A CRITICAL READING Maria Elisa Navarro

ARCHITECTURA CIVIL RECTA Y OBLIQUA: A CRITICAL READING

Maria Elisa Navarro Morales

School of Architecture, McGill University November 2012

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Architectura civil recta y obliqua: A Critical Reading

Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz (1606 – 1682) occupies a prominent role in the intellectual milieu of Early Modern Europe. The work of this Spanish polymath spans many disciplines. Caramuel is notably recognized today as one of the main exponents of his time in the fields of moral theology, as well as the author of the first mathematical encyclopedia. Caramuel’s influence in religious and political matters can be asserted in the context of the history of the Spanish empire in Central Europe during the seventeenth century. In architecture, Caramuel’s contribution is a theoretical approach, in the form of an architectural treatise; a physical manifestation of his ideas survives in the facade he designed and built for the Duomo in the Italian town of Vigevano.

Despite the significance of the work and of Caramuel’s role, there has been no comprehensive consideration of his 1678 – 1679 architectural treatise Architectura civil recta y obliqua in the contemporary literature. This dissertation provides a first exhaustive description of the treatise. On the assumption that the order in which ideas are presented in the treatise is significant to their understanding, the present work respects the original structure of the text. “Architectura civil recta y obliqua: A Critical Reading” is not a translation: the description contained in the present study paraphrases Caramuel and therefore entails a first degree of interpretation; a second interpretive level is offered in the accompanying commentary, in which possible motivations for Caramuel’s theory are discussed.

The thorough reading of Architectura civil recta y obliqua this study presents broadens the existing discussion on Caramuel’s ideas on architecture. It emphasizes the relationship between the Early Modern period and our own modernity, particularly the role of history as a way of orienting the practice of architecture; the social and political dimensions of the practice; its power to effect societal reform; and the ethical responsibility of the architect. Résumé

Architectura civil recta y obliqua : Une perspective critique

Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz (1606 – 1682) a joué un rôle important dans le milieu intellectuel européen du dix-septième siècle. Par ses œuvres, ce polymathe espagnol a touché à plusieurs disciplines. Caramuel est notamment connu aujourd’hui comme l’une principales des figures de son époque en théologie morale, ainsi qu’en tant qu’auteur de la première encyclopédie mathématique. L’influence religieuse et politique de Caramuel est évidente dans le contexte de l’histoire de l’empire espagnol en Europe centrale durant le début de l’époque moderne. En architecture, la contribution majeure de Caramuel est son approche théorique, sous forme d’un traité sur l’architecture. Des manifestations concrètes de son travail comme architecte survivent également dans la façade du Duomo à Vigevano, en Italie, dont il est responsable de la conception et de la construction.

Malgré l’importance des œuvres et de la position de Caramuel, son traité d’architecture Architectura civil recta y obliqua (1678 – 1679) n’a eu que peu d’attention de la part d’académiciens et d’architectes contemporains. Cette thèse est la première description exhaustive du traité. Étant donné la signification de l’ordre dans lequel Caramuel présente ses idées dans Architectura civil recta y obliqua, notre perspective critique suit la structure du texte. « Architectura civil recta y obliqua : Une perspective critique » n’est pas une traduction : cet essai offre une paraphrase du texte original, ce qui est en soit un premier degré d’interprétation, et propose de plus un commentaire critique en parallèle, qui explore entre autre les objectifs de la théorie de Caramuel.

Cette lecture critique approfondie de Architectura civil recta y obliqua cherche à ouvrir la discussion sur les idées de Caramuel dans le domaine de l’architecture, en soulignant les liens entre le début de l’époque moderne et le présent, en particulier le rôle de l’histoire comme ligne directrice en architecture, les dimensions sociales et politiques de l’art et la responsabilité morale de l’architecte. Acknowledgments

This dissertation would not have been possible without the wise guidance of my supervisor Alberto Pérez-Gómez who over many years encouraged and fuelled my passion for architectural history. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee: Louis Brillant for his generosity and insight into obscure religious matters, and Ricardo Castro, who, with his positive attitude, showed me how to enjoy my work.

At the History and Theory of Architecture program at McGill University I had the fortune of working with incredibly talented and inspiring people who contributed to making the journey unforgettable: Michael Jemtrud, Louise Pelletier, Negin Djavaherian, Ron Jelaco, Lian Chang, Jason Crow, Paul Holmquist, Angeliki Sio- li, Zubin Singh, Diana Cheng, and many others.

In my research I have also benefited from the support of institutions and their devoted staff, who have provided invaluable help. The librarians and staff at the McGill University libraries, especially in the Rare Books and Special Collection Division, endured my visits with patience. The Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC) supported my research through grants and scholarships. The Archivio storico dioce- sano and Archivio storico comunale in the city of Vigevano, which opened the doors of their collections to my inquiries. The School of Architecture at Dalhousie University and its faculty believed in the value of my research. Special thanks to Katia Grubisic for her careful editing.

This dissertation is built on the existing scholarship of those before me who recognized the value of Caramuel’s work. In particular I want to thank Doctor Petr Dvořák for organizing the Caramuel conference in Prague in 2006, where I had the opportunity to meet those few scholars who currently work on restoring Caramuel’s legacy. Special thanks to Professor Daniele Sabaino for his help in deciphering Caramuel’s Latin and for his time guiding me through the archives at Vigevano. Finally, I would like to thank my family—my father for his love and eternal en- couragement and my sisters for their unconditional support and practical advice. Roland, I would like to thank you too for showing me the bigger picture, and for making this effort worthy.

ARCHITECTURA CIVIL RECTA Y OBLIQUA: A CRITICAL READING

INTRODUCTION 12

CHAPTER 1 – GOD’S MODEL FOR ARCHITECTURE 24 On the importance of knowing different disciplines and the superiority of architecture 23 The Temple of Jerusalem, a model for architecture 24 On the ages of the world 26 The Temple as model of military architecture 32 Detailed description of the Temple 35 The proportions and dimensions of its parts 37 The quality of the material and craftsmanship 46 The obliquity of the Temple 48 The destruction of the temple 49

CHAPTER 2 – PRELIMINARY ARTS AND SCIENCES AN ARCHITECT MUST KNOW 59 The education of an architect 59 On the literary arts and sciences an architect must know 62 A cursus mathematicus for the architect 69 Arithmetic 70 Logarithmic 73 Geometry 77 On the different kinds of knowledge 86

CHAPTER 3 – THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ARCHITECTURE 95 A book for architects and patrons 95 Architecture: the art of building 97 Architecture: “A most noble art” 105

CHAPTER 4 – STRAIGHT ARCHITECTURE 1 124 Columns: The object of architecture 124 The orders of columns 131 The Jerusalemite order 132

The classical orders 141 Additional orders 146 The use of traditional columns in modern times 153 The Ionic volute 156 Probabilism as a method for architecture 162

CHAPTER 5 – OBLIQUE ARCHITECTURE 171 The origin of Oblique Architecture 173 A method for drawing Oblique Architecture 177 Declination 178 Circular plan 184 Inclination 187 The cases of obliquity 193 Declination – obliquity in plan 193 Circular plan 198 The columns of an elliptic plan – A case of circular arrangement 203 Inclination – Obliquity in elevation 214 Obliquity in plan and elevation – Circular staircases 233 Oblique arches 236 Entasis 241 The flutes of a column 250 Doors and keys 254

CHAPTER 6 – ON THE ARTS AND SCIENCES THAT ACCOMPANY AND ADORN

ARCHITECTURE 262 Painting, physiognomy and statuary and the issue of visual communication 263 Architectural representation – Ichnographia, orthographia, sciographia 269 Perspective 270 Music 282 Two types of architecture 285 Astronomy 285 Military architecture 291

CHAPTER 7 – THE WORKS OF MEN 302 The seven wonders of the ancient world 303 Other marvellous ancient works 312 Roman architecture 317 Saint Peter’s basilica and square 326 Spanish works 331

CONCLUSION 343

Bibliography 351

ARCHITECTURA CIVIL RECTA Y OBLIQUA: A CRITICAL READING

Introduction

Born in Madrid in 1606, Juan Caramuel was the son of a Luxembourg engineer and a Bohemian noble. Caramuel’s father was under the service of the Empire. He was Caramuel’s first teacher and instilled in the young Caramuel a love for mathematics that, together with the son’s passion for language, would constitute the obsessions driving his work. Born into a trilingual household, by the end of his life Caramuel had mastered over twenty languages. After completing his studies in his native Spain and receiving his doctorate in theology at the University of Louvain, Caramuel was ordained a Cistercian monk. In a religious order that remained removed from the intellectual debates of the time, Caramuel was without a doubt an exception. He was in correspondence with some of the most important figures of his time, such as the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, with whom he shared many interests. Caramuel also corresponded with Marin Mersenne, Pierre Gas- sendi, J. Marco Marci, Blaise Pascal and René Descartes, among many others, and his letters have survived, scattered among his many published works. In the 1630s, Caramuel travelled to the Low Countries, where he remained for a decade in the service of the Empire, defending his faith and converting Protestants. Caramuel then spent ten years travelling in the Lower Palatinate, fleeing the vio- lence and devastation of the Thirty Years’ War. Finally, in 1654, he moved to Rome. Italy was Caramuel’s home for the last twenty-three years of his life. De- spite his expulsion from the Papal States for his challenging moral propositions, Caramuel was appointed bishop in 1673 in the Italian city of Vigevano in Lom- bardy, a position he held until his death in 1682.i

Caramuel dealt with various subjects in his writings, including theology, astronomy, mathematics, grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, steganography, Marian doctrine, and architecture. Today, Caramuel’s legacy, in the form of seventy published works and over two hundred manuscripts, is preserved in the Episcopal archives of Vigevano. Caramuel’s work has become increasingly influential over time; his defence of the theory of Probabilism is particularly relevant to the field of moral theology. His work on architecture has received less attention than his iconoclas- tic theological texts. While theologians recognize Caramuel as a controversial figure in the evolution of moral theology, among architectural historians, Caramuel’s name remains generally unknown.

Caramuel’s work in architecture was both theoretical and practical. The first evidence of Caramuel’s building activity dates to 1648, in Prague, where Caramuel renovated the Emmaus Benedictine monastery and church. Unfortunately, most of that renovation succumbed to World War II and only the interior of the refectory and a small adjacent room have survived. From Caramuel’s own hand we know he also renovated the Episcopal palace in Vigevano,ii where one of his predecessors had replaced the original doors with smaller ones in order to help protect the rooms from the winter cold. Caramuel not only restored the doors to their original size, he also modified the walls around them to give them the proportion that, according to his own theory, doors had to have.iii

Caramuel’s most significant built work is his facade for the cathedral of Saint Ambrose in Vigevano and the regularization of the square where the church stands. The rectangular square originally took its name from the ducal palace that stood on one of its long sides, while the church was a minor presence in the square. The square was surrounded by a colonnade interrupted by the palace (Fig- ure i).

Figure i The Vigevano square before Caramuel’s intervention.

Caramuel removed the entrance of the palace, thus regularizing the colonnade that now runs continuously along three sides of the square and emphasizing the fourth side, where the church stands. Through the design and construction of a concave facade, Caramuel gave the church a central place in the square, and reoriented the piazza’s vocation from a ducal square to the cathedral square (Figure ii).

Figure ii The Vigevano square after Caramuel’s intervention.

Caramuel’s theoretical work on architecture consists of his treatise Architectura civil recta y obliqua,iv first published in 1678 – 1679v in Vigevano (a second edi- 15 tion of the same text was published in Latin in 1681vi under the title Templum Sa- lomonisvii). Yet his ideas on architecture had started to take shape even in earlier publications. Architecture first appears in Caramuel’s work in his 1642 Mathesis audax,viii where it is introduced as a mathematical science, and later in his 1670 mathematical encyclopedia Mathesis biceps.ix In this latter text, Caramuel’s dream of mathematics as the underlying language of the universe is explained through different disciplines, architecture being one. Finally, Caramuel’s ideas on architecture resolve in his architectural treatise, where geometry has the role of recon- ciling theology and architecture.x

Caramuel’s innovative understanding of architecture is most explicitly laid out in his theory of Oblique Architecture, a strange proposition in which the elements of architecture are slanted in a way that has been mistakenly characterized as a pre- cursor of the deconstructivist movement.xi However, if we consider the search for order that traditionally characterized architecture, the assumption that Caramuel’s theory suggests an unstable architecture seems contradictory. Caramuel’s ideas on architecture proposed a new order that challenged convention even while it remained rooted in tradition. In order to understand the motivation behind Caramuel’s theory and the full breadth of his ideas, a thorough reading of Archi- tectura civil recta y obliqua is needed. A critical understanding of Caramuel’s theory will furthermore open possibilities in thinking about our modern condition in its relationship with tradition.

Unfortunately, Caramuel’s ideas were not taken up in the work of his successors. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, his name is seldom mentioned in histories of different disciplines, and there is resurgence in interest in Caramuel’s work only in the early twentieth century. Despite the number of critical studies on various aspects of Caramuel’s work, little has been written on his work on architecture. The existing literature often deals with specific aspects of his theory and, with the exception of a recent dissertation that considers Caramuel’s work in the context of the history architectural theory,xii none offers a comprehensive approach to Architectura civil recta y obliqua. The aspect of

Caramuel’s theory that has attracted the most attention is his theory of Oblique Architecture, but this is only an aspect and, taken separately, scholars often over- look important issues. In the narrative, Caramuel articulates each one of the different aspects of the Architectura civil recta y obliqua as necessary to understand the complexity of his theory; this dissertation thus looks at the treatise as a whole. It is the contention of this dissertation that Oblique Architecture is a continuation of Straight Architecture, and that as such it is impossible to understand the former without the latter. Meanwhile, Oblique Architecture is the final stage in the evolution of architecture since the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem. The present investigation will deal with the entirety of Caramuel’s treatise Architectura civil recta y obliqua from that inception, considering each part to more faithfully convey the central thrust of the author’s vision.

One of the main challenges Architectura civil recta y obliqua presents to the modern reader is its convoluted style, a result of the dialogue the author establishes with many interlocutors, often in combination with series of associations he makes between architecture and other fields. Part of the problem is that the interlocutors remain largely tacit, and change without notice. To intelligibly discuss Caramuel’s ideas, it is necessary to identify the different interlocutors, who include not only architects and theoreticians of architecture, but also theologians, philosophers, classical authors, polymaths, chroniclers, etc. Therefore, even if Ar- chitectura civil recta y obliqua can be included within the tradition of treatises on architecture, its context cannot be limited only to the architectural tradition.xiii Once we expand the context of the treatise, it loses its eccentricity and reveals its true nature as an original commentary on very different questions that were current in intellectual circles of the time. Furthermore, the association Caramuel makes between these questions and architecture is instrumental in tracing back our modern way of thinking to an understanding of architecture that goes beyond the field’s contemporary specialization.

Initial evidence shows no underlying argument connecting the different chapters that make up Architectura civil recta y obliqua. Published in three volumes, the

17 text is developed in nine treatises that comprise volumes I and II. The third volume is a compilation of the plates that illustrate the text. Volume I of the treatise is made up of four chapters. A preliminary chapter describes the Temple of Jeru- salem, Chapter I deals with the literary disciplines an architect must know, Chap- ter II, III and IV discuss the mathematical sciences necessary for the study of architecture (arithmetic, logarithmic and geometry). The second volume is made up of five main chapters. Chapter V deals with Straight Architecture, Chapter VI presents Caramuel’s theory of Oblique Architecture, Chapter VII introduces the arts and sciences that adorn architecture, Chapter VIII lists some of the most exemplary works of architecture of all time, and Chapter IX includes a short description for each one of the plates that make up the third volume. The volume of plates is divided into four parts, the first with plates related to the Temple, the second to mathematical plates, the third with plates illustrating Straight Architecture and the fourth with the plates that support Caramuel’s ideas on Oblique Architecture.

A closer examination of the order in which Caramuel structures Architectura civil recta y obliqua reveals that the sequence of chapters is fundamental in his presentation of his theory on architecture. Furthermore, to the contemporary reader, the order of chapters in the original text can serve as a point of entry to Caramuel’s disparate ideas on architecture. The central tenets of the theory, Straight and Oblique Architecture (Chapter V – Part II, and Chapter VI) are bound between some preliminary and additional material. In the preliminary chapters (Chapters I to IV), Caramuel includes the knowledge he considers necessary for the architect, before dealing with architecture proper. The chapters that follow his central theory (Chapter VII) include the arts and sciences that complement an architectural education. At the same time, the theory of Straight and Oblique Architecture is articulated through an historical narrative. The treatise begins with a description of Temple of Solomon (Preliminary Chapter), to which Caramuel traces the sacred origin of architecture. Then Caramuel describes the origin and evolution of traditional architecture, including a discussion of the orders (Chapter V, Part I and II). The historical approach continues with the ideas on Oblique Architecture as the modern instance of classical architecture (Chapter VI). Finally, a list of archi- 18 tectural works from antiquity to Caramuel’s own time is discussed (Chapter VIII) in a progression that reaches its apex at the royal palace and temple at El Escorial in Spain, the building Caramuel considers the modern paradigm of architecture.

Because of the importance ascribed to Architectura civil recta y obliqua’s structure, this dissertation follows roughly the same order, divided into seven chapters that emphasize how Caramuel’s theory develops gradually over the course of the treatise, as well as highlighting the central role of Straight and Oblique Architec- ture. Chapter 1 of this dissertation introduces the Temple of Jerusalem as God’s model for architecture, from which Classical architecture is derived (ACRYO, Pre- liminary Chapter); Chapter 2 discusses the foundational disciplines for the study of architecture (Chapters I to IV); Chapter 3 considers the origin and evolution of architecture (Chapter V, Part I); Chapter 4 deals with Straight Architecture or Caramuel’s theory of the orders of architecture (Chapter V, Part II); Chapter 5 considers Caramuel’s theory of Oblique Architecture (Chapter VI); Chapter 6 includes the disciplines that complement architecture (Chapter VII); and, finally, Chapter 7 includes the works of architecture that exemplify the architectural excellence of men (Chapter VIII).

A second challenge presented by Architectura civil recta y obliqua is that the treatise was left unfinished. The last chapter of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Chapter IX, was a later addition to the original text, intended to serve as an introduction to an unpublished fourth volume concerned with Natural Architecture, a philosophical compendium written in Spanish.xiv Since the contents of Chapter IX, act as a transition between Architectura civil recta y obliqua and Architectura natural,xv Chapter IX has been excluded from this dissertation. Both Chapter IX and the manuscript on Natural Architecture will be dealt with in the future.

The central goal of this dissertation is to provide the first comprehensive description of Architectura civil recta y obliqua in English. Until now, Caramuel’s work exists only in its original language: the treatise was written in Spanish with extensive quotes in Latin and Italian. The absence of an English translation of Architec- tura civil recta y obliqua limits the possibilities of its discussion. Yet, since a full 19 translation of Architectura civil recta y obliqua is beyond the scope of this work, this dissertation is a description of the ideas that comprise the treatise, paraphras- ing the author and limiting the discussion to the main aspects of the theory. In order to remain loyal to Caramuel’s text, critical interpretation has been kept to a minimum within the description of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, albeit with the awareness that the very act of summarizing the treatise entails a first level of interpretation. The second goal of this dissertation is to continue the discussion on Caramuel’s work, providing an interpretation that deals with Architectura civil recta y obliqua as a whole. The commentary offered in this dissertation is an opening critical gesture to an undoubtedly larger project. Because of the diversity of sources on which Caramuel himself draws—theological, historical, artistic, scientific, political, etc.—any critical approach must necessarily limit itself to a narrower field of inquiry, since a more exhaustive perspective will require a collabo- rative effort.

To differentiate between the description of the treatise and its proposed interpretation, the former comprises the main text of the dissertation, while the latter is included in footnotes. Additionally, endnotes are used to reference either the original text or external material. The distinction between Caramuel’s ideas and their interpretation will be reconciled in the conclusion, which initiates a discussion on the contemporary relevance of Architectura civil recta y obliqua.

It is the aspiration of this dissertation that its in-depth description of Architectura civil recta y obliqua will renew interest in Caramuel’s work, moving scholarship on his work from the margins to a central place in the history of architectural theory. At the same time, this dissertation aims to give Caramuel’s own theory of architecture the recognition it deserves. Caramuel’s treatise is an important docu- ment, one of the few architectural treatises written in the seventeenth century. Conceived at the dawn of modernity, Architectura civil recta y obliqua is a reflection of a way of being in the world and of the relationship with architecture that can illuminate our own.

i For a complete biographical account of Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz see J. Velarde Lombraña, Juan Caramuel: Vida y obra. Oviedo: Pentalfa, 1989. ii Caramuel writes about his intervention in the palace in Architectura civil recta y obliqua (hereafter ACRYO), Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XVI, p. 37. iii Velarde Lombraña, Juan Caramuel: Vida y obra, p. 348. iv Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Architectura civil recta y obliqua, considerada y dibuxada en el Templo de Jerusalem... promovida á suma perfeccion en el templo y palacio de S. Lorenço cerca del Escurial que inventó... el rey D. Philippe II. Vigevano, Italy: Camillo Corrado, 1678. v We know that Architectura civil recta y obliqua was published sometime between 1678 and 1679, though the frontispiece lists the publication year as 1678. vi In Juan Caramuel: Vida y obra, Velarde Lombraña catalogues the published work of Caramuel and includes the Mathesis architectonica (1681), of which I have not been able to find any copies. He also mentions a second work, Architectura natural (1682), which exists only as an incomplete manuscript at the Episcopal Archives at Vigevano. vii Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Templum Salomonis rectam et obliquam architecturam exhibens. Vigevano: Camillo Corrado, 1681. viii Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Mathesis Audax rationalem, naturalem, supernaturalem, divinamque sapientiam arithmeticis, geometricis, catoptricis, staticis, dioptricis, astronomicis, musicism, chronicis, et architectonicis fundamentis su bstruens exponensque. Louvain: A. Bouvet, 1642. ix Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Mathesis biceps, vetus, et nova in omnibus, et singulis Veterum, et Recentiorum Placita examinantur; interdum corriguntur, semper dilucidantur: et pleraque omnia Mathemata reducuntur speculative et practice ad facillimos, et expeditissimos Canones. Accedent alii tomi videlicet: Architectvra recta… Architectvra obliqva… Architectvra militaris… Mvsica… Astronomia physica. Campania: Prostant Lugduni apud Laurentium Anisson, 1670.

x A broad consideration of Caramuel’s work in general, and particularly of the Mathesis biceps, will help inform our understanding of Caramuel’s ideas on architecture. Note that although Caramuel’s oeuvre has been consulted often in the course of this investigation, a detailed analysis of Caramuel’s writings other than Architectura civil recta y obliqua is beyond the purview of this dissertation. xi See Bonet Correa’s introduction to Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Architectura civil recta y obliqua… Madrid, 1984. xii C. Pena Buján, “La Architetura civil recta y obliqua de Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz en el contexto de la Teoría de la Arquitectura del siglo XVII.” (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 2007.) xiii In some material included in the beginning of the first volume of ACRYO, Caramuel included a list of books an architect must have. The works that make the library of the architect are: Ioannis de Laet, M. Vitruvii Pollionis De Architectura libri decem, Amsterdam, 1649; Daniele Barbaro, I dieci libri dell'architettura di M. Vitruvio, Venice, 1556; Amusis Ferdinandea; Carlos Cesare Osio, Architettura civile, Milan, 1661; Sebastiano Serlio, Architettura di Sebastiano Serlio Bolognese, in sei libri div, Venice, 1663; Palladio, L’Architettura di Andrea Palladio, Venice, 1642; Pedro Antonio Barca, Regola circa l’architettura civile, Milan, 1620; Vignola, Regola delli cinque Ordini d’Architettura di M. Iacomo Barozzio da Vignola; Michelangelo Buonarroti, Nuova & Ultima aggiunta delle Porte di Architettura di Michel Angelo Buonaroti, Fiorentino, Pittore, Scultore, & architetto excellentisimo; Architectura civil y militar de Samuel Marlois, Florence, 1638; Claude-François Milliet Dechales, Cursus seu mundus mathematicus, Lyon, 1674. xiv “De esta obra que se intitula La Architectura Natural, y no es otra cosa, que un curso de filosofía, escrito en lengua castellana.” Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Compendio de Architectura Natural, n.d. xv Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Compendio de Architectura Natural, n.d.

Chapter 1 – God’s model for architecturei

On the importance of knowing different disciplines and the superiority of architecture

Caramuel’s treatise on architecture, Architectura civil recta y obliqua, begins with a defence of holistic knowledge as opposed to specialization, and pleads for the inclusion of architecture among the array of disciplines a learned man should know. In the opening pages of the treatise, Caramuel condemns as erroneous the belief that specialization leads to deeper knowledge, and argues that a clever and persistent man, endowed with sufficient capacity for understanding, ought to be able to acquire a thorough knowledge of many sciences. For Caramuel, since the world is a network of relationships, man needs comprehensive knowledge where disciplines complement each other. In his words, the arts and sciences “hold hands,” and thus one who knows many disciplines well is better equipped than one who excels in only one.ii

Scholars included many disciplines in the search for universal knowledge that characterized the seventeenth century. Among these disciplines Caramuel gives architecture a privileged position. In his opinion, architecture is not only a liberal art, but the greatest of them,1 because it uses and commands the others.iii From the beginning of his treatise, Caramuel underscores the error of those who see architecture as a lower, mechanical art. Caramuel believed architecture to be a complex art, involving the use of excellent materials, quality craftsmanship, and above all the careful arrangement of the parts. He explains that, even if architecture deals with earthly materials, the order and disposition necessary for their arrangement require art and ingenuity, which only the higher disciplines can provide.

The perfection of the idea of a building, the quality of the materials used in its execution and the skills with which the materials are worked are the necessary principles for good architecture. These are manifest for the first time in the Temple of Jerusalem, the most perfect work of architecture. Yet, since the only remaining traces of the Temple are the descriptions consigned in the texts of the Old Testa- ment, it is the role of the theologian to guide the interpretation of Scripture where these principles are consigned. As a theologian, Caramuel saw himself as fit for this role, and as a consequence his treatise opens with a preliminary chapter describing the Temple of Jerusalem.

The Temple of Jerusalem, a model for architecture

The Temple of Jerusalem was for Caramuel the most excellent example of architecture.2 Its design was commanded directly by God to Solomon, who in its con-

1 This idea of architecture as the most important of the arts is simply enunciated here. Caramuel will return to this idea after the description of the Temple, in a section where he explains in depth the idea of architecture as the most important of the liberal arts. In introducing the Temple of Jerusalem, Caramuel argues for a holistic education for the architect, where his knowledge is not limited to his own practice but includes others. Among the preliminary knowledge an architect must have the Temple is fundamental since it is the origin of good architecture.

2 Before the seventeenth century, authors writing on architecture did not identify the ideal of architecture with a single building. In the Renaissance treatises, even if authors often used buildings to illustrate their principles, the privilege of being an exemplar

24 struction used the highest quality materials and employed the most able craftsmen. It follows that the education of an architect must start with the detailed study of this most perfect work:

I wanted (curious and ingenious reader) to delineate, draw and measure carefully these sacred temples (I mean the one of Solomon and the one of Zorobabel); as an architect and a theologian, theology provides me with matter to exercise my architectural contemplations. My toil will be worthwhile if by laying eyes on the main parts of the Hebrew building one may deduce from its proportions and dimensions those Greek, Tuscan, Italian and Gothic, and educate a master mason who, understanding and knowing them all, will become a perfect architect.iv

Caramuel sees the Temple as the origin of Classical architecture, something that had already been proposed by Villalpando in his 1596 Ezechielem explanationes et apparatus Vrbis templi Hierosolymitani.v For Caramuel, the study of God and his works provided the teachings necessary to elevate the education of the architect beyond that of a mason, and make himvi a good architect. And yet the works of the divine are obscure and concealed from simple men. Caramuel thus further considered it his role as a theologian to elucidate the principles of architecture concealed in the Temple as the most perfect example, and to teach his readers about God as the archetypal architect.

was not granted to a single building but shared by many. Authors often associated the works of classical antiquity, particularly in the Roman Empire, with the search for order that characterized their theories. Yet, after the claims of Protestant Reformers who denounced the Roman Church’s deviation from Scripture, these examples were no longer sufficient: because of their pagan connotation, authors were forced to look elsewhere for models. As a consequence a new filiation to the Temple of Solomon surfaced as a way of legitimizing the continuity of the Catholic Church with the apostolic age and the Old Testament. In architecture, this kinship resulted in the possibility of accepting the Temple of Jerusalem as the origin of and model for architecture.

25 There is an explicit connection between architecture, theology and natural philosophy in the study of the Temple. According to Caramuel, the Temple of Solomon was a scale model of the universe, repeating the lines God used in the creation of the universe.vii Hence, the architect needs not only a proper understanding of the building but also of the world—the two ‘books’ to which the Creator consigned the principles for perfect architecture. Just as the architect needs theology to correctly interpret the Temple, he needs natural philosophy to explain the principles used by God in the creation of the universe. Theology, astronomy and natural philosophy are required for an architect to unveil the principles of his art concealed in the works of God.

The teachings on the Temple appear in the preliminary chapter of Architectura civil recta y obliqua. The description is spread over five sections. In the first, Caramuel offers a chronological account of the evolution of the world since its creation. He then explains those aspects of the Temple that concern civil architecture, followed by the aspects concerning military architecture. Finally, he presents a detailed description of the Temple and its parts, and ends with a brief comparison of the first and second Temples.viii

On the ages of the world

Caramuel starts his account of the Temple at the Creation of the universe.3 Fol-

3 On this point Catholic theology stood in clear opposition to Aristotelian philosophy. The former, following Scripture, believed that God created the world ex nihilo, while for the latter the creation of the world was a reordering of pre-existing eternal matter. Catholic theologians, Caramuel included, opposed the notion of eternal matter because they considered eternity an attribute exclusive to God. The world could not be eternal since, as Genesis clearly explains, it had its origin at the beginning of time when God through Divine Speech created time, space and matter. Caramuel’s treatise is an attempt to reconcile the implications behind these two different models for making. Caramuel reserves the capacity for ex-nihilo creation to God, while the act of making something new through the institution of order is the domain of men. As we will see,

26 lowing the precedent of church historians, Caramuel divides the history of the world in seven ages, spanning from the creation of the universe until the end of time. Caramuel calls the first age the age of the First Fathers, aetas primorum patrum, which includes the time elapsed between the creation of the world and the flood. The second age is the Flood, diluvii aetas, which begins with Moses and lasts until the time of Abraham. The third age, aetas patriarcharum, is the age of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The age of the patriarchs is followed by the time of the Judges—aetas iudicum—and then that of the Kings—aetas regum, when according to the Judeo-Christian tradition the Temple of Jerusalem was built. The sixth age, the Christian age, aetas Cristiana, begins with Herod and, Caramuel explains, will continue until the end of the world. Last is the seventh, Glorious age—aetas gloriosa—that starts on the day of final judgment and will last through eternity.

Through this chronology, Caramuel intends to demonstrate how, since the dawn of humankind, sacrifices to God have taken place within architectural surround- ings, a structural continuity he presents in the treatise in the form of a lineage of buildings. According to Caramuel, the first of these structures was built at the time of the First Fathers, when Adam and Eve, who offered their sacrifices to God at the top of Mount Moriah in the city of Judea, surrounded the place with a wall and left it open to the sky. Subsequently, in the time of the Flood, Noah replaced the walled esplanade with an altar. According to Caramuel, many theologians believed that Noah’s altar was portable; Caramuel, however, argues that while we may question whether the altar Noah used for his sacrifices was opened or closed, it was unmistakably permanent and stood in the same place where Adam and Eve had offered their sacrifices to God.ix In the age of the Patriarchs, Caramuel explains, a new construction appeared again at the same place as the two previous ones, this time the altar Abraham built to sacrifice his son. Later, in the time of the Judges, a portable temple, the tabernacle, was built by Moses to carry along dur-

most of Caramuel’s work is a re-ordering of existing elements that through order emerge anew.

27 ing the exodus. According to Caramuel, this structure was a scale model of the future Temple of Jerusalem, its design dictated to Moses by God when God gave him the tables of the law.4 Finally, in the time of the Kings, the precious Mount Moriah site was acquired by King David, in order to fulfil the promise of building the Temple, which promise King David’s son Solomon finally accomplished.5

After tracking the origin of sacred architecture back to the first sacrificial altars, Caramuel lays out a genealogy of emperor-architects “to prove that this ingenious faculty has always been an occupation of princes, kings and Emperors,”x and that “the greatest glory of [architecture] comes from the people who invented it, practiced it and advanced it.”xi Caramuel does not include in this account figures with dubious morals; the names that make up this genealogy of emperor-architects all

4 God gave men his commandments on a pair of tables that he polished and carved himself. The image of God as lawgiver serves as the image upon which Caramuel will model his idea of the architect. This relationship between architecture and law in Caramuel’s theory develops gradually throughout the treatise. For Caramuel, the work of rulers is to bring order to society through both architecture and law.

5 Most of the places of worship that Caramuel includes in his list are far from being actual buildings. They are described in the Old Testament as altars, yet Caramuel calls them temples to demonstrate the continuity between these and the Temple of Jerusalem. Caramuel is interested in tracing back the origin of the architecture to the Temple and at the same time seeks to present the Temple as part of a genealogy of buildings that starts with the place of worship of the first man. It is equally important for Caramuel to prove that all of these temples were built on the same place where Solomon would later build his. Manipulation of historical material and sources is characteristic of Caramuel’s work, and is furthermore representative of Caramuel’s understanding of the past as a disparate collection of events that acquire their significance in the ordering of a narrative. This idea is further explained in the first chapter of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, where, among the linguistic faculties an architect must have, Caramuel includes a section on stories, fables and paradoxes. These narratives are useful for the architect in speaking about the evolution of his practice, and are modelled on the parables of the Bible.

28 stand as moral and political exemplars. For Caramuel, the perfect architect is someone whose exceptional morals are an example for his fellows.

