An Inquiry Into an Unbuilt Monument: the Mausoleum for the Kings of the Italy of Alessandro Antonelli

Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions - Modena, Lourenço & Roca (eds) © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 04 1 ~ :36 379 9 An inquiry into an unbuilt monument: the mausoleum for the kings of the Italy of Alessandro Antonelli G. Pistone Dipartimento di lngegneria Strutturale - Po/itecnico di Torino - ltaly L. Re Dipartimento di Casa-Città - Po/itecnico di Torino - ltaly ASSTRACT: The study presented herein addresses an unusual theme: would it be possible to design a building of gigantic proportions, conceived by a great architect-engineer of the 19th century - Alessandro Antonelli - in keeping with the views and the specific techniques adopted by the author. The building in question is the temple-mausoleum for the Kings ofltaly, imagined by Alessandro Antonelli, ofwhich ali we have is a few tables with sketches. In this paper, the significant signs taken into account for purposes of formal simplification are illustrateel, and the hypothetical results are correlated to the respective stylistic references of Antonelli's life size projects. Sased on the foregoing, the concept of "consistency model" is formulateel, to serve as a possible "validation" tool for architecturallhistorical virtual models. The first part is followed by a study ofthe structural check performed on the reconstruction hypothesis of the mausoleum for the King of Italy. THE CULTURAL GENESIS OF THE PLAN height, could be the introduction to the second; but at the same time it cannot be excluded that it refers to "It was in fact in these last years (afier 1880, - ) another topic". that he went ahead with his unyielding intelligence (Franco Rosso, Alessandro Antonelli 1798- 1888, touching on and carrying out new and bold ideaIs; Milan 1989, page 121), (Rosso, F. 1989). but there were two projects in particular that he dedi Even though the criticaI classification of these cated his thoughts to, one was the façade ofthe Milan designs can go no further (as the chronological dis Cathedral and the other the mausoleum-temple dedi cordance between the national competition on the cated to the Kings of Italy, which was to be erected theme and the testimony of Caselli make the obser in Rome either on Monte Mario or on Monte Cavi vation by Rosso legitimate - op cit., page 232-, this on the site of the ancient temple dedicated to Giove being supported by the date of 1887- 1888 affixed by Laziale. Sut death, which he encountered while still Costanzo Antonelli on the only table to be completeel, standing in the breach, in spite of his being ninety which deals not ofthe monument dedicated to Vittorio years olel, also interrupted the thread of thought of Emanuele 11 , but "ifanything, perhaps, ofa project that these two projects, even though ofthe latter and most wanted to be a piece of criticism"), these records of grandiose there still remains the plans and the sketched an "interrupted architecture", in which Antonelli pro altimetry which he had outlined and completed" (Cres ceeds in his faith in the rationalistic assumptions of art centino Caselli, AlessandroAntonelli, Architect - bom in unusual opposition to the trends of that time, se em Ghemme 14 July 1798, died 18 October 1888, in "The to stimulate some hypotheses on those developments, Civil Engineer and Industrial Art", 1888 , page 160 that do not occur. sgg.), (Caselli, C. 1884), (Caselli, C. 1889). This was surely due to the advanced age of the "There are basically two hypothesis that can be pro architect, but perhaps also to the set of circumstances posed for the six drawings that remain (one of which that we know nothing about, Ihat led to the work had already been put in fair copy): one in the form of being uncompleted. On the other hanel, il is not pos a Greek cross with wings extended to various degrees, sible to identify the topic of the mausoleum-temple covered by a gigantic circular dome with a very ogival dedicated to the Kings of Italy in the programme of arch ( .... ); the other is a circular plan with deep radial the monument dedicated to Vittorio Emanuele II and apsidal chapels. The first proposal, also developed in the Unity of Italy, already achieved in 1885 at the 121 beginning ofthe works on the Vittoriano, on the project by Sacconi. The hypothesis of a specifically created mausoleum-temple was plausible, in consideration of the limits of capacity of the Pantheon where Vittorio Emanuele II had been buried, and which would have celebrated - apart from the foundation of the reign of Italy - the destiny of the dynasty (as had occurred for the Kings of Sardinia for almost two centuries with the Superga Basilica). However, it is also pos sible to object to the opportuneness of reaffirming the Piedmont supremacy, creating a symbolic building constituted ofthe extraordinary emphasised synthesis of the old and new buildings that symbolised Turin and Novara. TheAntonelli approach to the theme was also in irreconcilable contrast with the eclectic