Under Foot and Between the Boards
in the Laurentian Library
Contents:
The Place of a Hidden Pavement
Within the Laurentian Library, the
enigmatic masterwork of Michelangelo, there exists a complex
geometric pavement that is hidden from view, little known about
and shrouded with mystery (Fig.
1). The Library
is situated within the Medici family church complex of San Lorenzo
in Florence, and like many Renaissance libraries, it is located on
the upper level of a cloistered courtyard. Once the upper level is
reached, there is little fanfare announcing the Library entrance
and it would be easy to walk by it unless you knew where it was
located. But on passing through the door, quite a different world
opens up; the visitor stands in the corner of a gigantic room that
ominously stares downwards, leaning on the senses with its
architectonic weight (Fig.
2). The humbled
visitor then makes his way up a collection of steps in the middle
of the room, wading against the flow of oval
treads that
seem to force through the Reading Room doorway, or he maneuvers
from level to level on the angular flight of steps flanking the
central run. By the time the the top of the stairs is reached the
sheer pressure of the latent tabernacles, monolithic columns, and
curvacious brackets crammed into the gargantuan walls has reduced
and stripped the visitor of the outside street noise - in
preparation for the enormity of the book collection inside the
Reading Room.
At the top of the steps, a
massive portal is sunk into a stone frame that
pushes out through the wall separating the Vestibule from the
Reading Room. Once the visitor has passed through this boxy zone,
he is left hanging in the expansive
vista of the
Reading Room (Fig.
3). The Room's
length appears to extend beyond its measure; the visitor finds
himself at one end of a perspectival tunnel leading to
otherworldliness. In the long walls are fifteen lofty windows that
spread light onto the reading desks beneath. To the left and right
of the wide center aisle, a slow march of interlocking desks waits
for the scholars, forty four to the left and forty four to the
right. The desks form a continuum of interconnected furniture,
part storage desk and part seat, giving the impression of two
lines of mutual back scratchers. At the far end of the Reading
Room is a monumental doorway flanked by two blind windows; at one
time a triangular rare book room was planned to be secreted behind
this door, situated at the apex of the Library.
After walking half way down the Reading
Room, the visitor might peer off to the right into the Sala D'Elci
(Fig.
4), an addition
built by Poncianni in 1821: he will notice on the floor a curious
square pavement, composed of geometric elements, full of circles
and square shapes that is incongruous when seen in context with
the opulent pavement of the central aisle. The modern scholar,
recalling a photo of the Reading Room stripped of furniture
(Fig.
5), might
identify this geometric pavement panel with the sequence of panels
which run down the sides of the Reading Room, and which are now
covered over by a wooden dais. The inquisitive visitor might then
wonder if it is possible to see if there is any way to
get under the
wooden dais to look at the hidden pavement beneath. Careful
inspection will reveal wrought iron hinges and lift rings
(Fig.
6) that form
the hardware to small trapdoors set at random at four places in
the dais.
An Accident
Reveals a Cover-up
In 1774, during Antonio Biscioni's tenure
as the librarian of the Laurentian Library, a portentous accident
occurred in the Reading Room 1. The shelf of desk 74,
overloaded with medical tracts, gave way and broke. During the
course of its repair, the workmen found a red and white geometric
terra-cotta pavement, hidden for 183 years beneath the raised
wooden dais under the desks. Piqued by this discovery, the
librarian Biscioni lifted floorboards in other parts of the
Reading Room and found wholly different designs; he had
trapdoors built into the dais so that
future generations could witness the unusual pavement. The
pavement designs were engraved into the introduction of his
monumental catalog of the Greek and Hebrew books in the Library
collection (Fig.
7).
The geometric pavement has presented a
considerable difficulty for historians. The first known
illustration of it is a drawing from the Scholz Sketch Book
(Fig.
8) which shows
the 30 panel frames, two of which are dimensioned. Rossi neglected
to draw any part of it in his set of
measured drawings of 1777 2 (Fig.
9) and
Geymuller includes a fallacious depiction of panel 9 which he
repeats for Panel #15, 14 and 13 3 (Fig.
10). Parts of
the hidden pavement have been published in support of various
hypotheses, prompting associations between the form of the
pavement designs and some architectural plans of Michelangelo
4, and an
attempt has been made to validate Vasari's remark that both the
central pavement and the lateral pavements were designed by
Tribolo 5 .
In 1928 a second mishap laid bare the
entire pavement. Due to structural weaknesses in the vaults
supporting the Library, repairs were undertaken and the Reading
Room was stripped of its furniture; photographs were made of the
fifteen panels on the West side at that time (Fig.
11) . Despite
the fact that these photographs would have been readily available,
Wittkower avoided all mention of the lateral geometric pavement in
his famous article of 1934 6. The floor was
bared a second time this century during World War II, when the
books and desks were removed for safe keeping (Fig.
12). Today,
photographs of the fifteen panels have been placed in a display
case adjacent to the visible panel in front of the Sala D'Elci
7.
The presence of the hidden pavement raises
questions concerning Michelangelo's Library, commissioned by Pope
Clement VII in 1523 and opened to the public 48 years later in
1571 by his distant cousin, Grand Duke Cosimo I. Why had an
immensely complicated pavement been constructed, only to be
covered over? For one reason or another, something must have
happened to force a decision to change the way the furniture was
used or laid out in the Reading Room, which consequently removed
the pavement from public view forever, but before confronting this
question, the pavement will be considered upon its own merits.
The
Lineage of Geometric Pavements
To comprehend the enormity of the
geometric pavement in the Laurentian Library, it is necessary to
set it in context with pavements that were known about at this
time. The geometer, theologian, philosopher or architect, or
whoever it was who put his hand to designing the pavement, could
refer to a rich heritage of geometric wall, ceiling and pavement
designs. Geometric tiling abounds in central Italy and was
extensively practiced by Roman, Umbrian and Tuscan builders.
Florence has a wealth of examples to draw from and several of the
fifteen pavement designs can find their roots in these. Important
architectural geometries can be found in cities which were under
Florentine jurisdiction at this time. But the greatest fund of
designs is to be found in Rome, where contemporary and antique
buildings provided an inexhaustible supply of architectural
geometries .
Geometric designs did not escape the
eyes
of the architects and artists of the day: Peruzzi, Leonardo
and Durer all made drawings of geometric pavements or ceilings
,(Fig.
13).
Architectural geometries were written about too: Alberti extols
the importance of geometric pavements " I would have nothing on
the walls or floor of the temple that did not have some quality of
Philosophy... I strongly approve of patterning the pavement with
musical and geometric lines and shapes so that the mind may
receive stimuli from every side" 8.During this
period, in 1537, Serlio published a number of
antique and modern geometric ceiling and garden designs in his
treatise (Fig.
14), and
thirteen of the published designs 9have a similar appearance to the
Laurentian Panels.
By way of introduction to geometric
pavements, let us slip into Michelangelo's boots to accompany him
on journeys to his known haunts in Florence and Rome, in order to savor some of the
pavements and architectural geometries that he would have stood on
10. Beginning in
Florence, we find that the disorienting pavement in the choir of
Santa Maria del Fiore, that he has been credited with designing
11, is a
modification of the design for the 12th century pavement placed at
the center of the Florence Baptistery. The Baptistery is shot
through with geometric designs (Fig.
15): it is a
veritable primer for anyone interested in geometry and its
attendant cosmological and theological significance 12.
His soles would have touched the Sepulcher
in the chapel of St. Pancrazio, designed by Alberti, inlaid with
geometricised plants and heraldic icons (Fig.
16): the
pavement of the chapel is laid out according to "complex and
obscure proportional ratios" 13. Alberti also
designed the facade of Santa Maria Novella which has fifteen
panels of similarly inlaid work (Fig.
17). When
walking in San Lorenzo, Michelangelo would have seen Verrocchio's
pavement for Cosimo's burial place positioned in front of the high
altar (Fig.
18)
14. In the Medici Palace itself
the pavement of Chapel of the Magi (Magicians) is composed
according to systems of numerology that have been shown to relate
to the paintings above 15. Thus it
comes as no surprise to find a complex geometric pavement in the
Laurentian Library, a building whose program was a perfect match
for Alberti's recommendation to make a pavement that stimulated
the mind in every which way.
Michelangelo's boots would then have led
him to pavements and ceilings in the key buildings of Rome. Every
day of the four years spent painting the Sistine Ceiling, he would have been part of the intricate
Cosmatesque pavement of the Sistine Chapel
(Fig.
19). Not only
would he have seen it up close when walking on it, but he would
have had the privilege of viewing its overall plan from a distance
when painting from the scaffold. On his 'days off' he might have
visited the churches of S. M. in Aracoeli, S.M. Maggiore, S.M. in
Cosmedin and S. Giovanni in Laterano, which all have Cosmatesque
opus sectile geometric pavements set in rectangular frames which
are mirrored about the central axis of the basilical nave, similar
to those in the Sistine Chapel 16. On a slightly longer walk,
beyond the city walls, he could have visited the 4th C. Mausoleum
of Constantina to see its fine geometric ceiling mosaics (figure
), which Serlio was to illustrate in his Third Book of
Architecture (figure ). The Pantheon also has a geometric pavement
of the utmost significance (figure ), which has been found to be
an integral part of the geometry of the entire building
17. When
visiting ancient and mediaeval works of architecture in Rome, it
is almost impossible not to be enveloped by the geometry in the
pavements.
The
Laurentian Geometric Pavement
The geometric pavement in the Laurentian
Library is laid out in fifteen pairs of panels that are mirrored
on either side of the Reading Room. It is laid in the manner
utilised in the Romanesque churches mentioned above, and also in
the Sistine Chapel (Fig.
20), where
twenty seven rectangular panels of different designs can be found
mirrored on either side of the west end of the Chapel 18.
The designs in the Library
will be shown to be permutations
on classic and medieval architectural geometries. The series of
panels form a lexicon of geometric and mathematical principles, a
text of sorts, that would be entirely appropriate for a library of
this nature. Amongst the fifteen panels the following principles
are displayed: the Euclidean forms of circle, triangle, square,
hexagon and octagon, the Tectractys, the Platonic Lambda,
Incomensurability, the Sacred Cut , the Fibonacci
Series, the
Brunes Pentagon, Harmonic Proportion and the Squared Circle. The
Golden Mean has been shown to be present in the architectural
proportioning system of the Library 19.It can be
intonated that the Golden Mean, understood for centuries as a
perfect ordering system, encompasses all the other ordering
geometries found in the pavement.
The Fifteen
Panels of the Pavement
The fifteen panels demonstrate an
encyclopeadic sequence of geometries that unfold from the first
panel, located at the far end of the Reading Room (Fig.
21). The tenor
of the progression is established in Panel 1 (The Cross Panel
20) which has a huge Cruciform in
its middle, surrounded by an orthogonal maze. It is immediately
followed by Panel 2 (The Medici Panel), a harmonious rosette
design full of swirling circles, at the center of which is the
Emblemata of Cosimo I 21. Thus the sequence is begun by
twinning a square and circular design, sporting the badges of the
Church and the Medici Family.