While sacred architecture in Caramuel’s treatise is understood as having its origins in a remote past, civil architecture is restricted to modern history. The genealogy of emperor-architects is inaugurated with the Roman emperor Augustus, a brave, prudent and modest man who decided to reconstruct Rome as an everlast- ing monument to his own life. Hadrian, the second emperor on the list, enjoyed building and according to Caramuel raised more temples than any of his predecessors. Constantine the Great follows, a great emperor and architect who built magnificent temples in Italy, Greece and beyond. Charlemagne is similarly on the list for the breadth and grandeur of his architectural endeavours. Caramuel explains that this lineage of emperor-architects continues with Charlemagne’s successors; however, Caramuel chooses to stop his account at the King of the Franks, to avoid the annoyance of too long a list. Caramuel ends his genealogy with two names from his own time, men he considered the two most important modern representatives in the genealogy of emperor-architects: Philip II, King of Spain, and the Ve- netian architect and Patriarch of Aquileia, Daniel Barbaro.

In Caramuel’s treatise, Philip II is the incarnation of the perfect modern architect, an exemplary ruler who not only studied mathematics thoroughly, but also dedicated time to the study of architecture. Caramuel’s perfect architect had conceived and imagined the Palace of the Escorial, had drawn and painted its design with his own hand, and had commanded the workers in its construction.6 For Caramuel,

6 The design of the Temple and Palace at El Escorial was a collaboration between Juan Bautista de Toledo (1515 – 1567) and Juan de Herrera (1530 – 1597). Caramuel mentions neither. In continuation with the medieval tradition, where the word Architect was used to designate God or the Bishop, Caramuel only recognizes the king as author. In Caramuel’s theory the figure we associate today with the architect, as the person in charge of the work, is what he calls a second architect and sometimes a stonemason. The first architect, on the contrary, remains the prince who commissions the work, someone who is sufficiently educated in the art of architecture to be able to

29 Philip II’s building embodied the paradigm of modern architecture; from the Pal- ace, Caramuel claims, future generations would learn about architecture, just as Renaissance architects looking to learn about Roman architecture had studied the Pantheon. In the Escorial, Caramuel adds, Philip II had applied his ideas on Straight and Oblique Architecture;7 from the Escorial, Caramuel argues, the free architect has a lot to learn, while those who follow the Vitruvian tradition have a lot to imitate, and nothing to reproach.xii

Next to Philip II as Caramuel’s paradigmatic architect is Daniel Barbaro. Better known today for his translation of Vitruvius’s Ten Books into Italian, Barbaro was also a philosopher and theologian, held several university positions and reached his peak as a theologian when he was appointed Patriarch of Aquileia. Caramuel recognizes Barbaro as an exceptional writer who wrote texts for the conversion of heretics, sermons to educate his people, and the law and constitution for the good government of the clergy, and who translated from Latin into Italian the texts of Vitruvius. In addition to his skill as a writer, Caramuel praises Barbaro’s knowledge of the art of drawing, and mentions the geometrical figures that illustrate Vitruvius’s principles and Barbaro’s drawings of temples and palaces in the

direct the second architect, but who is never directly involved in the construction of the work. For Caramuel, Philip II was the architect of El Escorial, and Bautista and Herrera its masons.

7 Caramuel considered El Escorial to be a most perfect example of architecture, yet the principles employed in its construction are obscure to the uneducated observer. Caramuel’s project is to consign the principles of Straight and Oblique Architecture, taken from the Temple of Jerusalem, in a text that will educate the reader who will then recognize them in El Escorial. While Caramuel includes a brief description of the Spanish building in chapter VIII of his treatise, he never indicates explicitly how the building and the principles relate. Notwithstanding, the role of the Spanish building is evident from the first pages of the treatise.

30 same text.xiii8

Philip II and Barbaro represent two different aspects of the architect. Caramuel emphasizes the King’s study of mathematics and his capacity to conceive, draw and direct masons in the construction of buildings; of the prelate, what stands out are his knowledge of philosophy and theology and his capacity to write and illustrate edifying texts, drawing and writing representing two of the most important skills an architect must have. These activities are not associated with simple manual skills. The architect is never involved directly in the execution of the works: his role is intellectual and his participation in the actual construction is only through the direction of the work.

Although skill comes second to intellect, it nonetheless holds an important place in Caramuel’s theory. Manual skill is not placed in the inferior realm of the mechanical. Caramuel describes the architect as an educated stonemason—a model taken from the Biblical account of the Tables of the Law. According to Caramuel, when giving the Tables of the Law to Moses, God cut and polished the marble with his own hands and then with his own finger inscribed the commandments on them.xiv Thus the skills of the mason are also considered superior because they are God-given. The manual skill needed to work the stone and the linguistic dexterity needed to write eloquently about architecture are both of divine provenance. Caramuel concludes that

8 Today the actual illustrations of Barbaro’s translation are attributed to Andrea Palladio, who worked in close collaboration with Barbaro in his commentary on Vitruvius. In Architectura civil recta y obliqua Caramuel ignores the work of Palladio and mentions only Barbaro, to whom he attributes the plates in the treatise. While there is not enough evidence to assert whether Caramuel was aware or not of the authorship of the plates, the omission is not necessarily a dismissal of the work of Palladio, whose treatise is included in the list of books an architect must have, and which Caramuel includes at the beginning of his treatise. Caramuel decides to attribute the work to Barbaro because he considers him the mastermind behind the translation of Vitruvius, and Palladio as the mechanical executor of the plates and thus in a secondary role.

31 …if architecture is a science, to the study of which not only patriarchs and pontiffs but also kings and emperors have dedicated themselves; a science that, as we have seen, God honoured by painting with his own hand the ichnography and orthography of the Temple, and writing what was necessary so that these delineations may be understood; we must by force confess that she is the queen of all the liberal arts and therefore worthy of being studied and practiced by great men and princes.xv 9

The Temple as model of military architecture

The Temple was a model for civil as well as for military architecture. The latter is introduced in Caramuel’s preliminary chapter in an article on “What concerns military art and architecture in Scripture and in particular the Temple of Jerusa- lem.”xvi In this section, Caramuel sets out to “prove that the first place that was fortified and presided by soldiers was Paradise, and how the General and Emperor of these many armies is the Lord God Sabaoth.”xvii 10

9 The image of the architect in Caramuel’s theory is that of ruler, civil or ecclesiastic, educated in the art of drawing, who is able to direct the work of others in the construction of buildings. Since architecture is the art of kings, Caramuel calls it the queen of the arts. Despite the centrality of the ruler-architect—the figure Caramuel is interested in and to whom he addresses his treatise—Caramuel calls his reader an architect, a noun that in Caramuel’s theory goes beyond the discipline of architecture.

10 Treatises on or including mention of military architecture were popular in the seventeenth century, particularly because of the geometrical operations implicit in the layout of this type of structure. Among the many examples of treatises on military architecture, of particular importance was Milliet Dechales’s 1674 Cursus mathematicus, in which the author explains the symbolic dimension of military architecture’s use of geometry. In his treatise, Caramuel frequently cites Dechales’s work on mathematics. Having participated directly in some of the most violent wars of his time, Caramuel must have felt that the symbolic dimension of military architecture was at odds with the crude reality of the devastation he had witnessed. This discrepancy between the geometrical and moral aspects of warfare appears as two different aspects of military architecture in Caramuel’s treatise. In the preliminary chapter that opens Architectura

32 Caramuel’s argument opens with an explanation that men inherit nature’s corrupt- ibility and are born with vices and corrupt inclinations. Caramuel affirms the fal- lacy of believing in a primordial time when the world was a better place, a time when men lived peacefully in a society without the presence of evil, a time where laws were not necessary to compel the peaceful cohabitation of men. Not even a society of angels will be just and equal, Caramuel writes; even among celestial creatures there is discord—exemplified, for instance, by the fall of Lucifer. Fur- thermore, according to Caramuel, the art of war is necessary to resolve natural conflicts among men. Military art is inherently good, claims Caramuel, because it comes from God. Caramuel legitimizes war as a means of restoring the order of a good and Christian society, but condemns it when it is used by individuals to further their own interests.

Military architecture is as old as the world itself and this should be a matter of pride to military engineers. Despite the fact that many wick- ed men have abused this noble science to defend their own excesses, it comes from God, and since nothing evil can come from His Majesty, it is legitimate to defend innocence and punish wickedness, even with sword in hand; a sword is an angel’s weapon, even if sinners dare to draw it.xviii

Caramuel explains that God teaches us about military architecture through his works. According to him, God was the first military engineer, building Paradise as a fortress and placing cherubs as soldiers to defend it with their weapons.xix The tradition of military architecture finds its continuity through a lineage of military architects, the first of whom is Moses, who, following God’s command, led the Hebrew people in their exodus. Caramuel describes and imagines the exodus of

civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel focuses on a legitimization of war. The geometrical delineation involved in the design of military architecture is included in the chapter in which the arts of drawing are explained at the end of the treatise. The discussion of military architecture in the preliminary chapter, however, places the Temple of Solo- mon as the model for military architecture.

33 the Jewish people as a military camp in the Roman style, with the Hebrew people organized and divided in squadrons, protecting their advance with sentinels, and with Moses as their Caesar. After Moses comes Joshua, then the Judges and Kings, and finally Solomon, whose Temple constitutes the most excellent example of military architecture.

The Temple of Jerusalem as an archetype of good architecture is equally a model for military architecture. As Caramuel explains, the Temple housed such riches that its architecture had to ensure their protection. The Temple was built on top of Mount Moriah, which in itself presented an obstacle because of its topography. The Temple’s stone walls were so strong and tall that even if gunpowder had existed at the time, they would not have succumbed.11 The Temple also had a defensive castle at the front to shield it from enemies.xx Yet the protection of the Tem- ple was not only achieved thanks to the invulnerability of its construction. Two other aspects helped make the Temple safe from adversaries: the physical strength of its architecture was supported by the power of language, and by the symbols used to represent the justice of Solomon’s government. Caramuel uses the Second Temple to show how the castle that Herod built in front of it, the Tower of Anto- ny, protected the Temple with the might conferred in the name of the valiant Ro- man General, discouraging attacks. Caramuel also tells how the safety of this Temple was assured through a coin minted with an image of the Temple and the inscription “Temple of Jerusalem” on one side, and the face of Mark Antony with the words “King Solomon” on the other. According to Caramuel, the coin stood for the justice of the kingdom of Solomon, conveying the stability of the Temple by invoking the strength and loyalty of its guards.

11 The relevance of the mount where the Temple was built is introduced in the genealogy of temples at the beginning of the chapter and reinforced here with the claim that the protection of the Temple was in part granted by the place where it stood. We must remember that it was important for Caramuel to prove that all the temples built to worship God stood in the same place, suggesting that the site of the building was intrinsic to its significance as well as its authority.

34 A similar suggestion about the impenetrability of a place as a combination of physical barriers and the power of words appears later in the same chapter, when the Temple is described in detail.xxi The interior building of the Temple, Caramuel explains, was surrounded by a wall under a palisade that served to protect as well as to adorn. On each side of the palisade stood a sign with verses forbidding pa- gans from entering the Temple under pain of death.12

Detailed description of the Temple

The thorough description of the Temple begins with a hierarchical list of the architects and masons involved in its construction:

Among the buildings celebrated throughout the world for their sump- tuousness and grandeur, the best and largest we know of is the Temple of Jerusalem. In its construction the Supreme Architect was God; the mastermind who gathered the materials was King David; his son King Solomon ordered its construction; and Hiram, the master mason or second architect, built the plans delineated by the hand of God.xxii13

12 In the description of the Temple, the importance afforded the written word in the account of the deliverance of the Tables of the Law is reinforced. Caramuel explains that it is through the majesty conveyed in the name Antony that the tower in front of the Temple was endowed with the power to protect it. Meanwhile, the minting of the coin resembles the making of the tables of the law. The act of crafting is enhanced by the inscription of words on the objects: first the tables are cut and polished and the coins minted; then, through words inscribed on them, the objects of the craftsmen acquire thaumaturgical powers. Caramuel will return to the relationship between written language and architecture in the first chapter of the treatise, where he discusses the literary faculties an architect must know, among which he includes calligraphy, which teaches the architect how to make beautiful inscriptions on buildings. We can assume therefore that Caramuel’s interest in calligraphy concerns the power words bestow on architecture.

13 In the introduction to his description of the Temple, Caramuel attributes the idea of the building to the Supreme Architect, God, the acquisition of materials and the

35 Caramuel’s reconstruction is based on three main sources: the modern reconstruction of the Temple by Jerónimo de Prado, a Sephardi Jew, and by the Jesuit Juan Bautista Villalpando in his Ezechielem explanationes,xxiii published in 1596; the 1642 reconstruction by the Jewish wise man and translator Jacob Judah Leon, published in Spanish as Retrato del Templo de Selomoh,xxiv and the Old Testa- ment books of Ezekiel and Paralipomenon.14 Caramuel’s portrayal of the Temple of Jerusalem is divided into two parts. The first is a description of the Temple built in Solomon’s time, and the second deals with the reconstruction after Nebu- chadnezzar (Figure 1.1). The description of the first Temple develops over forty- three sections, starting at the exterior building with a discussion of the mount on which it was built, moving on to the interior building and finishing with the detail of the ark contained in the Holy of Holies at the innermost part of the Temple. A physical description is accompanied by a portrayal of how the building was used and by clarifications on mistakes made by other interpreters between the first and the second Temples. Two main aspects inform the account of the Temple: the author’s interest in determining the dimensions and proportions of some parts of the building, and the importance of the materials and the quality of craftsmanship.15

orchestration of the work to the mastermind King David and his son King Solomon, and the execution of the work to Hiram, the master mason. The image of the perfect architect resembles the Trinitarian nature of God, and architecture mirrors the mystery of incarnation inasmuch as it makes material the invisible idea of the building.

14 In the description of the Temple that follows, Caramuel is not afraid of mixing ancient with modern sources, and he uses Jewish reconstructions of the Temple alongside their Christian counterparts. In spite of the unquestionable authority of the Bible, Le- on’s is the most influential source for Caramuel’s reconstruction.

15 Despite the considerable detail Caramuel provides, his description of the Temple is fragmented and insufficient for a full reconstruction. Caramuel describes some parts of the building, omitting others. He furthermore fails to describe the locations of the different parts within the compound or their relationship to each other. His description is processional. It mirrors the experience of moving through a building; while a full

36 The proportions and dimensions of its parts

As Caramuel describes the Temple, one of his central preoccupations becomes clear: establishing the right proportions and dimensions of some of the Temple’s main parts. The dimensions he includes in the text are given in cubits,xxv an ancient unit Caramuel uses to indicate the antiquity of the building. The equivalence in feet is often also included in the text, to allow modern readers to grasp the size of the Temple and its parts. Caramuel claims that the Temple’s plan is square, measuring 500 cubits (or 750 feet) on its side, and remarks that the Temple is relatively small compared to modern buildings.16 The proportions that predomi-

picture of the place eludes the reader/visitor, the experience is nonetheless complete. In the description of the Temple, Caramuel uses language to create mental images, and the reader can hold the image of the Temple only in the imagination, yet a physical image to illustrate the experience is not provided. Moreover, the single image that accompanies the description, which Caramuel takes from Jacob Judah Leon’s reconstruction, does not align with the description. Caramuel’s description of the Temple holds together separate parts of the building and gives them unity, similar to the way history articulates fragmented moments from the past and arranges them into a narrative. As a result, the Temple exists only in the time of the narrative, not in space as a drawing.

16 The claim that the Temple at Jerusalem was small is misleading. The dimensions that Caramuel gives the Temple in this section include the building and the square on which it stood. Caramuel claims that the overall dimension (500 ft x 750 ft) is small for modern standards. If we compare the size of the Temple with El Escorial, a building Caramuel considers the modern equivalent of the Temple, the size of the square on which El Escorial sits (approximately 500 ft x 735 ft.) is about the same size as that of its Jerusalemite ancestor. If we compare the dimension of the Temple to the size of Saint Peter’s basilica and square (1050 ft x 500 ft), the Temple of Jerusalem appears small. However, taking into consideration only the size of the interior building, with an overall dimension of 90 ft x 30 ft x 45 ft, the building of the Temple is small compared to both El Escorial (which building occupies most of the plan) and Saint Peter’s (730 ft x 500 ft).

37 nate in Caramuel’s reconstruction of the Temple are those related to musical harmony: the proportion dupla (2:1), sesquialtera (3:2) and, in a lesser measure, ses- quitertia (4:3). The perfect square, the cube, and the rectangle that corresponds to the half square and the half cube appear also frequently and, even if Caramuel doesn’t discuss the possible implications of either the proportions or the shapes, it is clear that there is continuity with Renaissance Neoplatonic theories.

The Temple, writes Caramuel, stood at the top of Mount Moriah, on a square surrounded on its four sides by a covered colonnade 30 cubits—45 feet—wide. Since the height of this corridor does not seem to be mentioned in any historical account, Caramuel decides that the colonnade could only have been erected in the most perfect proportions, that is, the sesquialteral, and concludes that its height must have been 45 cubits (67½ feet). According to Caramuel, the columns of these colonnades had a proportion of 1:5 between their diameter and the height of the shaft. This contradicts Villalpando who in his reconstruction of the Temple claims the proportion was 1:10.17 Caramuel believes the columns of the Temple were the first columns that existed and that from these all other orders derived their proportion.

17 The reasons for the discrepancy with the Jesuit’s version are explained thoroughly in the preliminary chapter and repeated later in the second volume of the treatise in a discussion of the orders of architecture in particular. Caramuel sees the columns of the Temple as the primordial order of columns. As such, their proportion must be 1:5. Caramuel associates the proportion 1:10 with the composite order, a column that appeared later, in Italy.

38 Figure 1.1 Reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon based on Jacob Judah Leon’s description. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part I, Plate A.

39 Based on Scripture, he determines the columns had a proportion of 1:5, a beautiful and primordial proportion that was the origin of all the other orders of columns (Figure 1.2). A wall surrounded the building, along with rows of columns creating colonnades. Three of the four colonnades had a single corridor within, defined by a single row of columns on one side and one pilaster on the other. The south wall had three corridors made from three rows of forty columns each and the corresponding forty pilasters on the wall. Of the four colonnades, that on the west side of the building was shorter that the other three, in order for the priests to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificial cow over this wall and towards the entrance of the Temple, as their ritual commanded.18

The colonnades had also five doors, all of them with a proportion of 2:1. This proportion, Caramuel writes, is the appropriate proportion for the doors of the Temple, and as a consequence for any good building.xxvi Each of these doors communicated with a different part of the Temple. The corridors defined an area divided into halves, one of which was occupied by the interior building, with the other left empty as an interior court. The interior building was surrounded by a wall with seven doors in it, three on the north side of the building and three on the south, all with a proportion of 2:1. The seventh door, on the east wall, was unique in its proportion: it was square, each side measuring 10 cubits (15 feet).

18 Caramuel clearly points out the need to make an exception to the rules of proportion when building the south colonnade. The importance of this exception could be easily overlooked by modern readers, yet its importance lies in that it shows how even in the most perfect building there are circumstances that make a departure from the principles of the art inevitable. For Caramuel, determining the circumstances that made deviation from the law licit was central, and finding a precedent of this in the Temple is at the core of his theory. Caramuel claims that the laws of any art or science, including architecture, are given license when necessity requires it. Those circumstances that sanctioned deviating from the universal law Caramuel referred to as Oblique. See Chapter 5 of this dissertation for the notion of the Oblique in Caramuel’s theory.

Figure 1.2 Jachin and Boaz, the two columns at the entrance of the Temple, according to Caramuel. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part III, Plate XVIII.

41 This door connected the exterior court with an interior area that mirrored the first in shape, though it was smaller, only 135 cubits (202 ½ feet) on each side. This court was called the Court of Women, since this was the furthest point at which they were allowed. At the corners of this square were four rectangular rooms without roofs, in which musical instruments and books were kept. All of the rooms had proportions of 4:3.

A door on the south side of the Court of the Women connected with a smaller court, the Court of Israel, where people stood while sacrifices were performed. This court was as long as one of the sides of the square, 135 cubits (202½ feet) with a width of 11 cubits (16½ feet). It was raised seven and a half cubits (11¼ feet) with respect to the previous one. The Court of Israel was kept apart from the Court of the Priests, which stood farther south by one step that ran along the 135 cubits of its long side; on this step the deacons sang and played music during the sacrifices. The Court of the Priests had the same size and proportion as the Court of Israel, but sat two and a half cubits (three and three-quarters feet) higher. Inside the Court of the Priests, the prayer stool Solomon used prior to the Temple’s completion was kept; it measured five cubits wide, five cubits long and three cubits tall (7½ ft x 7½ ft x 4½ ft). The Court of the Priests connected to the exterior court where stood another altar, 20 cubits on its side and 10 cubits high (30 ft x 30 ft x 15 ft). In this same court was the Brazen Sea, a large semicircular basin, of 10 cubits diameter (15 feet) and with a circumference of 30 cubits, where ceremonial waters were kept (45 feet) (Figure 1.3).

The Brazen Sea was supported by twelve bronze bulls. According to Caramuel, Protestants in his time used the vase as an example to condemn the worship of objects as idolatry. Here Caramuel allows himself a digression: to defend the legitimacy of the use of images for worship, Caramuel divides images into portraits and symbols. Portraits have as their object of representation things or beings that are visible, and the image shows them as they are. Hence, Caramuel argues, the only person of the Trinity that can be represented through portraits is the Son, who made himself visible, taking the body of a man.

Figure 1.3 Brazen Sea. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part I, Plate B.

43 According to Caramuel, portraits of Jesus, the Virgin and the Saints are valuable because they teach us about their physical appearance when they were alive. Con- versely, symbols use images to show invisible qualities of a thing represented through resemblance. Thus, images that represent God symbolize his invisible attributes by taking the shape of an object from the visible world that shares a particular characteristic with God: the lion symbolizes God’s power, the lamb illustrates his gentleness, and the bull stands for his patience.

Like symbols, depictions of imaginary things represent things through analogy. Caramuel includes among such images many of the mythological animals used in heraldry, such the hydra, the Minotaur, the bicephalous eagle, the gryphon, and so on. Caramuel explains that there is nothing sinful in depicting these beings even if they don’t exist in the world, since these images are useful to illustrate and teach the virtues they symbolize. The hydra, for instance, was commonly used to represent a man of generous heart committed to eradicating the vices in his soul; the two-headed eagle symbolized the power over the east and the west; the minotaur represented a man of politics who was wise and skilled in the art of war; and the gryphon symbolized ingenuity and greatness.19

19 Caramuel’s argument regarding the bronze bulls goes beyond the defence of the use of images for worship, explaining also the communicative capacity of images. According to Caramuel, in order to know God, we need to use images that represent his divine attributes. Through the construction of images, man can understand difficult notions such as divine attributes, that is, immensity and eternity. The images created to know these ideas refer always to the physical world. In order to know difficult or invisible concepts, we transfer the experience we have gathered from the physical world to the image created to present such concepts. The type of knowledge that results from visual communication is not always univocal; in the case of symbolic images knowledge is not conveyed through identity or difference but through resemblance.

Multiple references are made in Architectura civil recta y obliqua to the role of images as carriers of meaning, since Caramuel endows architecture with a communicative capacity similar to that of images. Architecture for Caramuel conveys meaning

44 Caramuel continues his description of the Temple with an abrupt jump from the interior court to the interior building of the Temple. He opens the description of this building at its portico, a pronaos 100 cubits wide by 120 cubits tall (150 ft x 180 ft).xxvii Inside this portico was a chair where the King would sit to pray and eat the sacrificed animal. This chair had the same proportion as all the other chairs in the Temple (2:1) and measured 10 by 20 cubits (15 x 30 ft). The door that led from the portico to the interior of the building was 10 cubits wide by 20 high (15 x 30 ft), preserving the proportion Caramuel gives to doors. The interior building was 60 cubits long by 20 cubits wide and 30 cubits tall (90 ft x 30 ft x 45 ft).

At the core of the interior building was the Holy of Holies, a place reserved for priests.20 It had a square plan of 20 cubits on its side and a height of 30 cubits (30 ft x 30 ft x 45 ft). It was separated from the rest of the Temple by a wall only one cubit (1½ feet) thick and 20 cubits (30 feet) tall. Caramuel explains that this wall was left open at the top to allow the fragrant incense burned in the building to waft out of the small chamber. The door of the Holy of Holies was the most important door in the Temple. It had two leaves opening into the building. This door was exceptional in its proportion—seven cubits wide and six tall (10½ ft x 9 ft), a proportion that does not correspond to any of the harmonic proportions preferred

through the immediacy of its presence. In this sense, the way in which architecture communicates is in Caramuel’s theory closer to symbolic images than to portraits, carrying meaning directly without the mediation of signifiers.

20 When describing the Holy of Holies and in reference to King Osias, who dared to enter the sacred place, Caramuel makes explicit the difference between the role of princes and that of pontiffs: “And so where without honour lies, preaching to the Kings, said that they would not have luck if they seize ecclesiastical jurisdictions, because as it is not the role of the bishop to take the sword or the lance to defend the name of God, it is not the role of the kings, princes or emperors to rule over ecclesiastic matters or impede the pontiffs in their government.” For Caramuel the Church had autonomy over matters of religion and the state was only second to the Church in that it dealt with matters of men. Architecture was the grantor that preserved this order.

45 by Caramuel. Inside the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the glory of God. It was two and a half cubits long by one and a half wide and one and a half high (3¾ x 2¼ x 2¼ ft). Inside the Ark the tables of the law were kept. They were square in shape, one cubit on the side and half cubits thick so when put together they formed a perfect cube (1½ x 1½ x 1½ ft).21

The quality of the material and craftsmanship

A second aspect that characterizes the description of the Temple is the quality of its materials and the perfection of the craftsmanship used in its construction. At the very beginning of his description, Caramuel claims that each of the ashlars used in the foundations were carved so perfectly that they fit seamlessly on top of each other, like a single stone without joints.xxviii The Temple was a sumptuous building. The main square that sat atop the foundation walls was tiled with the highest quality white marble. The columns of the four colonnades surrounding the square were also made of this stone, which was kept smooth and not fluted, as other authors had argued.xxix The two columns at the sides of the doors on these same colonnades were overlaid with gold and the doors themselves were made of wood and overlaid with silver. The doors on the interior building were also gilded, and adorned with white and purple flags and banners with gold and silk embroi- dery in the shape of lilies and other figures. The interior court was covered in

21 Following the description of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the Bible as a perfect cube, in his reconstruction of the Temple Villalpando assigns the building this perfect shape. In Caramuel’s description of the Temple, meanwhile, the allusion to this perfect shape is less explicit. The first mention of the perfect cube in Architectura civil recta y obliqua appears in the account of the tables of the law, which when placed together formed a cube. The second mention of the cube is in the description of the shape of the stones used in the construction of the Temple, that according to Caramuel, measured nine feet on each side. There is proportionality between the cube of stone made by the tables of the law and the stones used in the building to keep them, an image that evokes the relationship between law and architecture.

46 square tiles of white marble. During ceremonies, a wooden throne for the King was placed in the middle of this marble grid. Other descriptions of materials used in the different elements of the temple include the sacrificial altar, which, Caramuel writes, was made of bronze in the first Temple and of stone in the Sec- ond; the Brazen Sea, also made of bronze; and the candlestick, wrought of fine gold.

The description of the materials becomes more detailed as Caramuel moves towards the interior of the Temple. The detail of the door that connects to the Holy of Holies is a prelude to the climactic description of the interior. This door and the arch above it were made of cedar, the only tree large enough to provide the long slabs of strong wood needed for doors of that size, explains Caramuel. The door was adorned with bas-reliefs of palms and cherubs, intertwined with roses and beautiful flowers, and overlaid with gold. Above this door, hanging from the arch, was a large stone that shone, reflecting the light of the sun, illuminating the entrance to the Temple. Inside the Temple the gem-like Holy of Holies was contained.

The description of the Temple emphasizes the importance of materials and craftsmanship in Caramuel’s architectural theory:

Everyone would admit that a small diamond is more precious than a large cobblestone. It therefore follows that no one would deny that a building can be magnificent and splendid even without being large. And so it is that this Temple, which I depict here, although small ex- ceeded all the miracles of the world, for each stone in it was a mira- cle.22 The ashlars that formed its walls were perfect cubes of pure marble, nine feet on each side. So large and so heavy were they that to be joined to each other there was no need of lime or sand or of the bi- tumen Assyrio uses in his buildings. They were joined without joints, and once in place the master mason could say of each stone that—

22 A parallel between the interior building of the Temple and the Heavenly Jerusalem is suggested, albeit this time in its materiality not in its shape. Similar to the description of the holy city in the Apocalypse, Caramuel explains the Holy of Holies is like a small jewel made of gold and precious stones.

47 mole sua jacet hic—its large mass lays here.xxx

He continues,

This marble was covered with precious wood planks made of cedar, and if balm was the tree, as Saubertus would have it, they would have been of balm wood.23 And over these planks (whether or not they were of cedar or balm) were nailed plates of fine gold. They were one inch thick, like those that overlaid and adorned Jachim and Booz, the columns at the entrance of the Temple. The value of these plates was not only in the labour that wrought them with such ingenuity and beauty, full of cherubs, palm, roses, flowers, etc., but also in the great number of gems set in the foliage and reliefs of these flowers, making each wall look like a sky filled with stars, or, as the Italians would say, a tempestado. Thus in this Holy Temple, though its materials, of pure marble, cedar or balm, and fine gold, were very precious, the matter was carved and worked with such great industry that we can truly say—Materiam superavit opus—the work surpassed the material.xxxi

Within the description of the Temple of Jerusalem, Caramuel includes the three aspects he believes are intrinsic to good architecture. First is the idea of the building, with the perfection evident in the proportion of its parts and their relationship with the whole. The proportions Caramuel attributes to the Temple notably coincide with those considered superior for their relationship with musical harmony. Second is the quality of the materials chosen for the construction. The Temple was without a doubt made of noble materials—the finest marbles and strongest woods, and adorned with gold, silver and precious stones. Last, the craftsmanship employed in the work is, in Caramuel’s description, excellent, surpassing the craft of individual trades and, through a perfect understanding of matter, is responsible for bringing into the world the perfection present in the mind of the architect.

The obliquity of the Temple

23 Caramuel was of a different opinion than Saubertus regarding the type of wood used in the Temple, opting for cedar while Saubertus claimed that balm had been used. The discussion of the type of wood used is certainly significant, since only the best materials would have been used in the construction of the Temple.

48 The windows of the Temple are of particular importance for Caramuel’s theory. Since Solomon’s Temple is a paradigm of good architecture, imitating as it does the lines that God used in the creation of the universe, it is also the first instance of Oblique Architecture. As Caramuel explains later in the treatise, the world was created oblique.24 The windows of the Temple are presented in Architectura civil recta y obliqua as the origin of Oblique Architecture. They are mentioned twice, first in Section V of the preliminary chapter describing the Temple, and again in Chapter VI, in the explanation of Oblique Architecture. The wall surrounding the Temple, Caramuel writes, had windows in it; these windows were oblique, that is, wider on one side of the wall.xxxii Caramuel’s introduction of the question in his treatise suggests disagreement among exegetes on whether these windows nar- rowed toward the inside or the outside of the building. The answer Caramuel gives is problematic: of the three mentions of the windows, the two in the preliminary chapter argue that the windows narrow towards the exterior, while in the second part of the treatise Caramuel adopts the contrary position. While this may be the result of a typographic mistake or a contradiction in Caramuel’s text, it remains an irresolvable contradiction. Nevertheless, the assertion that the Temple’s windows were the origin of Oblique Architecture remains an important aspect of Caramuel’s consideration of the sacred building.xxxiii

The destruction of the temple

24 The placement of the interior building of the Temple that Caramuel preferred was contrary to Villalpando’s and to other Christian sources of the time, who believed it was centred. Caramuel was of the opinion that it was off to one side, and in this he followed some Hebrew sources, particularly the reconstruction of Jacob Judah Leon. This is never explicitly discussed by Caramuel as an instance of the obliquity of the Temple; however, Pérez-Gómez and Pelletier have argued in Architectural Represen- tation and the Perspective Hinge that this distortion in the symmetry of the plan of the Temple was aligned with Caramuel’s ideas on Oblique Architecture. See A. Pérez- Gómez and L. Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. p. 151.

49 After having described the first Temple in detail, Caramuel writes about its destruction, a repeated act of God against an undeserving people. Behind the history of the destruction of the Temple is a genealogy of the monarchy of Israel. To explain how the notion of genealogy could be extended from generations of men to consecutive kingdoms or monarchies, Caramuel begins with a comparison between the cycle of life of men and the birth, growth, decay and death of monarchies. Caramuel calls monarchies or kingdoms political, civil and mystic bodies, analogous to the human body. Like the natural body, monarchies and republics have a moral status and, if they are sinful, Caramuel explains, they also suffer from the justice of God, who imparts punishment or rewards accordingly.

The story of the monarchy of the kingdom of Israel begins with Rehoboam, son of Solomon, who according to Caramuel was the first tyrant who rebelled against his king and usurped his power. Idolaters thereafter governed the kingdom of Israel, until the day God tired of their behaviour and sent Shalmaneser to capture them and make them lose their memory. Thus the people of Israel disappeared: they became ignorant of their origins and lost their identity.25

After the Kingdom of Israel disappeared, a second monarchy was born, the monarchy of the Kings of Judah, which began under the rule of Saul. Caramuel explains that this monarchy lasted only as long as its ruler, who had no descend-

25 The importance of genealogy that characterizes Caramuel’s historical accounts finds a precedent in the Old Testament. Implicit in this section is the significance of knowing the past as a condition for cultural identity, a remarkable organizing principle if we consider that Caramuel’s treatise is a search for origins and therefore an attempt to build an account that makes sense of the architecture of the Christian world. Caramuel places the origin of Christian architecture in the Temple of Solomon; the Temple’s description therefore occupies a central place in his treatise. Yet, while the Temple is shared by Jews and Christians, Caramuel’s intention is to demonstrate how the Jewish people, whom he considers of low, immoral standing, are no longer fit to continue the tradition inaugurated in the Temple. It is now the project of Christianity to build the Church of Christ.

50 ants.26 King David attempted to re-establish the monarchy of Saul, but his efforts were in vain; Zedekiah and his kingdom assumed the monarchy for Babylon and took the king prisoner. Under Babylonian dominance, the Temple was destroyed for the first time, following the orders of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The destruction and desecration of the Temple continued throughout the rule of Nebuchadnezzar’s son Balthazar, whose derision went as far as using the Temple vases at his own banquets. It was then, Caramuel continues, that God warned the king of Babylon by inscribing three words on a wall—Mane, Thecel, Pharesxxxiv—asking the king to repent. These words were written in a language unknown to Babylonians, who were unable to interpret them, and so God’s words remained unread, and the king unrepentant. For their disobedience, God destroyed the kingdom of Judah, this time using the Persians to carry out his will.