tendencies of Italian culture at that time (those that produced the Palazzaccio and the Vittoriano, but also the concepts ofD'Aronco and Basile); at least as far as his project for the ltalian Houses ofParliament in Turin (1861) is concerned - an austere and rational project, functional and exemplarily economic in costs and in the use of spaces - another which was constructed was preferred with the stylistic imitations of Guarini buildings and the emphatic juxtaposition of a complex stylistic elab oration in memory of the French Renaissance and of constituent inventions. On the other hand, in an era of diffused eclectic typological-stylistic research, as those years were, the rigorous faith of Antonelli in Enlightenrnent rationalism, in the arrangement com position according to Durand's trend, going beyond the courage and innovation of the construction and of the walled structures, programmatically leaving orna Figure l. Section of the Mausoleum by Antonelli. mentation to the refined and exclusive elaboration of the classical syntax (the only language of the "mod ern" architect, who does not give in to the allurement half raised and half in prospective sections, in a scale of historicism, of exoticism, of variously mixed ver of 1:400 (Fig. I), which outline a temple in the form nacularism) was exactly the opposite of the linguistic of a Greek cross covered by an immense ogiva I dome orientations of that time. The weary incomprehension with a double calotte closed by the lantern, of an over of the works of Antonelli by the critics of architecture, ali height of about 225 metres (the lower leveI would such as Camillo Boito, and also the majority ofltalian have measured 23.60 metres, the internai beam ofthe historiographers, who, of ali his works only mention ogive would have been 51 .20 - eleven metres more the Mole and describe it as either gothic or metal than the Pantheon - and the double closing lantern lic, was no different fIom that ofthe more competent would have developed from a levei more or less in cor experts, such as Tatti and Clericetti, who advised pre respondence to the height of the Mole, which would cautionary demolishing lhe pavilion of the Mole to therefore have been able to be completely contained substitute it with a light metallic neo-Moorish trel within the internai space - Fig. 2). These drawings lis; and analogous considerations can be made for the prevail to show, amongst others, in that they are con subsequent reinforced concrete consolidations for the nected to the exhaustive definition of the project idea Mole and for the Dome in Novara: "It is not the Dome (the other drawings are made up of a water-colour pen that needs to be reinforced - but rather the spirit of drawing of lhe considered plan and of a smaller ver those who are afraid ofthat courage". sion, of another plant articulated in Latin crosses - Among the six drawings for the presumed theme of of a more specifically ecclesiastical type-, of a cen the mausoleum-temple that are kept in the Antonelli tral plane on which a complex articulation of eight Archives in The Gallery of Modern Art at the Turin absidal chapel wings are imposed, of another different Civic Museum (department S48, cupboard 6, shelf and even bigger plan where a wide exedra symmetri 2, fi le A, - 5739-5739), two studies in pencil can be cal to the temple and surrounded by other monumental found, respectively for the horizontal sections and the buildings can be recognised. 122 Figure 3. Virtual representation ofthe Mausoleum. and more experimented than that of the relationship between the ogive and conical towers of the Novara dome and ofthe square planned double pavilion ofthe Mole). Ali these indications are in nuce and unequivo cally present in the original drawing, the elaboration Figure 2. Comparison ofthe size ofthe Mausoleum, ofthe intended developing the graphic evidence without Mole (left) and S.Gaudenzio (right). adding anything that was not present or which could reasonably be attributed for analogy reasons. In par ticular, the theme of the large dimensions (that recall The scrawl ofthe two here considered drawings sug the considerations ofGalileo on the proportions ofthe gestively register the taking shape of the project in colossal and the criticism of Boullée on the Vatican the assiduous autographical elaboration of the archi Basilica) is here resolved as in the Novara Dome and tectonic invention and stimulates two different con the Turin Mole not in the gigantism but rather in the siderations: on one hand the criticaI classification of multiplying and articulating ofthe members, with an this "interrupted architecture" in Antonelli's produc unusual prevalence ofthickly linked voids which give tion and in the context ofhistory, and on the other, the these large constructions a feeling of lightness and curiosity of knowing or imagining more: what shape elasticity without comparison, conditions which are would it have had? Would its sublime dimensions essential for their feasibility.

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