The opening pair is followed by Panel 3
(The Pythagoras Panel), which shows a Cross constructed from a
stack of interlacing circles ordered by the Fibonacci series. The
sequence continues with Panel 4 (The Octagon Panel), composed with
introverted octagons, followed by Panel 5 (The Tectractys Panel),
covered with a field of hexagons. In this panel ten hexagons are
laid out to form the Tectractys 22 in each of the two equilateral
triangles that compose a six pointed star. Panel 6 (The
Constantina Panel), made of octagons and elongated hexagons, is
followed by Panel 7 (The Incommensurable Panel) a classic design
of alternating crosses and eight pointed stars.
Panel 8 (The Sacred Cut Panel) sits in the
middle of the sequence, and brings elements of circle and square
into close proximity. Panel 9 (The Cosimo Panel) and Panel 10 (The
Peter Panel) both display an arrangement of circles and squares.
Panel 11 (The Horoscope Panel) is reminiscent of the old method of
laying out the horoscope 23. Panel 12
(The Dome Panel) has the dubious distinction of its design being
stretched internally, causing the large white circle to distort.
Panel 13 (The Mask Panel) might be better known as the Joker, for
not only does it disdain the sort of symmetry present in the other
panels, but it grins back at the viewer 24. Panel 14
(The Lambda Panel) displays an ordering system reminiscent of the
Platonic Lambda. Panel 15 (The Four Crosses), the last in the
series and closest to the entrance door, returns to the explicit
depiction of the Cross established in the beginning of the
sequence.
At first glance, the panels all appear to
be square: however curious
irregularities
guide the dimensioning and layout of each design. All the panels
are set into rectangular frames that measure approximately 4
braccia 25 (233 cms.) by 4 1/3 braccia
(253 cms.), but the size of each panel is different. The layout of
each panel is very particular. Panels 1, 9, 10, 11 & 15 are
complete square designs that are bordered with carefully sized
bands to fit into the rectangular frame. Panels 3, 4, 7, & 8
have repeating designs that stop at irregular places, yet respect
the edge of the panel; for example, the red circles of Panel 3 are
bisected on the short axis and are left complete on the long axis.
Panels 2, 6, 12, & 14 are internally disturbed to give the
appearance of being regular square designs: Panel 12 shows that
the edge tiles appear to be identical, even though the frame is
rectangular: this paradox is made possible by the design being
adjusted internally, the large white circle is in fact a
fragmented circle. Two of the designs (Panels 5 & 13) are not
quatrefoil designs and are regulated by other geometric systems.
The pavement will now be examined from the
point of view of the geometry and mensuration that orders the
tiles. The geometric construction of five panels in the series
will be investigated carefully, to reveal the reconfiguration of
the classical model and to show the quixotic geometry that resides
in each design. The analysis will demonstrate that geometry is not
only a mechanism that makes possible intriguing patters, but that
it can be worked to form a world view permeated with symbolism
which is made explicit through the disposition of lines and
numbers 26. If the
pavement is understood in this manner, it may indicate that it was
an essential part of the whole project from the early stages of
the design.
The Medici
Panel #2
The Medici Panel (Fig.
22) is located
at the far end of the Reading Room, beneath the desks
holding the Bibles on the east side and Greek Metaphysicians
on the west. The design seems to be wholly symmetrical and it has
the same appearance as the antique rosette, of which there are
many examples, but at second glance the panel exhibits the
tell-tale irregularities that are common to all the designs.
First, the panel is not square: it is a rectangle whose sides are
in the ratio of 12:13; second, curving white bands radiate from
the center, never present in the antique form; and finally, ovals
are set into the residual spaces between these bands.
The geometric construction of the 13th
century prototype is comparatively straight forward (Fig.
23). A circle
is formed, and a second pitch circle is constructed from the same
point, whose radius is half that of the first circle. The pitch
circle is divided into 24 parts and circles with this same radius
are drawn from the 24 points, thus forming the design. A standard
procedure to complete the design was to 'clip off' the outer
crowded edge, replace the central knot of lines with a figurative
roundel and draw radiating rings to bisect the curvaceous diamonds
formed by the 24 intersecting circles.
The Medici Panel is the only design for
which comprehensive measurements have been made of both the east
and west panel 27. There are
subtle, but important, differences between the designs: although
the frames of the east and west panel are the same size and the
method of construction of the parts is identical, the ratios used
to size the relative parts differ 28. The
geometric construction of the west panel will be described here.
This
construction was superseded by a new version in August 1996
(Fig.
24)
The Medici Panel advances all the steps of construction of the
antique
rosette. A
circle is placed onto a 12:13 rectangle so that its circumference
touches the four corners, the generating pitch circle then becomes
1/4 of the diagonal of the rectangle. This clever solution permits
the complete design to be present in the four corners of the
panel, but the rectangular frame cuts away the unsightly edges
that were problematic in the antique design and had to be snipped
away around the perimeter. The second finesse involves the curving
white bands, which open up new spaces unseen in the antique
solution. They measure 4/13th of each 24th part of the pitch
circle: this prompts a curious mathematical conundrum because the
arc of a circle cannot be devided into uneven parts using geometry
29. This
component of the design questions known geometric construction
methods of the time.
The third finesse involves the geometry of
the seven different ellipses set into the curvilinear diamonds
left between the white bands (figure ), a procedure outlined by
Serlio 30. Elliptical
shapes can be found in earlier buildings: the form was created by
sawing cylindrical marble columns at an oblique angle.
Alberti would have
seen them on the medieval portal to the church that he enveloped
in stone for Sigismodo Malatesta at Rimini, but the Medici Panel is the
first instance of an ellipse design that is structured by
geometric means, rather than being produced from sawing up Roman
columns at funny angles. Measurements taken from the east Medici
Panel demonstrate that whole number ratios are used to size the x
and y axis of the ellipses in relationship to the x and y axis of
the white diamond shape into which they are set. The following
table shows the ratios for each ellipse.
|
Ellipse #
|
#1
|
#2
|
#3
|
#4
|
#5
|
#6
|
#7
|
|
X Axis
|
5:3
|
9:5
|
5:3
|
9:5
|
8:4
|
9:5
|
9:4
|
|
Y Axis
|
3:1
|
21:8
|
2:1
|
9:5
|
9:5
|
9:5
|
9:5
|
The final finesse involves manipulating
the panel's braccia dimensions. The rational method of
dimensioning a 12:13 rectangular frame would be to make the 12
unit side 4 braccia (12 parts), and the 13 unit side 4 1/3rd
braccia (13 parts), thus utilizing standard braccio divisions, but
the geometer is determined to keep the curious scholars
deliberating on this panel on their toes. He provokes the design
by making the long side 4 1/4 braccia, and the short side
12/13th's of this, thus prompting an irrational dimension.
The
Incommensurable Panel: Panel #7
The panel, positioned near the middle of
the series, appears to be the least complicated design, for it is
made of only two shapes (Fig.
25). It belongs
to the family of cancellum patterns, composed of a checkerboard of
dark and light squares; the panel has a second checkerboard
overlaid at 45 degrees onto the first, producing an eight pointed
star and a four pointed cross. The design is common and can be
found in Pompeii, the Sistine Chapel, and in the lower church of
St. Francis in Assisi. The Assisi design is especially important,
as it is the same size and scale as Panel 7, measuring about 4
braccia on each side (Fig.
26).
The simplicity of Panel 7 (Fig.
27)
(All wrong - see
illustration. Changed in August 1996) is deceptive, for the design is not
placed in a square frame 31. The standard
method of placing 25 stars in a square frame is to make the
diagonal of each star equal to 1/5th of the frame side, but the
Incommensurable Panel is carefully positioned in a rectangular
frame, resulting in the triangular points of the stars seeming to
be cut in half on the short side and these severed pieces then
added to the stars on the long side. This procedure presents a
conundrum, for when the star points are cut by the frame it
becomes impossible to establish a dimension for the width of the
five stars. A 'Catch 22' is generated: you cannot dimension the 5
stars until you know the width of the panel and you won't know the
width of the panel until you can dimension the 5 stars.
The panel is constructed within a frame
measuring 4 1/4 braccia on its long axis and its short axis is
13/14th of this (figure ). The 25 stars in the panel are not
regular figures, but are composed by overlapping two different
sized squares; the one on the orthogonal being 14/13th the size of
the square on the diagonal 32. At first
impression, it may seem that a set of stars composed according to
this ratio will automatically have their points bisected when
positioned in a frame of the same ratio, but mathematically this
is not the case.
There are further complexities in this
panel concerning the rapport between ratio and mensuration. As has
been shown, it is possible to generate a field of 25 stars in a
fixed frame, but the difficulties begin when consideration is
given to determining how the truncated stars are positioned in the
panel frame. To compose the paradoxical design, the panel is laid
out by constructing a grid of 25 stars (at any scale) and
superimposing a 'movable' 13:14 frame that is visually aligned
with the grid of stars until the lengths of the truncations and
additions appear equal. Thus the design is resolved by a method of
exhaustion 33. Once this
has been done, the long dimension of this drawing is resized by
standard geometric means so that it fits perfectly onto the panels
frame length of 4 1/4 braccia 34. The construction of the
Incommensurable Panel has a distinctively Mannerist ring to it.
The Lambda
Panel: Panel #14
The Lambda Panel, located near the
entrance of the Reading Room, is composed of four diamonds set
within circles that are cut with segments of circles, and the
whole design is framed with a white border (Fig.
28). The panel
recalls the Medici Impresa that has four gold rings surmounted
with a diamond (figure ). The seeming stability of the design
unravels with closer inspection: it is found that one axis has
been internally disturbed, for the white borders and the central
zone are wider in one axis than in the other. Examination of a
similar antique design shows no such variance, a regular grid is
established and then is repeated ad infinitum.
The short axis of the
east Lambda Panel shows that the design is laid upon a grid of 27
units which regulates the radii of its circles (Fig.
29). The 27
units fall into two halves, that are subdivided into four, and
each fourth is divided into three. A drawing ascribed to Fabbri,
from the circle of Michelangelo, shows a man standing next to a
proportional scaling device that utilizes the same system of
division as found in the panel (Fig.
30)
35. This unusual
method of dividing a 27 unit line becomes lucid when a passage
from Plato's Timeaus is read, in which he describes the Soul
being disturbed by the Sensations 36.
And the sensations did in fact
at that time create a very great and mighty movement; uniting with
the everflowing stream in stirring up and violently shaking the
courses of the soul, they completely stopped the revolutions of
the same by their opposing current and hindered it from
predominating and advancing, and they so disturbed the nature of
the other that the three double intervals (that is between
1-2-4-8) and the three triple intervals (that is between 1-3-9-27)
together with the mean terms and connecting links which are
expressed by the ratios 3:2, 4:3, 9:8 these, although they cannot
be wholly undone except by him who united them, were twisted by
them in all sorts of ways, and the circles were broken and
disordered in every possible manner so that when they moved they
were tumbling to pieces and moved irrationally, at one time in
reverse direction and then again obliquely and then upside down,
as you might imagine a person who is upside down and has his head
leaning upon the ground and feet up against something in the air
and when he is in such a position, both he and the spectator fancy
that the right of either is his left, and the left right.
