The Olympic Theater in Sabbioneta

Proceedings of the IMProVe 2011 International conference on Innovative Methods in Product Design June 15 th – 17 th , 2011, Venice, Italy Teaching the rules of the space: the Olympic Theater in Sabbioneta C. Monteleone (a) (a) University of Study of Padova/Faculty of Engeneering/DAUR-Architectural, Urbanistic and Survey Department Article Information Abstract Keywords: Purpose: perspective, Visual perception is a phenomenological interpretation but it is unable to return exactly the sabbioneta, essence of reality, the sight returns some apparent and exterior qualities of things as shape design, and chromatic features, the only way to bend the space and to create views of apparent scamozzi, worlds is to know the intimate truth of perception. theatre. system. Method: The conscious utilization of geometric optics is a valuable tool to disseminate the scientific and intellectual aspects of the building art, but it is essential to confront not only geometric theory but also practical examples, possibly following the most distinguished architects. Corresponding author: Result: Cosimo Monteleone snatching space deformation process and taking a further step towards self-interpretation and Tel.: +393283654999 design. e-mail: [email protected] Discussion & Conclusion: Address: via Venezia 1, student training to the comprehension of the space and its geometric rules; the space control 35131 Padova can generate an illusory, but not for this reason less realistic, landscape. 1 Introduction Therefore, the main way that the mind has to understand the truth remains the abstraction, a real stripping process The Vision is an interpretation of the world unable to of sensible phenomena, capable of highlighting the return exactly the accuracy of the real things, this essence of things; once it has reached a deep happens because the sight gives back only the external understanding of rules, Plato's Aletheia , it is possible to and apparent features, such as shapes and colours. conquer and manipulate the Doxa . Transposing these It is known that the Greek philosophers wondered about words to our specific case, it could been stated that if the the power of the view, so much so that Plato in the designer is able to steer the scientific and geometric Timaeus, after dealing with physical and cosmological processes of the space, he will be able to generate an issues, devotes thoroughly its third chapter to the architectural landscape, certainly fantastic, but not, for this eschatological problems, defining true philosophers only reason, less realistic. those who love the Truth ( Aletheia) and do not follow the The procedure that deals with ad hoc deformations of the 1 Opinion (Doxa ) . space, anticipating the optical processes of vision, is But then, what is this truth that is true knowledge and that called solid perspective, a space design that underlies is opposed to the general opinion, seen as misleading sophisticated geometrical knowledge, which can not be interpretation of the sensitive phenomena? ignored if the architect wants to get a proper optical The starting point of all knowledge, willy-nilly, remains the coherence. sensible world, a set of entities located in time and space, if we look in the history of architecture, it is possible to find so that world, we experience, is an image of the resulting many examples, the most famous are: the Bramante's complex physical, physiological and psychological Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan, Palladio's Teatro processes, which can also produce misinterpretations. Olimpico in Vicenza and Borromini's Galleria di Palazzo In the search of the truth, man can only rely on the tools Spada in Rome. of thought such as reason, logic, mathematics and In this short essay it has been reported the results of a geometry; in fact, the German idealist philosopher Hegel, study conducted on the original scenes designed by centuries after Plato, in an attempt to summarize the Vincenzo Scamozzi for the Olympic Theatre in process that leads to knowledge, put this action this way: Sabbioneta 3, now lost. The aim is to demonstrate how “Thinking in the abstract does not mean to put aside the through the analysis of a concrete example we can reach sensitive matter, instead it takes to the substitution and the rules of the space and, from this starting point, reduction of the appearance on behalf of essence, which shows itself in the same idea” 2. 3 In this essay it has been reported the drawings produced by Paolo Ruggero e published with the title: La scena assente. Ricostruzione delle scenografie scamozziane per il Teatro 1 Platone, Timaeus , 45 B, 45 D, 67 C 4. Olimpico di Sabbioneta. In G. D'Acunto , Geometrie Segrete, Il 2 G.W.F. Hegel, Weissenschaft der Logik , vol II, 1916, p. 225. Poligrafo, Padova 2004. pp. 277-294. 