Chapel, Florence (p. Io9)
b-Brunelleschi, Detail of Facade of Pazzi Chapel,

Florence (p. 109) This content downloaded from
136.3f:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC
naves and the presbytery, as into a common horizon; on the
mark the limit or the juncture between the masses of the
circumambient space. If the effect of the dome is spatial, t
leads to the definition of space is a constructive process. But
labour differs from the mediaeval mechanica because its ac
repeated by tradition, but determined by reason: the coher
must there be referred to a rational principle. Manetti say
Brunelleschi "saw the ancients' methods of building and thei
it seemed to him that he saw there very clearly a certain o
and members." It is not a question of the generic anthropo
recurs, following on the traces of Vitruvius, in the treatis
Renaissance: it is a question of rational discrimination betw
that bear and the elements that are borne, and of their distr
to order, that is according to symmetry and proportion.
In Romanesque architecture as in Gothic, the artistic idea
though by different figurative methods, is the effect of u
the first, weight prevails over strain, and the effect of spa
mass; in the second, strain prevails over weight and the ef
linear tension. In either case the motive force is an energy t
tends to develop towards the infinite, but which finds a ch
mination in matter. And matter is already form, because if ma
a spiritual quality of its own as a divine creation, we cannot
form that transcends it. Form, force, matter make up an
force is not only relative to the hardness and the elasticity of
to the thickness, the extension, the flexion, the outline, t
element in which it is expressed. One may arrive at length a
of matter to such a point that a mass which physically pres
can express an ascent; none the less, form remains a quality
beit a supernatural one, a revelation of its inner spirit
cathedral tends in fact to be a compendium of all knowled
reality; and this not only, as Mile has observed, in its deco
in its deepest structural intentions. Since reality is the inf
individual things, it is expressed in architecture by individu
architecture is in fact the architecture of the individualization of forces.
Even the historical interest that attracts Brunelleschi to a study of the
antique would have no justification if he had not sought in antique art for a
standard of comparison in the criticism of tradition, that is for a means of
freeing himself from a tradition that was still alive: history is always a criticism
and an overcoming of tradition. Moreover, the very fact that the need
was felt for a spatial definition which should include and resolve the whole
problem of reality, necessarily presupposes the experience of Romanesque
and Gothic spatiality as the expression of infinite reality; this was the matter
which had to be reduced into measure. Brunelleschi's mental process in regard
to tradition is already that which Marsilio Ficino will define in Platonic terms:
"in corpore animus a singulis ad species, a specibus transit ad rationes"; or
since we are dealing with architecture, from individual forces to classes and
from classes to systems. To group several forces together into a class it is
necessary to define their quantity and quality; thus it happens that we are

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Io8 GIULIO CARLO ARGAN
no longer dealing with forces in action or in develo
stress, but with those that are developed or in equ
which has its exactly corresponding resistance. One
Alberti, that our "knowledge" of forces is reached
by their reciprocal limitings and oppositions or by
tioning" of each other. Only when the dramatic c
exhausted, only, that is, when a catharsis has been
cease to be a fragment of reality, and become a repre
since experience-which here means the experience
in which the force of an element is in proportion t
extension and duration-taught that the strength
space, to constant forces there must therefore corr
This constancy of the relation between force and
the single span arch as opposed to the pointed one
span with the pointed arch it was not necessary to
to ancient monuments: Tuscan Romanesque arch
the arcades of the Loggia degli Innocenti with thei
span, are undoubtedly much more akin to the a
Signoria and even to the ogival arches of S. Maria
Fiore than to those of the church of the SS. Apos
ments. In the latter, indeed, the function of supp
equilibrium between the masses of fullness and of em
line has a value of its own as a supreme formal decl
This is the value to which Brunelleschi would give
ing the depth of the void by the actual outline of the
the single span arch, all points of the semicircle are e
vanishing point, that is in relation to the apex of
within the semicircle itself: therefore the width of the curve is relative to the
depth of the extension of the arch instead of to the weight which it sustains.
The arch is therefore always an "intercisione," "primo piano," in a perspective
progression which has its term at vanishing point; the curve of the arch, as
a projection of depth on a plane surface, has thus the value of a horizon.
For Brunelleschi too, as for Donatello and Masaccio, Romanitas is in the
first instance "toscanita :" the definition of his own historical character begins
with that of his own natural character. If, in determining the spatial value
of the arch he relies on Tuscan Gothic architecture, in determining the
spatial value of the plane he relies on the more remote practice of Tuscan
Romanesque architecture. It would be interesting to know whether the
opinions expressed by Manetti in his excursus on the decadence of architecture
in the Middle Ages are entirely his own, or whether they go back, in part at
least, to Brunelleschi: it is anyhow significant, that in certain Florentine
Romanesque buildings he should see some reflection of classic splendour, and
should attribute them, by an error full of meaning, to the Carolingian period,
that is to the time of the most intense classical revival of the Middle Ages.
Brunelleschi's architecture preserves more than one reminiscence of the marble
inlays that adorned the walls of Florentine Romanesque churches, for example
in the pure "scrittura" of space on the flat surface by means of grey pilasters
and arcades on a white background. One might even venture to interpret the