The component parts of the Panel respect
the descriptive passages and numerology of this text: the courses
of the Soul are portrayed in the designs by the forms of complete
circles and by the harmonic of the double and triple interval
(1-2-4-8 & 1-3-9-27) of the Lambda (Fig.
31). The
Sensations are portrayed in the designs by circles "tumbling to
pieces and moving irrationally"; thus the harmonic values and the
forces of irrationality are present in the Panel.
The Panel's second axis introduces the
irrational number onto the grid of 27 parts. The widened bands and
the central Cross are dimensioned by a value equal to half the
diagonal of the white diamond shape. Returning now to the Fabbri
drawing, it is found that this irrational value is sympathetic to
a curious condition in the figure. Asterisks are drawn at the
shoulder, elbow, wrist, finger and hip: the hip asterisk is then
channeled into the middle 1/27th part located between the upper
and lower parts of the body. The head and rotating foot of the
upper and lower 1/27th parts of the scale also hold great
ambiguity: all three conditions point towards errancy. In contrast
to this system of proportion, we are reminded of Michelangelo's
criticism of Durer's proportional studies (Fig.
32) which he
considered to be too rigid for man 37. Michelangelo
believed that a proportional system should include a value that
respected dynamic movement, the widened bands ordered by an
irrational would be a reasoned response to Durer's perceived
rigidity.
Finally The Cruciform imbedded between the
four gold rings of the Medici Emblemata (Fig.
33) has unequal
sets of limbs; one limb is evocative of the new Neoplatonic
harmony and the other determined by irrationals. Surely this a new
form for the Cross 38.
In
Conclusion
The geometric pavement in the Laurentian
Library clearly tests the viewer's
patience; the
geometries trip a myriad of associations for the observer and
gazing at it for any length of time will cause the lips to
reconfigure into a smile of recognition at its wit and will.
Because it is such a complex component of the building, the
geometric pavement prompts the question of whether it was planned
as part of an overall iconographic scheme for the whole building.
Considering the nature of the artist who built the Library and the
tradition of library decoration it is suprising that no
icongraphic scheme has been identified for the Library.
Books and Buildings
It will help to be familiar with the form
of the 15th and 16th century library so as to have an idea about
what sorts of books might be collected and how they would be
categorized and stored. It will then be possible to suggest a
possible arrangement of furniture in the Reading Room of the
Laurentian Library that is different to the one we see today and
which would allow the lateral geometric pavements to be seen.
Because of the considerable expense of manuscript books, the only
people who were wealthy enough to afford a library were the Church
and the Princes. The monastic centers of learning chose the
basilical form for their libraries and the Princes favored a dense
rectangular room, known as the studiolo, that was made part of
their palaces.
Monastic libraries were usually built in
the form of a three aisled basilica, attached to a cloister of the
church 39. A long row
of interconnecting desks ran down each side aisle, leaving the
center aisle for a generous ambulatory. The collection of books
was stored in shelves built into the backs of each desk. The
collection would be categorized according to a well established
standard. Latin and Italian books were placed in the main reading
room and Greek, Arabic and Hebrew books were usually kept in a
separate chamber at the end of the basilical library. In some
instances certain books were placed under lock and key, for
example if they were too valuable to be used by the uninitiated,
or were papers that related to the institution or family connected
to the library in question. There were other circumstances,
dictated by the current ideas of the time and place, that could
keep certain books secreted away because to their inflammatory
contents, but no hard and fast rule for this was established until
later 40. ]
By reading through contemporary library
inventories, it can be seen that there was a traditional method of
organizing books in monastic libraries, which was adjusted to the
individual strength of a particular collection. Sacred books
(Sancti Patres), which typically include the books of the Bible,
Christian philosophers, sermons and Canonic law, were placed in
the desks on the east side of the library. Profane and pagan
books, including classical philosophers, the poets and
accompanying reference books were set in the west desks.
The monastic library at San Marco in
Florence (Fig.
34) , which
Piero Medici commissioned Micholozzi to build in 1440, follows
this typical pattern (Fig.
35). In the
east range of desks the sequence begins with the books of the
Bible and the advances through the works of St. Augustine,
Gregory, St. Thomas Aquinas et al 41. In the west
desks, the Aristotelian epistemology for ordering the tree of
knowledge is adhered to. Wedged between Canonic law to the south
and Sermons to the north, Metaphysics begins the sequence followed
by Ethics, Logic and Natural Science. Then, after these
philosophers, the poets reside, with accompanying glossaries. The
Greek books were kept in a separate room at the end of the main
reading room and they follow a similar pattern; the Sacred books
being to the east and the profane and pagan works, including the
poets, are on the west. The only library of basilical form that
exists with its original furniture laid out in two lines of
interlocking desks, is at Cesena (Fig.
36) and was
built in 1477 by Sigismodo Malatesta, in memory of his wife.
The second form of library extant in the
sixteenth century was the Studiolo, a private sanctuary of learning and
intellectual intrigue, found in the palaces of the Princes
42. The Studiolo
was generally square in form and ranged about the walls were
cupboards in which books, curiosities,
collections of antique coins and scientific instruments were kept.
The faces of the cupboards, made in wood intarsia, were often
richly decorated with vivid depictions of the contents of the
cupboards (Fig.
37). Fantastic
Euclidean solids, musical instruments, hour glasses and untidy
stacks of books would be inlaid into the cupboard doors, shown
thrown open in animated perspective. The studiolo was further
decorated on every available surface. Filarete writes about the
ceiling and floor decoration of Lorenzo Medici's studiolo
43, describing the rich ceramic
tile work of the floor and ornate glazed terra-cotta of the
ceiling, inset with allegorical figures. The Duke of Urbino's
Studiolo, built in 1477, has a complex iconographic decoration
entailing paintings of famous literary figures set above the
intarsia cupboards (figure ). Positioned in the middle of the
Studiolo would be a fine table, at which the musing giant of
commerce and politics could ponder over his collection.
The layout of monastic, and princely
libraries required a variety
of devices to
help locate categories of books in their collections. Allegorical
pictures, carvings and symbolic color coding of books formed a
pictorial catalog that helped lead the reader to the texts
44. For example,
the books in Piero Medici's Library were bound in different colors
according to their subject. Theology was bound in blue, Grammar in
yellow, and Poetry in royal purple 45. In the
Library at Zutphen allegorical images, representing the categories
of books stored in each desk, were carved in the lecterns: a
carved figure of the Virgin could be found adjacent to the books
on Theology. In the late 15th century, the Bishop of Ely donated
stained glass to Jesus College in Cambridge which bore the
category of books in the lectern adjacent to each window
46. In the 16th
century, extensive fresco cycles were painted in the Piccolomini
Library in Sienna Cathedral between 1502-9; the Libraria Marciana,
Venice, completed in 1557, and the Vatican Library were decorated
in a similar manner. The subjects of the paintings, often
depicting the political events of the time, were interfused with
themes of learning taken from classical and biblical sources. But
unlike Piero Medici's color coded books, that steered the visitor
to categories of learning, the frescoes appear not to have
provided an allegorical guide to the categories of books on each
shelf.
A New Public
Library
Pope Clement IV, otherwise known as Giulio
Medici and who was Lorenzo Il Magnifico's nephew, was anxious to
consolidate the Medici family name in Florence with a series of
ambitious architectural projects centered around the family church
at San Lorenzo (Fig.
38), diagonally
across the piazza from the Medici Palace. After the failed attempt
to erect the facade of San Lorenzo, planned as the first solid
marble structure that would rival the buildings of antiquity
47, he settled
on two other substantial projects: the construction of a family
tomb, to be known as the New Sacristy, and the erection of a
prestigious new public library that would transfer the private
holdings of Medici books into the ecclesiastic setting of San
Lorenzo.
The library was to contain an enormous
collection, bigger than anything Florence had yet seen. In essence
it was a complete library, a monument to the extant body of
antique and contemporary knowledge, containing the fundamental
Christian and non-Christian metaphysical texts as well as the
classical and modern works on poetry and literature with their
attendant lexicons and histories. It is not known whether the
Library was intended as a 'monument to learning', fixed in size
and scope, that would add only a few volumes to refine its
collection, or whether it was planned as an expanding library that
would add unforeseen categories of knowledge; but the fact that
the collection added only 49 books during the 200 years after its
opening suggests the former. As it was to turn out the Laurentian
Library was the swan song of the manuscript library, for printed
books were to radically change the form of libraries forever.
The lofty desire of the patron to form the ultimate library
required an architect who could conceptualize an appropriate
receptacle for these books, on a par with the force of their
contents. Michelangelo, having attended Ficino's Academy in his
youth and having recently completed the painting of the complex
liturgical program for the Sistine Ceiling, was certainly
qualified to bring about such an ambition.
The
Programmatic Needs of the Reading Room
The early design phases of the Library saw
different options for its siting within the San Lorenzo complex
(Fig.
39)
48. Drawings
exist of schemes for its placement overlooking the Piazza as one
option and straddling the San Lorenzo courtyards as a second, the
third option being the Library in its present location. The early
correspondence suggests fundamental difficulties of deciding what
the essential form of the library was to be. A letter from the
papal agent Fattucci to Michelangelo, dated New Year's Day 1524,
asks Michelangelo for drawings of two distinct rooms for the Greek
and Latin collections 49, following
the antique form (Fig.
40). In the
letter Fattucci asked for a measured drawing for both rooms,
noting that he has already had a drawing with no dimensions for
the Greek room. Later, a reading room in the form of a 9 bay
basilical hall was designed for the collection 50, and plans
were discussed either to place rare books in corner rooms or to
store them in a triangular Rare Book Room positioned at the far
end of the Reading Room (Fig.
41). On 2
August 1524 Fattucci asks "And send me the length (of the Reading
Room) along with that addition at the head of the library, and how
many desks go there, with the distance between one and another
just like in San Marco. Further write us how many books will go to
each desk." 51
From this we can infer that the patron
needed to know how many books could be put in the library, an
issue of central importance for the design. On April 3rd 1526, a
letter is issued from Fattucci that asks that the library have
three aisles 52, one in the
center and one down either side of the Reading Room. By the time
Michelangelo left Florence in 1533 there is no longer any mention
of the Rare Book room, so it can be assumed to have been removed
from the building agenda.
By putting these pieces of information
together, it is possible to see that these proposals and decisions
have tremendous consequences for the layout of the furniture in
the library. If Michelangelo had been counting on a separate room
to put the valuable books of the collection in, then clearly more
space would be freed up in the Reading Room; but once the
ancillary rooms had been canceled he would then have to find a way
to accommodate the extra books.
