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Leon Battista Alberti and the Homogeneity of Space Author(S): Branko Mitrović Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol

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Leon Battista Alberti and the Homogeneity of Space Author(S): Branko Mitrović Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol Leon Battista Alberti and the Homogeneity of Space Author(s): Branko Mitrović Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 2004), pp. 424- 439 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4128013 . Accessed: 10/02/2014 11:35 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press and Society of Architectural Historians are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 64.9.76.165 on Mon, 10 Feb 2014 11:35:15 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Leon Battista Alberti and the Homogeneityof Space BRANKO MITROVIC Unitec Instituteof Technology He thought, with most people, that everything is somewhere the historyof the visualarts, the processwhereby the under- and in place. If this is its nature, the power of place must be a standing of space as homogenous came about. He believed marvelous thing, and be priorto all other things. For that with- that the conception of space as homogenous and systematic out which nothing else can exist, while it can exist without the arose shortly before the discoveryof the geometricalcon- others, must needs be first; for place does not pass out of exis- struction of perspective.4In later years, a position similar tence when the things in it are annihilated. to Panofsky'shas been defended by SamuelEdgerton, who, Aristotle, Physics' in his RenaissanceRediscovery ofLinear Perspective,argued that a "'systematicspace' infinite, homogenous and isotropic," made possible "theadvent of linearperspective."' However, The homogeneityof spacewas firstdiscussed as a a body of more recent scholarshiphas denied this view and philosophicalproblem by Ernst Cassirer,and the claimedthat the understandingof spaceas homogenouswas related theoretical considerations were subse- a post-Renaissancedevelopment. The debate has complex quently introduced into architectural and art history by implicationsnot only for the history of perspectivebut also Erwin Panofsky in "Perspective as Symbolic Form."2 for the understanding of Renaissance architecture and Panofskyassumed that in order to construct geometrically architecturaltheory. Had Renaissancearchitects and theo- a perspectivaldrawing, one must postulate space as a con- rists indeed conceived of space as heterogeneous,' they sistent medium in which the depicted objects are located. could not have believed that the same shapes (say, of the The definitionof homogenous space that Panofskyadopted classicalorders) were reproduciblein differentlocations. If from Cassirer had two parts.3The first section stipulated one assumesthe heterogeneityof space,it is very difficultto that all elements of a space-points and sets of points-are operate with the concept of shape as it is normally under- mere designations of positions. They do not possess any stood. In a heterogeneous space, there would exist points other content except their position relative to each other on a shape whose distancescould not be quantifiedor geo- and their existence is not substantialbut purely functional. metrically comparedto distances between other points on The second partof Cassirer'sdefinition formulated the pos- the same shape. There would be no possibility of making tulate of homogeneity,which states that from every point in the same shapesat differentlocations, nor could one repro- space it must be possible to draw identical figures. duce the same shape by replicatingits geometrical disposi- Panofsky'sefforts in "Perspectiveas Symbolic Form" tion of lines, angles, and surfaces.If Renaissancearchitects were directed toward establishingand describing,through and architecturaltheorists indeed believed in the hetero- This content downloaded from 64.9.76.165 on Mon, 10 Feb 2014 11:35:15 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions geneity of space, and consequently did not have the con- until after the Renaissance."o1 He also cited Peter Collins's cept of shape as it is normally understood, then it becomes observation: "It is a curious fact that until the eighteenth extremely difficult to explain their efforts to define sizes and century no architectural treatise ever used the word geometrical relationships between the elements of the clas- 'space."'"1 Methodologically speaking, it would not be sical orders in order to reproduce them.' One aspect of incorrect to dismiss Elkins's and Collins's positions because these efforts, for instance in the case of Palladio and Vig- they confuse the concepts used in the analysis with the nola, was the development of a system of presentation of assumptions these concepts are meant to analyze. Elkins architectural elements that combined plans, sections, and admits that Panofsky's concepts describe a set of assump- elevations in one drawing. The drawings in Figures 1 and 2 tions that can be observed in Renaissance paintings.12 Say- cannot be understood if one assumes that they represent ing that such concepts cannot be used retrospectively is like shapes in a heterogeneous space. arguing that one cannot say "Columbus discovered the The idea that Renaissance architects and architectural American continent" because at the time of the discovery, theorists assumed the heterogeneity of space and did not the concept "American continent" was unknown. Peter therefore have the concept of shape ultimately means that Collins's argument is even weaker: because Renaissance the- the shapes of architectural elements-the formal and visual orists did not use the word "space," they could not conceive properties of architectural works-are irrelevant in the of space-the claim is not that the word was used differ- study of Renaissance architecture. It would follow that it is ently than it is today, but that the lack of its use indicates the pointless for architectural history to study these properties absence of the corresponding idea. For this argument to be in Renaissance buildings and that the discipline must be valid, one must assume that people cannot have certain reduced to the reconstruction of the verbal behavior that ideas if they do not name them the same way as we do. architectural works prompted at the time they were built- Methodological problems of this kind are abundant in that one can study only the narratives or "meanings" associ- the debate about the history of understanding space as ated with buildings." homogenous. They often result from the fact that the impli- The question of whether Leon Battista Alberti, in his cations of homogeneity are commonsensical, easily taken treatises on painting, sculpture, and architecture, was able to for granted and overlooked. It is not enough to say that dur- conceive of three-dimensional, homogenous space is cru- ing the Renaissance, space was understood as heteroge- cial for the outcome of this debate.9 Alberti was the first to neous: one has to explain how Renaissance theorists and provide a written description of the geometrical construc- artists could have believed that the geometrical description tion of perspective, and if one could show that his views of visual and spatial experience was possible if they did not relied on the assumption of the homogeneity of space, then believe that the totality of spatial relationships between the program that reduces the study of Renaissance archi- shapes could be geometrically defined. This applies not only tecture exclusively to the study of narratives attached to to perspective. The complex systems of coordinated plans, architectural works would be unjustified. Conversely, if he sections, and elevations, such as those developed in Palla- did not have the concept of homogenous space, it should dio's and Vignola's architectural treatises, relied on the be immensely interesting to see not only how he managed assumption that the totality of a shape could be defined by to formulate and justify the use of geometry in the con- mathematical determination of all relationships between its struction of perspective, but also how he conceived of archi- lines and angles-and also that readers would interpret the tecture and architectural theory in a heterogeneous space. drawings of the classical orders starting from that assump- tion. Palladio's drawing of the details of the Ionic order (see 1) the between Debate about the of Some Figure carefully exploits homology"3 plan, Homogeneity Space: section, and elevation. Elements of ornamentation are not Considerations Methodological merely shown from different sides; different projections are Contrary to the view of scholars such as Panofsky and carefully coordinated so that, for example, the position of Edgerton, a number of more recent authors have claimed one edge of the abacus in plan corresponds to its position in that during the Renaissancespace was not conceived of as elevation, whereas another edge, which is a line in plan, homogenous. James Elkins, for instance, has argued that appears only as a point in elevation. The width of flutings, the understandingof space as homogenous developed long presented in full size in plan, appears shortened in eleva- after the Renaissance and noted that the concepts of Panof- tion, exactly the way rules for orthogonal projection would sky's analysis ("systematic" or "homogenous" space, and so require. All this enables the drawing to be read as a com- forth) "are all modern and do not occur in mathematics plete and consistent description of a given shape-some- LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI AND THE HOMOGENEITY OF SPACE 425 This content downloaded from 64.9.76.165 on Mon, 10 Feb 2014 11:35:15 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions :: ....': ' :-::~.
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