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THE ARCHITECTURE OF BRUNELLESCHI og09
fagade of the Pazzi Chapel (P1. 8a) as a development of the spatial them
Romanesque inlays. One might point out that the artist had arrive
the exercise of a subtle dialectic, at that absolute representation of sp
flat, by identifying linear and chromatic values; and that in this mut
fication, the linear element is purged of the material quality of the o
as the chromatic element is purged of the material quality of th
The bean-pattern frieze, the grooved pilasters are far from bein
reproduction of the antique: they are an alternation, almost a vib
light and shade (P1. 8b). Precisely because this plane generates light
frequency of its relations of light and shade, it may be distinguished
surface, which is always a defence in relation to an external sourc
and becomes identified with the totality of space. And perhaps t
"intellectual" source of that light which in Piero della Francesca is
physical but spatial. The Florentine Romanesque inlays were un
a sign of a return to the fountain-head of the Byzantine traditio
even of an obstinate Tuscan resistance to the renewing tide of
architecture. By means of these inlays an attempt was made to r
effect of space which Lombard architecture enclosed within th
articulation of its masses, into chromatic terms on a flat surface.I Geo
forms, while eliminating any modulation in colouristic relations w
design, employed colours in absolute terms of contrast on the su
spatial hypothesis is possible beyond a strict equation of the oppos
of surface and depth. A most subtle and intimately Platonic process of
warns the artist that if he thinks of space as possessing infinite depth
find it quite impossible to distinguish it from the surface: there
infinity of space cannot be a sensory perception or an "effect," bu
tual representation or a "cause," such as are for instance the f
geometry. In this mediaeval Tuscan Platonism there are already to
the premises of the transcendental logic of a great German Platon
fifteenth century, Cusanus.
For Brunelleschi the plane is the place on which there occurs th
tion or definition of depth, not as an effect, but as pure value or
form. Therefore the place is a pure mental abstraction, the precon
the representation of space. Alberti will translate this intuition ofBru
into a formula: the surface is still matter, and as it were the out
things, although it is the extreme limit of matter, its suture with sp
the plane is a geometric entity, the "intersection" of the visual py
fact the plane in Brunelleschi's architecture is an "intersection" a
surface; it is the place on to which the various spatial distances are
and on which the infinite dimensions of space are reduced to the thre
sions of perspective space. Since on the plane these distances canno
as effects (for they would be chaotically superimposed one upon an
only as measurements, the plane is the condition of their "cogni
comparatione" that is to say of their proportionality.
1 For a fuller analysis of the formal values
manica e Romanica, Florence, Nemi, 1936, and
of Romanesque and Gothic architecture in
L'Architettura italiana del Duecento e del Trecento,
Tuscany I refer the reader to my two Florence, Nemi, 1937-
volumes, L'Architettura Protocristiana, Prero-
8

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I o GIULIO CARLO ARGAN
On the faqade of the Pazzi Chapel, for instance
the plane has its point of reference in a corresp
portico or the interior, and is a projection of this:
articulation of the parts which are elements of
of force, and the composition of the plane in s
"All surfaces of a body that are simultaneously vis
form a pyramid composed of as many lesser fa
the thing seen." It is the principle of the hom
principle of the homogeneity of space destroys
matter: for in order to think of space as homogen
by the presence of bodies, it is necessary to think
of space, that is as broken up into a succession of p
between the plane, as a complete representation
is hard to accept the ingenious thesis of L. H. H
sharp distinction between the first and second pha
between the moment of the Wandbauten and that
or between the period when the wall is only a
that in which it arrives at a raumbildende Funktion. The cause of this sudden
stylistic evolution is said to be the journey to Rome, which Heydenreich
postpones to the years between 1432 and 1434; but the later researches of
Sampaolesi fix the date conclusively at a time previous to the beginning of
work on the dome. In fact there is a complete coherence between the works
of the first and second periods: the problem of Brunelleschi's artistic develop-
ment does not so much consist in determining the date of the journey to Rome,
as in forming a precise estimate of his relations with Donatello and Masaccio,
which were undoubtedly close and reciprocal.
According to Heydenreich's theory Brunelleschi's artistic development can
be codified into the artist's progressive abandonment of building to a longi-
tudinal plan, for building to a central plan, which is the classic scheme par
excellence, the most rigorous and systematic application of the Vitruvian
theory of the module. In reality, if one starts from the spatial premises of
Brunelleschi the two plans cannot be so sharply differentiated: on the con-
trary, they complete each other by turns. And here again we find, as funda-
mental, the practice of Gothic architecture, which so often unites the two
plans or imposes one upon the other. The dome of S. Maria del Fiore is itself
conceived as a co-ordination or synthesis of the longitudinal depths of the
naves and the stellate spaces of the octagon.
Both the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel are typical examples
of the synthesis between a longitudinal plan and a central plan. In the Pazzi
Chapel (P1. 9b), for instance, the simple tracing of an entablature and an
arcade on the plane carries the depth of the squared apse on to the longitudinal
walls: in the same way the depth of the windows opening to the front is graphi-
cally repeated between the sunk pilasters. Every plane has therefore the same
"content" of space. This solution is perfectly logical, because strictly speaking
a figure in plane geometry is no less representative of space than a figure in
solid geometry: indeed the hemispherical dome has the same function of
1 L. H. Heydenreich, "Spatwerke Brunel- lungen, 1931.
leschis," Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsamm-