The Size
of the Collection
The size of the intended book collection
was clearly a matter that would determine the size of the Reading
Room and the consequent layout of the furniture in it. Apart from
the cryptic letter of 2 August 1524, there is no reference to the
actual or intended size of the book collection. If the size of the
collection were known for the years 1523-26, then this might
provide the clue why the lateral geometric pavements were covered
over.
There is no complete record of the
collection in the crucial years of its formation, so a thorough
survey of all the inventories of the Medici holdings is being made
to determine a ballpark figure for the size of the collection in
1523 53, the date the
Laurentian Library was commenced. The new Laurentian Library was
to contain books from the Medici's private collections, books from
the San Marco Library, established earlier by Cosimo Medici (Pope
Clement's grandfather), and newly acquired texts of which many
were from Pope Leo X's Greek Academy that Pope Clement VII had
inherited.
Whilst the college of the canons of San
Lorenzo certainly had books connected with their duties, there was
no true library at San Lorenzo. The origins of the books destined
for the Laurentian Library go back to Piero Medici, who had 128
books in 1464 54. The San Marco Library, a
Medici institution established by Cosimo de'Medici for public use,
made an inventory of 1,232 books in 1497 55. An inventory of Leo X's
holdings, made in Rome in 1511, records about 1,200 books (420
Greek texts and about twice as many Latin) 56. A small
select list of 279 books was made by Alvisi in 1536 57, but its purpose unclear. The
first complete inventory of the operating Laurentian Library was
made in 1589, seventeen years after the library opened, when a
hastily written list of books was made by Rondinelli, which
records the collection as having grown to the grand total of 2,978
books 58. Little information about the
books is given by Rondinelli. He only notes the titles, the
authors and the desks they are located in: no mention is made of
the date of acquisition, number of pages etc. of each book. An
exhaustive catalog, describing the provenance and every known
detail of each book, was eventually compiled by Bandini
59
and Biscioni 60, and was
completed in 1757. It shows that the collection had changed little
since 1589, for only forty nine books had been added. In Mons.
Giudi's biography of Cosimo I, it is stated that the collection
had about 2,000 books at the time of its opening in 1571
61, but no further details are
given and so it does little to help establish the precise size of
the collection at the time of the commencement of the project.
From this we can only speculate that the size of the collection in
1523 was approximately 1,500 volumes, in 1571 it might be about
2,000 and by 1589 it had grown to 2,978 books.
Alternative Floor Plans that would reveal the
Geometric Pavement
The lateral geometric pavement, hidden
from view as it is today, can assume two possibilities for its
existence. Either it was constructed with the intention of
deliberately concealing it with a dais, or was it was designed to
be walked on and, for some reason, it was later covered over.
Adjusting
the existing Basilical Form
If the pavement
were deliberately laid with the knowledge that it was to be
covered over, what were the circumstances that precipitated an act
as bizarre as this? Was the patron engaged in the thrilling
perversity of developing something of immense complexity for his
library that only he and the makers would ever know about? If we
are at ease with the building of the triangular Secret Rare Book
Room then could the library have supported a Secret Geometric
Pavement? Perhaps the fictional saga of Umberto Eco's The Name of
the Rose, whose plot centers around secret texts hidden in a
labyrinthine library, is closer to the truth than it may seem.
Maybe the geometry of the Laurentian Library pavement displays a
cipher for unscrambling mystical numbers, (not inappropriate for a
library of this ambition), and it had to be concealed for fear
that it would reveal too much.
Were this to have been the case, then the
question arises as to why the pavement was not given its final
grinding which would have left it in a perfect state. Close
inspection of the pavement panels show that the terra-cotta pieces
still have the mason's score lines, used for fabricating and/or
aligning the pieces during construction. There is also
considerable unevenness between the pieces even though the grout
lines are relatively tight, further indicating that the pavement
was not ground down before completion 62. If the
pavement was intended to be a hidden work then these details would
have certainly been attended to. Thus it is highly unlikely that
the patron ordered the architect to make a pavement that was to be
deliberately covered up.
The present layout of desks could permit a
second possibility for its usage. Libraries of this date were
unheated for fear of fire and it was usual to provide a wooden
dais so that the scholars feet would be kept off the damp
terra-cotta floor . If the wooden dais upon which the desks sit
was removed and each desk provided with a built in foot stool, as
at Cesena, it would be possible to see parts of the pavement
beneath (Fig.
42). But this
proposition presents great impracticalities, the least of which is
that each panel would have three desks upon it that would render
it virtually invisible 63. It might be
thought that the problem would be resolved by having fewer desks,
spaced further apart, so that more of the pavement panels could be
seen, but this would contradict the essential nature of the
interlocking desk design which was standard for monastic
libraries, and for which Michelangelo had already prepared
drawings (Fig.
43).
The fabrication of the Laurentian Library desks indicates that the
dais was always an essential part of the design. The structure of
the desks is designed so that the three vertical supports, two at
the ends and one in the middle, do not stop at the top of the dais
but continue down to the terra-cotta pavement: the desks do not
sit on the dais, but rather the dais is constructed as an integral
part of the desks. If the dais were to be removed, the carefully
carved end panels would be left high and dry (Fig.
44), above five
soldi of unfinished surface at the bottom of the vertical
supports.
The impracticality of these modifications
to the existing furniture configuration leaves us to now consider
wholly different furniture layouts for the library, if we are to
consider a Reading Room which makes visible the lateral geometric
pavements.
Modifying
the Basilical Form
That the Laurentian Library is modelled
after the standard basilical mopnastic library is understood by
scholars to be questionable. Knowing Michelangelo's propensity for
bending the rules, it is worth considering a layout that departs
from the convension of placing desks in the side aisles of the
basilical monestic library, as was the case in San Marco and
Cesena. A puzzling letter from Fattuci states that the Pope wanted
a library with three passageways and two orders of desks separated
by an aisle in the center of the Reading Room+64. The letter goes on to request
that the ceiling be designed to reflect what was happening on the
floor. What would a furniture layout look like that utilized three
passageways, reflected the ceiling design, had enough room to
accommodate a collection of approximately 2000 books and also made
the geometric lateral pavements visible?
These needs could all be accommodated if
two rows of interlocking desks, separated by a narrow passageway,
were positioned on a wide dais in the center of the Reading Room
(Fig.
45). The
enigmatic geometric pavements would then become generous
ambulatories for the scholars to pace up and down upon. There
would be plenty of light filtering in from both ranges of windows,
set high into the side walls, that would spread a generous pool of
sunshine into the center of the room. The desks, dimensioned to
reflect the ceiling design, would measure 2 1/2 braccia (140 cms)
wide, a convenient and conventional ergonomic size for a scholar
(Fig.
46). A central
access passageway running between the desks, that also reflected
the ceiling design, would measure 1 1/2 braccia (87 cms),
providing enough room for access 65.
Returning now to the theme that the catalog system was an
intricate part of the furniture of the monastic library, a layout
in the Laurentian Library that favors desks in two lines in the
center of the Reading Room works especially well with the advanced
system of cataloging that is implicit in the 1589 inventory. At
first glance, the Laurentian Library appears to use the same
method of cataloging books that was used in San Marco, but there
are significant differences.
A wooden slat can still be found hanging
from each desk end (Fig.
47) upon which
is written the category of books, with an itemized list of each
title, to be found in that desk. The lists were compiled at the
time of the library's opening 66. By inspecting these slats and
reading through Rondinelli's
catalog of
1589, we can reconstruct the ideology guiding the cataloging
system for the library (Fig.
48).
On the east side of the Reading Room,
tucked behind the projecting entrance door, is a single desk
containing books that include the Koran, Cabala, Machiavelli and
books on Magic. It is clear to see that these subjects defy any of
the tidy categories used to order the Laurentian collection: these
books may have been placed behind the entrance door for a fair
reason for many of the titles intermittently skipped on and off
the index of forbidden books 67. The sequence
hits its stride with thirteen desks containing Italian, Latin and
Greek letters and poets, and which lead into twenty seven desks
loaded with the Latin, Greek and Hebrew Holy Fathers, after being
separated by a knot of three desks filled with Astronomy,
Geometry, Geography and Architecture- the remnants of the
Quadrivium. Thus, in the Laurentian Library, text on all known
religions, poetry and the Quadrivium have been placed to the east,
the realm of a library formerly reserved for the Holy Fathers and
matters of Christianity.
On the west side of the Reading Room the
books make the counterpart to those to the east, and they follow
the epistemological form devised by Aristotle. Across from the
poets are conveniently located texts on Grammar, Rhetoric, Oratory
and Philology - the tools of Aristotle's system. After ten desks
dedicated to History, the Aristotelian form is then continued by
the gradual introduction of Logic, through the category of
Medicine, on to Ethics, Politics and Metaphysics. It should be
added that Aristotle's books were not bound in a single
compendium, as we might find them in a book store today, but were
found in six different locations in the library, according to the
part of his epistemology that they addressed.
Thus, after climbing up the Vestibule steps, passing beneath the
lintel of the entrance to the Reading Room, the scholar is posited
at the very juncture of Sacred and Profane Knowledge 68. To the east,
after being reminded of the gristle of the Koran and the Cabala,
the naturally sacred (poetry) extends to the ethereally sacred
(the Bible) and to the west profane usefulness (reference books)
leads to ethereal profanities (philosophy). The further the
scholar penetrates down into the Reading Room the more intense the
books become until at the far end he feels the white heat of the
Pentateuch set opposite the Greek Philosophers, a physical
reversal of the sequence of the books at San Marco, where the
Bibles and pagan philosophers are situated by the entrance door.
If the east and west rows of desks had been allowed to press close
together in the center of the Reading Room, as suggested in this
layout, then the very boundaries of what was considered to be
Sacred, Pagan and Profane would be blurred to the extent that we
would be witnessing a new space of wisdom manifested through the
physical presence of the emancipated Humanistic Spirit.
Whilst the form of having the desks in this disposition would
answer many issues, it would also raise difficulties. If the side
aisles were made into generous ambulatories, then what would have
become of the wholly blank basement wall (figure 5) upon which the
pilaster and fenestration orders depend 69? If the basement order remained
blank it would run the danger of appearing as a bland anomaly, but
on the other hand to have such a vacancy would offset the vigorous
designs of the geometric pavements. One should note that
Michelangelo made a drawing (Fig.
49) for the
Reading Room Wall in 1524 in which the column order begins at
floor level - this would solve the problem.
Modifying
the Studiolo Form
The Laurentian
Library could support a furniture layout which is a hybrid of the
two types of library in existence at this time, the monastic
basilica and the studiolo. Instead of storing the books in shelves
set into interconnecting desks, it could be planned to store the
books in cupboards - the standard practice for the studiolo
library, and the system Leo X chose for his collection in Rome.
Free standing book storage cabinets of this nature are still used
in the Vatican Library today.
If the Reading Room had accommodated an arrangement of cupboards
or shelves, the geometric pavement panels would have been visible.