864 Monteleone Teaching the rules of the space: the Olympic Theater in Sabbioneta improve, through education, the design knowledge of the The fixed scene, who accompanied the performances space to build. until the eighteenth century, when it was replaced, is even mentioned in the treatise published in Venice in 1615 by 2 Method and Result the architect: “the perspective of buildings represents a large square, with a noble road in the middle, and then, Sabbioneta is a Renaissance city which could be here and there, other many and different buildings made considered as a open-air theatre because its street were with colourful wood to mimic the actual houses” 6. conceived to constitute the background for the daily Scamozzi, therefore, created a conventional solid pièces de théâtre of the Duke Regent, Vespasiano perspective of a portion of an ideal city, planning and Gonzaga Colonna (1531-1591). The Duke intentionally projecting oblique elements, following the model of replaced the spontaneous development of his town with “square and road” set by Baldassarre Peruzzi and later an attempt of design, based on an ideal geometric order 4 codified by Sebastiano Serlio in his teatrise 7. Therefore, (fig. 1); he also commissioned the execution of the the design of the theatrical environment goes beyond the theatre, asking to the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi from function of the building itself to fit in a wider and complex Vicenza to design and built it, its location has a mediating context, namely that of a real and material urban role between the ducal palace and the private residence. Fig. 1 J. Chafrion, Plan of Sabbioneta, print. Milan 1687. Fig. 2 V. Scamozzi, The Theater in Sabbioneta. Drawing 191A, GDSU, Florence, 1588. The interior of theatre shows the architect's deep ability to manipulate the space, which manifests itself as a reworking. An attempt that is well integrated in the cultural seamless continuum between the open gallery, the context by Magagnato, in fact, he observes that during the cavea, the orchestra and the scene; the path starts from a Italian Renaissance some parties became an excuse to porch (a semicircular peristyle), passes through two views model a new and ideal cities 8. So the Scamozzi's of Rome (two frescos on the side walls) and arrives to the archtecture, created for the stage, threw the spectators scene, which is a typical ideal square of the fifteenth into a further noble fantastic town iside another ideal city, century. Further, Scamozzi accentuates the spacial the second one was a fruit of the plan carried by the continuity, thanks to the use of a false ceiling, that prince Vespasiano Gonzaga, instead the first was an simulates the blue sky, creating a sort of connection utopian dream of the architect from Vicenza. between different parts and functions of the space, rightly the Ricci insists on this point: “Scamozzi does not treat the scene like an old theatre because it would be a hindrance to the architect's idea of the urban space, he broke with tradition and exalted the 5 continuity between stage, auditorium and illusion” . 6 V. Scamozzi, L'idea di architettura universale , Venezia 1615. 7 A. Paolucci, U. Maffizzoli, Sabbioneta, il teatro all'antica , Firenze 1993, p. 45. 4 G. Ricci , Teatro. Dalle origini all'Ottocento , Milano 1971, p. 98. 8 L. Magagnato, L'idea di città nel teatro del Cinquecento, 5 G. Ricci, op. cit., p. 102. “Bollettino del centro studi Andrea Palladio”, 0, 1967, p. 325. 865 June 15th – 17th, 2011, Venice, Italy Proceedings of the IMProVe 2011 Monteleone Teaching the rules of the space: the Olympic Theater in Sabbioneta Fig. 3 Rectification of the oblique left scene taken from the 191A drawing by V. Scamozzi. Drawings by P. Ruggero. The drawing signed by Scamozzi, dating to 1588 and kept scene, which, through ad hoc deformations of the in the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings of the Uffizi in architectural elements, anticipates the physiological Florence (fig. 2), reproduces the layout of the stage and processes of the vision. Another step was made the scenic view of the left side, so this drawing is a good legitimately assuming that the pavement of the noble road reference, as starting point, to re-create what has been was made up of harnesses, that can be considered solid lost. But as this drawing is not sufficient to complete the images of square tiles. Once that the architectures reconstruction of the whole scene, other graphic records created with the solid perspective have been isolated, the were consulted: the drawing named 198A and served as elevations of the urban façades, in their ideal forms, have well at the Uffizi, some depictions of the Garden Palace in been obtained through a reverse projection of the three- Sabbioneta and some paintings of sacred dimensional scene on the real space, still three- representations, hunging in the private chapel of the dimensional but not deformed (fig. 3). Duke. The consideration relating the apparatus on the right Following the instructions of the architect, set out in the scene are more interpretative, because it has found treaty L'Idea dell'Architettura Universale , the 191A inspiration from another drawing by Scamozzi, named drawing could be considered as an “invention in poor and 198A (fig.

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