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9
a-Brunelleschi, Portico of Pazzi Chapel, Florence

(p. II o)

b-Brunelleschi, Interior
136.30.17.68 on Thu,of03Pazzi Chapel,
Sep 2020 Florence
19:09:40 UTC (p. I Io)
10
a-Brunelleschi, San Lorenzo, Florence (p. 112)
b-InteriorThis content
of Sandownloaded
Lorenzo from(detail) (p. I112)
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THE ARCHITECTURE OF BRUNELLESCHI III
summing up and concluding the contrasts bet

graphically represented. Architecture, ther
symbolic representation of naturalistic space; on
quality of the mural construction which is tr
rationality of the constructive process. In othe
in the construction as an "effect," which is
"cause" of architecture. Space, as pure repr
cathartic value as regards the realistic, dramat
matter, that is as regards the mechanics of the c
But the problem remains substantially unch
these centralized longitudinal constructions
struction, the unfinished Rotonda degli Ange
octagonal building, with pilasters and radial c
chapels were flat, the side walls hollowed out i
imagined the building as the co-ordination of
concaves of the central space and of the do
developed the end walls of the chapels into ni
Plan and Section of S. Maria degli Angeli, Florence (F
are flat, vanishing point will always fall on th

view: the extreme limit of space will always
spheric hollow. Hence one may deduce that
centralized construction developed or adjusted
vision; the very perspective curvature of the
tends to resolve itself into a single vanishing p
centre it on the end plane. This is perhaps the
1 For a reconstruction of
deglitheAngeli,"
originalAtti
plandel Io Congre
see G. Marchini, "Un disegno
di Storia di Giuliano di
dell'Architettura, Flor
1938, p. 147-
Sangallo riproducente l'alzato della Rotonda

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search for a synthesis of the two

knows that space is not an effect
of the longitudinal scheme: that
from the two different spatial ef
tional phenomenology of space.'
It is indeed worthy of note that th
one of the Master's last works,
Rotonda degli Angeli.2 When one
opened and imposed in its comple
a common source, one may easily
is not one of co-ordinated gravit
disintegration of mass into a comp
of the mass that contains space, b
solves the mass. Such, in fact, is th
dome: the buttresses of the lantern
suggest the rotation of the mass
rotation is made clear the single e
building, in their proportional re
portions the mass of the building
the dome to the infinity of spa
lantern accentuate the evidence o
gether with the niches hollowed
colonnade placed at the base of th
dilatation of the dome: so that thro
"enlarged" to the utmost limits of
A relation similar to that betwee
Angeli may also be pointed out be
San Lorenzo with the simple plan
the colonnades are also developed
presbytery. In San Lorenzo (P1. Ioa
1 On this point it northern theorists, on the contrary,
is important to beauty,
note th
contrast drawn as a pure
by abstraction, transcends
Panofsky nature.
("Die Pers
tive als symbolische Form")
Hence it is legitimate between
to seek for the previous
history of centralas
scenography of Vitruvius perspective in Gothic Art
a winkelpersp
with its tendency
tivische Konstruktion, andto the infinite prolongation
central perspec
which assumes the of itsscene to
lines (see besides be op.
Panofsky, depicted
cit., G. I.
plane instead of onKern,a"Die Entwicklung der zentral-per-
concave surface. Sc
graphy finds its spektivischen
typical Konstruktion in der Euro-
expression in
centralized plan (omnium linearum
piischen Malerei von ad cir
der Spdtantike bis zur
centrum responsus).Mitte des Therefore
XV Jahrhunderts," Forschungen u.
classical
was eine reine Fortschritte, 1937): it
Kdrperkunst is a search
and which must,
thought of
as "aggregato" however,
(cf. resolve itself into
Cassirer, demonstrating
op. cit., p. 2
The distinction between
that the artists of thescenography
early I5th century,
especially Brunelleschi,
perspective corresponds tomust thehave had a full
distinct
understanding
between perspectiva communis of Gothic art. and perspec
artificialis, drawn in2Heydenreich
1505 treats by at length of Pdlerin
Jean the
immediately seized Rotonda
upon degli by
Angeli, Diirer
the lantern, and the
(see J. v
exedra of the dome in hisSchroll,
Schlosser, Die Kunstliteratur, highly important Vien
essay
1924, p. 227). This on the later work of Brunelleschi
distinction is not in m
tained by the Italian theorists
Jahrbuch der who reg
Preussischen Kunstsammlungen,
beauty as immanent in nature; in the 1931.