The panels are spaced apart by stone bands measuring a little over
1 1/2 braccia (78.5 cms); this dimension concurs with the width of
the pilasters set between the windows (figure). 1 1/2 braccia is a
generous size for a spacer of this type; the bands delineating the
pavement in the Medici Chapel are only 1/2 braccia wide and the
bands in Brunelleschi's church of San Lorenzo are 1 braccia wide.
Might it be possible that the stone band was not designed as a
spacer at all, but instead formed the base for a double fronted
book cupboard, of the type that Michelangelo is credited with
designing in his later life (figure)? If the library had utilized
book cupboards instead of a double range of monastic desks, then
each of the fifteen pavement panels would have formed a handsome
centerpiece to a series of fifteen small 'reading areas' running
down either side of the library. In the tradition of the Studiolo,
a table might be positioned on the geometric pavement, set between
the two cupboards, or positioned in the center of the Reading
Room, as was done in the 18th century (figure).
The 1 1/2 braccia wide stone band would be
a perfect width for a double fronted cabinet, with shelves
measuring 35 cms deep. For comparison, the book shelves built into
the desks of the Laurentian Library are 10 soldi 11 dinari (31.8
cms) deep, and the present steel shelves used to store the books,
that used to be in the desks, are 35 cms deep 70. A double
fronted cabinet, with or without doors, that had back to back
shelves 35 cms deep and included a 2 cm wood divider making a
total of 72 cms, would work well on the 78 cm wide bands set
between the pavement panels (figure ).
In support of the 'Studiolo scheme', the
side panels of the wooden ceiling of the Reading Room have two
very curious tabernacle forms, that seem to relate to nothing on
the ground. Could a pair of cupboards, flanking the geometric
pavement designs on the ground, relate to these two tabernacle
forms set into the ceiling panel? Naturally only part of the
aforementioned letter of the Pope, suggesting a ceiling that
reflects the floor layout, would be responded to in this proposal,
but it is the fluid nature of the design process that plucks and
discards former ideas to suit a design under consideration at any
given time.
An inherent problem of the Studiolo scheme is its lack of security
measures. If books had to be taken out of cupboards and used on
tables, they would have been subject to the same elaborate signing
in system used in libraries (particularly so in the Laurentian
Library today!). The beauty of the monastic desk system is that
the books were chained to a rail beneath the shelves (figure ), so
that readers could browse through the books at will, thus making
it a truly accessible public library.
Which
scheme?
This perilous journey through alternative
furniture configurations has been made because the layout we have
today was probably made under circumstances of great compromise.
Duke Cosimo I inherited a project that had been abandoned for
fifteen years and no doubt the only thing on his mind was to find
a way to bring it to a state of completion so that he could put
his name to it. Thus we are bound to find jarring inconsistencies
between the plans and letters of the first period of building and
the manner of its execution in the second. As it turned out the
Library was opened before the building was completed; the
Vestibule walls were not even finished until the early 20th
century, and today a canvas cloth, mounted with a huge photograph
of part of the wooden ceiling in the Reading Room, graces the
Vestibule ceiling. Perhaps it was borrowed from Peter Greenaway's
film set for Prospero's Books 71, which was filmed in a
reconstitution of the Laurentian Library!
The extant furniture layout of the Reading
Room has to be questioned, for it cannot be tolerated that the
layout blinds one of the most fascinating components of this
library, the geometric pavement. In the spirit of compromise which
no doubt prevailed during the second cycle of construction, with a
book collection that had probably swollen well beyond the limits
of the original specification, and the cancellation of the Rare
Book Room, it is likely that there was little option but to
increase the size of the desks and put them in the side aisles,
even if it covered over the geometric pavements, for something had
to give. But if this was the case then why would the pavements
have been laid at all, and why were common terra-cotta tiles not
put down as was done in the Vestibule, and in the Cesena Library?
The Medici account book covering the years
between 1548 and 1552, during the second period of building,
carefully documents the laying of the geometric pavement between
1548 and 1550 but makes no mention of the manufacture and firing
of the terra-cotta tiles 72. However the
account book describes payments for clay, and wood (for firing the
terra-cotta) for the central pavement, made in 1550. The Lateral
Pavement may have been designed and manufactured during the first
period of construction between 1523 and 1534, and because it was
available, Duke Cosimo decided to have it put it in place, even
though he knew that it would never be seen. Unfortunately the
previous account book is missing, which would have helped to
verify this.
To attach much importance to any given
letter or drawing, and expect it to justify a given scenario will
only lead to tears, for the documentation, abundant though it is,
is in contradiction with what exists on the ground. Furniture
layouts based upon the basilica and studiolo forms have been
proposed here with one thing in mind: to look for any way to allow
the pavement to be seen and walked on. The slurry of artifactual
evidence, documentary evidence and the evidence of a hypothetical
proposal are all transitory: the process of design and history is
so fluid that one given scenario can interlock with others posited
at different times, making an intangible web. It is now necessary
to examine the evidence, the pavement itself, because the
definition of its geometry is highly articulate and very reliable.
Although it is seemingly mute, having neither voice nor text, it
may be able to answer some of the intractable questions rased
above, through the clear diction and intention of its geometric
structure.
It has already been mentioned that
libraries turned to 'pictorial catalogs' to illuminate the
organization of a collection by making allegorical or textual
reference to categories of books in the stained glass windows,
furniture carvings and wall frescoes. Why then does the Laurentian
Library have no allegorical road map to steer the patron to the
categories of books 73? The thirty
stained glass windows in the library do have allegorical scenes,
many of which are different. The eighty eight desk ends are carved
with several different scenes that are repeated in a variegated
sequence. Do the stained glass windows and desk carvings indicate
some bibliographic order similar to those pictorial catalogs found
in other libraries? The third realm where the pictorial catalog
traditionally resided in a library was the building fabric itself,
and it may well be that the geometric pavement goes some way in
responding to this tradition. Because of the changes in the
Laurentian Library during its 48 year construction and
assembly, the furniture that was finally
put in place may bear little resemblance to what was first
planned. However there is a faint hint of a reciprocity evident
between the inferred subject matter of a few panels and the
placement of specific categories of books nearby 74. If a clear
relationship could be found to exist between the subject matter of
the pavement and the categories of the books placed adjacent to
them, then the Library will hit even harder than it does today.
Whilst a pictorial catalog would be a great addition to this
library, it is unlikely that the pavement is a pictorial catalog;
it is more probable that the sequence of fifteen panels forms a
'text' unto itself.
To help establish the idea of the pavement
being a textual reference, imagine being a scholar in this library
- at a time when its furniture is reconfigured to reveal both
pavements. The scholar is studying Plato, Alexandrius, Theodosius
and Thomas Aquinas in order to come to terms with the notion of
Incommensurability. Would it not be delightful to take a break
from study and gaze at a nearby geometric panel and realize that
the geometric forms were a modern interpretation a of the age old
difficulty of incommensurability 75? If the
pavement responded to the scholar's eyes as it would their feet,
than it fleshes out the architectural responsibilities of the
Library that illuminate the difference between a work of building
and a work of architecture.
A
Codex for Mannerism
Architecture is at its happiest when it
has a hugely difficult task to undertake, when it can find the
chance to sing out and use its full spectrum to mull over the
intricacies of a program and resolve it severally. Geometry, the
hidden organizer of thought, is just one part of the symphonic
blast that architecture can muster, but it does little by itself.
The majesty to the Laurentian Library is its entirety: the visitor
can witness its organizing principles - felt through geometry and
iconography, and is awestruck by the fiscal spectacle of its
complex fabric. Room is made for the visitor to wonder on the
immense power of the collection of books that the building stores.
The Laurentian Library is a fitting
receptacle for this particular collection of books which is
recognized to be the polished mirror of 16th century intellectual
life in Italy. The library building provides the collection with a
substantive jarring of what we expect from physicality, it sets up
a material frenzy of paradox and doubt, hidden within facades of
apparent normality. Were the scholar to gaze at the walls of the
Reading Room for any length of time he would find that there is no
predominant
surface to the
structure. The boundary between inside and out grates between the
interior plane of the pilasters, the leaded glass window, and the
outside wall: the entire building is an apparition of surface
modulation.
The spatial conundrums, paradoxes and
errancies of the building fabric transfer into the geometry and
mensuration of the pavement with equal verve. Thus it comes as no
surprise to find that the apparent raggedness that characterizes
each panel of the lateral pavement turns out to be a ruthlessly
accurate and wholly premeditated interpretation of Antique
geometry that simultaneously endorses the philosophical issues of
the day. It is fitting that this visual and pediahaptic test of
intellectual limits would take place in a building given over to
the assembly of a body of knowledge. The structural import of the
panels would have left their rightful place under the pondering
footsteps of the scholars and become induced into the body through
walking. Instead of being written as a text, this 'Codex of the
Mannerist Spirit' is indelibly cut into the floor for bodily
consumption.
The unusual geometry of the pavement is
consistent with aspects of errancy found in the Laurentian Library
that have been identified by scholars. In the final section of
Wittkower's essay on the Laurentian Library 76, he discusses
the building in terms of its contribution to Mannerism: he settles
on identifying the building with four essential ideas:
ambiguity,
duality of function, inversion and permutation. In his book Michelangelo and the Language of
Art
77, David Summers further defines
the arena in which Mannerism grew by showing that Michelangelo was
working with themes well understood at the time. Summers' chapters
on Furia,
Stupore, Difficulta, Terribila, and Quality and the giudoizio
dell'occhio
elucidate the principles of Mannerism that Wittkower establishes
in his essay. When the pavement is considered in the context of
these writings describing the essence of Mannerism, it becomes
evident that the author of the pavement may well be addressing the
same issues they write on in a cryptic text of his own that makes
the phrase "secret art of geometry 78" for once
understandable.
The Artist's
Text
The artist, in differentiation from the
historian, chooses to actively deduce the Spirit of the Age
79 by presenting
an outpouring of thought that it is not delineated by the
contractual difficulties of the written statement. Artists have
frequently tried to elucidate their vision by writing manuals on
technique and formulating tips for procedures, leading the reader
right up to the brink of creation. To help clarify the mystery of
art, Alberti 80, Leonardo da Vinci 81and Durer 82 all chose to
write about the mechanisms of art making.
When an artist engages in figurative work
for any length of time, there ultimately comes the inner need to
take stock and evaluate the fidget of the figurative realm and
reduce it to its essence. A search is made to find a way of
working that can address the substance of the chatter and abstract
it to its essence. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the place for
this natural evolution of the creative spirit was in the practice
of geometry and architecture, a realm of the senses in which
artistic values are reapportioned to numeric and geometric values
that form an essential and verifiable text. Serlio identified
Bramante-the-painter, Raphael-the-painter and Gulio
Romano-the-Painter as artists who eventually turned to geometry
and architecture 83.