After the Persians invaded and conquered the kingdom of Judah, it was absorbed into the Persian monarchy. Under the rule of Cyrus, the vases were restored to the Temple and the Jewish people were allowed to return to their land and to restore their city and with it the Temple. The construction of the second Temple began and continued over many years through a succession of kings, who at times promoted its construction and at others stopped it, making the reconstruction the work of many generations. Caramuel does not describe the Second Temple, only noting that it was more or less the same as the first, but greater in size and more beautiful. Caramuel continues his account of the Persian monarchy with a genealogy of rulers starting with Cyrus and ending with Darius Codomanno (Darius III), whose reign marked the end of this empire with the invasion of Alexander the Great and the beginning of the next great monarchy; that is the Greek.

Although Alexander the Great had given Manasses permission to reconstruct the Temple, the reconstruction only happened during the time of Herod—after whom the Temple was named, not because he rebuilt it, but because he restored it. Ac-

26 Here Caramuel is pointing at the importance of descendants in the continuity of a tradition, emphasizing the role of genealogy in the transmission of knowledge.

51 cording to Caramuel, this Second Temple lasted until the Roman Emperor Vespa- sian and his son Titus conquered Jerusalem. Titus, Caramuel explains, never intended to destroy the Temple; his violent and ignorant soldiers plundered it. With the second razing, all traces of the Temple were eradicated; even the mount where it had stood was obliterated. Further attempts to rebuild the Temple are also mentioned in Architectura civil recta y obliqua; however, Caramuel’s description of the destruction of the Temple suggests it was God’s will to hinder its construction.

Within the account Caramuel includes some dates for the construction and destruction of the Temples. He claims the first Temple was finished in the year 1012 B.C. The destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar took place according to Caramuel in the year 587 B.C., which means the Temple stood for 425 years. The second Temple was built in 536 B.C., fifty years after the destruction of the first, and stood until the year 70 A.D., when it was destroyed by the soldiers of Titus.

Caramuel uses Jewish and Christian accounts as sources for his description of the Temple. If in most of the cases he follows the Rabbis, arguing they were experts in the Old Testament, the contradiction between his sources becomes problematic in explaining the reasons behind the destruction of the Temple. While in the Old Testament man’s attempts to build a Heavenly Jerusalem on earth are heavily punished by a God who does not need a house, the Christian God, through his own incarnation, gives man a model to build the church as the body of Christ.xxxv Caramuel, in his attempt to reconcile his divergent sources, explains the destruction of the Temple as God’s wrath against the sins of men. The sin is not the building of the Temple, but rather lies in the immorality of the hands that build it. Caramuel’s conclusion is that the Jewish people are corrupt beyond redemption and should not have built the Temple. The project of building God’s house on earth, for Caramuel, has become the project of Christianity.

52 i ACRYO opens with a Preliminary chapter entitled “Tratado proemial, En que se dibuxa, y explica el Templo de Ierusalen” (in English “In which the Temple of Jerusalem is drawn and explained as the first example of all good architecture”). ACRYO, Vol. I, Preliminary Treatise, p. 1. ii Ibid. iii Architecture had already been considered a liberal art since the Renaissance, when the arts of disegno—architecture, painting and sculpture—were taken as higher knowledge because of their mathematical nature. Caramuel builds on this precedent and gives architecture the most important place among the liberal arts: “Y verdaderamente, entre las Ciencias Liberales, tiene la Architectura el lugar mas sublime, pues como su Señora a todas las demas las occupa y las manda.” Ibid., p. 2. iv “He querido (Curioso, y Ingenioso lector) delinar, dibuxar, y medir con cuidado estos Sagrados Templos (digo el uno y el otro: el de Salomon y el de Zorobabel) porq. siendo Architecto y Teologo es raçon que la Theologia me suministre materia, en que exercitar mis Architectonicas contemplaciones. Servira mi Desvelo, para que poniendo delante e los ojos las partes principales del Edificio Hebreo, se puedan conferir sus proporciones y medidas con las Griegas, Toscanas, Italianas, y Gothicas y formando un Maestro que las entienda, y las sepa todas, sacar un Perfecto Architecto.” Ibid., p. 57. v Jerónimo de Prado and Juan Bautista Villalpando, Ezechielem explanationes et apparatus Vrbis templi Hierosolymitani. 4 Vols. Rome: Luigi Zanetti, 1596. vi The male gender is used throughout the thesis to refer to architects, since the field was in Caramuel's time exclusively the domain of men. Insofar as the contemporary extrapolations of his theories apply, it goes without saying that the term architect understands female practitioners as well. vii “…te hare aqui clara demonstracion, hablando en el rigor, que quieres, el Templo de Ierusalen sea un χρόχοσμος, un Mundo pequeño, en que Dios, que fue su Architecto, reperio en lineas rectas y chicas, quanto havia criado, y ordenado en las Espheras Ce- lestiales.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Preliminary Treatise, p. 17.

53 viii “Articulo I. De las Edades del Mundo. […] Articulo II. De la Architectura Civil, en quanto concierne el Templo de Ierusalen. […] Articulo III. De l’Arte, y Architectura Militar, en quanto en comun concierne a las Sagradas Letras, y en particular al Tem- plo de Ierusalen. […] Articulo IV. De el Templo de Ierusalen. Dividele en sus miem- bros, y mide, y describe cada uno muy en particular. […] Articulo V. De el Templo Segundo.” ACRYO, p. vii – x. ix Caramuel uses the authority of Isidoro Chiari (1495 – 1555), a Benedictine member of the Council of Trent, whose Latin translation of the Bible was published in 1541, to support his claim. x “Prueba, que esta ingeniosa Facultad ha sido siempre occupacion de Principes, Reyes, y Emperadores…” ACRYO, Vol. I, Preliminary Treatise, p. 15. xi “La mayor gloria, que tiene, la recibe de las Personas, que la han inventado, professado, y adelantado.” Ibid., p. 15. xii “Estudio Philippe con toda perfeccion las Mathematicas, y muy en particular la Archi- tectura: y para instruir a la Posteridad, quiso que como el Pantheon en Roma, era el libro, en que estudiaba Michel Angelo: assi en Castilla la Vieja, el Templo y Palacio de San Lorenço, que se llama el Escurial, fuesse el libro, en que las Ideas de Obras Rec- tas y Obliquas, que concibio y imagino con su Divino entendimiento, y dibuxo y pinto con su real mano, las mirasse, y admirasse la Posteridad puestas en obra; teniendo en ellas mucho que apprender los Architectos libres, y los de la Secta Vitruviana, mucho que imitar, nada que reprehender.” Ibid., p. 15 – 16. xiii “Y Daniel Barbaro, Caballero Veneciano; grande por su Nobleza, y mayor por su In- genio y dotrina. Fue profundo Philosopho, fue sublime Theologo; y por lo que valio en la Universidad, llego a ser promovido a differentes Puestos, hasta llegar a ser Pa- triarcha. Este con la misma pluma que escribia sus controversias para convertir los Herejes; sus Sermones, para reformar las costumbres del Pueblo: las Lleyes y Consti- tuciones para el buen gobierno del Clero: con ella misma traduxo en la Italiana, quanto en la lengua latina havia escrito Vitruvio: y con ella delineo las Figuras Geometricas, en que se funda la Architectura: y con ella dibuxo Templos y Palacios, en cuya fabrica esta Ciencia se occupa.” Ibid.

54 xiv “Considerense aquellas palabras, scriptas, factas, que de ellas consta, como las dos Tablas de Marmol, en que se contenian los Fundamentos de la Divina Ley, las corto y pulio Dios con su mano; y despues esculpio con su propio dedo en ellas los diez preceptos de los Pandectas Naturales.” Ibid., p. 17. xv “…y si la Architectura es Ciencia, en cuyo estudio, no solo Patriarchas y Pontifices, sino Reyes y Emperadores se emplearon; Ciencia, que como vimos, la honro Dios pintando con su propia mano las Ichnographias, y Orthographias del Templo; y escri- biendo lo que era necessario para que estas mismas delineaciones se entendiessen; hemos de confessar por fuerça, que ella es la Reyna de todas las Artes liberales; y por el consiguiente digna de ser estudiada y executada de grandes Caballeros y Principes.” Ibid., p. 18. xvi “ARTICULO III. De l’Arte, y Architectura Militar, en quanto en comun concierne a las Sagradas Letras, y en particular al Templo de Ierusalen.” Ibid., p. 19. xvii “Pruebase, que el primer lugar, que se fortificó con presidio de Soldados fué el Pa- raiso; como hay destos numerosos Exercitos. Como el General y Emperador, que los gobierna, est Dominus Deus Sabaoth.” Ibid., p. 19. xviii “Demanera, que la Architectura militar empeço con el mundo, y durara quanto el […] Gloriense pues los Ingenieros, que aunque esta noble ciencia la han exercitado hombres perversos para defender sus excesos, el primero que nos la dio, que la exercito fue el mismo Dios; y sepamos todos, que pues cosa mala no puede hazer Su Magestad, es bueno defender la inocencia, castigar la malicia, aunque sea con la espada en la mano; y que esta no dexa de ser arma de Angeles, aunque tambien se atreban a desembainar- la pecadores…” Ibid., p. 20. xix “Luego el paraiso estaba cercado y tenia puerta y camino por donde se pudiese entrar. Luego la Architectura militar nos la enseño Dios; fue el primer ingeniero el que tiene sabiduria infinita; la primera plaça y fortaleza, el Paraiso: y Cherubines los primeros soldados de presidio, y armas de fuego las primeras; mal imitadas en los siglos pasa- dos: y oy promovidas a gran perfeccion en la artilleria, que con relampago, trueno y rayo imita rigores celestials, y es espada de fuego, semejante a la que esgrimian los Angeles que estaban de guarda a la puerta del paraiso terrenal.” Ibid., p. 19.

55 xx “…que haviendo de tener tantas riquezas, havia de edificarle de manera que las pudies- se defender. Erigiose en un exelso monte, con que segun la milicia de aquellos tiem- pos, quedaba inexpugnable. Las murallas exteriores, que vestian el terrapleno, en que estaba la Fabrica, y se llaman en Latin substructiones, como eran aplomo y muy altas […] no estaban sugetas a escalada: y por ser de piedra dura la montaña, no temia mi- nas, que entonces no se sabia nada de Polvora; y aunq; se huviera sabido, ninguna mi- na puede penetrar peñascos solidos.” Ibid., p. 20. xxi ACRYO, Vol. I, Preliminary Treatise, Art. IV, Sec. XII. xxii “Entre los Edificios, que por sumptuosos y grandes ha celebrado el Mundo, el mejor y mayor, de que hay noticia, es el Templo de Ierusalem, en cuya fabrica el Supremo Ar- chitecto fue Dios: el rey David el Artifice, que junto la Materia: el Rey Salomon hijo suyo, el que le mando erigir: y Hiran, el Maestro, o Architecto Segundo, que las Orthographias, delineadas con la mano de Dios, puso en obra.” Ibid. p. 22. xxiii De Prado and Villalpando, Ezechielem explanationes et apparatus Vrbis templi Hie- rosolymitani. xxiv Jacob Judah Leon, Retrato del Templo de Selomohi. Middelburg, 1642. The work Caramuel quotes in the treatise is not the original Spanish edition of the description of the Temple, but a 1665 translation into Latin by Johann Saubert of Helmstädt. xxv A cubit is approximately 18 inches. xxvi In addition to Biblical and Rabbinic references, Caramuel includes as additional references in the discussion of the Temple doors mentions from Serlio’s extraordinary book on doors and a certain book on doors by Michelangelo. xxvii In the treatise Caramuel, claims that the portico in front of the interior building of the Temple served as a model to the portico in front of Saint Peter’s in Rome. ACRYO, Preliminary Treatise, p. 40. xxviii “Los sillares, aunque eran muchos, estaban tan bien labrados y ajustados, uno sobre otro, que parecian una piedra continua, sin dexarse veer las commissuras.” ACRYO, Preliminary Treatise, p. 24.

56 xxix Caramuel comments on the text in general without mentioning any author in particular. The fluting of the columns of the Temple is further discussed in Chapter VI. xxx “…Confessaranme todos, que mas vale un Diamante pequeño, que un gran guixarro. Luego no me negara nadie, que puede ser sumptuoso y magnifico un edificio sin ser grande. Y assi este Templo, que voy pintando aqui, con ser pequeño excedio a todos los milagros del Mundo: porque en el era cada piedra un milagro. Los sillares que formaban sus muros, eran de marmol puro tenian figura exactamente cubica: y nueve pies en cada lado. Y assi siendo tan grandes y tan graves, para unirse y consolidarse entresi, no tuvieron necessidad de cal y arena, o del betun, de que usa en sus edificios el Assyrio. Pudieronse unir sin union; porque de cada peñasco despues de puesto en su ligar, podria decir el Maestro de obras, Mole sua jacet hic.” ACRYO, Preliminary Treatise, p. 43 – 44. xxxi “Estos marmoles, estaban cubiertos de tablones preciosos, que serian de cedro, y si los Balsamos fueron arboles; como quiere Sauberto, serian de Balsamo. Y sobre estos tablones (hayan sido, o no, de Cedro o Balsamo) estaban clavadas laminas de oro fino. Tendrian de gruesso un dedo; que tanto tenian las que vestian, y enriquezian a Iachim, y Booz, colunas que estaban a la puerta del Templo. Añadia precio a estas laminas, no solamente su labor, que era ingeniosa y bella, llena de Cherubines, Palmas, Rosas, Flores, & c. sino tambien el gran numero de Piedras preciosas, que engastadas en los follajes y resaltos destas mismas labores, hazian que pareciesse cada muro un Cielo tachonado de estrellas; o hablando a lo Italiano, tempestado. De manera que en este Santo Templo, aunque la materia, por ser de puro marmol, de cedro, o balsamo, y de oro fino, fue preciosissima, la industria con que fue labrada y trabajada fue tan grande, que podemos de ella (hablando con sinceridad) decir Materiam superavit Opus.” Ibid., p. 44. xxxii “Las Ventanas eran Obliquas, conviene a saber mas anchas de un lado, que del otro.” ACRYO, Preliminary Treatise, p. 25. xxxiii Further research would help clarify Caramuel’s stand on the obliquity of the windows of the Temple, notably in the Mathesis Architectonica, another work by Caramuel in which, according to Fernández-Santos, Caramuel discusses the windows of the Temple. See J. Fernández-Santos, “Clavis Prudentialis. Ethico-Architectural

Analogies and the Solomonic Paradigm in Baroque Spain.” (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2005.) p. 209. xxxiv MANE: God hath numbered thy kingdom, and hath finished it. THECEL: thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting. PHARES: thy kingdom is divided, and is given to the Medes and Persians. Daniel 5:25-28. xxxv See A. Pérez-Gómez, “Juan Bautista Villalpando’s Divine Model in Architectural Theory.”

Chapter 2 – Preliminary arts and sciences an architect must knowi

The education of an architect

After setting the sacred origin of architecture in the Temple of Jerusalem, Caramuel continues his treatise with a discussion of the disciplines that should be considered in the education of an architect. This time Caramuel moves away from Scripture as his point of departure, using Vitruvius instead. Already in the preliminary chapter, Caramuel has introduced the idea that the knowledge of an architect should not be limited to his own practice. He legitimizes that breadth by quoting the Roman architect:

For an architect ought to be and can be no critic like Aristachus, yet not without culture; no musician like Aristoxenus, yet not without knowledge of music; no painter like Apelles, yet not unskilled with the pencil; no sculptor like Myron or Polyclitus, yet not ignorant of the plastic art; nor in fine a physician like Hippocrates, yet not unskilled in medicine; nor in other sciences excelling in a singular manner, yet in these not unskilled.ii

Caramuel notes that a thorough knowledge of each related science is not necessary. A good architect is like a ruler: a good ruler does not need to know fully all the different disciplines that serve him, but only have enough knowledge of them:iii And so, to have artillery made, it is sufficient for the prince who rules over his vassals, for the emperor who commands an army to know su- perficially the rules of the art of metallurgy; it is sufficient to possess a general understanding of the laws of military and civil architecture to have palaces and forts built; it is sufficient to know something of rhetoric, for persuasion should consist in majesty and authority rather than in eloquence [...] And to take advantage of the different winds in naval battles, and on the pitch to dazzle enemies using the rays of the sun, not much mathematics or astronomy are necessary; but it is necessary to have a clear knowledge of military science and politics.iv

A combination of the Aristotelian image of the good ruler and the Vitruvian ideal of the architect’s education finally fuse in what Caramuel believes is the proper education for an architect:

A healthy site must be selected to erect a palace or city, and this is learned from medicine; temples in the countryside should have their door to the west; and in palaces, gardens should face south, so the building does not cast its shadow over the garden; summer rooms should face northwest; winter rooms, south. There is further a need to know well the cardinal points taught in cosmography and astronomy. Trees, when they are felled, must dry, and the time to cut them depends on the moon, and the place in which to store them so they do not rot comes more from experience than from rules. The architect does not need to know all the properties of the continuous and discreet quantities of the geometer and arithmetician, but he must know the lines and numbers he uses, and know them exactly. As for perspective, without which the painter who takes in his hands a brush is reck- less, though it is a plentiful and broad science, it has only two rules that are necessary in architecture and sculpture, the ignorance of

60 which has caused many sensitive mistakes in great buildings, as we will later show.v 1

1 To place architecture among the different disciplines that make up human knowledge, Caramuel starts by using Vitruvius as his point of departure, to give architecture a place within the arts. Caramuel then situates architecture among the human practices, giving it a political role, citing Aristotle. The political aspect of architecture is of particular importance in Caramuel’s theory. Like Alberti and Renaissance authors, Caramuel addresses his patrons and reminds them of the power of architecture to per- petuate the name of virtuous men after their death. Yet the Renaissance distinction between patron and architect is blurred in Caramuel’s idea of the architect as someone who is both a good mason and a good ruler.

At first glance, Caramuel’s description of the education of the architect changes little from the traditional model proposed by Vitruvius. Yet, Caramuel reorders the disciplines Vitruvius considered important for the architect, and the changes are revealing. While Caramuel in his treatise agrees with Vitruvius that an architect must know how to write and draw, for Caramuel the disciplines that provide an understanding of the physical world come first. Knowing the world is of great importance for the architect since his work will placed in it. At the same time, the work of the architect is modelled upon the work of God in the creation of the world. Sound, healthy sites are important, as they were in Vitruvius, but orientation also seems to be of great importance, less for its symbolic dimension, but because through its presence in the world architecture acknowledges and magnifies natural phenomena. This will become evident in the description of the astronomical observatory Caramuel proposed in Architectura civil recta y obliqua. See Chapter 6 of this dissertation.

Despite the important place Caramuel gives to cosmography and astronomy in his definition of architecture, these disciplines are not taught explicitly in the treatise and their principles are not included in the main body of the treatise. Yet astronomy, cosmography and natural philosophy occupy the first fifty-six plates of the one hundred and fifty-six that comprise the third volume of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, plates Caramuel has already explained in the Mathesis biceps. Conversely, mathematics as the science that can explain natural phenomena is included at the beginning of

61 On the literary arts and sciences an architect must knowvi

The first disciplines included in Architectura civil recta y obliqua are the literary arts an architect must know. According to Caramuel, orthography, calligraphy, history, metric and grammar have a fundamental role in the construction of monuments.2 Caramuel laments the generalized opinion of his contemporaries who according to him prefer strength to ingenuity. Strength is a characteristic of animals, and if man were to be measured by it, many beasts would seem superior. Ingenuity, on the contrary, is a quality of the divine present in the human mind, and its exercise brings man closer to God. To consider architecture a mechanical art is a mistake, according to Caramuel, and to think of architecture as concerned with finding ways to lift heavy stones and place them safely above others is to reduce it to the task of craftsmen. Architecture is an art of mediation, in which the material aspects of the practice are auxiliary to the ultimate goal of architecture as a social and political endeavour. The proficiency of the architect rests in his capacity to communicate his designs both through drawings and speech to the mason, who will build them effectively. Man needs language to build, and therefore

the treatise through the teaching of geometry and arithmetic, which constitute the tools the architect possesses to imitate the order of nature in his work.

2 Caramuel’s position is radically different from that of Renaissance authors like Serlio, or from his contemporaries like Guarino Guarini, for whom geometry is the foundational discipline of architecture. For Caramuel too geometry occupies a prominent place in the disciplines required of an architect; however, he starts his treatise with the literary disciplines an architect must know. Within the traditional division of the liberal arts, grammar was considered among the higher disciplines that made the Trivium, while geometry was second to grammar, as it was part of the Quadrivium. Renais- sance authors saw geometry as the foundational science of architecture because their interest was in placing architecture amongst the mathematical arts, endowing it with greater legitimacy as a liberal discipline. For Caramuel, architecture occupies an even higher place in the hierarchy of knowledge. By declaring language to be the foundation of architecture, Caramuel elevates it to the ranks of the highest disciplines, philosophy and theology.

62 the first disciplines to be included in the education of the architect are those related to language.3

Caramuel’s interest in language can be divided into visual and symbolic aspects. In Caramuel’s view, the architect is not only concerned with the visual aspect of language, but also with its significance, and he includes both aspects in Architec- tura civil recta y obliqua. Among the disciplines that deal with the visual aspect of language is orthography, which dictates the rules for the appropriate use of letters to write each wordvii and which deals directly with the correspondence between graphic components of language and their sounds. Caramuel also mentions calligraphy, which teaches how to beautifully draw the characters themselves in accordance with the rules of proportion.viii Caramuel includes grammar in this category, or, more specifically Latin grammar, which an architect must know to avoid mistakes in the inscriptions he makes on buildings.ix Because Caramuel gives priority to the presence of the text on monuments over the rules that govern

3 While Caramuel frequently mentions the importance of the architect’s ability to communicate with his workers, his section on the literary faculties revolves around the idea that architecture communicates in a similar way to language, and the communicative aspects of language in which Caramuel is interested are those that relate to visual communication. Caramuel’s approach is different from that of his Renaissance predecessors, for whom the goal of architecture was to mimic the perfection recognized in the upper regions of the universe. With the realization of the impossibility of reaching perfection in the material world, Caramuel sees architecture as an art of mediation, where theory and practice coexist in the construction of buildings. Caramuel’s theory calls for an active engagement of the architect in the construction of the world, with intentions communicated to the workers in order to make them physically manifest. This engagement appears more explicitly in the political dimension Caramuel sees in architecture.

63 Latin grammar, this last concern can be understood as part of the visual aspects of language.4

Following a pseudo-scientific approach, Caramuel reduces language to its most essential elements. According to him the letters of the alphabet are the smallest unit of language, indivisible, and from which words are made. The section on calligraphy (Figure 2.1) shows the letter I drawn with seven different proportions. The first, the Pygmea, has a proportion of 1:4,5 the Paria, 1:5, the Hetrusca, 1:6, the Dorica, 1:7, the Ionica, 1:8, the Corinthia, 1:9, and the Italica, 1:10.6

The remaining figures on the plate show other ways in which Caramuel sees language and architecture as related. Figure II of the same plate shows inscriptions

4 As introduced in the preliminary chapter, Caramuel sees a correspondence between the inscription of words on buildings and the inscription of the law of God on the tables given to Moses. For this reason, in the section on language, Caramuel is interested in teaching the architect how to write adequately, capably and beautifully, something he learns respectively from orthography, grammar and calligraphy.

5 The proportion of the Pygmea, 1:4, appears nowhere else in the treatise. The argument to demonstrate that the columns of the Temple are the origin of architecture is based on their primordial proportion, and thus the inclusion of a letter that has a proportion prior to those of the Temple might refer to a primitive column. Yet, when Caramuel explains the origin and evolution of architecture, this proportion is not mentioned either.

6 The formal similarity between the letter and a column in the section of calligraphy is obvious. The proportions Caramuel gives to the letter I correspond to the proportions of the orders of columns he introduces in the second volume of the treatise. Caramuel sees letters as the fundamental elements of language, an understanding analogous to his understanding of columns as the essential elements of architecture. Letters contain in themselves an almost infinite possibility of combinations and significations. Simi- larly, the architect, through the order and arrangement of the elements of architecture, has the potential to make meanings appear.

64 on the cornice of staircases, written at an angle using the same method used to incline balustrades according to the principles of Oblique Architecture.x Caramuel describes figure III as an inscription over an arch. However, the arc described by the letters comprises the lower half of a circle, rather than the upper half, which corresponds to the geometry of an arc above a door. Yet the circular arrangement of the letters is drawn using the same method Caramuel proposes for a colonnade on a circular plan. Although the principles of Oblique Architecture are not explained until the second volume of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, the similarities between letters and columns are clear from the very first pages of the treatise.

65 Figure 2.1 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part II, Plate II

66 Caramuel was fascinated by the idea that thousands of words that can be made with a limited number of letters, and that the combination of these can result in an almost infinite number of significations.7 When words are combined to recount events from the past, they become histories.xi When the accounts are product of the imagination, they are fables,xii short stories with a moral lesson that imitate the parables of the Bible. Finally, when words reach conclusions that appear impossible at first sight but after further examination become clear, words make paradoxes.xiii The three types of narratives Caramuel includes in this part of the treatise deal with the use of language in writing about architecture, each offering the architect a different way to explain his intentions.8

7 The issue of the truth contained within the accounts that result from the combination of words is of particular relevance in understanding Caramuel’s ideas. First, it is important to point out that for Caramuel, man’s knowledge is limited and the capacity for absolute truth is reserved to God. The human domain, conversely, is ruled by possibility, a distinction that helps understand Caramuel’s combinatorial interests.

8 The first types of narrative that Caramuel includes in this section of Architectura civil recta y obliqua are histories. Contrary to our singular, contemporary understanding of history, the plural Caramuel uses to refer to these types of narrative are closer to our contemporary stories, in which there are many ways to arrange events from the past. Caramuel is the first author writing on architecture to include history within the theory of the discipline. For Caramuel, events in the past are heterogeneous and acquire their signification when arranged in a narrative in the form of a story. Stories are important for Caramuel, since they allow us to orient ourselves and to find meaning in our practices. This type of account is the one Caramuel will use later in the treatise to discuss the evolution of architecture.

The second type of account Caramuel includes in this section of the treatise is fables, short stories with moral lessons. The value Caramuel see in fables is that they render the moral content they deliver with beauty and ingenuity. Caramuel considers fables appropriate for writing about architecture because of their didactic character. When writing on architecture, authors must learn from fables to include moral lessons in

67 Caramuel pays particular attention to steganography,xiv a discipline that satisfies both his interest for the visual and combinatorial aspects of language. Steganogra- phy, the art of writing in cipher, challenges the correspondence between sounds and characters that characterizes different languages. From the combinatorial perspective, steganography offered even more possibilities for using characters when writing a word than do vernacular languages. Interest in the art of writing in cipher had been renewed with the 1606 publication of Trithemius’s Steganograph- ia.xv The text had attracted the interest of many, in particular the church, for its obscure content. However, by 1624, a key deciphering the content of the first two books of the Steganographia had revealed the real content of the text: a method for writing in cipher. Caramuel, who contributed directly to the dissemination of this text, praised it for being a magnificent example of the application of the science of writing in cipher.xvi Steganography could serve many, including princes and architects, in their attempts to protect their secrets or knowledge.9

their texts. Caramuel also considers that the architect must learn from the language of fables to make his accounts beautiful in order for them to be persuasive.

The last type of account Caramuel includes in Architectura civil recta y obliqua is the paradox. Caramuel is not explicit about the relationship between this type of narrative and architecture, yet from the text we can assume that his inclusion of paradoxes is related to an interest in discussing the language of science. Scientific theories of the Ear- ly Modern period were characterized by an experimental approach. The hypotheses that served as points of departure were often contradictory with the lived experience of the world, yet through experiments where special conditions were set up, the truth of their premises became evident. In this sense, the very language of science in Caramuel’s time can be described as paradoxical. The inclusion of paradoxes is another instance of the comparisons Caramuel makes between the language of the sciences and that of the arts in his treatise.

9 The seventeenth-century interest in language can be characterized as a search for a universal language. Some authors embarked on such a search to overcome the political and religious boundaries that languages such as Latin imposed (see for instance Cave

68 A cursus mathematicus for the architect

Beck, 1657, The Universal Character). Others, like George Dalgarno in his 1661 Ars signorum, saw in a universal language a language for science, where the anomalies and ambiguity of vernacular languages could be overcome. In an attempt to surpass the limitations of language, images and visual aids became common alternatives to words. Caramuel saw in architecture the possibility of a language that transcended linguistic barriers. Yet his motivations were different from those of his contemporaries. Modelled upon the language of the Bible, the power Caramuel saw in architecture as a language was precisely its ambiguity. Because architecture is perceived through the senses, Caramuel associated it with the perfect language of images, not unlike Chinese pictograms or Egyptian hieroglyphs. Like Comenius, who sought to bring about a political, social and religious revolution by educating the young, Caramuel envisioned his revolution as the education of the architect.

The relationship between language and images was a matter of particular interest in the seventeenth century, when people noted with fascination the capacity of images to ‘speak’. Despite the fact that at first glance language is not imagistic and images are not linguistic, artists in the Renaissance and early modernity brought to the surface the hidden iconographic properties of language and the linguistic properties of images. In this Caramuel’s contemporaries saw proof of the interconnectedness of different fields of knowledge. The aspects of language Caramuel includes in Architectura civil recta y obliqua suggest an interest in the iconographic aspects of writing—an inversion of the primacy normally afforded to the ear over the eye when dealing with language. For Caramuel, the visual communication that takes places in written language is analogous to the way architecture communicates through its physical presence. Understanding architecture as a language inaugurates a tradition that we take for granted today, but which appears for the first time in the seventeenth century, when scholars, in their search for a universal language, were taken with the imagistic characteristics of writing and the calligraphic possibilities of vision. On universal languages see U. Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language, trans. J. Fentress. Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995.

69 After laying out the linguistic foundations for his architectural theory, Caramuel introduces the mathematical faculties required of an architect. Architecture had already been described as a mathematical science in the classification of the sciences in Caramuel’s Mathesis biceps (1670);xvii Architectura civil recta y obliqua is in a sense a continuation of the ideas first presented in the Mathesis. In this section of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel takes from his mathematical encyclopedia only those aspects he considers necessary for the education of the architect, grouping these principles into three disciplines: arithmetic, logarithmic and geometry. They occupy the three last chapters of the first volume of the treatise and complete Caramuel’s discussion of the disciplines he considers necessary for the architect, before he goes on to deal specifically with the subject matter of architecture.

Arithmetic

Caramuel claims that arithmetic is not included either in Vitruvius’s De architectura, or in any of the Renaissance treatises, not because those authors didn’t see its use for architecture, but because they assumed it was well known by everyone and therefore saw no need to include it in their texts. Caramuel disregards the importance of proportions in Renaissance theory and fails to recognize that, though not always separate from the rest of a given theory, arithmetic was included as part of architecture, notably in Luca Pacioli’s On Divine Proportion.xviii Caramuel, unlike some of his predecessors, considers arithmetic necessary to architectural drawings, where the proportionality represents a first instance of the use of numbers for the architect. Caramuel introduces the Vitruvian terms ichnographia, orthographia and scenographia in his section on arithmetic,xix as scaled drawings the architect makes to communicate his ideas:

Architecture consists of order and arrangement, etc. The kinds of arrangement which in Greek are called ideae, are ichnographia, orthographia and scenographia. All these are small drawings of large buildings. Therefore if the architect must arrange and draw the plan, section and the majesty of the building, including on a small scale the proportions that all the parts of a palace must have, it is certain that he

70 must know arithmetic, geometry, perspective and all the other faculties that accompany them.xx

Caramuel’s chapter on arithmetic evolves into a practical, methodical compilation of principles, starting with an account of the evolution of arithmetic with the introduction of Arabic numerals, zero, and the decimal system. Here Caramuel explains basic number notation and fractions. He then introduces the multiplication tables, explaining that every architect must learn them by heart.10 Addition, sub- traction, multiplication and division complete the basic arithmetical notions that will prepare the architect to perform more complex operations—operations such as the different methods for dividing a whole into parts, either into equal, proportional parts, determinate parts or parts that are not equal but can be measured. The text includes also a method for dividing numbers into fractions and an explanation of how to calculate square and cubic roots.

Throughout the chapter, Caramuel explains how to use multiplication tables for different calculations. Caramuel ends the chapter with the description of a tool he has devised to facilitate these calculations. He advises the architect to reproduce the multiplication tables from one to nine on separate sheets, half an inch wide, four inches long, and thin as a card. This way, the architect can carry them with him and bring them to a work site. Caramuel points out that the cards simplify dif-

10 The section on the multiplication tables is instrumental in demonstrating Caramuel’s ideas about the power of images and his thoughts on pedagogical tools. Caramuel writes that this table should be “imprinted in the imagination [of the architect]” and for that reason includes a graphical representation. We can assume that by having seen the table, the future architect will hold it in his mind. Furthermore, Caramuel argues that the young will memorize it better if the equivalent of the table is also provided in words, and a written multiplication table follows the graphic one. While in the section on language Caramuel is interested in drawing its visual components, in the section on arithmetic, he emphasizes the use of language for learning numeric operations. This relationship between visual symbols and words and the inversions Caramuel proposes are interesting when looked through the lens of architecture as a visual art but also as an art articulated through narrative.

71 ficult operations, such as square and cubic roots, which are useful when calculating areas and materials.11

The importance of arithmetic for the architect transcends its use in drawing. For Caramuel, arithmetic is at the core of civil life, in public and private business, which echoes Luca Pacioli’s Summa de arithmetica, geometria proportioni et proportionalita,xxi and which was common among writers in the sixteenth century. In the introduction to arithmetic, Caramuel explains its significance by referring to Plato, for whom the condition for goodness is wisdom, which in turn is achieved through the knowledge of numbers.