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THE ARCHITECTURE OF BRUNELLESCHI I13
to the arch of the naves is as 3 to 5; therefore the two arches h
vanishing point and are two succeeding sections of the same vis
Thus the depth of the chapels is transmitted and resolved thro
vaulting of the extension into the arches of the central nave. The t
the small chapels are framed by strongly modelled cornices: thus t
into the background in three directions, and the value of depth
be developed within such small dimensions is condensed into t
of the cornices. In fact, if one imagines a depth divided into eq
is clear that, as we increase our distance, the spaces between m
member become, when seen in perspective, thicker and closer
the modelling of the members more complex, that is, by imp
intervals or distances with the quality of the plastic objects, on
in the actual form of the disposal of the members the represen
plumbable depth. And how easy it is to see, and how easy it
illustrate with precise examples, the same process at work in t
of Donatello.
The succession of spaces which is projected into the arcades of the centra
aisle is thus a typical perspective succession from the horizon (the end walls of
the chapels) to the foreground (the arch of the nave). In Santo Spirito (P1. I
the ratio between the arch of the chapels and that of the nave is of i to i
and the chapels are reduced to the concavity of niches. So the lateral spac
are not graduated perspectively, but directly inserted and articulated into
the arches of the nave. Every column of the nave, to which there correspon
a half-column in the side aisle, thus stands out in its plastic form, from th
concavity of two contiguous niches. Not the parallel planes of the cent
aisle, but the plastic succession of arches and columns sums up the space o
the side aisles and of the chapels. In fact, if the artist in San Lorenzo has
given distinct sources of light to the centre aisle and the side aisles, if, that is,
he conceived them as distinct and co-ordinated spatial entities, in Sant
Spirito, the side aisles have no source of light in themselves, because their
spaces constitute a single plastic organism with the colonnades of the centr
aisle. If in San Lorenzo the axis of the centre aisle was simply an axis o
symmetry for the proportional distribution of spatial intervals, in Santo
Spirito it is the ground plan of the "centralized" vision. Space is no longer
graphically described in geometrical forms, but realized in the proportions
metrical, chiaroscural and luminous-of plastic form.
So the column itself acquires value as a member; it is no longer the cesur
placed between successive spatial intervals, but-as Alberti would say-
thing that occupies "a place." In its proportions, or in the plastic quality o
its form it resolves all the "accidents" of stress: its value in architecture hence-
forth is that of a protagonist of space, as is that of the human form in paintin
and sculpture. The relation between the emergence of the columns and th
concavity of the niches in Santo Spirito is in fact, plastically and luministically
a typically Masacciesque relation.
Niches are thus the spatial Leitmotif of the later works of Brunellesch
But it is not a question of chiaroscural or atmospheric values, of a mass of
void in opposition to a mass of fullness. In Santo Spirito a window breaks
the continuity of the chiaroscuro of the curved surface: the niches in the but-

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tresses of the lantern and those in the R