The innate need of the artist to find a
vent for ordering the unruly figurative world in which they work
is equally evident today, and has been a constant theme in 20th
century art. The artist/architects Le Corbusier, El Lissitsky and
Mondrian all sensed the need to audit their artistic production
with architectural activity of both a constructed and textural
nature. One wonders what would have happened if the natural path,
which led artists to become architects, had been the standard
operating system for the 20th century. Russian Constructivism
would have been a precursor for a building spree the size of the
WPA, and Picasso, Klee, Ernst and Duchamp might have engineered an
architectural movement that would have bypassed painterly
abstraction and simultaneously provided the opportunity to deal
directly in the public realm.
Practicing architects of this decade,
including Hejduk, Eisenmann and Libeskind, have made evident the
tender balence between the abstract arts of philosophy,
mathematics and physics set against the outward rush of the Spirit
of the Age characterised by the passage of our daily travails, a
theme that continues to be adressed 84. The poise
struck between the abstract and the figurative is a constant theme
in art: its resolution has been, and still is, profoundly sited in
geometry and architecture.
In the context of an
artist having an inner need to reconfigure his thought into a
verifiable system, it would make sense that at some point during
Michelangelo's career he would have spent time coming to grips
with his thoughts on numerology, geometry, ratio and proportion:
to have had the opportunity to design the pavement would have
served this end perfectly. Speculating, for one moment, that
Michelangelo was responsible for the pavement, perhaps the panels
form the treatise on numerology that Condivi hoped Michelangelo
would commit to 85. Had Condivi visited the
pavement and looked down at the thirteenth panel, the Mask Panel,
he might have seen an aping face laughing at him, whilst hiding
the phantom codex within the grout of the tiles 86. If
Michelangelo had written his codex in words then there would be no
difficulty in pointing to his system of thinking. But, if he wrote
his codex in geometric lines then it takes a little longer to make
a translation, even though geometry is a more precise language
than writing. This text would then have readily served as the base
for his architectural designs, which incidentally have an uncanny
similarity to the panels, as has already been pointed out.
The Author
The author of the geometric pavement is
understood to be Tribolo, based upon the word of Vasari
87. Vasari
writes that Tribolo "...involved himself in making the pavement of
the library out of red and white tiles, similar to certain
pavements that he had seen in Rome; but he added to it a filling
of red earth into the white mixed with bolo (a red mineral) to make a variety of
inlays out of these tiles; and so in this pavement he reflected
all the ceiling and soffit above." The center aisle responds to
this description and is made of the materials he speaks of. But
the geometric pavement is not made of these materials: chemical
analysis shows that the lateral pavements are terra-cotta alone,
and have no bolo inlay (Fig.
50)
88. Positive
test results from the chemists hands cannot prove who designed the
pavement, yet scientific evidence puts in doubt the traditional
attribution given by Vasari, who is known to be loose with the
concept of footnote.
For centuries Michelangelo has come across
as a figure who has defied quantification: he still remains on the
run despite the noble attempts to track down his spirit. Although
Pirini's essay, linking the structure of his Madrigals to the
proportioning system of the Library, goes some way in looking
forgenetic blueprint of his method, it fell short of conviction
because the measurements of the building she utilized were too
hazy to be authoritative 89. If
Michelangelo had formulated the geometric pavement then it would
better serve as an accurate blueprint to his ideas on geometry and
numerology, for a geometric pavement is very much like a scale
drawing, every line is dimensioned and is verifiable: it has the
potential to reveal, quantitatively and qualitatively, the manner
in which the designer thinks about things.
Real
Bookworms
Meanwhile the pavement rests beneath the
lumber of the dais and desks. The strictures of the geometry of
each panel cannot be fully verified until the desks are
temporarily moved, for the new measurements of the panels noted
here are only partial 90. Moving the desks would be
difficult but not impossible(Fig.51): it has taken the threat of
bombardment from above and gravitational instabilities from below
to dispel the desks out of the Reading Room twice this century. Is
it too much to ask to do it again, not on the pretext of war or
reconstruction but this time for scholars - for whom the building
was first intended? Now that the building has been denatured, by
removing the books from the shelves, it is the most opportune time
in the history of the building to treat the Library as a document,
in which the floor is a plane upon which secrets of the age are
incised.
Should this request fail, then we might
have to turn to lowly friends at work in the pine wood subflooring
of the dais, who are slowly chewing their way through the wooden
dais. On each of the three measuring forays made to the library,
the progress of the worms eating the trapdoor beneath desk 79 has
been checked, and each time the pyramid of dust from their bore
hole gets a little higher (Fig.
52). The entire
wood sub-flooring is made out of cheap lumber - no doubt scavenged
after World War II when the desks were reinstalled. It is riddled
with worm holes, and parts of it fall away to touch 91. The worms have now started in
on the floorboards (some are originals, but most of them are
ordinary deal boards, scarred up from being run through a machine
planer with a nicked blade). Once the worms have digested their
pine wood fast-food, perhaps they will start in on the ash wood
desks.
If the cause of scholarship and the
unraveling of this bizarre mystery story are not enough to open up
the floor one more time this century, then the practicalities of
ridding the Laurentian Library of bugs by refurbishing the dais
sub-structure in the interests of preserving a National Monument
might be a more reasonable solution. Until then book worms, enjoy
your meal!
Figures
Fig.
I The Laurentian
Library geometric pavement revealed beneath the desks
(montage)
Fig.
2 The
architectonic weight of the vestibule. (photo: Alinari
PIN1906)
Fig.
3 Reading Room
with furniture. (photo: Bib. Laur. #22299a)
Fig.
4 The passageway
to the Rotunda (photo: Contardi pl.135)
Fig.
5 The Reading Room
without furniture, 1928 (photo: Bib. Laur. #b15606)
Fig.
6 Biscioni's
trapdoors in the dais (photo: Nicholson)
Fig.
7 Biscioni's
engraving of the pavement (Biscioni, Pl IV)
Fig.
8 Plan of the
lateral pavement from the Scholtz Sketchbook (photo: Met.N.Y. #
49.92.90.Recto)
Fig.
9 Plan of
Laurentian Vestibule, from Rossi, Pl. I (photo: Art Institute of
Chicago)
Fig.10 Fallaceous pavement designs of
Stegmann & Geymuller, Band VIII, Bl.8 (photo: Art Institute of
Chicago)
Fig.11 Photographs of the pavement from
the Laurentian Library archive.
Fig.12 The desks being removed during WW
II (photo: Bib. Laur.)
Fig.13 Durer's studies of tiled
pavements. (Netherlands Sketchbook, 13 verso)
Fig.14 Ceiling and garden designs,
(Serlio, S. On architecture Bk.IV)
Fig.15 The Sacred Cut revisited: The
pavement of the Baptistery of San Giavanni, Florence by Kim
Williams
Fig.16 The Shrine of the Holy Sepulchter,
Cappella Rucellai, S. Pancrazio, Alberti (photo: Borsi, Pg.82)
Fig.17 The fifteen geometric panels in
the attic order of the facade of S.M.Novella, Alberti (photo: Borsi,
Pg.70)
Fig.18 Tomb marker of Cosimo de 'Medici
in S. Lorenzo, Verrocchio (photo: McKillop, fig.14)
Fig.19 The Cosmatesque pavement in the
Sistine Chapel
Fig.20 The Sistine Chapel pavement
(Camesasca & Ettore)
Fig.21 The fifteen goemetric pavement
panels on the west side. Photo: Bib. Laur. 43101-43112, 43098-9,
33100)
Fig.22 Panel 2. Painting by Blake Summers
(photo: Gerry Henderson)
Fig.23 Rosette design in the Florence
Baptistery: the geometric construction (photo: Alinari No
1888)
Fig.24 Panel 2: geometric construction.
(Drg. Hisano & Wibisono)
Fig.25 Panel 7. Painting by Blake Summers
(photo: Ralph Schopen)
Fig.26 Geometric panel in the Lower
church of St. Francis in Assisi.
Fig.27 Geometric Construction of Panel 7,
by Wayne Bock
Fig.28 Panel 14. Painting by Blake
Summers (photo: Gerry Henderson)
Fig.29 Geometric construction of Panel
14, by David Tsevat)
Fig.30 A figure and proportional scale,
after Michelangelo, related to the geometric structure of the Panel
14 (Nicholson)
Fig.31 The Platonic Lambda (S.Georgio, G.
Riesch)
Fig.32 A Durer, 'Body of a Child' Dover
Books.
Fig.33 The 4 gold rings of the Medici
Coat of Arms. (photo: Alinari PIN 1910)
Fig.34 San Marco Library, Florence,
1440.
Fig.35 San Marco: catalog system
(Nicholson)
Fig.36 The Malatesta Library at Cesena
1477. (L.Baldacchini, pg.88)
Fig.37 Studiolo in the Urbino Ducal
Palace, Urbino.
Fig.38 The Laurentian Library within the
church complex at S. Lorenzo, Florence
Fig.39 Plan of San Lorenzo complex (after
W. and E. Paatz)
Fig.40 The Latin and Greek Libraries of
the Imperial Forum, 107-113 AD (drawing: Rome Blue Guide
pg.102)
Fig.41 Composite of three early drawings
showing how the library might have been planned at an early
stage.
Fig.42 Wooden Dias beneath the desks of
the Cesena Library (L.Baldacchini pg.95)
Fig.43 Drawing of interlocking desks
(photo: Casa Buonarroti 94A)
Fig.44 The desks being removed during
WWII (photo: Bib. Laur.)
Fig.45 A proposal for the Reading Room
utilizing three passageways and two lines of desks (montage
Nicholoson)
Fig.46 A library desk for one book,
fabricated in the 19th century (photo: Bib.Laur.)
Fig.47 The book security system of the
Laurentian Library (Clark, 144.5)
Fig.48 Laurentian Library catalog system,
circa 1589. (Nicholson)
Fig.49 Reading Room, interior elevation
study (photo: Casa Buonarroti 42A)
Fig
50 Mineralogical
analysis of the geometric pavement in the Laurentian Library. (photo:
Spampinato)
Fig.51 The desks being removed for safe
keeping during WWII (photo: Bib.Laur.)
Fig.52 Top: Worm pilings from active
woodworm in the Dias.
Bottom: Worm damage to original ash desks and 20th century pine
subflooring (photo:Potz)
Notes
1 Biscioni, A.M. Bibliotecae Ebraicae,
Graecae, Florentinae: Bibliothecae Mediceo (Florence 1752-7), 34-35.
Biscioni's introduction to his catalog of the book collection gives a
good history of the formation of the Library and includes the story
of his discovery of the lateral pavements.
2 Rossi, G.I. La Libraria Medicea Laurenziana,
Architettura di Michelangelo Buonarotti (Florence 1727-39).
3
Stegmann,
C.M.R.von, & Geymuller, H.von Die Architektura der Renaissance in
Toscana (Munich 1904), vol.VIII, see Plate 8.
4
Schiavo, A.
Michelangelo Architetto (Rome 1949), fig.36. "This motive, bearing
the Medecean arms in the center, anticipates Michelangelo's drawing
for the pavement of the Piazza del Campigdoglio. Goldscheider, L.