But surely there must be found some science, the possession of which will cause the wisdom of he who is truly wise and not wise merely in the opinions of men. Well, let us see: for in this laborious discussion we are trying our hardest to find some other science, other than those we have mentioned, which can truly and reasonably be termed wisdom, such an acquisition as will not make one a mean and witless drudge, but will enable one to be a wise and good citizen, at once a just ruler and subject of his city, and decorous. Let us examine this one first, and see what single science of those that we now possess which, by removing itself or being absent from human nature, must render man the most thoughtless and senseless of creatures. There is no great difficulty in making that out. For if there is one more than another, so to speak, which will do this, it is the science which gave number to the whole race of mortals; and I believe God rather than some chance gave it to us, and so preserves us.12

For Caramuel, the role of the architect goes far beyond the construction of buildings; an architect’s duty as a civil leader requires an education in virtues and mor-

11 The tables Caramuel proposes here are intended to alleviate the toil involved in mathematical calculations. Behind this visual aid we perceive Caramuel’s intention to avoid the use of numbers and to privilege geometry as a mathematical science that deals with the reality of the physical world. Caramuel considered direct knowledge primordial and therefore superior to knowledge acquired with the help of reason. The tables Caramuel proposes here make arithmetic calculations direct and therefore preferable.

12 Plato, Epinomis. http://www.ac-nice.fr/philo/textes/Plato-Works/29-Epinomis.htm.

72 al values. An architect’s moral credentials are earned in part through the study of arithmetic: since the knowledge of numbers derives from an understanding of the world order conferred by God to the heavens, knowing arithmetic brings man closer to God, and therefore makes him a better man.

Logarithmic

Recently formalized and published in the early seventeenth century, the science of logarithmic is introduced for the first time in an architectural treatise in Architec- tura civil recta y obliqua. Borrowing from the German astronomer Johannes Kep- ler,13 Caramuel writes:xxii

Logarithmic, a new arithmetic, because of its concision is justly called compendium. It is the most useful and admirable art that has come to light since we began discussing numbers, and without the trouble of multiplying and dividing, nor the bother that arises from extracting roots, and easily resolve difficult calculations, especially those of trigonometry that are treacherous and bothersome.xxiii

Because of its importance as a mathematical science, and since no one had written about it in Spanish before, Caramuel considers it necessary to include logarithmic among the mathematical sciences an architect must learn.14 The chapter on loga-

13 Kepler is always in the background of discussions taking place in the Baroque period. Caramuel mentions Kepler in a few places in Architectura civil recta y obliqua; however, Kepler’s work is particularly influential on Caramuel’s ideas on Oblique Archi- tecture, notably on his plan for an elliptic colonnade.

14 Caramuel sees in the new science of logarithms all the advantages of a modern contribution to the knowledge of mathematics. His decision to include a new science in his architectural treatise reveals his position toward the relationship between tradition and innovation. With the exception of theological matters, where the Bible is the unques- tioned authority, for Caramuel an argument is not truthful because it is supported by a certain authority, whether ancient or modern. He attributes the veracity of a statement to its correspondence with the phenomena it describes. His Aristotelian position privileges lived experience over theoretical or even hypothetical statements. Caramuel

73 rithms begins with a definition of logarithms, and ends with their evolution. The evolution of the art of logarithmic starts with Napier,xxiv advances with the correc- tions brought by the English mathematician Henry Briggs,xxv and peaks with Caramuel himself, who declares that he has improved upon the logarithms of Briggs and proposed his own, which are intended to be used in astronomy. Caramuel explains that the choice between different logarithms depends on the discipline in which they are going to be used. While Caramuel’s own logarithms are useful for astronomy because they are base 60, Briggs’s are preferable for architecture since they are base 10.

Like the chapter on arithmetic, the chapter on logarithms begins with the tables necessary for subsequent calculations. The first is the centenary table, used mainly in conversions, whether of dimensions, currency or time. A second table is the sexagesimal, which contains multiplications of numbers from one to 60 (Figure 2.2). Caramuel clarifies that this table is commonly used in astronomy, and explains that the sexagesimal table is used in the same way as the centenary table, mostly useful to the architect in dealing with angles, minutes and seconds.15 The third and fourth tables list the square and cube of numbers from one to 100.

doesn’t attribute authority to the ancients if their predicates cannot be confirmed, nor does he believe a modern author is better simply for being modern. He gives antiquity credit for having established inquiries into difficult matters, and charges the moderns with continuing the work undertaken in antiquity. The moderns are thus responsible to do for the future what the ancients did for Caramuel and his contemporaries. Caramuel understands the search for knowledge as a collective and continuous project. His respect for the works of antiquity grounds and orients the modern quest for knowledge.

15 The importance of sexagesimal logarithms for the architect is related to the circular geometry particular to the shape of the earth. The architect must be acquainted with this kind of geometry to survey the sites on which he would build.

Figure 2.2 Two versions of the sexagesimal table. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. I, p. 61.

75 Caramuel explains the usefulness of this table in calculating the sides of Pythago- rean triangles.xxvi The last table included in the section contains logarithms of numbers from one to 100. This table, Caramuel explains, is instrumental in finding the logarithm of a number that is the multiplication, division or cross- multiplication of two others, and in determining the logarithm of a number that is the square or cubic root of another.

The explanation of the fifth table,xxvii the trigonometric functions of numbers from one to 90, is truly a small trigonometric compendium, beginning with a definition of trigonometry, the science that solves and measures triangles.xxviii Caramuel distinguishes between two main kinds of triangles: straight triangles, in which the three lines that compose the figure are straight, and spherical triangles, in which the lines are curved. Of these, Caramuel writes, the architect is only concerned with the first, while astronomers and geographers use the second since they are working within the heavenly sphere. A definition of the three main trigonometric functions—sine, secant and tangent—follows. The section closes on the relationships between sides and angles in triangles. The chapter on logarithms ends with a lesson on how to multiply, divide, cross-multiply and find square and cubic roots using a proportional compass.16

Halfway through the section on logarithms, and before the explanation of the fifth tables, Caramuel expresses his gratitude at having been born in modern times, when much advancement in all the sciences has occurred, and encourages his contemporaries to agree:

16 Similar to the tables of multiplication, Caramuel’s fascination with logarithmic tables lies in their use in eliminating calculation in the resolution of mathematical operations. The proportional compass introduces a further step in the process of solving mathematical operations with the use of geometry. The use of the compass allows the same calculations as logarithmic tables do without using numbers at all. Since the compass is one of the instruments of the architect, with his teaching, Caramuel is making allusion to the power of geometry to reach the same results as mathematical calculation in a direct and pre-rational fashion.

76 Give thanks to the Lord our God, ingenious reader, that to facilitate your studies he allowed there to be, before your birth, logarithms, which solve in two lines what the ancients solved in many. Consider the time our ancestors wasted and the toil they invested in solving the seven difficulties these rules put forth; and to make a more prudent and sound judgment, look to your experience, and, knowing the great difficulty and bother the ancient rules bring, if you had to follow them, again give thanks to God that it was his will that in our time the mathematical sciences would have advanced and become easier, cog- nizant as we are of logarithmic, which in antiquity was unknown.xxix

Geometry

According to Caramuel, geometry is first of all the natural sciences because it surpasses them all in truth and clarity.xxx Caramuel describes geometry as a delicate and subtle science necessary to any architect, military or civil. Caramuel’s chapter is organized similarly to the previous two: basic concepts and definitions are introduced, and the author then delves into more complicated aspects of the discipline. Metaphysical or philosophical concerns related to pure, practical geometrical operations, included in the description of these operations, challenge a modern reading of the chapter.

Euclid was the point of departure for any investigation of geometry, not only in Spain but also for most mathematicians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Caramuel is no exception. The first part of the chapter on geometry in Architec- tura civil recta y obliqua could almost be considered a Spanish translation of Eu- clid’s Elements, though Caramuel’s text goes beyond a mere translation.xxxi In his section on geometry, Caramuel adds aspects not included in Euclid, aspects he considers equally important. Caramuel’s geometry is complex compared to Eu- clid’s, since basic geometrical definitions are accompanied by discussions that arise from them.

To define the basic notions of geometry, Caramuel takes the definitions that appeared in the Elements and compiles them into the first section of his chapter. He includes almost all the definitions in Euclid’s books I to VI, books that had generally been those included in translations of the Elements since the Renaissance.xxxii

77 Following Claude-François Milliet Dechales, who in his Cursus seu mundus mathematicusxxxiii had included books XI and XII, Caramuel also includes the definitions contained in book XI.xxxiv Caramuel likewise includes all the definitions from other books of the Elements that he considers necessary for the study of solids,xxxv and adds some of his own definitions, such as of ovals, ellipses and other curves, which are absent in the Greek text, but fundamental for Caramuel’s theory. Before broaching the subject of geometry proper, Caramuel defines the terms of the science, and introduces some postulatesxxxvi and common notesxxxvii from the Elements.xxxviii Once the basic notions of the science are laid out, the text continues with the explanation of certain central concepts, grouped into four parts: points, lines, angles, planes and solids.

According to Caramuel, a point is “a thing that has no parts.”xxxix Yet Caramuel takes the traditional definition of a point to a new level, adding the differences between types of points according to their degree of abstraction. Thus, Caramuel explains, a physical point is the smallest material unit, the minimum part of matter, or an atom, and, because it has no parts, is indivisible. A hyperphysical point is one that in its essence is indivisible yet of which our mind can imagine the parts. Finally, a metaphysical point is one that not even the mind can divide.17 Caramuel explains how the points that concern the geometer are of a different kind than those discussed above. Because they are larger than the smallest material point, they are divisible, but are considered indivisible for the purposes of mathematical speculation. Caramuel calls intermediate points mathematical points that make a line. An intrinsic end point is one both at the end of a line and part of it. An extrinsic end point is used to determine a line, but is not included in the line

17 This distinction is a response to the question of the divisibility of matter, a discussion current in intellectual circles of Caramuel’s time. The question of the divisibility of matter recognizes a distinction between physical and abstract notions, and simultaneously acknowledges that a general definition such as that of a point must be qualified, because the meaning of the definition changes if the point is material or abstract.

78 (for instance, when describing the distance between two points, the two points are not included in the distance).18

Caramuel continues his geometrical lessons with a section on lines. A line is a “length without width,”xl and can be one of two types, straight or oblique. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points, while a curved line originates from the circle. The section on lines is divided into two main parts, the first one consisting of propositions on straight lines, and the second on curved lines. The section on straight lines follows Euclid’s text: it includes geometrical constructions such as how to divide a line in equal parts or in any given number of parts; how to draw a line parallel to another; how to find the proportional means of a line; how to find a third proportional line when two are given; and how to construct trigonometric lines (sines, cords, tangents and secants). The second part, a discussion of curved lines, begins with the circle, the line from which all other curves derive. The section on circular lines includes the ellipse, oval, cittoid, helicoid, parabola, hyperbola and escotia (Figure 2.3).19

18 Besides the whimsical classification of points according to the position they occupy along a line, Caramuel further develops the limitation of a general definition to account for particular characteristics of the thing defined. The idea of the qualification of a principle according to the specific circumstances of a thing or an action is pivotal in Caramuel’s thought. Principles are abstract and, when applied to real cases, they must be modified, taking into consideration the circumstances. This idea is at the base of Caramuel’s moral theological proposition of Probabilism and of his theory of Oblique Architecture.

19 In this section Caramuel makes a clear distinction between the ellipse and the oval, yet this distinction is inconsistent in the remaining parts of the treatise. In the section on Oblique Architecture, in which Caramuel deals with elliptic plans, the terms are used interchangeably. This section gives also the reason behind the relevance of ellipses for modern mathematicians, who, after Kepler’s observations, require them to calculate planetary motion. The extent of the influence of Kepler’s orbits on Caramuel’s theory will be explained in the chapter on Oblique Architecture. However, in order to prepare

79 Figure 2.3 Linea Escotia. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, vol. III, part III, plate XXXVIII, detail.

The main distinction between straight and curved lines is that the former belong to mathematical speculation while the latter are the lines architects use in their practice. This distinction follows Caramuel’s distinction between material and abstract concepts. For Caramuel, straight lines are abstract because they are not present in the material world; they exist only in our mind. For instance, a line built using a water level is not perfectly straight, but follows the curvature of the earth. Curved lines, are therefore physically present in the world and are the object of architecture.20

the reader for the discussion on architecture, Caramuel introduces the geometry of the oval and the ellipse in the mathematical foundations of his treatise.

20 For Caramuel, the astronomical observations of his time demonstrated how previous models to explain the universe had assumed a perfection not possible in material

80 A discussion on the convergence of parallel lines is included within the section on lines. Caramuel uses the opposite walls of a building to illustrate his position: these walls are not parallel, since in order for them to be truly plumb they must converge to a point in the centre of the earth (Figure 2.4). Caramuel bases his notion of linear convergence on the fact that a plumb line drives toward the centre of the earth: strings used to vertically level a wall will always converge at the same point, at the centre of the earth.21 The discussion of parallel lines includes also a

things. This perfection was traditionally explained through the ontological difference accepted between the superlunary and sublunary worlds. Recent observations, particularly those of Kepler, had demonstrated that the perfection associated with the circular motion of higher spheres of the universe was not in fact perfect, but that planets and stars move in elliptical orbits. This realization closed the gap between the two worlds. For Caramuel, the newly realized imperfection of the material world was not of a lesser nature than the perfection of the ideal world; in fact, in Caramuel’s theory of architecture, the imperfect is superior to the perfect, because imperfection follows the laws of geometry, but lacks the chimerical, ideal quality of abstract concepts. Caramuel calls the imperfect in architecture oblique—an architecture that recognizes the imperfection of the world and uses it as a model. In order to show that oblique lines are present in the world, and to define an architect’s mimicry of oblique lines in his practice, Caramuel’s description of circular lines often presents lines first as they appear in the sky, then goes on to discuss their architectural application. The parallel circles that measure the earth, for instance, are those the architect uses in plans of circular buildings and columns; the orbit of the earth as described by Kepler appears in elliptical plans; and the helicoid, a line the architect uses to delineate volutes, describes the movement of a body that both orbits the earth and gravitates towards it.

21 Caramuel’s is an interesting interpretation of the Aristotelian structure of the cosmos, a model in which parallel lines converge in the vertical dimension but not horizontally. Aristotle’s vertical lines converge in heaven, because they meet in God; there is a metaphysical implication of the vertical dimension and its association with the divine. Despite his pseudo-scientific approach, Caramuel is incapable of letting go of the traditional metaphysical implications of the vertical. For Caramuel the horizontal and vertical dimensions remain qualitatively different: the vertical stands for the divine

81 description of the linea conchilis, whose properties had fascinated mathematicians since antiquity.xli

Figure 2.4 Showing how parallel walls in a tower converge to the centre of the earth. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, vol. III, part II, plate VII, detail.

The conchilis is a curve that approximates the straight line infinitely, but never aligns with it.22

and the horizontal for the human. This distinction is juxtaposed onto Caramuel’s ideas on architecture and is particularly evident in the second volume of Architectura civil recta y obliqua. The discussion of parallel lines in the section on geometry hints at Caramuel’s ideas about the limitation of human practices. It is clear that the architect must aim for the walls of his buildings to be parallel, but if walls we perceive as parallel could be measured with enough precision, it would become evident that they converge. Parallel lines converge at the point of infinity, and infinity for Caramuel is otherworldly.

22 In Caramuel’s mind, the conchilis is a metaphor for human knowledge, perfecting itself over time yet never reaching the absolute knowledge of God, knowledge Caramuel associates with the straight vertical line. Since the vertical line is exclusive to the divine, and columns as the vertical elements of architecture represent human bodies, Caramuel considers perfectly vertical columns inappropriate. The shape of the col-

82 In the chapter on geometry, angles follow lines,xlii since an angle is made of two lines that meet obliquely.xliii Caramuel considers three types of angles: straight angles made by straight segments of lines; curved angles made by curves; and mixed angles, formed by one straight and one curved line. The article concen- trates only on the first type of angles, the only ones relevant for the architect; the others, Caramuel clarifies, are useful only to the astronomer and the geometer. Straight angles can be further subdivided into two categories, straight or oblique, depending on the type of angle created where the lines meet. Straight-straight angles are angles where two segments meet at an angle of ninety degrees; straight- oblique angles are those where the lines meet at any other angle.

Caramuel’s geometry lesson continues with his explanation of surfaces,xliv those magnitudes that have length and width but not depth.xlv Surfaces can be divided into similar and different figures. Similar figures are subdivided in three classes, based on the correspondence between the number of sides, angles and their dimensions. Two figures are heterogeneous, explains Caramuel, if they have the same number of sides and angles but their dimensions are different. For instance, two triangles would be similar but heterogeneous if one is isosceles and the other equilateral. Two figures are homogeneous if their sides and angles are equal. Two figures are Homoiogonias if the number of angles and sides is the same and the angles are the same size, but the sides are not; that is, the figures are the same shape and different sizes, and are therefore proportional to each other. Caramuel is particularly interested in this type of figure because of its usefulness in architecture. For the architect, proportional triangles are instrumental to scale drawings, as well as to take measurements at a distance, useful for land surveys.

It is truly necessary to understand this principle well: it is the base for reducing a large building to a piece of paper, without which the civil or military architect could not successfully draw two lines. It is also useful in measuring the distances and heights of mountains, towers or

umns must follow a line that represents human condition, and Caramuel chooses the linea conchilis, the oblique line that stands closest to the perfection of the straight.

83 columns, and the size of palaces, fortifications or barricades. And therefore because it is fundamental, every practical mathematician must understand and comprehend its truthfulness and its demonstration.xlvi

The teaching of polygons begins with the triangle as the basic figure to which any other figure can be simplified. Caramuel explains the different types of triangles, paying special attention to Pythagorean triangles. He then teaches his reader how to calculate the area of regular figures, from the triangle to the hexagon, and provides an explanation of the general principle of triangulation to calculate the area of any multilateral figure. Once Caramuel has taught the future architect how to make these calculations, he summarizes his teaching in two tables that facilitate on-site calculations. The section ends with a discussion of irregular figures and how to reduce them to triangles to calculate their areas. The calculation of area is necessary in many urban and rural sites where following the lines of terrain results in irregular shapes.23

Next in the treatise are solids,xlviiquantities that have length, breadth and depth.xlviii Caramuel divides them in three categories: round solids, including spheres and oval and elliptical solids; planar solids such as pyramids, cubes, prisms, parallele- pipeds, and the five Platonic solids—the tetrahedron, hexahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron; and mixed solids, including pyramids with circular, oval or elliptical bases, and cylinders. Special attention is devoted to the calculation of the volumes of planar solids, instrumental for the architect’s material estimates. Caramuel particularly notes the problem of calculating the amount of material needed in walls, where the amount of stone or brick required is usually miscalculated because the corners are included twice or not included at all.

The discussion of solids continues with the calculation of volume of mixed solids,xlix with particular emphasis on cylinders because of their association with the

23 The triangulation of irregular figures furthermore represents an instance of the relationship between the irregularity of the physical world and the perfection of geometric constructions.

84 shape of columns. Caramuel clarifies that only Gothic columns are truly cylindrical, since they are the only kind that have no diminution in their diameter. The shaft of Greek and Roman columns, on the other hand, can be described as cylinders in the centre and as sections of pyramids at the bottom and top of the shaft. As well as the area of cylinders, Caramuel includes volume calculations for whole pyramids and sections of pyramids, which the architect needs when calculating material for columns. Caramuel also includes in this section surface calculations for three types of vaults: domes, cannon vaults and groin vaults, a calculation relevant for the ornament of surfaces.

The remaining three sections of the chapter on geometry revolve around the traditional problem of the squaring of circles, which had been introduced in the treatise in the first pages of the chapter on logarithms alongside other unresolved questions from antiquity. Along with the doubling of the cube, perpetual motion, perpetual fire, and the transmutation of metals, the squaring the circle is one of problems left for future generations to solve. Caramuel does offer a proof of the impossibility of squaring the circle, possibly as a demonstration of his modern free- dom from the traditional belief that circle and square had to be to be reconcilable as primordial symbols of duality. Caramuel understands that the impossibility of calculating the area of a circle is at the heart of the problem of squaring the circle. Caramuel believed Archimedes’s approximation of the proportion of the circle’s radius as 7:22 is sufficient for the calculations of practical mathematicians, including architects. This settles the question, at least in an architectural treatise, and Caramuel goes on with what truly concerns him: determining the areas and volumes of shapes derived from the circle.

The previous section serves as an introduction to the problem of the transformation of a given polygon into others without changing its size or weightl—how to make a square from a triangle, a square from a parallelogram, and how to trian- gulate different figures, including squares and parallelograms, pentagons, hexa- gons or any other polygon, maintaining their size and weight, a useful operation to the architect when working on irregular sites. Caramuel also explains area calcu-

85 lations of circles or portions thereof, ellipses, and ovals, and how to find the volume of spheres and elliptical bodies. The final sectionli includes two tables where proportionality is the main issue; the first is instrumental in calculating the length of the side of the different Platonic polygons inscribed in a circle, and the second when converting one given solid into another solid of a given size.

On the different kinds of knowledge

Within the mathematical compendium included in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel makes a distinction between knowledge gathered directly from experiencing the world, and knowledge acquired through reason. According to Caramuel, evident truths are those that need no rational demonstration; they can be known directly through the senses or the mind. Geometrical postulates, argues Caramuel, fall into this category, since the mind does not need demonstration to confirm their veracity. Evident truths can also be known through the senses. When the senses do not suffice, the mind contributes, and, considering the circumstances, decides what seems more probable. Caramuel calls intelligible knowledge that in which the mind and the body are involved, yet for which there is no need for demonstration. Scientific knowledge, on the contrary, refers to a kind of knowledge that requires evidence to prove its truths—characteristic of the sciences, since the truths it deals with are not evident. Infallible knowledge or truths can be determined through demonstration, but in cases when the conclusions reached are at all dubious, Caramuel considers them probabilities.24

24 In Architectura civil recta y obliqua Caramuel differentiates between two types of truths: evident truths and truths that require logical demonstration. This distinction corresponds to first principles and rational thought in traditional western philosophy. First principles are self-evident truths, while rational thoughts are those that need logical arguments to demonstrate their veracity. Conversely, the probable is neither self- evident nor certain, and in this sense it is not considered part of traditional rational thought. Rational thought is concerned with the necessary and the absolute, while probability falls under the category of the contingent, and therefore in the domain of

86 Meanwhile, the nature of the object of knowledge—sensible, intelligible or abstract—determines the type of knowledge required to apprehend it. Sensible substances are those that can be perceived through the senses. Sounds, for instance, are sensible substances because we perceive them through the sense of hearing. Intelligible substances are those objects whose qualities are abstract, objects that cannot be perceived through the senses but through the mind. In physics, for example, Caramuel explains, where the objects of knowledge are bodies in motion, the bodies themselves are sensible substances because we apprehend them with the senses, yet the observations and conclusions arising from the study of their accidents, such as the intrinsic and extrinsic causes of movement or the first cause of motion, can only be perceived through the mind. Finally, abstract substances are those such as geometry, for which all the sensible and intelligible qualities are left aside. When dealing with points, lines or surfaces, Caramuel points out, we do not consider their matter, accident, quantity or quality. Geometrical concepts are abstract ideas of things that are not present in the physical world.

Caramuel makes an important distinction between the abstract knowledge of mathematical sciences and its correspondence with reality. In the abstraction necessary for sciences like geometry, Caramuel explains, certain provisions must be assumed that are otherwise in reality. A mathematical point, for example, is a quantity that has no parts and therefore cannot be further divided. This supposi- tion contradicts the same nature of quantities that by definition can be infinitely divided. In geometry, however, to determine the properties of points, we need to abstract from them their divisibility and assume that a point has no parts. A speculative point or line is therefore one that has been abstracted from its physical characteristics. Geometry is speculative because it deals with abstract matters. A practical point or line, on the other hand, is one considered as it is in the world. In this

rhetoric. Using traditional terminology, Caramuel calls a primary truth one in which there is correspondence between the statement and the thing signified—truths that are absolute and evident. Secondary truths are statements that seem true but are not true in the primary sense; they are only probable.

87 sense, Caramuel explains, there are no points in the physical world. Theoretical or speculative sciences are for Caramuel those that deal with abstract subjects, while practical sciences are those that study the substances of which the natural world is made.

Another important clarification that appears in this section of the treatise is the appropriateness of methods in different disciplines. Caramuel is aware that principles that are valid in one field of knowledge are not necessarily valid in another, offering syllogisms as an example. This mathematical postulate claims that two lines, surfaces or bodies that are equal to a third are equal to each other; however, the generalized assertion that two things that are equal to a third are equal to each other is wrong (for instance, Peter is a rational animal, and Francis is a rational animal, but to state that Francis is therefore Peter is false). Caramuel emphasizes the importance of finding appropriate methods of inquiry for different disciplines. Architecture is for Caramuel both a practical and speculative discipline, and it is therefore necessary to determining a method appropriate to this dual condition.

i This chapter considers the first four chapters of Architectura civil recta y obliqua that detail the disciplines required for an architect. The first chapter of the original treatise, “Tratado I. En que se proponen y explican con brevedad y claridad todas las Facultades Literarias, que ha de saber, y exercitar un Architecto,” deals with the literary disciplines necessary for the architect (ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, p. 1). The second chapter, “En que se enseña L’Arithmetica,” is dedicated to arithmetic (ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. II, p. 33), the third, “En que se enseña La Logarithmica,” deals with logarithms (ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. III, p. 54) and the fourth, “En que se enseña La Geometria,” teaches geometry (ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, p. 1). ii Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture, trans. Granger Frank, ed. Henderson Jeffrey. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1931. Book I, Chap- ter I.

88 iii This parallel of the ruler Caramuel borrows from Aristotle’s Politics. “The opinion of Vitruvius can find a proof in the Politics and can be put this way…” (“Pruebase la Opinion de Vitruvio con un argumento que se puede sacar de la Politica, y formarse por estas palabras.”) ACRYO, Vol. I. Treat. I, Art. III, p. 5. iv “Y assi al Principe, que gobierna vassallos, al Emperador, que gobierna un exercito, le basta saber superficialmente las Reglas del Arte Metalaria, para mandar fundir Artilleria: Bastale saber en las leyes de la Architectura Militar y Civil, para ordenar, que se erixan Palacios y se edifiquen Fuertes: Bastale saber un poco de Rhetorica, porque su Persuasiva mas ha de consistir en Magestad y Autoridad, que en Eloquencia […] Y para approbecharse en una batalla naval de la variedad de los vientos, y en una campal dislumbrar los enemigos con los rayos del Sol, no es menester mucha Mathematica o Astronomia; pero es necessario tener conocimiento claro de la Ciencia Militar y Politica.” Ibid. v “Porque para edificar un Palacio o Ciudad ha de eligir un lugar saludable, y esto se lo ha de enseñar la medicina, Los Templos, que en el campo se erigen, tienen al Poniente la puerta: y en los Palacios los Iardines estan a medio dia, para que no los assombre el edificio; y los Cuartos, que en verano se habitan, han de mirar al Cierço; los de inbierno al Austro. Luego ha de saber bien los puntos Cardinales del Mundo, que distinguen y enseñan la Cosmographia y Astronomia. Los Arboles, que se cortasen, se han de secar: y el tiempo de corrarlos depende de la Luna, y el lugar en que se pueden guardar sin corromperse, mas se sabe por experiencia, que por Reglas. No ha menester el Architecto de conocer todas las propiedades que en la Quantidad Continua y Discreta considera el Geometra y el Arithmetico, pero las Lineas y Numeros de que se approbecha, los ha de conocer exactamente. Y hablando de la Perspectiva, sin la qual es temerario el Pintor que toma en la mano el pinzel, aunque es Ciencia muy copiosa y diffusa, dos Reglas tiene solamente, que en la Architectura y Estatuaria son precisamente necessarias; Reglas que por ser ignoradas, no han podido impedir muy sensibles errores, que como se dira en su lugar, se veen en grandes Edificios cada dia.” Ibid., p. 5 – 6. vi “Tratado I. En que se proponen y explican con brevedad y claridad, todas las Facultades Literarias, que ha de saber, y exercitar un Architecto.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, p. 1.

89 vii ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, Art. V. viii ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, Art. VI. ix ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, Art. VIII. x On Oblique Architecture, see Chapter 5 of this dissertation. xi ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, Art. X. xii ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, Art. XI. xiii ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, Art. XII. xiv ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. I, Art. VIII. xv Johannes Trithemius, Steganographia. Frankfurt, 1606. xvi In 1635, Caramuel published an edition of Trithemius’s Steganographia, which included the key to deciphering Books I and II. According to Shumaker in Renaissance Curiosa, this was the first time the books were published with the key. Other sources indicate that Selenus in his book Cryptomenytices had already published both the books and the key in 1624. See Wayne Shumaker, Renaissance Curiosa. Binghamp- ton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1982. xvii Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Mathesis biceps… Campania: Prostant Lugduni apud Laurentium Anisson, 1670. xviii Luca Pacioli, in De divina proportione (1494), used arithmetic for the calculation of volumes in Piero della Francesca paintings as well as for cost estimates. In France, arithmetic appears in Du Cerceau’s Livre d’architecture (1559), in which he uses cost estimates to organize the works included in the book. See A. Pérez-Gómez, “The Glass Architecture of Fra Luca Pacioli,” Chora Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, ed. S. Parcell and A. Pérez-Gómez. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994. xix Caramuel deals with the Vitruvian terms in the second volume of Architectura civil recta y obliqua. For the Vitruvian terms see the section on perspective in Chapter 6.

90 xx “Consta la Architectura de Orden, y de Disposicion, &c. Las especies de la Disposicion son las que el Griego llama Ideas; conviene a saber, la Ichnographia, Orthographia, y Scenographia. Y todas estas son Pinturas de grandes Edificios que en una plana pequeña se dibuxan. Luego si el Architecto a de ordenar y dibujar la Planta, el Perfil, y la Magestad del edificio, poniendo en una breve plana las proporciones que han de tener todas las partes de un Palacio, es cierto, que ha de saber Arithmetica, Geometria, Perspectiva, y todas las demas Facultades, que acompañan a estas.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. II, p. 33 – 34. xxi See A. Pérez-Gómez, “The Glass Architecture of Fra Luca Pacioli.” xxii This section’s titular quote comes from the title page of Johannes Kepler, Chilias Log- arithmorum ad totidem numeros rotundos. Landgrave, 1624. xxiii “Es la Logarithmica, una Nueva Arithmetica, que por su brevedad con raçon se llamara Compendio. Es el Arte mas util y mas admirable, que ha salido a luz, desde que empeçamos a disputar de Numeros con la qual sin los embarazos de multiplicar y dividir, ni las molestias, que trahen con sigo las extracciones de Raizes, se resuelven dificultosas Cuentas, y principalmente las que pertenecen ala Trigonometria, que son peligrosissimas y molestissimas.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. III, p. 56. xxiv J. Napier, Mirifici Logarithmorum… Edinburgh: Andrea Hart, 1614. xxv Henry Briggs (1561 – 1630). xxvi The fourth table is missing. xxvii There is a discrepancy between the numbering of the tables in the text and the tables themselves. The table Caramuel calls the fifth, because it is the fifth one he explains, appears as table IV in the section where the tables themselves are included, because the sexagesimal table was included in the text but is not included in the appendix of tables. xxviii The importance of triangulation becomes obvious in Chapter IV, in which Caramuel explains geometry.

91 xxix “Ingenioso Lector, da immortales gracias a Dios nuestro Señor, de que para facilitar tus estudios, permittio que antes que tu naciesses, hubiese Logarithmos, con los quales resuelvas en dos lineas, lo que apenas pudieron los Antiguos en muchas. Ponte a considerar quanto tiempo perdian nuestros Antepassados, y con quanto trabajo resolvian estas siete Difficultades, que estas Reglas proponen: y para hazer juicio mas prudente y seguro, mira la experiencia, que tienes, y conociendo la gran difficultad y embarazo, en que te pondrian las Reglas Antiguas, si las huviesses de seguir, vuelve a dar nuevas gracias a Dios, que quiso en nuestro tiempo adelantar y facilitar en sumo grado las Ciencias Mathematicas, concediendonos la Logarithmica, que ignoro toda la Antiguedad.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. III, Art. IV, p. 66. xxx “La Geometria excede en verdad y claridad todas las Ciencias Naturales” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, p. 1. xxxi A translation had been available in Spain since 1576 thanks to Rodrigo Zamorano (1542 – 1623), a professor of cosmography at the universities of Valladolid and Sala- manca, who under the patronage of Philip II had translated books I to VI, keeping his translation as close as possible to the Greek text. After Zamorano at least another eight translations were published in that country in the seventeenth century, an indication of the influence of the ancient author in the intellectual circles in which Caramuel received his early education. Other Spanish editions of the Elements are those by Luis Carduchi (1637), Lorenzo de San Nicolás (1633 – 65), who also included his translation in the treatise on architecture Arte y uso de arquitectura, Andrés Puig (1672), Jo- sé Zaragoza (1678), Sebastián Fernández de Medrano (1688), Jacobo Kresa (1689), Escuela de Palas (1693), Francisco Larrando de Mauleón (1698). For information on these translations of those in the following centuries see Juan Navarro Loidi, Los Ele- mentos de Euclides en Castellano. Real Sociedad Matematica Española, 2005. http://divulgamat2.ehu.es/divulgamat15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article &id=10674&directory=67. Accessed November 1, 2010. xxxii I have been able to identify the following missing definitions: Book I, 21 and 23; III, 5; IV, 2 and 5. xxxiii Claude-François Milliet Dechales, Cursus seu mundus mathematicus. Lyons: Anis- son, 1674.