a pictorial effect of atmosphere. If, in fac
members is plastically expressed in the ac
space enclosed between those two cannot b
gives a sense of indefinite space, of somethi
In this sense it is a development of the conc
tion of space, that is as a synthesis of depth
It is clear that a complete representat
tinction between the space internal and t
hence that reciprocal integration of inter
already noted in the Pazzi Chapel, which
plan of Santo Spirito, which is fully realiz
lantern and which is, above all, the centra
meditations on the dome of Santa Mar
conceived as a pure structure which insert
proportions it, or reduces it to perspective
ing, the building is an instrument of know
perspective. In more general terms, the b
through the rationality of its process of c
and unlimited reality into clear and orde
the mediaeval mechanica, which had reache
play of forces in infinite spatiality, becomes
At this point there arises the problem, t
by the limits of this study, of the value
members of Brunelleschi: that is of the v
perspective space, and in general as a spat
framework is in substance, no other than
edge, as Alberti will say d propos of contour
gradually incorporates with itself and real
spatial positions of that surface, we can affir
"bones and members" is the true historica
is of the line (think of Andrea del Castagn
line of a body-and of a body in motion, that
tension-implies the whole of space. That
confronting the problem of the figurative t
architecture, painting and sculpture: that
of the particular technical traditions into
this moment art, which considers itself as
tolerate a classification of its forms accord
involved in them or according to their tr
The discussions which follow in the treatises
peculiar to the various arts will tend not so
them in order of merit to a common id
Brunelleschi's references to the art of the Gothic tradition become more
frequent in the last period of his activity, in other words with the increas
his figurative experience; the case of Santo Spirito is typical, since
certainly the most "classical" of Brunelleschi's constructional ideas and i
at the same time, the most significant fruit of the artist's meditations on

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11
a-Brunelleschi, San Spirito, Florence (p. II3)

b-Interior of San Spirito (detail) on
136.30.17.68 (p.Thu, c-Interior
I I3)03 Sep 2020 19:09:40 UTC of San Spirito (detail) (p. I 13)
a-Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Abraham, Bargello, b-Brunelleschi, Sacrifice of Abraham, Bargello,
Florence (p. II6) Florence (p. I15)
c-Donatello, David, Bargello, d-Donatello, Herod's Feast, S. Giovanni, Siena (p. 117)
Florence (p. I19)
136.30.17.68 on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:09:40 UTC
most recent tradition of Tuscan architecture: the Cathedral of Orvieto, and
as Salmi has pointed out, the Cathedral of Siena.' Like every process of
historical understanding, or, which is the same, of critical reflection, the idea
of perspective, the more it is clarified and developed in the mind of the
artist, the more it enlarges that mind to take in new experience.
The infinite world of reality which the art and thought of the Middle
Ages had discovered and illumined by the light of grace,- that whole world
in which the Trecento had beheld the course of man's struggle for spiritual
salvation, could only have been eliminated by the substitution of an arid
conceptual system; from whence would have emerged not a Renaissance but
a darker Middle Age.
It is in the Trecento that line, which in the Byzantine tradition had
been pure arabesque or a boundary between zones of colour, frees itself to
take on an intense descriptive value and to become the outline of things
animated by an eternal rhythm of movement, the very rhythm of their
passing and vanishing in the continuity of time. In architecture, line des-
cribes the flow of forces, as in painting and sculpture it describes the flow
of feelings. It is this line which, through the spatial abstraction of Brunelleschi,
becomes design in the art of the Renaissance. The line is a quality of the
thing; it belongs to and characterizes it. Design is a quality of space, as the
supreme synthesis or cause of things. That is why Alberti points out that line
should not separate (or we shall fall back into the world of individual things)
but should join or give proportion. Design is the framework, the articulation,
the structure of space. The process that leads from reality or spatial infinity
to perspective, and from perspective to design, is precisely that which Marsilio
proclaims as proper to the animus in corpore (and the artist is in fact animus in
corpore in the highest sense): a progress from individual things to species and
from species to rationes. Design, which Alberti identifies with the Platonic
idea, is in fact the supreme ratio.2
III
Since man too is, by his origins, a portion of reality, the ration
of space is not applicable to external reality alone; it is the very
consciousness and is therefore valid for the reality in which human li
for the world of passion and sentiment. We propose to point out
ethical impulse behind this process of knowledge.
Manetti, speaking of the relief submitted by Brunelleschi in th
tion for the Baptistery doors (P1. I2b), observes that everyone was
the force and freedom of the "attitudes": "the attitude of Abraham
tude of the finger beneath his chin, his readiness," and that of the
way in which he takes his hand" etc. In this relief "there is no memb
not instinct with spirit." He goes on to praise Filippo for having f
1M. Salmi, "Note sulla chiesa di S. "Idea" cf. Panofsky, Idea and Lionello
Venturi, Storia della Critica d'Arte, Florence,
Spirito," Atti del Io Congresso di Storia dell'Ar-
chitettura, Florence, 1938, p. 159. 1945, PP. 128 ff.
2 For the development of design as an