Michelangelo: Paintings, Sculpture, Architecture (London 1962), Plate
XII. The plate includes panel 2, the Campigdoglio, and extant rosette
pavement designs and pavements.
De Angelis d'Ossat, G. The Complete Works of Michelangelo (New York
1964), Pg.363-365 "I cannot resist drawing a connection between this
contaminated representation of circles and crosses, and the intricate
design of one of the late pavement panels of the Laurentian Library
(Fig. 193), in which the same design of the plan is effectively
geometricised.
5
Catalano, M.A. Il
Pavimento della Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana (Florence 1992), Pages
28-31. An argument is put foreward stating that Tribolo designed the
panels, and suggests that they are based upon engravings found in The
Five Books of Architecture of Sebastiano Serlio.
6 Wittkower, R. Michelangelo's Biblioteca
Laurenziana, in Idea and Image (London 1978) Pg.55, reprinted from
The Art Bulletin, Vol XVI, 1934.
7 I am deeply grateful to the directors of the
Laurentian Library who have helped this project in every possible
manner. Dott. Morandini generously permitted extraordinary access to
the pavement and Dott. Lenzuni has permitted further extensive
measuring privileges. Together, with Dott. Dillon and Dott. Viccario,
they have been invaluable critics who have advanced and countered
every foray into this investigation with great patience and
exactitude.
8 Alberti, L. trans. by Rykwert, J. (1988), On
the Art of Building in Ten Books, pg.220, Bk.VII Ch.10 v124-126
9 I am endebted to the late Robin Evans who
pointed out the similarities between the Pavement and Serlio's plates
in 1987.
10
For fear of the
smell, it might be wiser to follow his footsteps, for the story goes
that Michelangelo had the reputation of sleeping in his boots. His
servant once pulled them off and the skin of his feet came with them!
Rolf where is this story?
11
"According to
Bocchi in 1571, later repeated by Richa and Lalande, the pavement of
the choir of S.M. Fiore was done from a design form Michelangelo".
Salmi, Mario and Guglio De Angelis D'Ossat, The Complete Works of
Michelangelo, Novara, 1967, pg.513
12 The plan of the walls and pavement frame
layout has been found to accord to the Sacred Cut. Williams, Kim,
"The Sacred Cut Revisited: The Pavement of the Baptistery of San
Giovanni, Florence" The Mathematical Intelligencer Vol.16 #2 1994
pp.18-24. See also Evans, Robin "Translations from Drawing to
Building", A.A.Files 12 1986, pp.11-14, for an examination of
Philibert de l'Orme's pavement of the Royal Chapel, Anet.
13 Borsi, Franco, Leon Battista Alberti, The
Complete Works, New York 1989, pg.74 & 79.
14 Ames-Lewis, F. ed: Cosimo 'il Vecchio' de'
Medici, 1389-1464. Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary
of Cosimo de' Medici's Birth. McKillop, Susan, "Dante and Lumen
Christi: A Proposal for the Meaning of the Tomb of Cosimo de' Medici"
OAP1992 pp 245-291. The Tomb has designs in it that are similar to
Laurentian Panels #13 and #15.
15 Bartoli, M.T., Un pavimento Neoplatonico, in
C. Acidini Luchinat, Benozzo Gozzoli, La Cappella dei Magi, 1994,
pp.25-28.
16
Hutton, Edward,
The Cosmati: The Roman Marble Workers of 12th Century, London, 1950.
17 Check with Kim Williams to see if she has
published this.
18
Rolf, any
ideas?Camesasca, Salvini & Ettore, Roberto, The Sistine Chapel,
xxxx, 1965, also check Steinmann, Ernst, Die Sixtinische Kapelle, 2
vols, Munich, 1901.?
19
An investigation
was made by students of the College of Architecture at IIT, Chicago
in 1992 to determine whether a system of proportioning was evident in
the Laurentian Library. Nate Lindsay identified The Golden Mean to be
present in the north wall of the Reading Room, and Linda Liegh
developed the idea, investigating the presence of the Golden Mean as
an ordering system that Michelangelo used extensively in his works.
20
The Panels are
numbered, starting at the south end of the Reading Room. Each Panel
is also named by the author to make them easy to identify; the name
relates to the dominant theme expressed in the design.
21 In the center of the Medici panel is an
emblemata of Duke Cosimo de Medici's insigna. Cosimo 1 assumed power
in 1537 and took for his insigna the six Medici palli. The upper
center palli is inscribed with the Fleur de Lys given to Piero di
Cosimo in 1465 by Louis XI of France. Above the crown is a five
pointed Ducal Crown and below the Palli, on the white ring, is the
Order of the Golden Fleece that Cosimo received in July 1545. The two
curved forms, composed of C shapes to the left and right of the palli
might be the Medici Laurels (broncone), dolphins, the chain for the
Golden Fleece, or an amalgam of all three.
22 I am endebted to David Farrel Krell for
pointing the presence of the Tectractys in Panel 5.
23
Cox Rearick, Janet
Pearson, Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art, Princeton, 1984, pg.179.
24 Catalana's spends much time on making the
link between the masks in Tribolo's sculpture and those of the
central pavement in the Laurentian Library. She makes no reference to
the mask in Panel 13, whose physiognamy is closer to Michelangelo's
mask than it is to Tribolo's.
25
The Florentine
Braccio measures .5836 meters. It is divided into 20 soldi and each
soldo is divided into 12 dinari, thus the braccio is divided into 240
parts which permits the decimal and duodecimal system to operate. The
braccio has the advantage over both the decimal and duodecimal
systems as it can express in whole number measurement 1/2 (10 soldi),
1/3 (6 soldi 8 dinari), 1/4 (5 soldi), 1/5 (4 soldi), 1/6 (3 soldi 4
dinari), 1/8 (2 soldi 6 dinari), 1/10 (2 soldi), & 1/12 (1 soldo
8 dinari). This permits ratios and measuration to have a common mean
which otherwise would have to be expressed in irrational divisions of
measurement; for example a ratio of 20:21 can be expressed as 4
braccia by 4 braccia 4 soldi (4 1/5th braccia). A measurement of 4
braccia 19 soldi and 11 dinari is written as b4 s19.11 (the point is
not a decimal point but shorthand for dinaro).
26
During the past
decade there has been a renewed interest in architectural geometries
and their cosmological sigmificance. Kieth Kritchlow reopened the
field of Islamic geometries and the late Robin Evans dedicated his
time to investigating Western Architectural Geometries. More recently
Kim Williams is preparing a book on Italian pavements, and Steven
Wander has been investigating the great Westminster Abbey Sanctury
Pavement.
27 The Medici Panel has been co-investigated by
6 students during the past eight years. I am endebted to Karen
Taylor, Brandon Diamond, Timothy Burke, Veronica Parvaz, Songjin
Choi, and Melanie Langwort whom have advanced every aspect of the
panel's geometry.
28 The difference in the ratios are slight but
significant. Great care has been taken to differentiate masons error
from geometric errancy. The team has taken into account three
variables when proposing a 'pure' measurement handed down from the
architect. They are: 1) mason's error, 2) settling of the building,
3) obstacles & peculiarities of the site. The archaeological
standard of a 2% error has been adhiered to when making a statement
without recourse to a footnote, but the critical dimensions have
varied by less than 1%. The proposed and actual dimensions, with
percentage errors, of the two panels are as follows; the stretching
of the long axis may be due to the spreading of the floor.
Long axis Short axis Proposed design b4 s5 d0 b3 s18 d10 West Panel
b4 s5 d4 (+0.6%) b3 s19 d3 (+0.5%) East Panel b4 s5 d10 (+1.0%) b3
s18 d10 (0.0%)
29
The only known
method of doing this is to wrap a flexible measuring stick around the
circumference, straighten the stick, subdivide it, then rewrap the
stick and transfer the divisions onto the arc.
30 Serlio, op.cit. Book 1, Chapter 1 Folio 8v,
10v
31 I am endebted to Julie Wheeler, who helped
interrogate Panel 7 (and 12) at the S.O.M. Foundation, Chicago, and
George Krassas (U. of Illinois) and Wayne Bock (IIT).
32 The proposed measurements have been taken
from a 20% sample of one panel, conducted by Wayne Bock of IIT.
33
Compare with the
method of exhaustion, described in Euclid Book VII, in which the area
of a circle is successively inscribed with polygons. Kline, M.,
Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times Vol.I, pg.83, 1972
34
The size of a
13:14 frame ratio is within 1/2% of a frame composed by bisecting the
hypotenuse of the star's triangular point. Over the 4 1/4 braccia
length of the panel, the 13:14 frame is only 6d (13mm) longer than a
frame composed by bisecting the extreme sides of the star
35 Choulant, L. History and Bibliography of Anatomic Illustration
Trans. Mortimer, Frank, New York 1962. pg.**
36
Plato, The Timeaus
pg.1172, 43c - 43e, of Hamilton, E., Plato, The collected Dialogues.
Previous to this, section 42e -43b discusses the making of the body
out of fire, earth, water and air, which is then welded with "little
pegs too small to be visible......so that the whole animal was moved
and progressed irregularily however and irrationally and anyhow, in
all the six directions of motion...." These values are also present
in the design.
37
Condivi, A. (1553)
The Life of Michelangelo trans. Wohl, A.S. and edited by Wohl, H.
Baton Rouge 1976. Pg. 97-98. ' It is quite true that when he
[Michelangelo] gave it [anatomy] up he was so learned and rich in
knowledge of that science that he has often in mind to write a
treatise, as a service to those who want to work in sculpture and
painting, on all manner of human movements and appearances and on the
bone structure, with a brilliant theory which he arrived at through
long experience... I know very well that, when he reads Albrecht
Durer, he finds his work very weak, seeing in his mind how much more
beautiful and useful in the study of this subject his own conception
would have been. And to tell the truth, Albrecht discusses only the
proportions and varieties of human bodies, for which no fixed rule
can be given, and he forms his figures straight upright like poles;
as to what is important, the movements and gestures of human beings,
he says not a word'.
38
During the
investigation of the fifteen panels, it has been found that the form
of the Cross is invariably composed from interconnecting grids,
ratios and irrational numbers.
39
O'Gorman, F. The
Architecture of the Monastic Library in Italy 1300 -1600 (1972), see
plate 13.
40
Leo X made a
provision that books should be examined by local religious bodies
before approval, but only in 1548 (Council of Trent) was this made
stringent: Paul IV ordered a catalog of forbidden things to be drawn
up, and this was first published in 1559. Dee, D. "Index of
Prohibited Books", New Catholic Encyclopaedia, VII, Pg. 434-5.
(Washington 1967).
41
The inventory of
the San Marco collection was completed in 1450. Ullman, B. &
Stadter, P.A. The Public Library of Renaissance Florence: Niccolo
Niccoli, Cosimo de' Medici and the Library of San Marco (Padua 1972)
42 Cheles, L. The Studiolo of Urbino: An
Iconographic Investigation (Penn State 1986).