92 xxxiv Book XI, a book not traditionally included in most Renaissance editions, is the one that appears the least complete; definitions 1, 2, 11 – 14, 21, and 25 – 28 are omitted. xxxv “...el P. Chales de el sexto se passo al undecino libro sin explicar los intermedios. Imitarele Yo, y despues de haver puesto las Definiciones, que en los primeros seys libros se enseñan, sacare de el undecimo, y de otros las que fueren necessarias, para medir los solidos.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. I, p. 14. xxxvi ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. II. xxxvii ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. III. xxxviii Caramuel includes the first, second and third postulates from the original text and notes 1, 2, 3 and 5 from book I of the Elements. These latter he called Principios per se notas, principles known immediately without need of demonstration. xxxix “[U]na cosa que no tiene parte ninguna…” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. IV, p. 21. xl “[U]na longitude sin latitud…” ACRYO, Vol. I., Treat. IV, Art. V, p. 25. xli Among the mathematicians Caramuel mentions in the treatise are Proclus, Geminus of Rhodes, Pollonius of Perga, Pappus of Alexandria, Oronce Fine, Girolamo Cardano, Francisco Barozzio and Marin Mersenne. xlii ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. VI. xliii “El Concurso de dos lineas, que se vienen a encontrar obliquamente, es que llamamos Angulo.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Art. VI, p. 30. xliv ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. VII. xlv “…que la Superficie ere una magnitud, que tenia longitud y latitud, pero no concibiamos en ella alguna profundidad.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. VII, p. 33. xlvi “Y verdaderamente es necessario entender bien esta Doctrina: porque en ella se funda el saber reducir un gran edificio a un pliego de papel, sin lo qual no podra el Architecto Civil o Militar tirar dos lineas con acierto. Sirve tambien para medir distancias y alturas de montes, torres o colunas; grandezas de palacios, baluartes o

cortinas. Y assi por ser Fundamental es menester, que todo Mathematico Practico entienda y comprenda bien su verdad y su demonstracion.” Ibid., p. 34. xlvii ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. VIII. xlviii “Llamanse asi las Quantidades, que tienen longitud, latitud, y profundidad.” ACRYO, Vol. 1, Treat. IV, Art. VIII, p. 46. xlix ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. XI. l “Transfigurase una Quantidad en otra, quando sin mudar pesso ni magnitud, muda la forma extrinseca.” ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art.. IX, p. 51. li ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. VIII. The section numbering of this chapter is inconsistent. However, since there is continuity in the content and pagination, we may assume it is a simple typographic mistake.

Chapter 3 – The origin and evolution of architecture

A book for architects and patrons

Having included the preliminary material necessary for the education of the architect, Architectura civil recta y obliqua delves into its central topic, architecture.i The introduction to the second volume comes in the form of a dedication to Don John of Austria.ii In the dedication, Caramuel reminds patrons of the importance of the works they sponsor; just as their descendants do, these works can also contribute to immortalizing their name. As an example for any prince, king or emper- or, Caramuel suggests Philip II, who has transcended mortality through his grand- son Don John of Austria and through the works he commissioned in his lifetime, particularly the temple and palace at El Escorial, which Caramuel praises as equal to Solomon’s Temple in its magnificence.1

To equal that most perfect building, an architect requires the qualities that only someone like Philip II, an excellent prince and architect, possessed. The two-page

1 In the opening pages of the second volume of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel explicitly positions architecture as crucial to the work of a civic ruler; along with progeny, architecture affords civic leaders immortality. dedication praises Philip II as a prince above any Roman Emperor before him. It proclaims him the Spanish Vitruvius; with his design and construction of the Es- corial, Caramuel contends, Philip II even surpassed Vitruvius himself.2 Caramuel believes Philip II imagined his building using geometric principles. Similarly to the Temple of Solomon, where God partly revealed his principles of good architecture, the geometric principles Philip II employed in the construction of the Es- corial are not evident in the building. As with the Temple, Caramuel believes a qualified exegete is required, in order to extract the geometric rules that delineate the King’s architectural design. Caramuel considers himself qualified for the task, and after careful study he claims he has consigned these principles in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, with the hope that modern architects will use them to build their works. Before Philip II, Caramuel explains, great architects like Michelange- lo spent their time studying pagan buildings such as the Roman Pantheon to extract the principles of architecture, simply because they didn’t have a building like the Escorial to learn from. However, the modern architect has the double fortune of living in a time when the Spanish temple and palace is still standing, and of having access to a treatise in which the architectural principles of that building can be studied.3

2 Beyond serving as the customary recognition of the patron of a work, the dedication presents us with an important insight into Caramuel’s thought. The dedication is addressed to the patron, showing that Caramuel sees his reader as a patron educated in matters of architecture. Philip II embodies the two characteristics that make Caramuel’s perfect architect—an exemplary prince and a great builder.

3 Caramuel’s architectural theory can be seen as poised between two buildings, representing past and present architecture ideals. The Temple of Jerusalem constitutes the origin of good architecture, while Caramuel considers the temple and palace at El Es- corial to be the modern paradigm. Caramuel does not see the Temple of Solomon as an archetype that is impossible to emulate in modern times; rather, the Temple offers lessons for an architect to pursue perfection. While the potential to achieve the perfection of the original building in our modern works remains open in Caramuel’s theory, the actual possibility of actualizing perfection is beyond the capabilities of man. For

96 Architecture: the art of building

Architecture is the art of building; not the bricklayer, the labourer, the stonecutter or the carpenter but the master mason; the one who directs, governs and orders all the workers; who is called in Greek αρχιτέκτω, Architectus in Latin and in Castilian Ingeniero. A name that is rightly given, because what others make with their hands, [the architect] orders first with his ingenuity.iii

Caramuel makes a clear distinction between the capacity of the architect to direct his workers and the manual skill involved in the actual construction of a work. This distinction comes from Vitruvius’s Ten Books, where the intellectual capaci-

Caramuel, however, this limitation should be no hindrance; on the contrary, man is encouraged to continue improving his skills and perfecting his works, despite the impossibility of achieving perfection.

It is important to note that El Escorial was completed in 1584, almost one hundred years before Caramuel published Architectura civil recta y obliqua. Caramuel’s declaration of El Escorial as the most perfect building in modern times responds to the building’s balance between the power of the church and that of the state. At the time of Caramuel’s writing, the struggle for power between the church and state loomed across Europe. While the English monarchy had declared their supremacy in matters of religion, the French King was looking for ways to gain independence from the Ro- man Church. In Spain, meanwhile, the balance between the power of the state and that of the church had found a perfect balance in the figure of Philip II, materialized in the palace and monastery at El Escorial.

Caramuel’s choice is also indicative of his feelings toward the Vatican. Caramuel could have chosen Saint Peter’s as his example, since Saint Peter’s was the centre of the Christian world. Yet Caramuel was very critical of the mores of the papacy and never refrained from condemning them. Moreover, the Vatican implied also a separation between matters of religion and matters of state, a position that Caramuel considered less than ideal. Prophetically, Caramuel’s Architectura civil recta y obliqua is an attempt to educate future rulers so that through their architectural undertakings they can strike a balance between civic and religious authorities, which Caramuel sees as central to ensuring social order.

97 ty of the architect is declared superior to the manual skill of his workers, and the tradition continued through the treatises of the Renaissance until Caramuel’s time. Yet Caramuel adds important nuances to the traditional definition of the architect, emphasizing the action of building. Edificar, from the Latin Aedificare, goes beyond the act of construction. It means not only to build but also to create, establish, improve and edify, and can be applied both to material objects and to intellectual or spiritual attributes. Architecture for Caramuel involves more than the act of construction; architecture includes the creative process of imagining the building, and the capacity to coordinate the work of different trades in the execution of the work, as well as social and political order, improvement and growth.

For an architect to lead and direct his workers in the execution of a work, moral and social responsibilities had to come first. To prove his claim, Caramuel in- vokes the authority of Aristotle and Plato. Caramuel cites Aristotle’s Magna Moralia, in which the architect is described as “the one whose precepts direct his workers in building a house properly.”iv A sense of propriety gives a moral over- tone to the work of the architect. Likewise, the authority of Plato sanctions the claim that it is not required that the architect employs himself in the manual execution of a building; however, as coordinator of the works, he will be responsible for the outcome. According to Caramuel, in Plato’s Republic, “the architect is the prince of the activity (of building), not the maker, because the architect tells the workmen what is suitable, while he is the only one accountable for the whole.”v The architect’s responsibility extends also toward the patron, society, and posteri- ty.

To further support his claim of the architect as an intellectual leader, Caramuel uses one of the Hebrew names of God: charascim. “God, as the first architect […] bestowed upon men light from his Divine Science, and a shadow of his holy name.”vi The name, a plural word with a singular meaning, refers to the many hands with which the architect executes his work4—that is, the architect is the

4 The image of the architect as someone who has many hands appears in the allegory of the good architect Philibert de l’Orme includes in his 1567 Le premier tome de

98 master who, with as many hands as he has workers, performs his work—while it establishes God as the first architect.

Caramuel confers on the architect a leadership role in society, and defines the qualities that make a good architect. Caramuel returns to those disciplines Vitru- vius considered an architect must know. Once again, and as is recurrent in Caramuel’s work, the source is only a point of reference and the content is skewed to add nuances to the author’s desired significance. Of the disciplines Vitruvius considered the architect must know—geometry, optics, history, philosophy, music, medicine, law and astronomy—Caramuel only discusses philosophy and mathematics in more detail as being crucial for the education of the architect. What he treasures in these sciences is not any specific knowledge but the moral teaching that is the result of their study.

What is important for Caramuel first and foremost is the goodness and honesty of the architect.5 Caramuel places philosophy first. Philosophy teaches man how to be good—the most important characteristic an architect must have in order for his work to be good and therefore beautiful:

Philosophy, however, makes the architect high-minded, so that he should not be arrogant but rather urbane, fair-minded, loyal, and, most important, without avarice; for no work can be truly done without good faith and clean hands. Let him not be greedy nor have his mind busied with the acquisition of gifts; but let him with seriousness guard his dignity by keeping a good name. And such are the injunctions of philosophy.vii

l’architecture.

5 Caramuel devotes the first four chapters of his treatise to the disciplines an architect must know before delving into the study of architecture. To define the scope of the practice, Caramuel combines his sources, adding Aristotle’s description of a ruler to the disciplines Vitruvius considered crucial for architects. In this part of the treatise, dealing with architecture proper, Caramuel returns to the issue of the education of the architect, this time using only the authority of Vitruvius as his point of departure.

99 Caramuel pays special attention to the honesty of the architect, and lists mathematics second in the list of disciplines fundamental for the architect. Architects need to calculate materials, and the cost of their work, and for this they need mathematics. Caramuel considers honesty and truthfulness all the more important given that great sums of money are entrusted to the architect. Honesty, Caramuel claims, the architect learns from the study of Natural Law, which teaches God’s commandment to always speak the truth, and condemns lying and deception.6

Caramuel asserts that God is the origin and end of architecture. Fame, glory, wealth, and other earthly ambitions are but deviations of the first goal the architect must strive for in his practice—to glorify God. We must remember that for Caramuel, architecture as a human endeavour has its origin in the temples built to worship God since the expulsion from paradise. Cities likewise originated to praise God, according to Caramuel, appearing from the need of men to live together and pass on to new generations the knowledge to understand and follow God’s law. If for Vitruvius cities had their origin in gathering around a fire, and for Virgil in the need for protection in wartime, for Caramuel law is central to the foundation of cities. Caramuel understands the purpose of the city as the guardian of the law of God. God’s laws have endured through the ages by the transmission of knowledge, from the old to the young and from the wise to the ignorant, ena- bled by the construction of schools and academies where the things of the world and those of God are taught.7

6 The claim that the most important virtues of an architect are honesty and truthfulness shows that architecture for Caramuel is founded on morals. Caramuel considers the commandments God gave Moses in the tables of the law as the source for man to learn how to be virtuous. This reciprocity between cannon law and architecture appears earlier in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, in the chapter on the Temple of Jerusalem, where Caramuel argues that both the tables of the law and the stones of the Temple were cubic, implying that cannon law is as foundational for architecture as the stones from which its constructions are hewn.

7 Caramuel believes that the appearance of cities serve a two-fold purpose in preserving

100 The second goal of architecture is to imitate nature through firmitas, utilitas and venustas.viii Caramuel translates the Vitruvian firmitas as permanence (“perpetui- dad”), utilitas as convenience (“comodidad”) and venustas as beauty (“hermosura”), giving a twist to the original signification and establishing his own hierarchy. Convenience, or the appropriateness of the design in complying with its future use, comes first according to Caramuel, since the architect should know before starting his design the rooms the new building must have. Beauty follows; this term in Caramuel’s theory corresponds to the Vitruvian notions of eurhyth- my-proportion and symmetry: “proportion implies a graceful semblance; the suitable display of details in their context. This is attained when the details of the work are of a height suitable to their breadth, of a breadth suitable to their length; in a word, when everything has a symmetrical correspondence.”ix Symmetry is “the appropriate harmony arising from the details of the work itself; the correspondence of each given detail among the separate details to the form of the design as a whole.”x Last is permanence, which Caramuel aligns with the sturdiness of a building that gives stability to the work and prevents it from collapsing.8

the teachings of God’s law: first, moral values and knowledge of the world are transmitted from generation to generation over time, an idea in line with Caramuel’s notion of genealogies as fundamental in the evolution of humankind. Like genealogies, educational institutions also function as vehicles to hold the knowledge of religion and of the world. While churches are places of worship, schools and academies are places where learning about the natural world offers a way to know and serve God. For Caramuel, inquiries into the natural world should ultimately be directed at better knowledge of its creator. Science and religion are bound by the same goal—to know and praise God. Caramuel’s position here is in clear opposition to that of his contemporary Claude Perrault, a French architectural author, a member of the French Acad- emy of Science, and a founding member of the French Academy of Architecture, for whom science should not be under theological scrutiny. French academies, unlike Christian universities, were funded by the king and maintained independence from the Roman Church.

8 Strictly speaking, Caramuel’s choice of words would be in Latin perpetuitas, commodi-

101 After explaining the goals of architecture, Caramuel chronicles the evolution of the art. First, however, he feels compelled to state his position in the discussion regarding the authority of the ancient versus that of the moderns taking place in the seventeenth century.9 Caramuel starts by acknowledging the value of tradition.

tas and formosus. The alteration of the order in which these notions appear reveals the hierarchical position of the invisible aspects of the building over the material and more mundane ones. Caramuel places the arrangement of the program first: this aspect is related to order, as the ingenuity of the architect appears first in intellectual action. The physical appearance of the building comes second. Beauty embodies invisible qualities such as proportion and symmetry and the building becomes a mediator between the invisible world of ideas and the material world. The materiality of the building is last. The material and its capacity to endure time and the elements is for Caramuel a more mundane aspect of architecture, one that, if not guided by the intellect of the architect, would fall to the jurisdiction of the mason.

9 The unqualified praise of the works of antiquity that characterized the Renaissance humanists begins to be challenged in the sixteenth century in the works of Tasso and Ariosto. In the seventeenth century, the validity of antiquity as a model for the arts becomes a central topic of discussion. Despite evidence in the Renaissance of the possibilities for innovation within this tradition, the imitation of Classical Antiquity that constituted the Renaissance cannon was seen as a hindrance to innovation. This po- lemic divided Europe in the seventeenth century: some authors followed the ancients and rejected anything modern, while others praised the works of their own time above all. Amongst the defenders of the modern, Charles Perrault, brother of the architect to the French king Claude Perrault, wrote some of the most influential polemical texts in his 1687 Le Siècle de Louis le Grand and 1692 Parallèle des anciens et des modernes. Claude Perrault can be seen as antagonistic to Caramuel, and a comparison of the two helps contextualize both the extent of Caramuel’s originality in understanding the limitations of a new, modern instrumental theory, and his indebtedness to the medieval tradition that viewed the liberal arts in service of revealed truth. In the case of the quarrel between the ancient and the moderns, the radical position of the Perrault brothers against tradition, inaugurating our modern praise for innovation, stands in opposition to the balance Caramuel proposes. See A. Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and

102 He is of the opinion that tradition extends beyond the Judeo-Christian world, and includes any work worthy of praise, regardless of the place and time of its construction. Caramuel believes we can learn from the works of the past, just as great architects like Vitruvius, Michelangelo or Serlio learned from Roman ruins. Yet Caramuel is aware of the futility of repeating buildings of the past in modern times. Things change over time, and architecture must adapt to respond to these changes. Furthermore, Caramuel points out, not even architects in the past entirely followed their predecessors, finding among the ruins of antiquity disparity in building methods; this he considers an argument that modern architects similarly need not follow the ancients to the letter, which compliance some of his contemporaries presumably claimed.

It is erroneous, Caramuel affirms, to believe as the Renaissance humanists did that the ancients were omniscient, and he encourages his contemporaries to avoid speculating on certain matters merely because they were not included in the accounts of the authors from the past. He claims that in any art or science, as time passes, new and better knowledge is acquired, improving the discipline. In architecture in particular, Caramuel believes Vitruvius lacked the means to know about traditions different from his own, so his account is necessarily limited to the Greco-Roman world. Conversely, the moderns, who would have had the possibility of travelling overseas and would have known architectures beyond Europe, should include them in their accounts. Although the ancients did not have the technology to build certain things, the moderns do, and Caramuel compels them to use their advanced methods to contribute to the advancement of the discipline.

However, Caramuel declares it a mistake to believe that new is inherently better. Anything an author writes, whether in antiquity or in modern times, is irrelevant if

the Crisis of Modern Science. London, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983, p. 23 – 25, and J. Rykwert, The First Moderns. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1983, chapter 2.

103 practice is out of joint with beauty. If modern ideas are more beautiful than those proposed by the books of the past, then they should be expounded without any concerns, and vice versa. Caramuel advises the architect to find a compromise between the authority of the past and the innovation of the present. Yet when faced with a situation where this middle way is not easily identified, Caramuel considers it preferable to err on the side of the ancients. When dealing with matters that are obscure or difficult, such as theological or philosophical questions, it is better to follow the authority of the learned, he suggests.10 Finally, in architecture in par-

10 This is one of the two types of probability Caramuel identifies in his work on Probabil- ism, the 1640 Benedicti Regulam. One of Caramuel’s most significant cultural contributions was his defence of Probabilism in the field of moral theology. Moral theology as a new discipline appeared in the seventeenth century to help the confessor choose the proper penance for a certain sin. The recognition of the limitation of human knowledge and the impossibility of reaching absolute truth is at the heart of the fundamental problem seventeenth-century theologians faced—namely, how to ensure responsible choices even if our knowledge limits our ability to identify the appropriate choice. Probabilism maintained that a probable opinion sufficed to have a quiet conscience. In the Benedicti, Caramuel distinguishes between two types of probability: the “authoritative probable” (autentice) and the “rationally probable” (rationaliter). The first becomes apparent from external sources or, in other words, by the authority of the learned; the second is referred to as intrinsic since its veracity is proved by arguments. In this part of the treatise, Caramuel is referring to external probability, that of the learned, which he believes must be followed when dealing with matters of theology. Later in the treatise, Caramuel will explain that architecture too is a field ruled by uncertainties and that, while the architect has the option of following the authority of the learned to find certainty, both paths, the “authoritative probable” and the “rationally probable,” are of dubious worth in regard to architecture. The alternative he proposes relies on the idea of order as the possibility for architectural knowledge, something that he will explain better when dealing with straight architecture (see Chapter 4 of this dissertation). Caramuel’s four main works dedicated to Probabilism are In Divi Benedicti Regulam (1640), the first edition of his Theologia moralis fundamentalis (1652), the Apologema pro antiquissima et universalissima doctrina de probabilitate (1663) and Dialexis de Non-Certitudine (1675). See J. Fleming, Defend-

104 ticular, Caramuel recommends that tradition be followed in dealing with essential aspects of the practice, and that innovations be limited to accessory aspects. Caramuel’s own theory differentiates structural from ornamental elements, and his innovative principles on Oblique Architecture are, for the most part, applied only to the latter.

Architecture: “A most noble art”

For Caramuel, architecture is not only a very noble discipline, it is also first among the mathematical sciences.xi Architecture comes by this lofty place from its noble origin, with God as the first architect. Architecture’s nobility further derives from the lineage of great buildings from antiquity to the present. Caramuel articulates the evolution of architecture through two narratives that trace the continuity of architecture from its sacred origin all the way to Caramuel’s own time.11

ing Probabilism: The Moral Theology of Juan Caramuel. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006.

11 Caramuel is the first author writing on architecture to include an historical account of the practice in his treatise. Before him, architectural treatises included works of Clas- sical Antiquity that Renaissance humanists saw as examples of men achieving the order they were seeking in the world. Since the distinction between antiquity and their own time was not made in the Renaissance, authors at the time were not concerned with finding continuity between the past and the present. Historical time is itself a modern construct and as such it first appears in the proto-history of architecture that Caramuel included in Architectura civil recta y obliqua. Caramuel’s interest is precisely in showing the continuity between the buildings erected by the first men and those of his own time.

The continuity Caramuel presents in his account is a construct, and his arguments for connecting two separate moments are sometimes forced. In order to maintain the continuity his account requires Caramuel is sometimes inaccurate, and by our contemporary standards, even wrong. Yet for Caramuel absolute truth is otherworldly. In a world ruled by contingency there is the possibility of having several stories or histo-

105 The first account traces the evolution of architecture from its primitive origin to modern times, describing its transition from wood to stone architecture; the second delineates the evolution of the proportion of columns, beginning with the columns of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Like its sacred equivalent, civil architecture appeared as a consequence of man’s will to praise God, with cities built so God’s law could be taught and preserved. Caramuel believes that, in architecture as in any other art, first manifestations are primitive, and evolve over time through accumulated experience. Using Vitruvius as his point of departure, Caramuel explains the origins of inhabitation: humans sought in natural formations such as caves to protect themselves from the elements.xii These natural protective environments were usually too far from each other for communities to form, and men started to build houses, using any materials available. Once people realized that fire and water were indispensable for daily life, some settled in places near forests and rivers from whence they could get their supplies. Others, foreseeing that the natural resources of a given site were limited, decided to build movable houses that could be taken anywhere supplies might be found.

The first stage in the evolution of architecture was the adaptation of nature to provide shelter against the elements: using a single log, fishermen made boats that when turned upside down doubled as shelter; underground dwellings were exca- vated in the ground, something Caramuel claims was common in the Italian pen- insula; and men combined mud with branches to build houses in trees, imitating the nests of swallows.xiii As men gathered experience in the construction of dwellings, building skills developed and over time they started to use wood to build houses. The identification of wooden architecture as the first stage in the development of the discipline is consistent with the Vitruvian tradition.

ries, with the articulation of events from the past held above the truthfulness of the accounts. Caramuel’s history of architecture is one of many that might be told, and the way it is shaped speaks to the intention of the author.

106 However, Caramuel uses very different examples than his source to illustrate his ideas. Vitruvius, Caramuel explains, had access to houses made in wood in places such as Gaul, Spain, Portugal and Aquitaine. Caramuel laments these structures’ replacement with stone buildings both in Europe and Asia, leaving the moderns without physical evidence of the primitive stages of the art. Caramuel assumes that primitive houses in America would have been built in the same way as early houses in Asia and Europe, and uses the description of chroniclers travelling to America to extrapolate the design and materials used in the first European and Asian dwellings.xiv

Different types of wood houses appeared to respond to specific geographical and environmental conditions, Caramuel notes. The first type of private dwelling he describes is the caney or bohio, a sort of wooden hut where the interior space is arranged in a round or quadrilateral plan (Figure 3.1, A and B). These types of constructions were common, and required a solid ground for their construction. When such conditions were not available, in swampy sites or sites prone to flood- ing due to their proximity to a river, houses were raised from the ground. In areas where extreme heat required it, houses were left without walls (Figure 3.1, A and B). The most ingenious were dwellings built in trees, which Caramuel deduces were designed for protection against wild animals and enemy tribes (Figure 3.1 and 3.2 – III).

Even if Caramuel uses the term primitive to describe the first stages of the evolution of the practice, he warns the readers not to suppose that in its first manifestations architecture was an inferior art. The craftsmanship used in some of the early dwellings shows that, though rustic, they were nonetheless well built.

Even early in the development of architecture, furthermore, if the person destined to occupy a building was powerful, the buildings’ magnificence reflected that power.

107 Figure 3.1 Examples of primitive houses. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part II, Plate X.

108 Figure 3.2 Houses in trees. Architectura Civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XV, detail.

To support his claim, Caramuel includes a description of a palace built by the cacique Comogro on Española Island (present-day Haiti) (Figure 3.3):

In front of the palace of this illustrious cacique [...] was a square ABCD, an ample and open square, 150 feet long by the same again in width [...] It was not enclosed by walls but with palm trees, so tall and close to each other that they were beautiful to behold and provided pleasant shade. From this square, a door (XY) gave access to the courtyard (DCFED), which was 150 feet long by […] 80 feet wide. The side (EF), the facade of the palace, was formed with well-worked trees erected as columns, which suggested there was also ingenuity and industry among barbarians. The other three sides of this court (ED, DC, CF) were made of trees very close to each other, woven together with brambles and other smaller plants, preventing anyone from passing through, as if they were made of adobe or masonry. In the centre of the facade was a large door (ÆZ), adorned, as was the custom in that country, with canes and rods, and it connected with the salon (VYKLV), which was square in shape and measured 70 feet.xv

109 Figure 3.3 Palace built by the cacique Comogro on Española Island. Architectura Civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XIII.

110 The texts on which Caramuel bases his portrayal describe the life of American Indians through the lens of European chroniclers. The portrayal of the interior spaces of the cacique’s house describes the Native’s habits as being similar to those of European courts. For Caramuel, these accounts prove that indigenous Americans, primitive though they might have been, had a hierarchical society, which structure was evident in their buildings.

The last room was toward the south and was therefore cooler. In it were the beds and there slept the wife of the cacique with her ladies in waiting […] On the other side three doors connected to three big rooms; the first one was a cellar, the second a cave with casks, barrels and jars (made of wood and clay) that contained wine […] The third room was used as kitchen, where the servants and slaves lived.xvi

The accounts of the chroniclers also showed that, even in the first stages of the evolution of architecture, lineage played an important role. In the description of the houses at Española, Caramuel saw a people who gave their ancestors the respect they deserved, by keeping the corpses of the previous caciques of the island in one of the rooms of the palace:xvii

In the other room (RGFTR) facing the east were some corpses, dressed and adorned with jewels, hanging from the walls with cotton strings […] Having asked the chief who these were, hung with so much adornment, diligence and care, he replied they were his forefa- thers, who had been the leaders of that province, and were arranged in the order they lived, and that his father had been the last one. They were all dressed with cotton shirts, embroidered with ribbons or thread of gold and adorned with emeralds and other precious stones.xviii

Caramuel included two more examples of wood architecture in Architectura civil recta y obliqua. The first was the city of Hochelaga (present day Montreal, Cana- da).

Caramuel sees evidence of the degree of civilization associated with the people of Hochelaga in the shape of the wall as well as in the organization of the city contained within. A perfect circular wall confirmed the order associated with this per-

111 fect figure.12 Inside, the houses were arranged surrounding a central square and organized along perpendicular streets. They were made of wood, one for each family, with a hearth at the centre, and with the interior divided into smaller rooms in the interior (Figure 3.4). Caramuel sees the peacefulness of the society as proof that the people at Hochelaga were civilized.

Unlike other early cities in the Americas, such as those of King Montezuma in Mexico or King Atabaliba in Peru, where continuous wars were fought and whose territories were under the tyranny and cruelty of their governors, Hochelaga was “one of the best [cities] in New France,”xix a peaceful and powerful city. It was the head of the territory and had other minor cities under its government, and as opposed to the wars to which the Spaniards arrived to South America, the degree of civilization of the inhabitants of Hochelaga was further evidenced in their cor- dial welcome of the French to their territory.

The second example is Colchide or Iberia (present day Georgia), which shows how uncivilized people built in antiquity. A description of this city is mentioned briefly in Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture, as an example of how houses were built in early times.xx Caramuel complements the Vitruvian description using chronicles of the West Indies, to set the houses of these people against the principles of good architecture proposed by Vitruvius.

12 The power of a wall to defend a city was associated with the polygonal shape of the fortifications. The attributes of perfect geometrical polygons in the design of fortifications began to be challenged in the seventeenth century with advances in warfare and the introduction of gunpowder. Caramuel was aware of the implication of projectile trajectory for fortifications, yet, in his attempt to demonstrate that the wall at Hochela- ga had the properties associated with polygonal fortifications and to avoid controversy, he specifies that the people of Hochelaga defended themselves with stones.

112 Figure 3.4 City of Hochelaga. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XIV.

113 Caramuel sees a fault against convenience in the interior arrangement of their dwellings, where, instead of having separate rooms for different activities and members of the family, men, women, masters and servants all lived in and shared the same space.

Furthermore, their construction methods made the structures vulnerable to the elements, and lacking permanence. They were made of wood covered with straw and so fragile that a strong wind was enough to destroy them. A fire in the middle of the houses also presented a threat. Finally, the houses at Colchide were anything but beautiful: their spaces were very dark and without windows, sunlight entering only through the small aperture of the door; they had no paintings or art- works to decorate their interiors; and everything was black because of the smoke produced by the fire.

To prove the magnificence of wood architecture, Caramuel renders the original chronicles and aligns them with the principles of his own theory. A narrative twist allows Caramuel to show that the same principles that constitute good architecture today—such as geometry, proportion, the proper interior arrangement of a building, the reflection of a social order in the occupation and organization of structures, and the continuity carried through genealogies—had already been present since the early days of the practice. In his description of primitive houses, we can see how for Caramuel the past does not represent remote or disconnected instances of the practice.

The second major stage in the evolution of architecture was the transition from wood to stone. Caramuel sees in this transformation the origins of architecture as observed in his own time.

What were in the past poles and tree trunks today are columns; branches and later wood planks today are walls; carpenters were those who today are architects and masons.xxi

The description of the transformation of wood into stone architecture has its origin in Vitruvius’s treatise, and continues to be explored in the theoretical works

114 of the Renaissance.xxii In both Vitruvius’s and Caramuel’s treatises, there is a difference between the origins of the proportions and the ornaments. For both writers, the proportion of the columns derives from the proportion of the human body, while the ornaments evolved from the construction in wood that preceded stone columns. In Vitruvius’s treatise, the ornamentation of the Doric order in particular was derived from columns made in wood. The projection of wooden beams placed over columns became the triglyphs, the space between triglyphs became the metopes, and the projections of the rafters the mutules.xxiii

Caramuel goes even further than his source, tracing back every single part of the column to an original wood version (Figure 3.5). This transformation was slow, he argues, beginning when the first poles made of rough wood without bases or capitals (A) were copied by stonecutters in marble, resulting in the first stone columns; they were simple and lacked a base to sit on or a capital to transition into the beams.

Figure 3.5 Primitive wood architecture. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XV, detail.

115 Over time, builders found that in order to improve the way the beams sat on top of the poles, it was better to put one or several pieces of wood between them (E). Later, when stone replaced wood, this type of pole topped with a plank became what we know today as the Doric column, with a capital but without a base.

Then, Caramuel continues, builders realized that the point at which the columns meet the floor (D) sank because of the load they supported. At the same time, the direct contact of the columns with the humidity of the ground made the wood rot, damaging the poles.

To avoid these problems, the use of a square brick to prop up the poles was implemented (H). When this was reproduced in stone, the plinth of the columns appeared. Sometimes, writes Caramuel, the intense sun to which the pine poles were exposed expanded the wood to the point of breakage; to counter this, ropes were tied around the bottom of the poles, and the torus appeared. These ropes proved to be insufficient in countering the deformation of the poles, so it was decided to brace the shaft of the columns with iron rings (FG); when stonemasons imitated these in marble, they became the astragals. Triglyphs originated in stone repro- duction from dripping glue from the ends of the beams (O, P, Q, R); likewise, the channelling of the columns appeared from marble imitations of grooves in the original wood (S).

Caramuel uses the same idea of the evolution of wood architecture to write about the origin of the Ionic capital: when the Ionians observed a capital that the sun had bent because the wood used in its construction was insufficiently dry (H), they found it beautiful and decided to imitate it in stone, and the Ionic volute was born. Similarly, Caramuel believes every element of the columns had its original appearance in wooden architecture, including the Corinthian capital. For this reason, he condemns Vitruvius’s account of Callimachus and the maid as fictitious.13 The

13 Caramuel writes in Architectura civil recta y obliqua: “There are, reader and friend, two types of histories, those that have happened and those that have been imagined. And the majority of those Vitruvius wrote are of the second type. In this case he did

116 Corinthian capital, Caramuel explains, has its origin in the ancient practice of putting an iron ring at the top of a pole and then hitting its end with a heavy weight to bend the ends gracefully to the sides (I), something that the people of Corinth found appealing, reproducing it in stone and eventually adding leaves that folded outward.14

not ponder correctly, because what he had to explain was how the Corinthian capital went from wood to stone, without imagining how that maiden died, or the piety of her wet nurse, or the objections of Callimachus.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Part I, Treat. V, Art. 10, p. 29. Vitruvius’s treatise, the text that had constituted the point of departure for architectural theory since the Renaissance, is not based on fact, according to Caramuel, but on invented stories. This fictitiousness is not problematic for Caramuel; on the contrary, it demonstrates that creating stories to explain how things came to be in architecture is a long-standing practice. Caramuel had already argued for the appropriateness of fables as a style suited to architecture in the section on the literary disciplines necessary for an architect. Caramuel clarifies, however, that fables or fictions can be wrong if the consistency of the accounts is interrupted. When Vitruvius explained the origin of the Corinthian capital, he used the story of a maiden who had died and whose wet-nurse, in despair, carried in a basket the girl’s favourite objects, placed them on top of the tomb and secured them with a roof tile. As time went by, Vitruvius continues, the root of an acanthus tree that had been covered by the basket grew and the weight of the basket caused its leaves to grow bending outwards. Later on, Callima- chus, seeing the leaves and finding them beautiful, copied them in stone, from whence according to Vitruvius the ornament of the Corinthian capital originated. Caramuel considers this story erroneous, not because it did not take place, but because it doesn’t fit within a narrative intended to explain how stone architecture originated from wood architecture.

14 Caramuel’s account of the transition of architecture from wood to stone follows the Vitruvian tradition. Yet, when compared to Vitruvius’s account or with those of Re- naissance authors, Caramuel’s description of how architecture transitioned from wood to stone reads as more rational and formalistic. For Caramuel, the columns of architecture are characterized by their ornaments and proportions. While he sees the origin of the ornament of the columns in the details of wooden construction, their proportions

117 The last stage in the evolution of architecture, modern architecture, goes back to the origin of stone architecture in Asia, from where it reached Greece and finally Italy. After architecture flourished in Italy, writes Caramuel, a time of barbarism followed. In the Middle Ages, the Goths assailed Europe and Asia, burning and destroying all the buildings and palaces from antiquity. The monuments were razed or dilapidated to a point where nothing of what remained was even worthy of mention. The darkness into which architecture was driven after the invasions lasted until the fifteenth century, when Michelangelo and Bramante resurrected architecture from its ashes. In Caramuel’s account, Bramante is considered the redeemer of western architecture. By observing the ruins of antiquity, Bramante was able to restore the principles of architecture; later, with the patronage of the pope, Bramante earned a commission for Saint Peter’s basilica, where he applied the lessons learned from his observation of ruins.15

After Bramante, Michelangelo is for Caramuel the second figure who contributed to the rebirth of architecture. The work that granted Michelangelo this recognition is not the continuation of the work of Bramante at Saint Peter’s, but the Roman Campidoglio. In this work, Caramuel believes Michelangelo exemplifies the role

come from an evolution of the columns of the Temple of Jerusalem, which idea Caramuel develops later in the treatise.