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i16 GIULIO CARLO ARGAN
story in a short time "because he was strong in the
Ghiberti "did many times destroy and remake his
parts" and completed his work "in a great while."
Here are two opposite methods and two opposite
ceeds slowly, perfecting the details, Filippo execute
in the former, ideation and execution are insepara
side, each furthering the other, in the latter, they
moments. Lorenzo is the man of tradition, and the so
in his own labour as a craftsman: Filippo is the mod
plans and decides and then executes. The result ap
the "attitudes," the energy of the actions, the inte
part: Abraham has decided on the sacrifice and und
tion, but the will of the angel is in conflict with h
(P1. 12a), on the contrary, Abraham's action is hesi
decision, but only a wavering intention: he seems t
await the arrival of the angel who is still far off i
drama is ill-defined because the space is ill-define
of Isaac are inclined in opposite directions: the obli
the group of the sacrifice from that of the servan
distinct zones correspond to different times: the
postpones the imminence of the drama. In Brunel
single because the space is single. From the two
bottom, the composition rises into a pyramid whos
most dramatic moment, the hand of the angel
Abraham. The movement, too, is single: the tensio
its release in the figure of the servant drinking, an
body is the culminating point of the rhythm of angl
of the servant who is extracting a thorn from his
movement, like a swift play of light, simultaneou
ments: Abraham about to strike and the angel sto
servants with the ass is no longer anecdotal; from tha
representation develops, with lightning force, up to t
If the problem of the definition of space is insep
artistic development of the Master, we must conclu
relief, that the first postulates of perspective are laid
is the reduction of narrative to drama, of temporal
place, of the evocation to the representation of an
The relief astounded its contemporaries by what
its violent realism. In point of fact the novelty of th
marked archaic accent. The conventional rhythm
chiaroscuro are broken so as to give place to a hard
masses of alternating light and shade. This modelli
catenation of the movements are clear indications
Trecentesque tradition, had sought his dramatic so
the angel's gesture itself, to quote only the dramat
its precedent in the Last Judgment of the Pisano
Pisano the rhythm had been swift, increasing, in c
moments of the story are distinguished and ind

136.30.17.68 on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:09:40 UTC
simultaneously in their final resolution. The principle of "inte
are not mistaken, was applied to time before it was applied t
indeed the new idea of space is a consequence of that sudden
time.
The sculpture of Donatello is undoubtedly the record of a new mode of
conceiving the dramatic quality of life. In Rome, Filippo, and Donatello
together sought out and measured the relics of Roman Art, but Donatello,
says his biographer, "never opened his eyes to architecture." Nor did Filippo
trouble to initiate him into it, as though "he saw that Donato had no aptitude
therein." Vasari, in his turn, records that Filippo blamed his friend for
representing the crucified Christ in the form of a peasant. Filippo, who had
been thought too much of a realist by the judges in the competition,
found that Donatello sometimes carried realism to excess. Donatello's world
is in fact the world of feeling and of drama, the world of pure action: i
sculpture a popular Tuscan ethos is exalted to the level of the classical ep
The passage of Manetti warns us, if such a warning is necessary,
Donatello, who was of anything but a speculative temperament, did not
from theoretic premises: yet he is undoubtedly the first artist to constr
figured representation perspectively. Oertell believes that he can place
first determination of vanishing point in the relief of St. George and
Dragon, dated about 1416. We instead, are concerned to show that in th
relief the receding planes of the cave and the portico, by contracting sp
cause the flattened masses of the horse and its rider to stand out with an
effect of plastic emergence. Perspective has therefore a value of contrast
opposed to that which it holds, for example, in the painting of Masolino, whe
it serves as guide to the rhythmic alignment of the figures. It proportions bo
space and figures, contrasting the figure with space, or, since the figure i
the foreground, contrasting surface and depth.
A more precise construction with central perspective may be found in t
relief of Herod's Feast, which can be dated between 1425 and 1427 (P1. I
Vanishing point is clearly distinguished in the middle of the central arcad
and coincides with the elbow of the viol-player; the architraves, the pilaste
the flight of steps ascending on the right, the ends of the beams set into
pilasters all concur exactly at that point and determine an absolute unity
space. Nor has this architecture a generic function as a spatial site: it is
complex, yet broken structure, that enters into the life of the action, d
tinguishes its episodes, and even, by its air of antique ruin, plays its part
the pathos of the scene. In this, on the other hand, it is certainly possible
distinguish various stages of the narrative (the dance, the presentation of
severed head, the different emotional reactions of the spectators); but t
action, in that single and co-active space, is itself single and its vario
narrative phases, occurring in the same time and in the same space, beco
a clash of passions in action. The clash of passions is expressed by the sh
divergences of the figures which leave an empty space in the centre. Th
figures move along intersecting paths; they do not rest on predetermin
planes, but by their movement create opposing planes, which means that t
I R. Oertel, "Die Friihwerke des Masac-
I933-
cio," Marburger Jahrbuch far Kunstwissenschaft,