43 Spencer, J. Filarete's Treatise on
Architecture (Yale 1965), Vol I, Pg.325.
44
I am indebted to
Mr. Kimball Brooker for directing me to the specifics of the
pictorial catalog.
45
See pg.6 of The
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence 1983.
46
Masson, A. (1972)
The Pictorial Catalogue, pg.12-14.
47
Wallace, W.
Michelangelo at San Lorenzo (Cambridge 1994), Pg.9.
48
Salmon, F. 'The
Site of Michelangelo's Laurentian Library', J.S.A.H. Vol.XLIX, No.4,
Dec 1990, Pgs.407-429.
49
Salmon, Pg. 420
note 55.
50
This drawing is
made to the scale of 1 1/2 braccia (b1s10) to 1 soldo (1:30). On the
narrow side of the drawing the center to center dimension between the
white bands, that represent the roof beams set above pilasters in the
wall below, is 8 3/4 braccia (b8s15). At this stage of the design
process, if the length of the Reading Room was the same as the built
dimension (B79 S1.4), then the bay system in the drawing divides the
Reading Room into almost exactly nine bays, the difference between
the two dimensions is only S6.4 (18.5cms) over the length of the
Reading Room. This drawing could have been the one referred to by
Fattucci in his letter of 13 April 1524, in which he comments that he
considers the span of the bay was too wide to be practical, and
therefore unbuildable. The possibility of building a nine bay library
would not have been unusual at that time. Medieval libraries had used
Basilical form structures, separated into three aisles and there are
examples of libraries built before 1520 that are 6,7,9,10,11 and 12
bays long. The Laurentian Library belongs within this tradition and
could perfectly well have used a 9 bay system.
51
Il Carteggio di
Michelangelo,ed. P. Barocchi and R. Ristori, 5 vols., Florence,
1965-1983, vol.III, p.95, DCLV, 2 Aug.1524 (Fattucci to Michelangelo)
52
Carteggio, vol.
III, letter DCXLV.(The three aisled letter.) <
53
The archival
researches for the project have been undertaken by Dr. Rolf Bagemihl,
who is developing an independent but parallel research on an overview
of Renaissance Library Organisation. Dr.Bagemihl is trying to
establish subject areas and dates within which acquisitions
mushroomed during the formation of the Laurentian Library collection.
54
For Piero's
Library: F. Ames-Lewis The Library and Manuscripts of Piero di Cosimo
de' Medici, NY, 1984.
55
See note 10.
56
M. Lenzuni, "Dalla
Medicea privata alla Libraria di S. Lorenzo," in G. Cavallo, ed., Il
Luoghi della Memoria Scritta: Manoscritti, incunaboli, libri a stampa
di Biblioteche Statali Italiane (Rome 1994), p.124. She notes that a
copy of the inventory was once in the Palazzo Vecchio; the extant
copies are in the Vatican (ms. Barbn. lat. 3185, lat. 7134). The
importance of this ms. was recognised independently, and R. Bagemihl
transcribed the Greek list, totaling 420 volumes, in 1993. For the
redacter of the inventory, see M.-H. Laurent, Fabio Vigili et les
bibliotheques de Bologne (Vatican City,1943).
57
Alvisi, E., ed.,
Index Bibliotecae Medicea (Florence 1882)
58
Rondinelli, N.
Manuscript of the inventory made on 21 August 1589. Ms.Laur. plut.
92-94.
59
Bandini, A.M.
Catalogus codicum Latinorum Bibliotechae Mediceae Laurentianae
(Florence 1774-78) vols. 1-5.
60
Biscioni, A.M.
Bibliothecae ebraicae, graecae, florentinae: sive Bibliothecae
mediceo-laurentianae catalogus. (Florence 1752-57)
61
BNCF, Magl.
II.III.354, ex Magliab. xxv.84.
62
Vitrivius, The Ten
Books of Architecture (New York 1960), Bk. VII Ch.I.4. Vitrivius
describes the method of giving a burnt brick pavement its final
grinding.
63
Catalana. Note
159. Catalana suggests that the dais might have been a socle,
(presumably like the example in Cesena).
64
See note 17 (The
three aisled letter).
65
The tread widths
of the spiral staircases that link the book galleries to the reading
room in Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris are about 65 cms. wide.
66
Rolf,was this
noted in Bandini?
67
I am grateful to
David Farrell Krell for having pointed this out, as well as a host of
other acute observations.
68
Dr. Rolf Bagemihl
is of the opinion that the visitor enters the Reading Roon at the
crux of a U shaped progression of knowledge, rather than at the
beginning of two parallel sequences.
69
I am prompted by
Andrew Morrough to come to terms with this issue.
70
Dott. Angela
Dillon was kind enough to show me the present method of storing the
books that were formerly in the desks.
71
Greenaway, P.,
director of Prospero's Books (1991).Get from Arizona the title of
greenaways book on the making of the movie
72
Medici Account
Book 'B' (1548-52) , Archivo di Stato, Florence. The account book
details the weeky payments to workers as well as the tasks they were
performing. For a period of three weeks, between Nov. 16th 1549 and
Dec. 7th 1549, preparations for the laying of the side pavements were
made by masons, stonecutters, and laborers. On Monday Dec. 9th 1549
work began on installing the pavement for a perion of 21 weeks until
Saturday May 2nd 1550. Payments were made during this time to two
masons, two stone cutters, and two laborers: this indicates that
there was propably a three man team working on each length of
pavement and, in effect, they paced each other until the two sides
were completed.
The acccounts then document a perplexing occurance that poses
questions concerning the relation of the middle and lateral
pavements. The middle pavement was constructed almost immediately
after the side pavements were finished. In fact building materials,
in the form of clay, were ordered for the middle pavement on April
26th 1550 (CVIII.4), a month before the last record is entered for
work done on the side pavements. By June 7th, 1550 work had begun in
ernest on the middle pavement, when 'masters in clay' were added to
the work team (121.4). Payments for the middle pavement were
concluded on Feb 9th, 1555 (Book D, XCVII.1). It is curious that as
soon as the side pavements were completed, work began so soon on the
middle pavement. This may suggest that at sometime between 1548 and
1550 a decision was made not to use the side pavements.
73
Had the Laurentian
Vestibule included sculptures in the tabernacles, as was planned,
then the visitor would have had some clue as to what to expect from
the building, for there is little doubt that they would have had all
the allegorical trappings appropriate to this domain of scholastic
revelation. The frieze of famous men in the upper part of the
Studiolo of Urbino serves as a model for this proposal (see Cheles,
pp.35-52).
74
The Old and New
Testiment Bibles (desks 1-5) and the Greek Metaphysicians (desks
85-87) are positioned over the Cross Panel (#1) and the Cosimo Panel
(#2). Books on Greek and Latin Astronomy (desks 28-30) are almost on
top of the Horoscope Panel which is positioned beneath desks 30-32.
The Latin poets are situated on top of Panel 3, which has a pair of
curious grimacing masks on it, a traditional symbol for the theatre.
There are also a surprising number of categories still in existence
in the 1571 layout that use three desks - the width of a panel.
Hebrew, Astronomy, Medicine, Greek Grammar & Oratory, and Letters
are all allocated three desks; this represents six of the sixteen
categories that were present in 1571. These alignments may be the
remnants of an earlier layout that considered the pavement as a
response to the categories of books in the collection.
75
Sample
measurements have been made of the East and West Panels #2 and #14,
and it appears that their geometric structure differs slightly
between the panels of these two pairs.
76
Wittkower, Rudolf,
'Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana'. Art Bulletin, XVI, 1934,
pp.123-218. Reprinted in Idea and Image, London, 1978, see pp.58-67.
77
Summers, David,
Michelangelo and the Language of Art, Princeton, 1981.
78
Serlio's opening
sentence of the First Book of Architecture, entreating Geometry,
stresses the importance of the Secret Art of Geometry. "How needful
and necessary the most secret Art of Geometry is for every Articifer
and Workman, as those that for a long time have studied and wrought
without the same can sufficiently witness, who since that time have
attained unto any knowledge of the said art, do not only laugh and
smile at their own former simplicities, but in truth may very well
acknowledge that all whatsoever had been formerly done by them, was
not worth the looking on." Serlio, Sebastiano The Five Books of
Architecture, 1611. Reprint, New York, 1982, Book 1, folio1r.
79
This is a term
developed by Mies Van Der Rohe, "Just as we acquainted outselves with
materials and just as we must also understand the nature of our
goals, we must also learn about the spiritual position in which we
stand. No cultural activity is possible otherwise; for also in these
matters we must know what is, because we are dependent on the spirit
of our time". Inaugural Address as Director of Architecture at Armour
Institute of Technology , 1938, Mies van der Rohe. Neumeyer, Fritz,
The Artless Word, 1991.
80
Alberti, Leon B.
On Painting, translated by J.Spenser, New Haven, 1966.
81
Leonardo Da Vinci,
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci Reprint New York, 1970. See Vol.1
pp.242-254. I. Moral Precepts for the Student of Painting.
82
Durer, Albrecht,
The Painter's Manual 1525, Edited by W.Strauss, New York, 1987.
83
Serlio, op.cit.
Book II, frontspiece v.
84
Don Bates recently
held a symposium On Geometry at LOPSIA, Briey en Foret, France 1994.
85
Condivi, op.cit.
note 67.
86
Rolf is this
strictly true? Catalano missed the mask present in Panel 13, which
would have aided her argument that Tribolo authored the pavement,
however Michelangelo has his own tradition of incorporating the mask
into his sculpture and freize decoration.
87
This reference was
made and kindly translated by James Ackerman. Vasari,G. Le Vitae. Ed.
Milanesi vol. I p.88, note 1 p.92.
88
A chemical
analysis was conducted on particles of a red and a white tile from
Panel 10, which established that the tiles were made of terra-cotta.
(Fortunately an electrician has punched a hole in the pavement for a
steel conduit - a familiar story and the microscopic analysis was
performed on fragments of the electrician's handiwork!
89
Pirina, C. Art
Bulletin Sept 1985 Vol. LXVII #3 pp 370-382. 'Michelangelo and the
Music and Mathematics of his Time'. Linda Liegh, of IIT, has a far
more thorough and well reasoned proposal for Michelangelo's
'proportional gyroscope' based upon the Golden Mean. She argues that
it permiates all his work and, because it is not present in the
pavement, proves that Michelangelo had no hand in its design.
90
The Laurentian
Library administration has permitted measurements, in the form of
frottage rubbings, to be made on three separate occasions. Panel 2 is
the only panel for which we have both the long and short dimensions
of the east and west panel frames. Due to the extreme practical
difficulty of making the measurements, it has only been possible to
take partial dimensions of 9 of the 30 panels and, excepting the
panel in front of the Sala D'Elesi, the frottages never exceed more
than 20% of the area of the panels.
91
This is especially
the case in the subflooring on Panel 2 east.