15 If we follow Caramuel’s theory so far, in the example of Saint Peter’s basilica, the pope, as a religious leader commissioning a work, would be the architect, while Bramante, as the man in charge of the construction itself, would be the second architect or mason. Caramuel here writes in clear contradiction to an idea presented elsewhere in his treatise. It is important to recognize that Caramuel’s theory is far from consistent. Contra- diction appears often as the result of commentaries made to peers, and escapes the contemporary reader. In the case of Saint Peter’s, the inversion in the figure of the architect might be explained as a commentary on the patron of the work, Julius II, who in Caramuel’s opinion might not have had the moral standing required of an architect. While Caramuel is not explicit about this, the possibility should be considered in light of Caramuel’s constant criticisms of the Vatican and the popes.

118 of innovator:

He had wit, and saw that the precepts of architecture Vitruvius proposed were not always aligned with the beauty that is sought in buildings; little by little he took the license of drawing his ideas and designs with a libertine brush, an audacity that afterwards many imitated.xxiv

Michelangelo appears as the paradigm of the modern architect, recognizing the value of the works of the past while at the same time innovating and improving the art.16

Once architecture had regained its former glory, from Rome, it went to Spain and France, where magnificent temples and palaces were built. Caramuel ends the evolution of architecture with the building he considered the highest level of perfection achieved in modern times, the Spanish temple and palace at El Escorial.

16 Caramuel did not consider Michelangelo’s work in Saint Peter’s in Rome his most exemplary work. The basilica at Saint Peter’s was the product of many generations of architects, which restricted Michelangelo’s intervention and limited his possibilities for innovation. Meanwhile, the proposal of an oval plan for the Roman Campidoglio is innovative, as a departure from the classical perfection of the circle for which artists of the Renaissance strived, in line with Caramuel’s idea of Oblique Architecture. Moreo- ver, Caramuel considers the project an example of the social power of architecture; while the former square at Capitoline hill was oriented towards the palace of government, Michelangelo shifted the visual axis of the pagan hill toward Saint Peter’s. This re-orientation Caramuel recognized as a re-consecration of the square, where the proper hierarchy of the church over the government was re-established. Michelange- lo’s Campidoglio can be argued as the clear precedent for Caramuel’s intervention in the Duomo at Vigevano. Like the project in Rome, the concave facade of the Vigevano Cathedral dedicated to Saint Ambrose re-orients the square in which the cathedral is located. Originally a ducal square, Caramuel’s facade turned the former ducal square into the cathedral square. See Daria de Bernardi Ferrero, “Il conte Ivan Ca- ramuel de Lobkowitz, Vescovo di Vigevano architteto e teorico dell’architettura.” Palladio 15 (1965).

119 i The preliminary material constitutes the entire first volume of Architectura Civil Recta y Obliqua. The contents of the second volume, where architecture proper is discussed, are organized into five chapters. The first chapter of the second volume, Chapter V, on Straight Architecture, identifies what Caramuel considered to be traditional architecture. Chapter V is divided in two parts: the first includes the origin, nobility, antiquity and purpose of architecture, as well as the qualities that make a good architect; and the second includes drawings and explanations of the orders of columns. For the purpose of this dissertation I have divided the contents of the original chapter in two. The present chapter deals with some general aspects of architecture, and the next will present Caramuel’s understanding of the orders. ii Don John of Austria the Younger (1629 – 1679), an illegitimate son of Philip IV, was an important military figure in the Spanish Empire. Don John held the Spanish crown from 1667 to 1677, after having overthrown Queen Mariana from the power she had held since the death of Philip IV in 1665. See R.J. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1500 – 1700. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, 1985. iii “La Arquitectura es Arte de edificar; y no el Albañil, no el Peon, no el Cantero, no el Carpintero; sino el Maestro de obras; el que dirige, gobierna, y manda a todos los Of- ficiales, es el que se llama en Griego αρχιτέκτων, Architectus en Latin, y en Caste- llano el Ingeniero. Y tiene con raçon este nombre, porque lo que los otros han de obrar con las manos, el lo ordena primero con su ingenio.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, p. 1. iv Caramuel quotes from Aristotle’s Magna moralia: “Architectus est ille, cuius praes- criptio, ad domum exstruendam. Faber se actingit.” (“One person who is called an architect, and another, who is subordinate to him, a housebuilder; and he is capable of making a house. But the architect also, inasmuch as he made the house, is capable of making a house.”) Magna moralia; Ethica eudemia; De virtutibus et vitiis. Trans. and ed. W.D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press,1915. Chap. 35 v “[…] y la tiene por cierta el Divino Platon, porque en el libr. de regno, dice assi. Archi- tectus operationum Princeps est. Non operantu; sed, ut judicavit, singulis Operariis demandat, quod commodum est; donec commissum absolverint.” Ibid., p. 1. vi “Pudiera aquí el Theologo ingeniosamente decir, que el primer Architecto, que fue Dios

120

[…] habiendo comunicado a los hombres un rayo de su Divina Ciencia, les comunico tambien una sombra de su Divino nombre.” Ibid. vii See Vitruvius, Book I, Chap. I, p. 13. viii “Now these should be so carried out that account is taken of strength, utility and grace. Account will be taken of strength when the foundations are carried down to the solid ground, and when from each material there is a choice of supplies without parsimony; of utility, when the sites are arranged without mistake and impediment to their use, and a fit and convenient disposition for the aspect of each kind; of grace, when the appearance of the work shall be pleasing and elegant, and the scale of the constituent parts is justly calculated for symmetry.” Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture, trans. Granger Frank, ed. Henderson Jeffrey. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1931. Book I., c. III – c. IV ix Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture, p. 27. x Ibid. xi “Luego merece ser puesta en primer lugar entre las Mathematicas: y la hara aggravio quien la pusiere en el segundo.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat, V, Part I, Art. I, p 3. xii See Vitruvius, Book II, Chapter I, 1. xiii See Vitruvius, Book II, Chapter I, 3 and Caramuel, ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Art. V, p. 13. xiv Caramuel uses different sources for his account on architecture in America. The most influential is Pietro Martire, Sommario dell’istoria dell’Indie occidentali cavato dalli libri scritt dal signor don Pietro Martire milanese. Venice, 1534. xv “Delante del palacio de este ilustre Cacique […] havia una Plaza ABCD, que era un lugar libre, espacioso y quadrado; que tenia 150. passos de largo, y otros tanto de ancho […] No estaba cercada de muros, sino de palmas, tan altas, y tan densas, que hazian hermosa vista, y deleytaban con su sombra. Desde esta gran plaza, por la puerta XY, se entraba en el patio DCFED, que tenia de largo 150. passos y de ancho […] 80. El lado EF, que era el Frontispicio del Palacio, se formaba de arboles bien labrados,

121

que erifidos a modo de columnas, insinuaban, que tambien hay ingenio y industria entre barbaros. Los orros tres lados de este patio (ED, DC, CF) se formaban de arboles, que por estar muy juntos, y enlaçarse con ramos de çarças y otras matas menores, im- pedian el passo a los de fuera, como si fuessen de tapia, o calicanto. En medio de dicho Frontispicio estaba una gran puerta (ÆZ) adornada segun el uso del pays, de cañas, y de baras; y por ella se entraba en el salon (VYKLV) era cuadrado este salon: y assi vendria a tener 70 pasos.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part I, Art. VI, p. 20. xvi “…en el [salon] de mas adentro (SHKIS) que por mirar la Septentrion era mas fresco, estaban las camas, y habitaba la muger del Cacique, y las Damas que la acompañaban, y la servian […] Al otro lado del Salon por tres puertas diversas se entraba en tres grandes Estancias: de las quales la primera era Despensa […] En la segunda que servia de cantina, havia toneles, barriles y tinaxas, (vasos de madera, y de barro) con di- ferentes vinos […] Servia de cocina el tercer apposento; y en le vivian los criados y esclavos…” Ibid. xvii In the words of Martire: “a questa era piena di corpi morti secchi legati con corde di cottone, & appiccati al palco per il traverso.” Ibid. xviii “En el otro apposento (RGFTR) que caia al medio dia, estaban los Cadaveres de los muertos vestidos, y adornados de joyas; y colgados de cordones de algodon por los muros […] Preguntandole al Regulo, que Diffuntos eran los que con tanto adorno, di- ligencia, y cuydado, tenia colgados y guardados; respondio, Que eran sus Antepasados; Señores, que havian sido en aquella Provincia; y que havia sido su Padre el ultimo, porque con el orden con que havian vivido los tenia alli colgados. Tenian todos cami- sas de algodon, bordadas toscamente con cordones, o passamanos de oro, y adornadas de esmeraldas, y otras piedras preciosas.” Ibid. xix Ibid., p. 22. xx See Vitruvius, Book II, Chap. I. xxi “Postes y troncos de arboles fueron las, que son hoy Colunas: ramos, y despues tablas las que hoy son paredes: y Carpinteros fueron los que hoy son Architectos y Albañi- les.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part I, Art. X, p. 26.

122 xxii Pena Buján in his dissertation mentions Francesco di Giorgio, Bramante and Philibert de l’Orme as some of the Renaissance authors who continued Vitruvius’s tradition of tracing the evolution of stone columns from wooden ones. See C. Pena Buján, “La Ar- chitectura civil recta y obliqua de Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz en el contexto de la Teoría de la Arquitectura del siglo XVII.” (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 2007.), p. 149. xxiii See Vitruvius, Book IV. Chap. II. xxiv “Tuvo lucido ingenio, y viendo que los preceptos de la Architectura, que Vitruvio havia puesto, no eran siempre ajustados a la hermosura, que en las Fabricas se deseaba, se fue tomando licencia poco a poco de dibuxar sus Ideas y Deseños con pincel liber- tino; attrevimiento en que despues le imitaron no pocos.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part I, Art. IX, p. 26.

123

Chapter 4 – Straight Architecture

Columns: The object of architecture

After telling the history of how primitive wooden architecture transitioned into an architecture made of stone, Caramuel presents a second historical account, describing the development of the proportion of columns. The column is for Caramuel the very object of architecture, and the importance columns acquire in Caramuel’s treatise is unprecedented. For Caramuel, the orders of columns are the subject matter of architecture; his intention is to teach the architect how to make proportionate columns with beautiful ornaments. Anything else, according to Caramuel, is something any mason knows and therefore irrelevant for the architect. Besides, Caramuel goes on to suggest, such questions, associated with the work of the mason, can be learned from Vitruvius’s text or, for that matter, from those of his commentators.

In Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel includes all aspects concerning the orders: origins, evolution, types, proportions, and so on. For an author who usually opens any discussion with a definition of terms, the definition of a column is unnecessary since, Caramuel believes, it is something known by even those with a limited understanding of architecture. Caramuel, however, points out a mistake in certain Latin translations of Vitruvius, where the word column is used to denote a crossbeam.i This error inspires an entire section in Caramuel’s treatise, in which the different elements of a roof are named, defined and depicted (Figure 4.1).1

At the end of his definition of the elements that make a roof, Caramuel includes an important clarification: the role of the architect goes beyond providing physical shelter; the architect has also the moral responsibility to shape society. To prove his idea that architecture in general and columns in particular are useful and necessary for the common good, Caramuel points out that the word monk has the same etymological root as monachi, which in Latin denotes a column. As columns support the roofs of buildings, monks are the spiritual and moral supports of society, guiding people towards God. Caramuel extends the analogy to claim that just as patriarchs were the columns of society in antiquity and monks are the theological representatives of the people, by constructing columns, architects serve as social leaders, and drive their fellow citizens closer to God.2

1 The discussion on the parts of the roof is strangely placed in a section on columns. Un- derlying this digression is the essential distinction Caramuel sees between the vertical and horizontal elements of architecture, which affects the meaning of the different elements of architecture. In the second part of Architectura civil recta y obliqua the vertical line is presented as a line that relates to the divine, while the horizontal one is connected to the human realm. The vertical appears in architecture in the columns, as the work of the architect who in his construction partakes of the divine. The horizontal, the human dimension, is a line frequently used to refer to the ground on which a building stands. Later in the treatise, Caramuel develops his theory of Oblique Architecture based on this ontological distinction, and architecture becomes as a mediator between the vertical and the horizontal dimensions, between the divine and the human realms.

2 This parallel is important in understanding the possible connection that Caramuel sees between the orders of architecture and the monastic orders. In this section, the found- ers of three different monastic orders, Saint Bernard, Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, are quoted in support of the idea that monks are the spiritual columns of society. Mo- nastic orders are based on a general principle of service to God through work, and all

125 Caramuel first discusses the different mouldings used on column profiles. Caramuel claims that mouldings are the only element of columns on which all architects agree. Therefore, an introduction on mouldings is a solid basis for a discussion on these elements.3 In the plate that illustrates the mouldings (Figure 4.2), Caramuel includes six lines that can define their profile: the cyma recta and cyma inversa, echinus, anti-echinus or bowtell, tympanus, torus and scotia.

have the law of God as iterated in the commandments as their basis, yet each congre- gation has particular rules, with cannon law applied to the particular service each order chooses to serve God. Similarly, Caramuel sees the orders of architecture as arising from the principles of beauty and proportion, but the manifestation of each corresponds to site-specific circumstances. Caramuel was an expert on theological questions and, according to Velarde Lombraña, his work on the religious orders, the 1646 Theologia regularis, hoc est In SS. Basili, Augustini, Benedicti, Francisci etc. regulas commentarii, places him among the authorities in the subject. See J. Velarde Lombra- ña, Juan Caramuel: Vida y obra. Oviedo: Pentalfa, 1989. p. 33 – 35.

3 Guarino Guarini, a contemporary of Caramuel, also included in Architettura civile the mouldings as an important element for casting light onto facades. However, the interests of each author set them apart. Guarini was interested in how light, that most perfect material, associated since the Middle Ages with the divine, was made manifest in the world by being cast onto the stone surfaces of buildings. Mouldings were interesting for Guarini as the work of the architect who manipulates the stone to cast light and shadows onto it. Understood this way, mouldings speak of the depth and materiality of the wall as the place where light is cast, making it present. In Caramuel’s methodolo- gy a way to establish a solid ground from where a more speculative discussion could arise is using commonly held principles and evident truths. Caramuel will elaborate throughout this section the idea that architecture is a discipline ruled by uncertainties. For that reason Caramuel discusses mouldings, a subject on which according to him most authors coincide, before delving into the more controversial aspects of the practice. On Guarino Guarini’s treatise see Janine Debanné, “Guarino Guarini’s SS. Sin- done Chapel: Between Reliquary and Cenotaph.” (PhD dissertation, McGill Universi- ty, 1995.)

126 Figure 4.1 Roof detail. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate IX.

127

Figure 4.2 Cornice profiles. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XVII.

128 The second aspect Caramuel discusses in the section on columns is their proportion. In designing a column, Caramuel explains, three main dimensions must be taken into account: height, width, and the proportion of the ornaments. To determine the appropriate height, Caramuel uses Vitruvius’s principle for determining the height of the Tuscan order and extends it to the other columns. According to this principle, the height of the column corresponds to one third of the width of the main facade of a building.ii Once the height of the column has been established, the architect proportions the cornice and the base. In this, Caramuel argues, the different authors coincide in giving three-twelfths of the total height to the cornice and four-twelfths to the base.

In explaining the proportion of the base and capital of columns, Caramuel introduces for the first time in the treatise the relationship between columns and the human body. A naked column is similar to a naked human body, with a base the equivalent of the feet, the shaft of the body and the capital of the head. As humans go about more or less dressed, depending on where they live and how civilized they are, there are also columns, particularly in Europe, adorned with pediments and cornices that resemble hats and shoes.

The third proportion, the width of the shaft, depends on the type of column. How- ever, because of the different opinions of different authors on this matter, shaft width is difficult to establish. Caramuel recognizes the discrepancies not only between the principles of architecture as they appear in Vitruvius and actual constructions, but among columns as well. This discrepancy among the opinion of authors and works, Caramuel claims, leaves the moderns without a solid foundation on which to base their design. A closer scrutiny of the theories of different authors is necessary to determine a sound principle from which the width of the columns could be inferred.4 Only a prudent and dispassionate man can examine

4 Caramuel is of the opinion that when absolute truths are not available, all possible theories are equally probable. The multiple opinions of the authors and the discrepancies he finds between their accounts and the ruins of the past are for Caramuel a confirma- tion that reality is multifaceted and can therefore sometimes appear contradictory.

129 the different theories and reach the appropriate proportion to make better and more beautiful columns. Caramuel considers himself equal to the task. After compiling the contradictory theories of different authors, Caramuel compares them in the treatise and compiles them in a plate where the different opinions are illustrated (Figure 4.3). By comparing the different opinions of the most influential authors from Vitruvius to his own time and to the surviving ruins of antiquity, Caramuel claims to be able to establish the correct proportions of the columns.5

Caramuel sees in contradiction the potential for the advancement of knowledge. He believes the aim of science is to restore order to a heterogeneous reality, through which re-ordering new knowledge appears. Caramuel sees in the disagreement between his predecessors the opportunity to create a new narrative: by choosing among the available opinions those that best fit together, he explains the apparition of the different manifestations of columns in an ordered fashion. Caramuel’s account is intended to end the existing inconsistencies amongst theoreticians and to provide a solid base for the modern architect to ground his practice.

5 Claude Perrault made a similar comparison between the different proportions of the columns in his 1683 Ordonnances des cinq espèces de colonnes. Both Caramuel and Per- rault agree in that they identify a need to resolve the discrepancies between the different manifestations of the columns. Despite a common goal, however, their methods and results vary, revealing the contradictions intrinsic to the seventeenth-century intellectual milieu. Perrault took the dimensions of the different parts of the columns, tabu- lated them and found the arithmetical mean between the two most extreme dimensions. A member of the Académie royale des sciences, Perrault saw the need to approach architecture scientifically in order to reach objective conclusions. He believed in the possibility of analytic reason as a means of finding positive truths in the physical world. Despite his intentions, the method followed by Perrault was nonetheless ruled by arbitrariness. The examples he chose were based on his own predilections, and an examination of the arithmetical operations behind his calculations reveals many mistakes. Whether Perrault was aware or not of these inconsistencies is secondary; what his text proclaims is the superiority of objectivity over subjectivity in the search for truth in the world.

130 According to Caramuel, the correct proportion between the base and the shaft of the Tuscan order is one to six, the Doric one to seven, the Ionic one to eight, the Corinthian one to nine, and the Composite one to 10. By defining proportions in this way, Caramuel organizes the classical orders logically. The first principle he devises is an arithmetic series that aligns the stability of number to the heterogeneous reality of columns.

The orders of columns

After evaluating the opinions of authors to the seventeenth century, Caramuel presents his own conclusions about the correct proportions of columns and articulates them in a narrative, in which the different orders get arranged into a genealogical account, a proto-history of architecture.6 Caramuel’s original and perhaps unique

Caramuel, on the contrary, explicitly recognized the arbitrariness of his own system for ordering the proportions of the columns. In Architectura civil recta y obliqua (Vol. II, Treat. V. Part II, Art. XVI, p. 80), Caramuel explains that architecture is ruled by uncertainty and that, when there is not a convincing argument, like the problem of the proportion of the columns, stat pro ratione voluntas—free will takes the place of reason. Caramuel didn’t believe his system was necessarily superior to others, but simply another among many possible ways to find order among the columns. Caramuel does find his method appropriate, granting as it does order and stability to an otherwise chaotic reality by the use of number. Caramuel, who was no less involved in the scientific discussion of his time than Perrault, was keenly aware of the arbitrariness of our methods for knowing the world. Unlike Perrault, who eschewed subjectivity by applying a scientific method, Caramuel recognized the value of subjectivity and engaged with it through the construction of narratives that were, in his view, equally valid in explaining the world.

6 The genealogy of architecture Caramuel devises is modelled on Scripture, where meaning is carried through time by lineage. As we saw in the chapter on the Temple of Je- rusalem, Caramuel is concerned with tracing back the origin, subsequent evolution, and perfection of sacred architecture and, to a lesser extent, of military architecture. Sacred architecture, Caramuel claims, started with the altar Adam built on Mount Mo-

131 account of the orders increases their number to eleven. To the five traditional orders—Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite—Caramuel adds six more: Syrian, Attic, Gothic, Mosaic, Atlantic, and Paranymphic. According to Caramuel, this list cannot be decreased or increased because each order is particular, and not a variation on another. This original categorization results from Caramuel’s intention to unify different manifestations of columns across history into a single narrative; his outcome is significantly different from that of preceding sources.iii7

The Jerusalemite order

The first [order] is the Jerusalemite, to which the columns of the Temple of Solomon belong; their dimensions were known late and never observed in Roman or Greek buildings.iv

riah, continued in the Temple of Solomon, and reached perfection in the Escorial. Similarly, military architecture originates in the wall of paradise, continues in the walls of different cities and in the construction of fortresses, and reaches its perfection also in the Spanish temple and palace at the Escorial. In the section dealing with the orders of columns Caramuel uses a similar genealogical model to articulate the origin, evolution and perfection of the orders of architecture delineating the evolution of the proportions between the base and the height of the shaft.

7 Although Caramuel’s account might strike the modern reader as merely another theory on the orders, his categorization is truly innovative in its implication of radical challenges in the traditional understanding of the orders in architecture. Proportions in early Renaissance texts are usually taken from ruins each author favoured; they are examples of beauty and proportion. With the exception of Serlio, for Renaissance authors it is not necessary for each order to have its own proportion. Caramuel’s premise assumes that each order has a unique proportion and that these proportions evolve along with architecture. However, similar to his Renaissance counterparts, Caramuel’s proportions of the orders are subject to the judgment of the architect who will adjust them to the specific circumstances of his practice.

132 Figure 4.3 Comparison of the upper part of the different orders according to different authors. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate LXI.

133 The Temple of Jerusalem is the origin of good architecture and the order of its columns the primordial order from which all others are derived. Before the Tem- ple, Caramuel explains, civic buildings, albeit perhaps magnificent, lacked beauty and proportion. Caramuel considers the moral status of the architect fundamental for the quality of a work, finding in Old-Testament accounts examples where the impropriety of the maker is reflected in the quality of the building: Enoch, the first city ever built, must have been a very bad place, Caramuel suggests, since it was built by Cain, the sinful son of Adam who killed his brother; Caramuel then mentions the Tower of Babel, built from men’s arrogance, which led to its collapse; and he cites Babylon,v a city that despite its magnificent walls and hanging gardens was ruled by a pagan queen who worshipped false gods, making it a terrible place to live. Only when God, the perfect maker, gave his idea for the Temple to Solomon, were the principles of good architecture imparted to humankind; when Solomon had the Temple built, these principles were consigned in the stones of the building, particularly in the proportion and ornament of the Temple’s columns. It follows that it is necessary for Caramuel to determine with exactitude the dimensions of these columns and their ornaments. To do this, he explains, the architect must depart from the authority of Vitruvius, who didn’t know about the columns of the Temple. As an alternative, Caramuel proposes the main source be Scripture, in which an accurate description of the columns of the Temple can be found.8

8 Jerónimo de Prado, and Juan Bautista Villalpando, Ezechielem explanationes et apparatus Vrbis templi Hierosolymitani. 4 Vols. Rome: Luigi Zanetti, 1596 is the other source within the architectural tradition for the study of Biblical accounts declaring the columns at the entrance of the Temple as the origin of the classical orders. At the beginning of his discussion on the columns of the Temple, Caramuel clearly states his intention to return to Scripture as the original source for the description of the Temple, mainly because his understanding of the way in which the columns of the Temple are the origin of the classical orders differs greatly from the interpretation of Prado and Villalpando.

134 In his attempt to define the proportion and ornament of the columns of the Temple of Jerusalem, Caramuel encounters two main problems: first is the lack of physical evidence, since the Temple had been completely erased, with no trace from which a reconstruction might be possible.9 Second, the passages of the Bible that describe the columns are ambiguous and contradictory, leading to discrepancies among its interpretations by exegetes. Caramuel takes as his task the elucidation of these contradictions. This time, the sources Caramuel uses include the Vulgate translation of the Bible, particularly the Books of Kings; whenever Latin etymol- ogies are dubious, Caramuel resorts to the Greek text. Caramuel also uses the Jo- sephus text The Antiquities of the Jews, and from among accounts by his contemporaries Caramuel uses the work of Villalpando, whose authority dominated discussions of the Temple in the seventeenth century.10

9 A set of columns brought back from Jerusalem by Constantine in the fourth century A.D., and kept in the Vatican since, were considered by many to be fragments of the Temple columns. Many artists made hypothetical reconstructions of the columns of the Temple based on these fragments. In Architectura civil recta y obliqua Caramuel declares that the notion that these columns might come from the Temple is an anach- ronism. Without dismissing these columns, which were so influential in the art and architecture of his time, Caramuel rightly declares that they were built at a much later time than the Temple.

10 Despite their differences, Caramuel recognized and valued the contributions of Prado and Villalpando, and expressed his recognition in Architectura civil recta y obliqua “Although Father Villalpando, whom I have just cited, is a well-known man, whose name is an eulogy, I don’t want to proceed without saying that there is no other author among the moderns in whose person are brought together so many sciences, all of them practiced with utmost perfection.” (“Aunque el P. Villalpando, que acabe de citar, es Varon conocido, y su nombre podria passar por elogio, con todo esto no quiero dexar de decir, que entre los Escritores Modernos no hay otro en quien concurran tantas ciencias; todas exercitadas con suma perfeccion.”) ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part II, Art. V, p. 48.

135 Caramuel’s project and the one undertaken by Prado and Villalpando are both intended to find the origin of the classical orders in the columns of the Temple. Yet Caramuel’s arguments are different from those of his predecessors. While Vil- lalpando and Prado consider the ornament of the columns of the Temple the proof of their status as primordial, Caramuel sees it in their proportions. In their reconstruction of the Temple presented in Ezechielem explanationes, Prado and Vil- lalpando describe the columns at the entrance of the Temple as a composite order, with a variety of ornaments, from which the ancients would have derived the ornamentation of different kinds of columns. Caramuel starts his discussion on the Solomonic order by showing that nothing in the Bible leads to Villalpando’s claim. Using Old-Testament texts and supported by Rabbinic descriptions, Caramuel shows how, despite a discrepancy between sources, in the Biblical description of such columns, their ornament is far from the one that characterizes the Classical orders:

He made also two chapiters of molten brass, to be set upon the tops of the pillars: the height of one chapiter was five cubits, and the height of the other chapiter was five cubits: And a kind of network, and chain work wreathed together with wonderful art. Both the chapiters of the pillars were cast: seven rows of nets were on one chapiter, and seven nets on the other chapiter. And he made the pillars, and two rows round about each network to cover the chapiters, that were upon the top, with pomegranates: and in like manner did he to the other chapiter. And the chapiters that were upon the top of the pillars, were of lily work, in the porch of four cubits. And again there were other chapiters on the top of the pillars above, according to the measure of the pillar over against the network: and of pomegranates there were two hundred, in rows round about the other chapiter. And he set up the two pillars in the porch of the temple: and when he had set up the pillar on the right hand, he called the name thereof Jachin: in like manner he set up the second pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz. And upon the tops of the pillars he made lily work: so the work of the pillars was finished.vi

In the treatise Caramuel includes a lengthy analysis of available interpretations of Scripture, ending with his own conclusion. According to Caramuel, the columns of the Temple were made of bronze rather than stone; they had two round capitals one on top of the other, each one measuring three cubits; and the bottom capital was decorated with pomegranates, while the one above was adorned with bronze

136 lilies (Figure 4.4).

Once the discussion on the ornament of the Jerusalemite order is settled, Caramuel continues with the issue of its proportion. Caramuel recognizes the difficulties the Jesuits faced in their attempt to interpret the Biblical description of the columns. Their struggle demonstrates the obscurity of the study of the proportion of the Temple columns. vii The dimension of the columns in the Book of Kings is particularly problematic. While in the text the height is clearly stated as 18 cubits for each column, it is not clear whether the diameter refers to each column or to both: “And he cast two pillars in brass; each pillar was eighteen cubits high: and a line of twelve cubits compassed both the pillars.”viii

This detail is of extreme importance for Caramuel’s project. Since the height was clearly 18 cubits, a variation in the width meant a variation in the proportion of these columns. In this regard, opinions were divided. In his determination to clarify the proper ratio for the columns of the Temple, Caramuel starts with an erudite presentation of the available opinions. First he discusses Villalpando’s position: this ultimate authority on the Temple contended that the dimension given in the text should be understood as the diameter of the two columns together. This meant each column had a circumference of six cubits, or a diameter of two,ix and, assuming a height of 18 cubits, the resulting proportion of the columns would have been 1:9. Caramuel disagrees, claiming that the 12 cubits mentioned in the Scripture is the dimension for the circumference of each one of the two columns. Since the Bible is God’s word, he argues, it should contain no contradictions or inconsistencies. If the description gives a certain dimension for the height of each individual column, there is no reason to believe the dimension given to the width should be for both columns together. Furthermore, Caramuel explains, if one assumes as Villalpando did that the circumference given in the text is for both columns together, the height must also be considered that way; therefore, the columns at the Temple must have measured nine cubits each in height. Caramuel concludes his argument by claiming that since there is no question that the height of each column is 18 cubits, their circumference must therefore be 12.

137

Figure 4.4 Jerusalemite order. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XVIII.

138 The assumption that the circumference of each column is 12 cubits means their diameter would be four, and that the resulting proportion between their height and width would be four and a half. However, Caramuel is not satisfied with this proportion, since he believes the proportion of the columns of the Temple of Jerusa- lem, that paradigm of good architecture, must show their perfection in their proportion, that is, that the proportion should be either a perfect number or at least a natural one. Meanwhile, Caramuel believes the proportion of this order must give evidence of its primacy in the lineage of columns, which he is not convinced is accomplished by a proportion of four and a half. To clarify the proportion of the columns of the Temple, Caramuel considers it necessary to look closer at the question of their height, which until then had been taken for granted by most authors.

One opinion, represented by Nicholas of Lyra, was based on the description of the Paralipomenon and maintained that the height of the columns was thirty-five cubits: “He made also before the doors of the temple two pillars, which were five and thirty cubits high: and their capitals were five cubits.”x Caramuel, who was aware of Lyra’s interpretation, dismissed it, arguing that thirty-five cubits was an excessive height for the columns of the Temple, and that if they had been this tall, their proportion to the shaft, which Lyra believed to be four cubits, would have been disproportionate. Caramuel found Prado insufficiently convincing to counter Lyra’s interpretation. Caramuel’s proof that the columns were not this tall he drew from other texts of the Bible, a perfect book that could include no disagreement among the different accounts. Since the Paralipomenon was the only book where the columns were said to be this tall, a possible interpretation would be that it was not the single height for each column, but the sum of the two—assuming that 17½ was rounded up to 18, which was common to avoid the use of fractions.

Caramuel explains that the columns at the entrance of the Temple did not have bases, yet the texts describe them having capitals measuring three cubits each. Caramuel argues that this capital was three cubits tall but did not sit flat on top of the shaft, and was rather recessed half a cubit into it. Caramuel assumes that the

139 three cubits are not included in the height of the shaft and, taking into account their position, the columns would have had a total height of 20½ cubits. Dismiss- ing the fraction, Caramuel rounds the height down to 20; the proportion between the height of the column and its width is of 1:5, which perfectly suits Caramuel’s attempt to demonstrate the primacy of this order.11

The transition from the primordial columns to those of antiquity is fundamental for Caramuel in his intention to unify them into a single narrative. As noted earlier, the ornament of the columns of the Temple was radically different from that of the Greek and Roman columns; Caramuel, however, sees continuity in their proportions, not in the ornament. Caramuel explains how the names of the columns of the Temple attest to the strength of the first columns’ construction, a result of their stout proportion: Jachin means strength, while Boaz stands for firmness. In pagan buildings, Caramuel continues, the Tuscans built the strongest columns, with proportions that imitated the body of a strong man. Later, as the orders evolved, their proportions evolved from the strong and stout columns of the Tem- ple to the more slender and sophisticated Greek and Roman columns, finally reaching their pinnacle in the architecture of Caramuel’s contemporaries.12

11 Caramuel’s argument is contrived and inconsistent. He uses Scripture to legitimize his claim of the primacy of the columns at the entrance of the Temple, yet manipulates the numbers when convenient. In order to reach the desired proportion, of the two capitals at the top of the columns, Caramuel only includes one when calculating the height of the columns.

12 Once Caramuel finds in the proportion of the columns of the Temple of Solomon a solid argument to declare them the primordial order, he looks for possible continuity between these and the Classical orders. Caramuel’s project is to establish a different proportion for each order, so their proportion would make their evolution evident. Among the many challenges Caramuel faces is the selection of his sources, since none of the existing theories on proportions, from Vitruvius to the seventeenth century, coincide.