136.30.17.68 on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:09:40 UTC
Ii8 GIULIO CARLO ARGAN
define space in its three dimensions. Gothic rhy
the limitless space of the background; here Salo
movement in a direction opposite to that of the
bust, and the soldier presenting the charger is
right angles to each other which make a sharp ang
falls from the shoulders to the knee. The arch
towards the centre in extended frontal planes, g
pilasters at the sides, which means that it mul
relation to the mass of the figures that crowd to l
contain these things, it is the things which by t
or, in this case, the figures by the individual ch
which define space. Light itself in this enclosed
the limits of an action, can no longer break in fro
is a quality of things which is broken up int
opposition of those planes it too is dissolved in
and shade. It is no longer light that produces li
duced by the intensity of that contrast, that is
fact, or in form.
At this point we may legitimately ask wheth
as something which is not reproduced by the w
which the work of art itself disposes and re
Donatello independently or through the med
former case the similarity of the results obtained
in the latter the analogy between the results migh
Brunelleschi had at some time formulated a gene
Donatello had subordinated his own artistic activ
ship.
Since perspective is not simply a theory, but is the essence of the archi-
tecture of Brunelleschi, the Brunelleschi-Donatello relationship, which cer-
tainly exists, is a figurative relationship. In Herod's Feast the masses of the
figures cluster along the sides of the central space, just as in Santo Spirito the
spaces of the side aisles and chapels are resolved into the void of the centre
aisle; the whole scene is envisaged as a succession of parallel "intersections"
which are projected on to the foreground; space, as a comprehensive void,
annuls itself by implicating itself with the modelling of the figures, just as it
does by implicating itself with the modelling of the members in the architec-
ture of Filippo. It is perhaps the first figured work in which perspective is
assumed not as a law, but as a value in the representation; and the hypothesis
that this represents the point of contact between Brunelleschi's architecture
and the now imminent painting of Masaccio is not unreasonable. What is
the special pathos, the special dramatic exigency that sees in perspective
representation the condition needful for its realization? What is the motive
behind this translation of the phases of the narrative from time to space, in
such a way that the importance and the function of each figure in the action
is determined by its spatial situation, or rather by the greater or less vigour
of its movements as creators of space? It has already been pointed out that
this dramatic necessity corresponds to a moral conception which distinguishes
decision from relative activity, and the immediate and complete fulfilment of

136.30.17.68 on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:09:40 UTC
the one recognizes also the rational and moral validity o

a fully mature decision means making clear to oneself
one to act: it means therefore justifying one's action hi
all causes remote and immediate, direct and indirect
brought into play in a mutual compensation or equilibri
proportion in nuce: in action, emotional causes are alread
resolved just as, in Brunelleschi's architecture, all the force
or in equilibrium and never incomplete or in tension. Th
as an effect which exhausts all causes, is always cathartic
par excellence. This explains why the sculpture of Do
continuous crescendo of dramatic intensity: the more i
action, the more full and complete will be the catharsis and
the degree of universality or of classicality attained. It
this dramatic quality can be realized equally in the pur
figures almost without spatial elements (example-the r
of San Lorenzo) or in pure perspective abstraction almo
movements (example-the tondi of the life of St. John i
Lorenzo). This moral conception is the basis of the typ
idea of the hero as the protagonist of a drama, or a be
physical pre-eminence, that is a fullness of sensory vita
clear consciousness and a steadfast will: this is that ani
knowledge of which is the first stage of the supreme know
of the animus separatus.
It will not then seem strange to seek in the most typi
bolical, delineation of the heroic ideal of the Quattro
Donatello (P1. I2c)-a complete transposition, and almo
tion, of perspective space into the human form: the ideal o
istic anthropomorphism of the Renaissance. In fact, in this
modelling does not cut across the movement in the anatom
resolves it into a linked balance of spatial allusion, of d
which are all subsequently resolved on the plane of
determined by the shaft of light, which descending from
falls at a tangent to the figure, wavering over the smoot
touching the chief points of emergence, to terminate at
intense, pictorial episode of Goliath's head. This comple
space and light explains why the already noted crescendo of
of action is also, in Donatello's sculptures, a crescendo of
of vivid contrasts between light and dark. In the pu
"David" there is already the promise of the plastic
"Magdalene" in the Baptistery.
Perspective is therefore the law upon which the comp
is based. The theory of the historia occupies a large par
of the Pittura of Alberti: and the critics have too readil
thinking it void of any positive figurative content. Thu
refer Alberti's analysis of formal material to natural vi
this is concerned with the supreme aim of the artist: t
historia. Alberti explicitly declares that the historia is
the bodies of members and the members of surfaces: fi