140 The classical orders

To introduce the discussion of the proportion of the five classical orders of columns, Caramuel uses as a point of departure the traditional relationship between the columns and the human body. In Caramuel’s theory, each column is analogous to the specific inhabitants of the place where the column first appeared. Clearly the source of this interpretation is the Vitruvian tradition, in which the columns represent the body of man, woman and maiden. In Vitruvius’s text the body is understood as archetypical:

When they wished to place columns in that temple, not having their proportions, and seeking what method they could make them fit to bear weight, and in their appearance to have an approved grace, they measured a man’s footstep and applied it to his height. Finding that the foot was the sixth part of the height in a man, they applied this proportion to the column. So the Doric column began to furnish the proportion of a man’s body, its strength and grace. Afterwards also seeking to plan a temple of Diana in a new kind of style, they changed it to a feminine slenderness with the same measurement by feet. At first they made the diameter of the column the eighth part of it, so that it might appear taller. Under the base they place a convex moulding as if a shoe; at the capital they put volutes, like graceful curling hair, hanging over right and left. And arranging cymatia and festoons in place of hair, they ornamented the front, and, over all the trunk (i.e. the shaft), they let fluting fall, like the folds of matronly robes; thus proceeded to the invention of columns in two manners; one manlike in appearance, bare, unadorned; the other feminine […] But the third order, which is called Corinthian, imitates the slight figure of a maiden; because girls are represented with slighter dimensions because of their tender age, and admit of more graceful effects in ornament.xi

In Caramuel’s presentation of the orders, the generic bodies of Vitruvius are qualified by the characteristics derived from those who built them. Their physical elements borrow from the attire of their makers (Figure 4.5). The Tuscan order resembles the body of a peasant, stout and strong, simply dressed and without hat or shoes.xii The Doric column is associated with the Greek warriors of the epics, both gallant and strong. Their ornamentation inspires the same awe as would a Greek soldier, walking barefoot and with a headpiece.xiii

141 Figure 4.5 Five classical orders. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XIX.

142 Caramuel explains that the Doric order at the beginning had no base, but that, as it evolved and when it started to be built in Italy, this column acquired a base that resembled the sandals of Roman warriors. Ionic columns, Caramuel continues, imitate the proportion of the body of women, representing femininity. The Corin- thian in turn represents the very idea of virginity, evoking the slenderness and delicacy of a young woman.xiv Finally, the Composite order has the slenderest proportion, since it represents Italian courtesans, who chose among the costume of other peoples what they found loveliest and combined them in their garments, making the Composite order the most beautiful of them all.xv

After Caramuel explains the origins of the different types of columns, he provides a detailed evaluation of different proposals for their proportions as declared in Renaissance treatises. Caramuel chooses Serlio’s theory of proportions, identify- ing in this proposal a systematic order that has potential for a clear narrative lacking in other theories.13 In his Fourth Book, Serlio attributes to the Tuscan order a proportion of 1:6, 1:7 to the Doric, 1:8 to the Ionic, 1:9 to the Corinthian and 1:10 to the Composite. In Caramuel’s analysis of the orders, Serlio’s theory prevails over that of Vitruvius.14 Caramuel is aware that accepting the proportions of a modern author over an ancient theory warrants an explanation. The ambiguity of Vitruvius’s text, however, makes it easy for Caramuel to argue against his theory on the orders. The Tuscan column as such is not included in the orders that Vitru-

13 Before Caramuel, a second attempt at systematizing the orders was that of G.B. Vigno- la in the 1562 Regola delli cinque ordini, a work so widely published that anyone interested in architecture in the seventeenth century would have been acquainted with it. Vignola is also an important influence for Caramuel, who mentions him several times in the treatise and includes his treatise in the list of books and architect must have. The system Vignola proposes in the Regola, however, is inconsistent in its progression.

14 Caramuel never avails himself of the work of a single author, instead plucking from various theories what he finds adequate. In Serlio Caramuel finds the progressive series of proportions he seeks, but he never accepts other aspects of Serlio’s theory, such as the chronology of the appearance of the columns.

143 vius considers in the Ten Books, yet, in a section on Temples, the Roman author describes Tuscan temples, ascribing to their columns a proportion of 1:7.xvi This proportion implies that the Tuscan column is as slender as the Doric. In Caramuel’s opinion, each order has its own proportion, and it is a mistake to suppose that the Tuscan and the Doric have the same proportion. Caramuel believes the Tuscan column is second after the Jerusalemite; its proportion must consequently be more slender than the Jerusalemite, but less slender than the Doric, which Caramuel places third in the series. Caramuel, who respects the authority of Vitruvius, excuses him and explains the mistake in the proportion that appears in the Ten Books for the Tuscan column as the error of the scribe, who Caramuel claims has transcribed 1:7 instead of 1:6.xvii

The proportion of the Doric order is also left unresolved in Vitruvius’s text. Vi- truvius begins by affirming that the proportion of Doric columns was originally 1:6, but later declares that the same columns were built following a proportion of 1:7.xviii This latter proportion is then restated in the description of the Doric temple, where the columns are described as having the more slender shaft. In Archi- tectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel only acknowledges the first part of the text, where Vitruvius introduces the proportion of this order as 1:6, and declares it a mistake.15

Vitruvius says two things here, in one he is right and in the other he hallucinates. He is right in taking the feet of man to measure the columns, the same feet others use to measure everything […] But he hallucinates and is wrong in the dimension he gives to the Doric column, which should be taller, as we will see.xix

The proportion of the Ionic column presents no problem for Caramuel. This col-

15 Caramuel’s position reveals an active engagement with the past. Caramuel was not afraid of amending the mistakes of his predecessors, even if they hold the weight Vi- truvius does, because he doesn’t believe their authority is incontestable. In fact, Caramuel considers it the duty of the moderns to correct the ancients when they have erred.

144 umn appears in Vitruvius’s treatise with a proportion of one to eight, which coin- cides with the third place it occupies in Caramuel’s list. Vitruvius takes this proportion from the ratio between the feet of a woman and her body. The Corinthian order, to which Vitruvius gives a proportion one to nine, is also in line with Caramuel’s sequence. The last order, however, the Composite, will once again be a matter of debate, since it does not appear among the Vitruvian orders. The proportion Caramuel gives to the Composite order is the obvious consequence of its final position in the series: its columns must have the most slender proportion of them all, namely 1:10.

In traditional architectural theory, the proportion of the columns was independent from the chronology of their apparition. According to Vitruvius, the Doric column was the first to appear, followed by the Ionic; Vitruvius places the Corinthian last. In the Renaissance, two more orders were included in the accounts, the Tuscan and the Composite. These were believed to have sprung up in Italy as later manifestations of the original three. For Caramuel, on the contrary, the chronological appearance of the orders should corroborate the notion of their evolution over time, which presupposes that they became more slender and delicate in their ornamentation as the art was perfected. For this reason, Caramuel adapts the order of the apparition of the columns to the proportion of the shaft. The first to appear are the Jerusalemite columns, with their sturdier proportion. Since the Tuscan column was the sturdier in traditional accounts of the orders, Caramuel assumes it must have appeared second. Contrary to what Renaissance authors believed, then, Caramuel’s chronology suggests the Tuscan order appeared before the Greek orders. In order to account for this inconsistency, Caramuel contends that architecture appeared simultaneously in Greece and in Italy and that, while the Greeks were looking for beauty in the Doric columns, the Italians, concerned with dura- bility, developed the Tuscan columns.16

16 Caramuel’s claim lacks modern historical accuracy; he believes the ultimate proof of the veracity of his argument is in the proportions themselves. In his mind, if his premise is based on the orders having become more slender and sophisticated as they

145 Additional orders

After the traditional orders of columns Caramuel adds two more, the Gothic and the Atlantic, which belong to traditions other than the Greco-Roman, and through his narrative he reconciles them with the previous ones. The first order Caramuel adds to the traditional list is the Attic column (Figure 4.6). In the different interpretations of the Vitruvian text, this column is usually identified with the Corin- thian. In Book IV, the Roman author mentions Attic columns among three types of doorways for temples, the other two being the Doric and Ionic.xx This led some authors to assume that the Attic and the Corinthian columns were the same. Other Renaissance authors did not considered the Attic a column but rather a type of base, characterized by a scotia carved between two tori, on top of which a column from any order could stand. Still others, including Daniele Barbaro, Bernardini Baldi, Philander,xxi and Caramuel, believed the Attic to be a specific kind of column corresponding to the Attic base. Their claim is founded on Pliny’s Natural History which includes the attic as distinct from the canonical five in a description of the several kinds of columns of antiquity, and characterizes it with as having a square shaft.xxii For Caramuel the Attic is not an independent order but a genus; since it lacks its own proportions and ornaments, it could borrow from any of the other orders.

Caramuel continues his account of the orders with columns that he sees as modern continuations of ancient columns. First is the Mosaic, a kind of column with a spiralling shaft, which, like the Attic, can borrow its ornament and proportion from any of the other orders (Figure 4.7).

evolved, and since the Tuscan was the broadest and roughest, the obvious conclusion is that this order must be the more primitive and therefore have been the first to appear. Caramuel furthermore argues that the more robust proportions of the Jerusalemite and Tuscan columns are evidence that permanence was of the goal of architecture in early times, while commodity and beauty followed as architecture evolved.

146 Figure 4.6 Attic column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXIII.

147 Figure 4.7 Mosaic column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate LIX.

148 This column was very popular at the time of Caramuel’s writing, since it was considered by many as part of the columns of the Temple of Solomon and was included in almost every treatise on architecture written after the fifteenth century.xxiii Caramuel, however, argues that these columns were built at a much later period than the Temple, basing his claim on the Christian belief that there were no physical remnants of the Temple after God decided to destroy it. Moreover, Caramuel has already described the shape of the columns at the entrance of the Temple of Solomon as having a straight shaft. Caramuel describes the Mosaic column as a modern rendition of the Solomonic columns, and explains that it takes its name from the descendants of Moses, who were the first to build this type of column. As a result of its beautiful shaft, Caramuel continues, the Mosaic was used frequently in buildings throughout Europe and Asia. It is in fact the pro- fusion of Mosaic columns in architecture that makes the order worthy of inclusion in Caramuel’s classification.

Caramuel’s account of the orders is also the first to include Gothic architecture.xxiv For many authors, the inclusion of an architecture that did not respect the cannon and that identified a people who had menaced Europe for years bordered on the scandalous. Caramuel argues that not all amongst the Goths were barbarians; some, he claims, were also prudent rulers, illustrious savants and saints, the proof of which is the curiosity and ingenuity used in their constructions.

The Gothic column is a conglomerate of thinner columns, which together support the weight. It does not use traditional cornices or capitals. Caramuel considers this type of columns difficult to build, and he writes that even when well executed they are not necessarily beautiful. Nevertheless, Caramuel values the influence of Gothic architecture in Europe, particularly in religious buildings, the legacy of a time when the Roman Church gained its power. For this reason, Caramuel includes this order as part of his account and, although he does not include a plate for it, he acknowledges the significance of Gothic architecture for the Western tradition.

The two last orders included in Architectura civil recta y obliqua are those whose

149 shaft is made of a carved human figure, the Atlantic (Figure 4.8) and the Para- nymphic (Figure 4.9). The Atlantic has the naked body of a man or woman gush- ing from an inverted pyramid in the upper part of the shaft. Its name comes from Atlas, the mythological figure who supported the heavens with his shoulders.xxv The Paranymphic, according to Caramuel, is the modern equivalent of the Atlan- tic order of antiquity, with the shaft replaced by sculptures of nymphs.17

17 Caramuel’s theory of the orders draws from a tradition that precedes him, and his arguments have clear precedents in architectural treatises of his own time. The originality of Caramuel’s text lies not in his arguments, but in his integration of his arguments into a unified discourse. Although some of the orders Caramuel includes in his treatise had appeared in Roman or Renaissance treatises, Caramuel is the first author to recognize them as part of the cannon. Caramuel believes that in order to recognize rules or principles in any science, all available arguments must be evaluated, even if they seem contradictory, without privileging one over others. This openness is evident in the description of the eleven orders, in which Caramuel attempts to integrate a number of manifestations of columns into a single, coherent discourse. To do so, Caramuel establishes a sacred origin from which architecture evolved: the moment at which God, the first architect, built the world as the first building. Afterward, God revealed this architectural knowledge to humankind by communicating to Ezekiel the design of the Temple of Solomon. Based on the primordial columns of the Temple of Solomon, Caramuel devises a simple arithmetic series of proportions to integrate the five classical orders as the first set of developments by humans. The other orders appear either as variations of the original six or as their modern continuation. Although the narrative is not entirely cohesive, since some of the orders, such as the Gothic or the Atlantic, have a less clearly defined relationship with the others, the orders are articulated through language into a single narrative. It is in the creation of an historical account that Caramuel finds order in an otherwise chaotic reality. For an analysis of Cara- muel’s account of the orders in the context of the Renaissance treatises see C. Pena Buján, “La Architectura civil recta y obliqua de Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz en el contexto de la Teoría de la Arquitectura del siglo XVII.”

150 Figure 4.8 Atlantic column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Section III, Plate LXII.

151 Figure 4.9 Paranymphic column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate LXIV.

152 The use of traditional columns in modern times

Not only is Caramuel’s account of the orders original because of the number of columns it includes, but also because his narrative does not stop at the description of how the orders were built. Caramuel includes in the treatise examples of how the modern architect, through his imaginative capacity, can reinterpret and make them significant for his own time. Caramuel criticizes the traditional concept of appropriateness as having to do with the use of particular orders for particular buildings. In the treatise, he makes a very provocative argument to show that the choice of the orders used in buildings was more often than not dependant on the client’s economic means or personal preference. Appropriateness, according to Caramuel, should be understood as the capacity of the architect to modify the ornament of the columns in order to make them carry meaning that is relevant to their time and place.18

A perfect example of this relevance is the Tuscan order, which was not restricted to the buildings of the past, but could also be implemented in modern buildings requiring great strength. Caramuel declares it a mistake to associate the Tuscan order with primitive buildings, as some authors after Serlio had done.xxvi In discussing the use of the Tuscan column in modern times, Caramuel uses Bramante’s

18 Caramuel’s relationship with the past is an active one, with the contributions of modern authors being afforded a space within those aspects that remain obscure or inconclu- sive in the work of the ancients. Meanwhile, for Caramuel the recognition of the intentionality behind traditional architecture is what allows modern architects to appropriate and transform architecture to fit their own intentions. In Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel describes columns he imagines as possible modern instances of the eleven orders. The orders as cannons are after all less interesting to Caramuel. He sees their potential in the possibility of adapting their principles in some cases to particular places, and in others to a particular time. This again is reminiscent of the religious orders and the decision of the Church to send various orders to carry out specific mis- sions in different parts of the world.

153 design for the cupola for Saint Peter’s basilica as an example. The design proposed by Bramante demanded great strength from the piers supporting it, to the point that the architects who inherited the responsibility of building the Basilica after Bramante’s death feared for the stability of the work and proposed new designs to overcome this problem. Caramuel considers Bramante’s original design superior. In his opinion, the Basilica’s construction would have been possible if the original Ionic or Corinthian columns proposed by Bramante had been replaced by Tuscan columns. According to Caramuel, the strength characteristic of this order would have guaranteed the stable construction of this most amazing design.

A second example of how to adapt traditional principles in modern times is the decoration of the metope for a Doric order, which Caramuel proposes in his treatise (Figure 4.10). After the issue of proportion, the metope is the aspect that most interests Caramuel in the Doric order, because it offers the possibility of deliver- ing an encrypted message.19 Caramuel explains how the ancients used the metope of temples to place decorative elements, particularly ox skulls, to signify the sacrifices that took place within.xxvii Since other animals were also sacrificed to the deities, as Virgil himself testified, Caramuel believes that to add variety to the adornment of the metopes, the ancients could have equally used the heads of boars or deer. Furthermore, this order, described in the treatise as the first to have enough sophistication to be used in palaces, could bear the arms of the prince for whom it was built, proclaiming the illustriousness of the occupant; used in churches, the decorations could symbolize the glory of God or honour the patron saint .

19 This is an instance of visual communication, where the imagery used on the front of the building conveys a message to the observer.

154 Figure 4.10 Proposal for a modern Doric order. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXV.

155 The Ionic volute

Within the description of the orders Caramuel includes a discussion on the Ionic volute. Ambiguity about this element in Vitruvius’s Ten Books had resulted in one of the main discrepancies among his commentators. The disparity presents Caramuel with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the role of the modern architect in elucidating obscure matters left unresolved by antique authors. Vitruvi- us’s delineation is brief and goes no further than the first turn of the spiral that makes the volute:

Next, let these lines be so divided that four parts and a half are left under the abacus. Then that point which divides the four and a half and the three and a half is the centre of the eye of the volute: and let there be drawn from that centre a complete circle with a diameter of one part out of the eight parts. That will be the magnitude of the eye. Through the centre let there be drawn a vertical diameter. Then, beginning from the top under the abacus, let the radius be successively diminished by half the diameter of the eye in describing quadrants, until it comes into the quadrant which is under the abacus […] The projection of the cymatium beyond the abacus is to be the size of the eye. Let the bands of the pillows have the following projection: one point of the compasses is placed in the centre of the eye, and the other point is taken to the top of the cymatium; the circle thus described will mark the furthest part of the pillow band. xxviii

Vitruvius’s construction is intended to be illustrated by a figure that was never published or, if it was, did not survive.xxix The absence of this figure motivated Renaissance authors to offer their own interpretations. Caramuel is well aware of many of the delineations proposed by the different authors, some of which he believed worthy of inclusion in his treatise, while others he considered others so erroneous that he expresses hope that anyone intending to follow their path would change his mind when considering the beautiful alternatives available.

Caramuel included in his book seventeen different ways of drawing the Ionic column, each with a plate and a written explanation of its construction. They are organized in order of complexity, starting from the simplest. The descriptions include methods for drawing the volute used by authors such as Serlio, whose delineation Caramuel claims is one of the most often used by architects. The method

156 preferred by Palladio and Vignola, in which quarter circles are used instead of half circles, is also included.xxx The other authors whose delineations Caramuel explains are Nicolaus Goldman,xxxi Carlo Cesare Osio,xxxii and Dürer,xxxiii and that used by Michelangelo in the Campidoglio in Rome.

Among the different possible volutes for the Ionic column, Caramuel also includes some of his own. Volute XI is his replacement of the segments of arcs with straight lines (Figure 4.11), volutes XIII and XIV are improvements to Michelan- gelo’s, which Caramuel believes lacked beauty when looked at from the side (Figure 4.12). Caramuel mentions a spiralling volute, drawn using a special compass designed by Dürer, which closes gradually,xxxivbut he unfortunately does not include a plate. Volute XVI is an oblique volute, in which Caramuel uses ovals instead of circles to make it more appropriate for use in locations where it is placed high (Figure 4.13).20 Finally, the last volute included in the treatise is one designed for columns placed at the corner of square plans, where instead of being at two opposite sides of the capital, they are carved on two adjacent sides, so that the rhythm of the columns is not interrupted when the building is seen from either side (Figure 4.14).21

20 Caramuel will develop the idea of Oblique Architecture in Chapter VI of his treatise. He will return to this delineation in his section on perspective in Chapter VII, explaining how an oval, when elevated, is perceived as circular by an observer standing on the ground.

21 The epitome of Caramuel’s active relationship with the past is without any doubt his discussion of the Ionic volute. Here, his comparison of different opinions is not an attempt to provide a definite solution, but to propose many, all of them beautiful and possible.

157 Figure 4.11 Straight lines volute. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XI. 158

Figure 4.12. Improvements proposed by Caramuel to Michelangelo’s volutes in the Campidoglio. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XL.

159 Figure 4.13 Oblique volute. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XLI.

160 Figure 4.14 Volute for columns placed at the corner of buildings. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XLII.

161 Probabilism as a method for architecture

Caramuel closes the discussion on the proportions of the orders with an explanation that, in architecture as in any other discipline, there are three types of statements, certainties, probabilities, and controversies:

You ask me whether everything is true we have argued here. I answer that there are in architecture as in any other disciplines three different kinds of statements: some are certain, others probable and other controversies. Cer- tain are the sentences that do not admit doubt: for instance, to say that walls must be built plumb […] Probable statements are those that are argued with grave reason and authority without letting any learned man condemn another, because neither those on one side nor on the other have based their thought in a clear and manifest demonstration. […] And last are controversies, those opinions which not only differentiate authors among themselves, but make them disrespect each other by claiming the opinions of the others are wrong. xxxv

Probability could itself be of two kinds according to Caramuel, the “authoritative probable” (autentice) and the “rationally probable” (rationaliter). xxxvi The first type of probability becomes apparent from external sources, that is, from the authority of the learned. The second, intrinsic probability, requires its veracity to be proven by logical arguments.xxxvii Caramuel believes that when dealing with obscure matters, of which architecture is one, one could either follow the authority of the learned or use rational arguments to find the veracity of the statements.xxxviii In regard to architectural matters, however, Caramuel questions the validity of the authority of the learned. Caramuel argues that the authoritative probable is not a safe path to take in architectural debates, since there is so much contradiction between different authors.

But (for God’s sake) what I could solve, if I follow the authority of the learned. Vitruvius does not fit all the things the ancients said; among the moderns some praise him, others correct him, and others curse him. These [the moderns] among them disagree, since the traces that some skilfully delineate, others with avarice destroy. There is no place then to step firmly if we want to proceed in the path opened for us by the authorities of the past.xxxix

Nor is external authority a prudent way to guide choices between what is good

162 and what is not through sensory perception:

Therefore it would be better to ignore what the others have said and follow only what reason dictates. And which reason is that which dictates? It is based in the senses and especially in sight, a faculty that deceives easily. What appears good in one’s eyes is wrong to those of another. What is solved through reason is therefore as doubtful as what is defined by authority.xl

To achieve knowledge in the realm of the probable and therefore in architecture, Caramuel believes a method other than rational demonstration is necessary. His alternative implies a different type of knowledge, one that originates in the recognition of incertitude and relies on the idea of order as the possibility of building knowledge in a world ruled by uncertainties. In Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel’s theory of Straight Architecture is an instance of this type of ordering.22 It starts with the recognition of the difficulty of following either the authori-

22 Caramuel presents two different definitions of order in Architectura civil recta y obliqua. The first comes from Carlo Cesare Osio’s 1661 Architettura civile. It appears at the beginning of the section on the orders and defines an architectural order as “a combination of different parts that are proportioned and placed together like the parts of a whole body, with gracefulness and beauty that please the eye” (ACRYO, Vol. 2, Part 2, Art. 2, p. 33). To this traditional definition, common in Renaissance treatises, Caramuel adds a second: St. Augustine’s notion of order as presented in his fourth- century De Ordine. This second definition appears at the end of the presentation of the orders within the discussion of architecture as a discipline ruled by probability. Au- gustine’s work without a doubt influenced Caramuel’s understanding of order. For Augustine, the universe is an orderly creation, with order hidden in all things in nature, and through the discovery of this order man approaches God. To find order in the apparently chaotic universe, Augustine recommends practicing the liberal arts. Caramuel considers architecture to be a liberal art and therefore one of the paths man can follow to find order in the world. In fact, while Augustine never makes the claim that architecture is a discipline of the higher order, he does use architecture as an example of an ordering activity, in which, through the arrangement of architectural elements, order emerges. Augustine’s text also considers poetry and history, two of the literary disciplines that Caramuel included in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, as fundamental in

163 ty of ancient authors or of ruins, and, through an historical construct, imposes order to the different manifestations of columns that have appeared over time in different parts of the world.23

the search for order. While the Renaissance treatises provide a base for Caramuel to discuss architectural matters, the work of St. Augustine can be seen at the origin of Caramuel’s understanding of architecture as a fundamental human practice. See Saint Augustine, On Order (De Ordine), trans. Silvano Borruso. South Bend, IN: St. Augus- tine’s Press, 2007.

23 To determine the correct proportions for the orders, Caramuel draws on Probabilism. In moral theology, Probabilism guarantees a tranquil conscience in instances when certainty is not available and action is impending. Probabilism helps man act responsibly even if there is no certainty about the rightfulness of his actions. At its base, Probabil- ism recognizes the limitations of human knowledge and the impossibility of reaching absolute truths. Once applied outside the field of moral theology, Probabilism becomes a reflection of human knowledge and of its limitations. Probability is a kind of truth but, since it is not an absolute truth, its veracity depends on the particular circumstances surrounding an opinion. According to Caramuel, in our attempt to know the physical world, the specific epoch in which we are born conditions our capacity to know. Each instance provides us with a particular development in the technology we employ to explore the world and determines the level of accuracy and sophistication we can achieve. In moral theology in particular, Probabilism depends upon the information available to the person who is making a choice to act, and therefore says as much about the subject’s circumstances and knowledge as about the action he or she has taken. Similarly, architecture must be able to adapt and respond to the particular circumstances of a site. As we will see, Oblique Architecture is the alternative Caramuel offers to the architect to build in a world where uncertainties abound.

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i “Si majora spatial sunt, columen in summon fastigio culminis, unde & columnae dicuntur.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part II, Art. I, p. 31. The quote is from Juan de Laet, M. Vitruvii Pollionis De architectura libri decem. Amsterdam: Apud Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1649, p. 63. We know that the edition of Vitruvius Caramuel had available was that of Juan Laet, according to a list of books that an architect must have Caramuel provides at the beginning of the treatise. ii Vitruvius, Book IV, Chap. VII, writes of the Tuscan temple: “At the bottom these [columns] are to have a diameter one-seventh of the height. (The height is to be one-third of the width of the temple.) The top of the column is to be diminished one-quarter of the diameter at the bottom.” See Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture, trans. Granger Frank, ed. Henderson Jeffrey. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1931, Vol. I, p. 239. iii In his dissertation “La Architectura civil recta y obliqua de Juan Caramuel de Lobko- witz en el contexto de la Teoría de la Arquitectura del siglo XVII,” Carlos Pena Buján has already shown that Caramuel’s theory on the orders can be tracked back to Re- naissance architectural theory. iv “El primero es el Ierosolymitano, Orden a que pertenecen las colunas del Templo de Salomon, cuyas medidas se conocieron tarde, y se observaron nunca en edificios de Romanos, y Griegos.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part II, Art. IV, p. 42. v The wall of Babylon is also mentioned in the second chapter, in the discussion on the evolution of architecture. It is mentioned as the stage between wooden and stone architecture, when bricks appeared. vi Vulgate, Kings 7, 13 – 22. http://vulgate.org/ot/1kings_7.htm. Accessed April 14, 2012. vii “I have consider this, so everybody may know that what is obscure and difficult for such a great mind, will not be clear and easy for anyone.” (“Y he querido ponderar este punto, paraque cada uno sepa, que lo que in Ingenio tan grande tuviese por escuro y diffícil, ninguno lo tendra por claro y facil.”) ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part II, Art. V, p. 48.

165 viii “et finxit duas columnas aereas decem et octo cubitorum altitudinis columnam unam et linea duodecim cubitorum ambiebat columnam utramque.” http://vulgate. org/ot/1kings_7.htm. Accessed February 14, 2011. ix Before the discovery of π, the diameter of a circle is approximated as one-third of its circumference. x II Paralipomenon 3:15. http://vulgate.org/ot/2chronicles_3.htm. xi Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture, Book IV, Chap. I, 6 – 8, p. 208 – 209. xii “The Tuscan Column should resemble a very strong peasant; gana-pan in Spanish, fachino in Italian.” Ibid. p. 33. xiii “And since strength is not contrary to gallantry, soldiers are both gallant and strong; [the Doric column] is similar to a brave captain, who by the wealth of his uniform suggests that he is not afraid of losing, otherwise he would stay home.” Ibid., p. 34. xiv “Maidens are more delicate and slender than matrons, and since the women of Corinth were the more loose and lascivious of Greece, the stonecutters decided to make maidens of stone, in order to have something in their cities that preserved the idea of virginity. And assuming that girls are nine of their feet tall, the columns they made represent the symmetry and proportion in the body of virgins. They are those columns we call Corinthian.” Ibid., p. 34. xv “And in the same way each nation keeps the dress of its fatherland, it is not permitted to alter or change the ornament that belongs to each column. But there are always in big cities women who live licentiously, and constrain their feet in small sandals, forc- ing them to remain small; and because of the liberty of their occupation, they have no determined dress; they take from the French, Italian, German, etc., what they find more beautiful. In the same way it was convenient to have columns in architecture, with a smaller base than all others and that would be taller and thinner than the others; columns adorned licentiously, stealing from the others their best qualities, to make them the most beautiful of them all.” Ibid., p. 35. xvi “At the bottom these are to have a diameter one-seventh of the height.” Ibid., Book IV, Chap. VII, 2, p. 239.

166 xvii Ibid., p. 53. xviii “Advancing in the subtlety of their judgements and preferring slighter modules, they fixed seven measures of the diameter for the height of the Doric column, nine for the Ionic.” Ibid., Book IV, Chap. I, 8, p. 207. xix “Dos cosas dice aqui Vitruviuo, y en a una procede bien, y en la otra se alucina. Haze bien en tomar el Pie humano para medir las colunas, que otros con el miden todas las cosas […] Pero se alucina y se equivoca Vitruvio, en la medida que el pone, es la que pide la Dorica ha de ser mas alta, como luego diremos.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part II, Art. II, p. 34. xx “The following are the rules for doorways to temples and their architraves. First we must determine of what style they are to be. For the styles of doorways are these: Dor- ic, Ionic, and Attic.” Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture, Book IV, Chap. VI, 1, p. 233. xxi Daniele Barbaro, Bernardini Baldi and Philander are three of Vitruvius commentators included in Laet, M. Vitruvii Pollionis De architectura libri decem. xxii “In addition to these columns [Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Tuscan], there are what are called ‘Attic’ columns, quadrangular, and with equal sides.” Pliny the Elder, The Nat- ural History, ed. J. Bostrock. www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus %3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Ab ook%3D36%3Achapter%3D56. Accessed February 22, 2011. xxiii As Pena Buján has already indicated, there are several instances of the inclusion of columns with spiralling shafts in the treatises of the Renaissance. He mentions Alberti, Filarete, Luca Pacioli, Jean Bullant, Serlio, Vignola, Palladio, Scamozzi, de la Faille and Blondel, among others. See C. Pena Buján, “La Architectura civil recta y obliqua de Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz en el contexto de la Teoría de la Arquitectura del siglo XVII.” (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 2007.), p. 200 – 201. xxiv Guarino Guarini also included Gothic architecture in his treatise Archittetura civile (a posthumous work only published in 1737). Guarino Guarini, Architettura civile. Turin, 1737.

167 xxv Caramuel considers the Atlantic order the same as the telamon, depicting a masculine figure holding a heavy load. xxvi Caramuel attributed this misunderstanding to the terminology used by Serlio who in his treatise uses the word rustic to refer to the Tuscan column. xxvii Caramuel quoted from Serlio’s book IV, who in his description of the Doric order wrote: “These spaces are called metopes by Vitruvius. If, for greater delicacy, ornamentation is required in these spaces, objects like those in the square B marked B and also ox heads can be carved, as can be seen illustrated below. These objects are not without significance in that when the ancients sacrificed bulls a plate was used, and it was their custom to set things like this in places around sacred temples as decoration.” See Serlio, On Architecture, p. 283. xxviii Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture. Book III, Chap. V, 6 – 7, p. 189. xxix “At the end of the book a diagram and formula will be furnished for the drawing of the volutes so that they may be correctly turned by the compass.” Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture. Book III, Chap. V, 8, p. 191. xxx Before the treatises of Palladio and Vignola, this method was published in G. Salviati, Regola di far perfettamente col compass la volute jonica del capitello ionico et d’ogni altra sorte. Venice, 1552. xxxi Nicolaus Goldmann (1611 – 1665) was a seventeenth-century Dutch mathematician and teacher of military and civil architecture. He published a total of five books on different aspects of his teachings. The work cited is Konstruktion für die Volute des Ionischen Säulenkapitells; veröffentlicht als Beigabe zu Joh. de Laet’s Vitruvausgabe. Amsterdam, 1649. See http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/traite/Notice/Goldman 1649.asp?param=en. xxxii Carlo Cesare Osio was an Italian architect who published in 1661 the treatise Architettura civile demostrativamente proportionata et accresciuta di nuove regole: Con l’uso delle quali si facilita l’Inventione d’ogni dovuta proportione nelli Cinque Ordini, E col ritrovamento d’un nuovo strumento angolare: Si dà il modo à gl’Operarii medesimi di pratticamente stabilire le Sacome in ogni loro necessario

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contorno, in Milan. This work deals with the orders of the columns and presents for the first time their proportions based entirely on a geometrical construction. Caramuel considered this treatise a fundamental inclusion in an architect’s library, and he uses it frequently as a reference. See A. Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. London, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983. xxxiii Albrect Dürer, Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt. Nu- remberg, 1525. xxxiv In his treatise, Caramuel acknowledges not having read Dürer’s book. He knows of it through Carlos Cesar Osio, who describes the tool in his Architettura. See ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part II, Art. VIII, p. 63. An image of the compass appears in the volumes of plates. See Ibid., Vol. III, Part III, Plate VIII. This plate was originally published in the 1670 Mathesis biceps. In the original publication, Dürer’s compass was not included in the plate. xxxv “[…] me preguntas, Si es cierto todo quanto se ha dicho? Respondo, que en la Arqui- tectura, como en todas las de mas facultades hay tres generos diversos de sentencias: unas ciertas, otras Probables, y otras Controversas. Ciertas son las sentencias, que son incapaces de duda: como es decir, que los Muros se han de erigir a plomo […] Son Probables las q;se disputan con razones y Autoridades graves, sin que unos Autores se atreban a condenar a otros, porque no los de una parte, ni los de la otra fundan su pa- recer en manifiesta y clara demonstracion […] Y ultimamente son controversas opi- niones, donde los Autores no solo se diferencia entre si, sino se pierden el respeto lla- mado erroneas a las sentecias de los otros.” ACRYO, Vol. II., Part. II., Treat. V, Art., XVI., p. 80. xxxvi Caramuel, In D. Benedicti regulam commentarius historicus, scholasticus, moralis, judicialis, politicus. Brugis: Apud V. Breyghelium, 1640. xxxvii See Fleming, p. 28. xxxviii “Dos caminos tenemos de hallar la verdad en questions escuras; El uno, que es mas trillado y conocido sigue la autoridad de gente docta; y el otro que es mas subtil y de- licado haze lo que le dicta la razon. Doctrina es cierta, y assegurada con la resolucion del Doctor Africano que libr. 2. de Ordin. cap. 5. escribe assi. Duplex est via, quam

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insequimur, cum rerum nos obscuritas movet, aut rationem, aut certe authoritatem Philosophia pramittit. Y poco después cap. 9. repite lo mismo diziendo. Ad dicendum item necessario dupliciter ducimur authoritate, atque ratione. Tempore autoritas, re autem ratio potior est. Luego estos dos caminos son los que podremos seguir tratando de el Architectura.” (“We have two ways of finding truth in obscure matters; the first one is the better known and most used and it follows the authority of the learned; the other, sharper and more delicate, does what reason dictates. This doctrine is certain and affirmed by the African doctor who wrote ‘Duplex est via, quam insequimur, cum rerum nos obscuritas movet, aut rationem, aut certe authoritatem philosophia pramittit’ [‘There are two ways of getting through this darkness: either by reasoning or by certain authority. Philosophy does it by reasoning.’] and a little later in chapter nine repeats the same, stating ‘Ad dicendum item necessario dupliciter ducimur authoritate, atque ratione. Tempore autoritas, re autem ratio potior est’ [‘We are led to learning by a twofold path: authority and reason. Authority comes first in time, reason in the reality of things’. Therefore these are the two ways we can follow when dealing with architecture.”) ACRYO Vol. II, Part II, Art. IV, Note II, p. 43. xxxix “Pero (valgame Dios!) que podre resolver, si sigo la autoridad de gente docta. Vitru- vio no se ajusta en todo a lo que dixeron los Antiguos, de los Modernos unos le alaban, otros le corrigen, otros le vituperan. Estos entre si no convienen, porque las lineas, que unos prodigamente tiran, otros con avaricia las cercenan, luego no hay donde poner pie firme si queremos entrar por el camino de nos abrio la autoridad de los passa- dos.”Ibid., p. 43 – 44. xl “Luego sera major ignorer positivamente lo que dixeron otros, y seguir solo lo que nos dicta la razon. Y que razon es la que dicta? Se funda en los sentidos exteriores y principalmente en la vista, potencia que se halucina facilmente, lo que haze buena vista en los ojos de uno, parece mal en los de otro, de donde viene a ser, que es tan dudoso lo que resuelve la razon como lo que definio la autoridad.” Ibid., p. 44.