136.30.17.68 on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:09:40 UTC
12o GIULIO CARLO ARGAN
and syntax, which he has previou

this literary aim. Beauty, it is tr
surfaces, but beauty or perfection
the historia. Although Alberti cit
gets the impression that he consi
in a moral sense, that is not as
antiquity, but as a fact of the "m
ancient art he adds the living pr
What are the ideal conditions of the "historia"? The standards which Alberti
lays down in this matter correspond exactly to the theory of painting as
intersection: intersection is the necessary condition of the literary dignity
the historia. It is true that Alberti, though he proclaims that he wishes t
write as a painter, is a man of letters; it is also true that the painting an
sculpture of the Quattrocento are not, in a strict sense, literary or humanistic
it is none the less important that criticism should feel the need of considering
these formal questions on a plane of literary and humanistic dignity. The
form does not attain this dignity by the quality of its "content," but by i
own formal quality or by the way in which it resolves that content.
In order that such a figured work may attain the value of a historia it
of the first importance, Alberti explains, that every figure should be indi
vidualized both in its physical conformation and in the attributes that ar
proper to it. The result of such individualization is variety, though varie
should not be allowed to distract one from the central theme to be repre
sented. The number of figures must be limited so that the historia does n
degenerate into confusion: therefore the painter must distribute the full an
the void in due proportion. This is the very condition of plastic form as t
supreme value of proportion. The figures must have concordant movement
that is the action must take place at a single moment of time and spac
the same movements must not be repeated by different figures, since eve
one has its special function. When he comes to movements Alberti does n
forget that the painter can represent only what can be seen; the movemen
of the soul can therefore be expressed only through the actions and mov
ments of the body, and the painter will only consider movements "which a
made by changing place." It is therefore true of movements, considered a
movements of the soul, just as it is true of things, that they exist in so far as
they occupy "a place." These movements must next be developed in a
directions; that is there can be no historia unless the action builds up the
whole of space. Alberti further requires that in every historia one figure
should introduce or comment on the action, or, in other words, should inte
pose between the spectator and the action a mental distance (which is the
pre-condition of a catharsis) corresponding to the optical distance whi
perspective requires between the eye and the object, so that the latter m
not invade the field of vision but instead may be proportioned by and resolved
into space.
The historia, therefore, is the typical and perfect product of ingegno:
at once the culminating point and the moral justification of artistic creatio
The historia, indeed, is an "invention" or a "fiction"; but only in the sens
that it transposes the realistic chronicle of facts into the sphere of univers

136.30.17.68 on Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:09:40 UTC
ideas, and is thus a cathartic representation.

and "invention," while it does away with any s
first term, and with any suggestion of the arb
the value of the term historia, which is not mere
an action, but the raising of it to an eternal, or, p
cance.
It is impossible to overlook the analogy of this

the idea of ancient drama, which the culture of th
from Aristotle's Poetics. Tragedy is an action
value either by reason of the nobility and moral e
persons, or because of the magnitude of the action
bination of the slowly marshalled forces of destin
gods that are realized and take shape in the passio
this reason dramatic action takes on an exemp
pedagogical or moralistic, but in a profoundly so
The historia is always exemplary or, more gener
recall Alberti's description of the "Calumny of Apell
to draw) by reason of its profound naturalistic con
the action, filling it and finding in it the act that m
"creates," reality-though only perhaps through th
tions of a few essential movements. Nature itself, in
speaks and acts in dramatic action. In order theref
have its full value and that human actions should
merely occasional or anecdotal significance, they m
origin of things, to the beginnings of space, to the c
shade. Only in this world which he creates and ord
be fully himself.
The problem of space as a dimension of action, o
stration of man's dominion over reality, is the pr
critical solution) of the painting of Masaccio.

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The Architecture of Brunelleschi and the Origins of Perspective Theory in the

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/750311

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By Giulio Carlo Argan

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The starting point of the controversy between modernists and tradition-

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analogous to that of the mountain. The

We have already pointed out that w

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and were called modern." In Manet

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Moreover it is clear that in making h

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no representation, but only mechanical imitation, if the imag

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It is now necessary to see how this law "

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known that Filippo had originally p

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a-Brunelleschi, Pazzi Chapel, Florence (p. Io9)

b-Brunelleschi, Detail of Facade of Pazzi Chapel,

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a-Brunelleschi, Portico of Pazzi Chapel, Florence

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a-Brunelleschi, San Lorenzo, Florence (p. 112)

summing up and concluding the contrasts bet

Plan and Section of S. Maria degli Angeli, Florence (F

are flat, vanishing point will always fall on th

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search for a synthesis of the two

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tresses of the lantern and those in the R

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a-Brunelleschi, San Spirito, Florence (p. II3)

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the one recognizes also the rational and moral validity o

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and syntax, which he has previou

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ideas, and is thus a cathartic representation.

It is impossible to overlook the analogy of this

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