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Chapter 5 – Oblique Architecture1

Today a new art is born (eighth among the liberal arts, tenth among the muses) of which no one has written in the world. Oblique Architecture.i

Caramuel was the first and perhaps the only author to have written on the subject of Oblique Architecture. Aware of the novelty of his theory, Caramuel gave Oblique Architecture the status of a liberal art and praised it, calling it a muse for the inspiration of the artist.2 To describe this new art, Caramuel explains that

1 More than Straight Architecture, where a proto-history of architecture appears for the first time in a treatise on architecture, or Caramuel’s account of the orders, where different manifestations of columns get integrated into a single narrative, Oblique Architecture, it can be argued, was Caramuel’s most original contribution to architecture.

2 After the Renaissance, the place of architecture among the arts of disegno had been already granted, yet Caramuel’s recognition of the oblique as part of the domain of architecture and therefore of the arts is unique. As he will declare later in his treatise, Oblique Architecture existed already as a practice, but Caramuel values it beyond the scope of the mason. Caramuel aims to elevate Oblique Architecture to the level of the arts by consigning its principles in a theory. traditional architectural theory—Straight Architecture, in Caramuel’s terms— assumes the ground on which a construction is erected to be perfectly horizontal, allowing therefore for levelled horizontal planes, and plumb walls and columns. Oblique Architecture, on the other hand, proposes a theory of proportion, taking into consideration circumstances beyond the assumptions of classical architectural theory. Caramuel’s theory particularly takes into account situations where the ground floor of a building is inclined, such as in the balustrades of staircases, where walls meet at angles other than 90 degrees, creating irregularly shaped rooms, or buildings with circular or elliptical plans.3

Straight [architecture] concerns buildings that have floors parallel to the horizon, that are level, and with perpendicular plumb lines. On these planes are built straight walls, and with square rooms, chambers and galleries, governing its ideas with the triangle, an instrument that can only be used to delineate straight angles.ii

The Oblique deals with situations where the ground is inclined (as in all stairs, where many mistakes are made every day), in corridors and doors that are inclined; in round or elliptical temples; in the crowns above windows, and the fastigiaiii that top the frontispieces of temples.iv

The principles of Oblique Architecture described in the sixth chapter of Architectura civil recta y obliqua explain the adjustments of Straight or classical architecture to respond to specific site conditions, which make Oblique Architecture necessary. Caramuel’s oblique theory teaches the architect how to bend the laws of architecture while preserving the proportion and harmony

3 It is Caramuel’s own claim that traditional architecture deals only with situations where the ground floor of the building is perfectly level. Traditionally, the adaptation of the principles of architecture was considered a practical aspect of the discipline. The cunning intelligence of the architect, or solertia, is the skill that allows the architect to account for practical aspects, such as adapting to site conditions. Caramuel emphasizes the omission of Oblique Architecture from Renaissance theories to situate his theory; as well, by claiming that Straight Architecture dismisses site conditions, Caramuel differentiates Oblique Architecture from traditional or Straight Architecture.

172 prescribed by classical theory. Any transgression of the principles of architecture by the architect, however, could not be a matter of mere whim, but had to arise from the need to adapt to the irregularities of a particular site. When the circumstances surrounding a work make it possible, Caramuel warns his reader, the architect must be bound by the principles of Straight Architecture.4

Caramuel is the first author to write about Oblique Architecture. The principles of classical architecture were first formulated by Vitruvius in his Ten Books and then reinterpreted multiple times throughout the Renaissance by different authors. Until Architectura civil recta y obliqua, the problem of sites that did not conform to the assumptions of classical architecture had been addressed at the level of craft, mostly by stonemasons. For Caramuel, however, practical knowledge was not enough. He considered masons ignorant and their work inferior to that of architects, whose knowledge of the principles of the art would guide masons to avoid many mistakes. Caramuel’s theory of Oblique Architecture seemed urgent, to teach the architect about this most beautiful art and avoid leaving it in the hands of plain artisans.

The origin of Oblique Architecture

4 This claim is purely rhetorical, since Caramuel doesn’t believe the circumstances that bind the architect to the principles of traditional architecture exist in the physical world. As Caramuel goes on to explain, the world was created obliquely; therefore, the regularity needed for traditional architecture is, in Caramuel’s view, otherworldly. The bending of the principles of architecture Caramuel proposes here can be interpreted as a Probabilistic approach to architecture. In Probabilism, cannon law is adapted to accommodate situations that surround an action. In Probabilism, cannon law is a universal set of principles that should be followed by everyone, yet specific circumstances make it necessary to adapt the law in order to account for the circumstances surrounding a particular action. Similarly, while the principles of architecture teach the architect how to build well and beautifully, he must be flexible to adapt and respond to the circumstances particular to a site.

173 Caramuel argues that the fact that no one had written about Oblique Architecture before did not mean it was entirely new. On the contrary, the oblique had been part of the world since its creation. Caramuel believed that God had made the lines of the heavens—the tropics, the polar circles and the equinoctial—at an angle, and drawn with oblique lines the slopes of mountains and the course of rivers.5

The first architect that in the heavens and on the earth delineated oblique lines was God. Because [he made] in the sky the two tropics, and the Arctic and Antarctic circles are parallel to the equinoctial, and he made that the Sun with its orbit described the Ecliptic that is a circle, that cuts the equinoctial on the long side obliquely to the zodiac, into two equal parts […] He ordered that on the earth, the mountains were erected obliquely, and that obliquely the rivers and brooks run along their valleys.v

However, Caramuel continues, the oblique lines of the universe remained concealed to man, who, restrained by the primitive nature of his tools, lacked sufficient knowledge to reveal the obliquity of the world. Not until Caramuel’s time, with sufficiently developed tools of inquiry into the natural world and a proper understanding of the laws that organize the universe, would the obliquity of the world become recognized. If advancements in astronomy and natural philosophy by the likes of Galileo and Kepler had helped man to understand the laws of motion, and with them the obliquity of the universe, it became necessary for Caramuel to follow the paradigm of the maker of that universe in his own work. The establishment of the principles of Oblique Architecture were

5 By giving God the role of the first architect who built obliquely, Caramuel legitimizes Oblique Architecture. As the work of God, the world, obliquity and all, had to carry with it the perfection of its maker. Therefore, by stating that God had created the world obliquely, Caramuel also elevates the oblique above the straight. For Caramuel, as will become evident later, in the chapter on Oblique Architecture, geometry is man’s way of understanding the work of God.

174 inevitable.6

Like Straight Architecture, Oblique Architecture first appeared in a built work by man—in the Temple of Solomon, and particularly its windows. The windows of the Temple are tilted, wider on one side of the wall than the other.7 The windows

6 In the advancement of human knowledge, Kepler’s work was particularly influential for Caramuel. Kepler’s discoveries in astronomy began to close the gap that traditionally separated the celestial realm and the world. The superlunary world was traditionally understood as perfect, characterized by uniform motion and associated with that most perfect shape, the sphere. The sublunary sphere was the realm of the earthbound, ruled by the imperfection attributed to the material. Kepler’s observations showed that the orbit described by the planets was in fact an ellipse, a shape that was traditionally second to the perfection of the circle, questioning the perfection of heavens. However, for a Christian theologian like Caramuel, the perfection of God was absolute and at odds with the supposed imperfection of the elliptic orbit described by Kepler. Yet Kepler’s observations demonstrated that the elliptic orbits of the planets conformed to geometric principles and that consequently the previously assumed imperfection of the ellipse was not so. For Caramuel the world was a book written in cipher, in which God had consigned his lessons; as man perfects his tools of inquiry, he gathers a better understanding of the work of the creator, the model for men’s own practice. Therefore Caramuel saw in the new elliptic geometry of the universe a new paradigm for architecture.

7 In writing about the origin of Oblique Architecture, Caramuel adopts the same genealogical premise he uses to speak about the origin of Straight Architecture, where the first instance of the practice is God’s creation, followed by the Temple of Jerusalem. To argue that God created the world obliquely was daring, yet Caramuel finds an explanation for the obliquity of the natural world in the scientific discoveries of his contemporaries. The ambiguity in the Biblical account of the creation of the universe leaves room for Caramuel to fold scientific arguments into theological precepts. Declaring the obliquity of the Temple meant involvement in the discussions around its description, a common and heated debate amongst exegetes, particularly after Trent. While there were plenty of opportunities to argue for the obliquity of the Temple—such as the many columns and balustrades its many stairs must have had, or

175 of the Temple were oblique because they were angled; however, whether they would have been tilted outward or inward changes depending on the different sources. Caramuel explains in Architectura civil recta y obliqua that Hebrew sources and the Bible are in contradiction in explaining the windows of the Temple. According to the Hebrew authors, they were wider on the outside; the Bible, on the other hand, argues the contrary. Interestingly enough, Caramuel sided with the rabbinical sources, arguing that the windows were narrower inside the wall than on the exterior.8

the fact that it was built on top of a mount—Caramuel chooses to limit the obliquity of the Temple to a subject that was agreed upon among Bible exegetes, that is, the windows of the Temple.

As Pérez-Gómez and Pelletier have already discussed in Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, the placement of the interior building in Caramuel’s reconstruction of the Temple could be interpreted as a second instance of its obliquity. Caramuel’s discussion of the question, however, is reduced to a single sentence, where he sides with the asymmetry of the plan claimed by rabbinical sources, as opposed to the centrality Villalpando gives it in his reconstruction: “because even if they admit that the Square of the People was all around it [the interior building], they do not want to accept that it was in the centre but to one side” (ACRYO, Vol. I, Preliminary Chapter, p. 29). In addition to this, the only plate in the treatise where the Temple is represented shows the interior building to one side (see Figure 1.1). Unlike the question of the obliquity of the world, Caramuel merely mentions in passing the obliquity of the Temple, likely in order to establish it as the origin of Oblique Architecture without getting entangled in exegetical discussions.

8 In his dissertation, Fernández-Santos explains that this latter way of building windows was characteristic of Cistercian architecture, which would support Caramuel’s preference for the Hebrew over the Biblical explanation. See J. Fernández-Santos “Clavis Prudentialis. Ethico-Architectural Analogies and the Solomonic Paradigm in Baroque Spain.” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2005.) Chapter 8.

176 In the opening pages of the chapter on Oblique Architecture, Caramuel explains that Oblique Architecture should not be taken as ‘wrong‘ architecture. Both Straight and Oblique Architecture can and should be right. Misunderstandings may spring from the inadequate translation of the terms recta and obliqua from Spanish into the Latin rectè and obliquè.vi The term rectè in Latin means “well” or, as Caramuel writes, “to act without vice,”vii and in this sense can be applied to both oblique and straight architecture. Obliquè, on the other hand, refers to acting “without preserving the laws of prudence and reason.”viii It would be erroneous to think that to build obliquely is to build unreasonably and imprudently, and the principles of Oblique Architecture therefore had to be explained, in order to guide the architect in building obliquely but correctly.

A method for drawing Oblique Architecture

Oblique Architecture is based on the principles of Straight Architecture, adapting Straight Architecture to the conditions of a particular site, and sharing with Straight Architecture its sacred origin. The first lesson Caramuel includes in his treatise is how to draw the elements of Oblique Architecture using straight elements as a point of departure. The method proposed by Caramuel allows the architect to transform straight elements into oblique ones through a series of geometrical manipulations, granting the element’s original proportions. Although slanted, Oblique Architecture had to maintain, and attain, the order and beauty of traditional architecture. Ultimately, the oblique works of the architect imitate God in his creation of the universe—works that retained the perfection of their maker. Oblique elements are thus slanted but not deformed, have to be comparable in beauty to the works of Straight Architecture, and must respect the principles on which all good architecture is founded: firmitas, utilitas and venustas— permanence, convenience and beauty.9

9 That this section starts with instructions on how to draw Oblique Architecture demonstrates the importance of drawing in Caramuel’s architectural theory. Having

177 Within Oblique Architecture, Caramuel recognizes three types of obliquity: declination, inclination and circular arrangement. Declination describes those situations where the walls of a plan meet with each other at angles other than 90 degrees; circular obliquity refers to buildings that have round, oval or elliptic plans; and inclination describes instances where the ground floor on which a building rests is at an angle. The description of the method for drawing Oblique Architecture is explained in the beginning of the sixth chapter of the treatise for each one of the cases of Obliquity.ix

Declination

Declination is the case of Oblique Architecture that deals with irregular plans. Caramuel uses Michelangelo’s columns for the Campidoglio in Rome to explain

declared the need to promote the status of the practice of building obliquely, it is not enough to let the builder carry out the transformations required on site. Caramuel understands drawing as one of the aspects that differentiates the work of the architect from that of the mason. It is in the conceptual phase of design that the architect must account for the irregularities of the site and incorporate them into his drawings, which makes the mason a mere executor of the architect’s ideas. Caramuel considers it a necessity to instruct the architect on how to draw properly in oblique cases, for which execution had until then been left in the hands of the mason.

178 the method of drawing this type of obliquity.10 The column he uses for this example is that mentioned previously in the section on Straight Architecture, as an example of the Ionic column (Figure 5.1).

The first step in the transformation of a column from the straight to oblique concerns its base. The plan of Michelangelo’s column describes a perfect square (ABCD). In Oblique Architecture, the perfect square will become a rhomboid or an oblique square, which corresponds to the plan of an oblique version of the columns at the Campidoglio. Caramuel’s description provides step-by-step instructions to effect the transformation (Figure 5.2). The instructions begin with drawing a line (cb) of the same dimension to (BC) and placing it slanted according to the angle of the chosen declination. A vertical line (ΔE) perpendicular to (BC) and starting at its middle point is then drawn. Using the same dimension as the line (ΔE), three equal lines follow on points (b), (δ) and (c). Finally, by joining the points (d) and (a) at the end of the first and last of these lines, the figure is closed. The resulting figure (abcd), is an oblique square, describing the plan of the oblique base of the columns.

Once the method for drawing the base of the column has been established, Caramuel continues his detailed description with the transformation of the shaft. Since the shaft is a circle inscribed in the square of the base, the method here illustrates how to make an oblique circle from a straight one: the architect takes

10 Caramuel uses the Campidoglio several times to exemplify different aspects of his theory. As discussed in regard to the origin and evolution of architecture, Michelangelo is for Caramuel the paradigm of the modern architect. Michelangelo’s plan for the Campidoglio can be seen as a precedent for Oblique Architecture because of its oval geometry. Yet, when designing the columns at Capitoline Hill, Michelangelo made perfectly square bases, and their shafts had circular plans, something Caramuel considers to be a mistake. Caramuel’s use of the columns designed by Michelangelo to illustrate the transformation from Straight to Oblique Architecture may be seen as a corrective gesture of what Caramuel considered the error of his Renaissance predecessor.

179 the diameter of the circle (ΔE) and divides it into as many equal parts as he wishes. The more parts, the more accurate the figure will be. In his example, Caramuel uses 12 parts, marking the points where the diameter is divided with letters (E, M, S, Z, Æ, Θ, Φ). Horizontal guide lines are then drawn from the edge of the square of the base (DC) to the edge of the oblique square (ab), passing through the points that mark the diameter’s divisions. Once these lines meet the edge (DC), they are extended even further to meet the edge (cd) following the inclination of the line (cb).

180 Figure 5.1 Method for drawing oblique architecture. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part III, Plate XXXIX.

181

Figure 5.2 Detail showing Caramuel’s method of transition from straight to oblique architecture.

Figure 5.3 Detail showing the transition from straight to oblique architecture.

182 The points at which these lines intersect the vertical (cδ), (e, m, s, z, æ, θ, φ) are the oblique equivalents of the original points (E, M, S, Z, Æ, Θ, Φ) (Figure 5.3).

The detail used in the description is an indication of the novelty of Caramuel’s ideas. The way in which the transformation allows for some traces of the perfect geometry of the original to be preserved, even if the shape changes, is anything but obvious. In order to determine the points that describe the circumference of the oblique circle, the architect, using a compass, measures the distance (MF) that corresponds to the distance from the first point on the line (ΔE) to the point at which the circle intersects the first dotted line (F). This measurement will be transferred to the corresponding dotted line on the oblique figure to the left (mf). The point (f) would be the oblique equivalent of the point (F) in the straight figure. This same procedure is repeated to transfer each one of the points on the circumference (G, H, K, L, etc.) and find their oblique equivalent in the figure on the left (g, h, k, l, etc.).

Once these points have been identified, the architect, “with a skilful and experienced hand,”x draws a curve joining them. The resulting figure is an oblique circle that describes the plan of an oblique column equivalent to the original straight column (Figure 5.4). Using this process, Caramuel explains, the architect will be able to determine each of the remaining parts of the column.11

11 Despite Caramuel’s technical and methodical description, the instructions for the drawing are incomplete; it is the skill of the architect’s hand that allows for its completion. Even if the drawing holds the universality of the law of geometry upon which it is conceived, there remains an element of manual skill in the operations of the architect. Caramuel is not explicit on how one acquires that skill: he may not consider it something that can be taught through theory, since it is not included in his treatise. The role given to skill implies that, for Caramuel, theory is not enough to educate the architect; some inherent talent or a skill learned through practice might be also needed in order to be able to perform well as an architect.

183

Figure 5.4 Detail showing the transition from straight to oblique architecture.

Circular plan

The circular plan is the second case of Oblique Architecture. It deals with elements arranged on a circular, oval or elliptic plan. The method for the delineation of circular arrangements uses the same example as in the previous case, that is, Michelangelo’s columns for the Campidoglio (Figure 5.5).

Contrary to the detailed description of the drawing of declination, for which Caramuel takes the reader step by step through the construction of the drawing, in the description of the circular delineation he includes no explanation. A trained architect or one who had followed Caramuel’s teachings from the beginning of the treatise would be assumed to be versed in geometry and thus to understand the construction of the delineation merely by looking at the plate.xi

184 Figure 5.5 Plan of a column in a circular arrangement. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XLV.

185 Furthermore, Caramuel assumes that his reader would have the necessary knowledge to apply the principles used for the delineation of the declined plan to the construction of a circular arrangement without further explanation.12

Plate XLV (Figure 5.5) shows Michelangelo’s columns in plan and elevation and their oblique equivalent in a circular arrangement. In this second type of obliquity, the front and back of the base are concentric to the circle of the plan of the arrangement and therefore parallel, while the sides of the base converge towards the centre of the circle. The resulting geometry is different from delineation, where the figures, through a series of parallel transfers, preserve their symmetry. In the case of declination, the column shaft, originally a circle, becomes an ellipse or oval with symmetry on two perpendicular axes. At the same time, the base, a perfect square, is transformed into a regular rhomboid. In the case of circular arrangements, the shapes lose their regularity. The circle of the shaft becomes an ellipse with symmetry only along the axis that corresponds to the radius of the circle. The base becomes a four-sided figure, with two straight and two curved sides, with symmetry only on the radial axis. The straight sides of the base converge towards the centre, recalling issues of perspective.xii 13

12 Although Caramuel does not provide details for the construction of this case, it will nonetheless be discussed later in the same chapter, where examples of the different types of obliquity are adressed (see the discussion of Circular Plan in this dissertation). Caramuel’s assumption of the preexisting knowledge of the architect, which allows him to fill in the blanks of theory, is a recurrent feature of the treatise and suggests that Caramuel does not see theory as instrumental. His is not an instruction manual on how to perform certain operations. Operative descriptions are included only when they are not immediately obvious.

13 Caramuel’s claim that Oblique Architecture was a current practice among master masons is accurate. In a survey of Saint Peter’s made by Carlo Fontana and discussed by Angela Guidoni Marino, the geometry of the columns designed by Bernini closely follows Caramuel’s circular arrangement as proposed in Architectura civil recta y obliqua. The bases are skewed where the farther side is always bigger than the side

186 Inclination

The last part of Caramuel’s description of the method corresponds to inclination, or the oblique in elevation; his explanation expands on circular figures, their differences, and their construction (Figure 5.6, III and IV). Caramuel begins by emphasizing the analogy between the lines of the circle (III) and the ellipse (IV), and remarks that the lines of one figure correspond to the other, just as he did for the plan of the column. For instance, Caramuel explains that lines (ϕd) and (dϸ) correspond to line (ON), because they have the same dimension and position in respectively the ellipse and the circle (Figure 5.6, III and IV).14

toward the interior of the square. The size of the space between columns also changes. Bernini’s intention was never to build an oblique colonnade and it is clear that Caramuel never surveyed the square at Saint Peter’s, since he criticizes its layout in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, assuming perfect square bases and columns with perfectly circular plans. Nevertheless, the survey shows that no matter how unconventional Caramuel’s proposal seems today, skewing the columns in oval arrangements plan was part of building practice. Bonet Correa, in the introduction of the 1984 facsimile edition of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, explains that the virtuosity of the Roman workers employed under Bernini, through small on-site adjustments, were able to avoid the mistakes that Caramuel so feared. See “Estudio preliminar,” Architectura civil recta y obliqua. Madrid: Ediciones Turner, 1984, p. XXXI. For a survey of the geometry at Saint Peter’s, see A. Guido Marino, “Il Colonnato di Piazza San Pietro: dall’architettura obliqua del Caramuel al classicismo berniniano,” Palladio 23 (1973).

14 A modern reader, noting Caramuel’s assumption that repeating the delineation for the different cases of obliquity is unnecessary, might imagine that the description of the delineation of the oblique in elevation is also implicit in the first part of the description of the method. The redundancy in Caramuel’s description is related to the differences he sees between the horizontal and the vertical dimensions. Caramuel assumes that the reader can translate from the declined plan to the circular arrangement because both transformations occur in plan, since the only difference between the two delineations is the type of lines used. An educated architect would have been able to simply

187 Caramuel considers that the ellipse that results from applying his method to translate oblique figures to a circle is an imperfect shape, and indeed that ellipses are imperfect circles. An ellipse may be regular and therefore perfect in its own nature, if its axes correspond to the longest and the shortest of its diameters.15

translate the construction using straight lines with a plan using curves. However, to translate notions applied to the plan of a column to its elevation seems to Caramuel to be an operation that goes beyond mere translation.

15 Caramuel’s method for drawing Oblique Architecture proposes an alternative to Renaissance artists, who, fascinated with the geometry of the ellipse, included in their inventions different instruments to draw curves. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Albrecht Dürer are among the many savants who worked on the ellipse and its drawing since the Renaissance. In the seventeenth century, however, the ellipse takes on a different connotation after Kepler’s discovery of the elliptic orbit of the planets. Caramuel’s interest in Kepler’s ellipse is theological. Caramuel mentions Kepler’s work several times in Architectura civil recta y obliqua. The years Caramuel spent in Germany and Austria (from 1644 to 1654) may have exposed him to the waves of Kepler’s discoveries. Caramuel’s interest in the ellipse as a central figure in his theory on Oblique Architecture is in fact reminiscent of the work of Kepler, the fundamental principles of whose theory are theological: although he was Lutheran, Kepler’s project was to demonstrate that Copernicus’s hypothesis of the universe was God’s plan for the universe. For both Kepler and Caramuel, the natural world was the book of nature through which, along with Scripture, man could come to know God and his works.

Kepler, in his 1596 Mysterium cosmographicum, declares that he has uncovered the structure of God’s plan for the universe. Kepler affirms that God’s plan is geometrical and that therefore man is equipped to discover it, since the knowledge of geometry has been inscribed in his soul. Caramuel acknowledges Kepler’s observations in regard to the geometrical laws upon which God organized his creation, and the ellipse becomes for Caramuel paradigmatic in architecture. On the methods for drawing ellipses see P.L. Rose, “Renaissance Italian Methods of Drawing the Ellipse and Related Curves,” Physis 12 (1970). On Kepler’s work see P. Barker, and B.R. Goldstein, Theological Foundations of Kepler’s Astronomy,” Osiris 16 (2001).

188 Figure 5.6 Delineation of inclination. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate I.

189 However, the axes of the ellipse that are constructed using Caramuel’s method must be equivalent to those on the circle from which they originate. When performing the transformation of a circle from straight to oblique, the vertical axis must remain vertical, while the horizontal one becomes inclined. The axes of the oblique circle are the lines (az) and (qx). Since these lines do not correspond to the longest and shortest diameters of the figure, the resulting ellipse therefore is not straight. Perhaps anticipating contradiction, Caramuel warns those who might argue that the figure has its diameters in (ln) and (iw) are being fooled by their own eyes (Figure 5.7).16

Caramuel’s distinction between the different circular shapes continues with a description of the construction of a straight ellipse. A straight ellipse is also an imperfect circle derived from a perfect one, but remains a straight figure because its axes remain perfectly vertical and horizontal. The method described by Caramuel for the construction of straight ellipses is similar to that in the section on declination. The only difference lies in the translation of the horizontal distances between the vertical diameter and the points on the circumference. This time, Caramuel, with the help of a 3:4 proportional compass, transfers the distances from the original figure to the one he is drawing. In the example, illustrated in the first figure of the plate (Figure 5.6 – I), Caramuel, using the longer side of the instrument, measures a line (DL) in the original circle, and, by turning the instrument on its short end, finds a new line (DF), three-quarters the length of the original.

16 In this regard, Caramuel’s geometrical construction resonates with his Probabilistic theory. Caramuel considers that judgement can be erroneous if the circumstances surrounding an action are ignored. Someone looking at the figure (IV) might consider its axis the lines (ln) and (iw) if considering the figure in isolation. But if we consider how the ellipse was drawn, then the figure reveals a different geometry; it is an oblique circle the axes of which are (az) and (qx). This means that for Caramuel the things of the world cannot be known in the isolation of abstraction; rather, circumstances and causes are also fundamental in knowing the nature of things.

190 Figure 5.7 Delineation of inclination. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate I, detail.

The point (F) along the line (ML) would be the point on the circumference of the ellipse that corresponds to the point (L) in the circumference of the circle. Repeating the same operation for all the other points in the circumference, a straight ellipse is derived from a straight circle. The figure can also be transformed further into an oblique. Caramuel shows this operation in figure II of the same plate, using the method described at the beginning of the section.17

17 Caramuel’s distinction between regular ellipses and oblique ellipses seems to suggest that a figure, when transformed from straight to oblique, maintains its nature. The circle, converted into an oblique one, changes only in shape. The circle has been transformed from a perfect figure to an imperfect one. In conceiving of the oblique circle as a transformation of the straight circle, the figure preserves its unique centre. Unlike the Baroque ellipse, where a second centre appears, Caramuel’s imperfect circle is actually closer to that of Kepler, for whom the sun still occupies the centre of the figure, and whose ellipse has been described by Hallyn as “a circle that is deformed, of a centre that is decentred.”

191 Plate I in the section on Oblique Architecture (Figure 5.6), shows that only the ellipse drawn with the aid of the compass has perfectly vertical and horizontal axes, and is therefore, in Caramuel’s terms, straight. The other two are oblique as a result of the method used in their construction. The three figures are regular and symmetrical, demonstrating that to build obliquely can be synonymous with building correctly, and thus proving that the oblique must not be equated with deformity or aberration.

The delineation of solids follows the same principles as flat surfaces. In figures VIII and X of the same plate, we see a sphere and its oblique equivalent. Caramuel does not go into more detail, saying the procedure would be the same as for the ellipse. The same is true for other elements such as pyramids, balustrades and decorative grills. Besides these elements, we see in the middle of the plate some figures, partly straight and partly oblique, which are important, according to the author, for those instances in which straight and oblique elements meet.18

The distinction between the two figures is that the straight ellipse is a geometrical construction, while the oblique ellipse is the result of the geometric transformation of an original straight figure. This distinction, while clear in Caramuel’s theory, is not reflected in the terminology he uses. Since the distinction between the figures is fundamental to his theory, the term ellipse is used in this dissertation to refer to an ellipse that is constructed as such, while the one that results from the transformation of the circle will be an oblique circle, emphasizing by naming the nature of the figures, which in Caramuel’s theory must remain unchanged though a figure might change shape. See F. Hallyn, The Poetic Structure of the World: Copernicus and Kepler. New York: Zone Books, 1993.

18 Caramuel’s method to transform straight into oblique figures provides an important example of the relationship between the ideal and the real in his theory. Since Caramuel conceives of the world as having been created obliquely, he considers obliquity a quality of the physical world and associates the straight with the immaterial world of ideas. Yet contrary to a modern Platonic understanding of the ideal as existing over and beyond the real, for Caramuel, the ideal and the real are

192 The cases of obliquity

Declination – obliquity in plan

The theory of Oblique Architecture is explained through examples of built works. The principles of the art initially described in the section on the drawing method for Oblique Architecture are expanded in the description of particular examples, where these are applied. To illustrate the first case of obliquity, declination, Caramuel makes reference to the columns in the chapel in which the Emperor Constantine was baptized, the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome (Image 5.axiii). An octagonal building, this chapel is a perfect demonstration of the application of the principles of Oblique Architecture to plans in which walls do not meet at right angles.19

different manifestations of the same. The real for Caramuel is the manifestation of the ideal in the material world; the oblique is the presence of the straight in the world. The imperfect figure—the oblique circle—carries in it the image of the perfect figure, the straight circle, from which it is derived. Traces of the ideal figure can be discerned in the real. Moreover, it is significant that what drove Kepler’s discovery was not the imposition of an ideal form over observed phenomena. Kepler’s elliptic orbits are a description of the real motion of the heavenly bodies when observed from the earth. For both Kepler and Caramuel, the ideal circle is a mental idea that exists in the world within the ellipse.

19 In this case, Caramuel’s example takes into account the significance of the building. Beyond the particular geometry of the plan, the building immortalizes the moment at which a Roman Emperor first converted to Christianity. Caramuel believed the Habsburg Monarchy was a continuation of the Roman Emperors of antiquity, and the recognition of Christianity as the faith of the Empire is a key moment in Caramuel’s chronology of the Empire. The faith Constantine adopted for the Roman Empire was threatened by the Reformers in the sixteenth century. In 1649, with the peace of Westphalia, Ferdinand III regained control over the religious orientation of Central Europe and reinstated the Christian faith to the Empire. To help this restoration, Ferdinand III created the Consilio Theologico de Reformatione and appointed

193 Image 5.a The baptistery of San Giovanni in Laterano.

In describing the baptistery, Caramuel pays special attention to the columns around the central space, and especially to their proportion. The eight columns have either an Attic or Ionic base each, a double scotia on top of which a shaft displays a single cord in the astragal, and are crowned with a Corinthian capital. Caramuel considers these columns exemplar because the architect compensated for their otherwise excessive slenderness by including a vegetal motif at the base (Figure 5.8 and Image 5.a)

Caramuel as its president. Thanks to Caramuel’s methods, in a short period of two years (between 1649 and 1651), between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand heretics converted to Christianity. As a reformist, Caramuel must have regarded the conversion of Constantine as significant, with the confluence of politics and religion providing guidance toward a better life, and the alliance of civil and religious authorities as fundamental for civic order. Architecture for Caramuel plays both an important political and religious role, and this chapel is significant from both perspectives.

On Caramuel’s activity as a reformer see J. Velarde Lombraña, Juan Caramuel: Via y obra. Oviedo: Pentalfa, 1989, p. 241 – 242.

194 Figure 5.8 Columns at the Baptistery where Constantine was baptized. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part III, Plate LVII.

195 The bases of the columns at the chapel are perfectly square in plan, which to Caramuel seems understandable, since they predate the development and articulation of the laws of Oblique Architecture. Following the principles of the new oblique art, the base of columns for an octagonal building should not be square; rather, the shape of their plan should correspond to the angles of the walls of the building. Their shafts should not be perfectly circular in plan, but have the shape of the oblique circle inscribed in the oblique square of the base.

Image 5.b Columns in the baptistery of San Giovanni.

To illustrate the columns’ oblique extrapolation, Caramuel includes a small diagram in the lower right corner of the plate that depicts the chapel (Figure 5.8). The actual base of the columns (ABCE) and the shape they ought to have had according to the principles of Oblique Architecture—the skewed parallelogram (ABDC)—are presented in a very schematic manner. By now, Caramuel assumes, it is only necessary to discuss the proper geometry of the base of the columns, and the reader and future architect will be able to derive the other elements and ornaments, including the shape of the shaft and capital, simply by applying the

196 previously explained drawing method.20

20 In theory, the obliquity Caramuel describes is in keeping with the regularity of the geometry of the plan of the altar and building. Yet Caramuel does not include a complete drawing, and his instructions for it are insufficient.

An attempt to reconstruct the plan of the Baptistery (Figure 5.11) following Caramuel’s instructions shows the ambiguity of his theory. When the column’s base is made to align with the walls of the building, as Caramuel indicates in the description, the columns lose their centrality with respect to the corners of the octagon. Following

197 Circular plan

Of the second type of obliquity, the circular plan, Caramuel writes that there are many beautiful examples to be found in the buildings of the past. Serlio had included descriptions of many of these round buildings at the beginning of his third book On Antiquities.xiv In Serlio’s examples Caramuel finds proof that architects in antiquity did not have principles that would guide them when building columns in a round plan.

In a circular building the bases of the columns that would be placed around the building in a circular pattern cannot be perfectly square, nor can the columns built on such bases be perfectly round.xv

Caramuel considered ancient methods for when building circular colonnades erroneous. Like the example of declination, where the geometry of the base and shaft of the columns must respond to the geometry of their arrangement, in a circular plan, the columns and their bases should speak of the circular geometry of the plan.

For that reason, Caramuel includes here the description of how to draw the columns in a circular arrangement that he omitted in the section on drawing methods. The description is presented in detail in what seems at first glance to be a straightforward procedure. The steps of the construction follow logically, and the graphic support is relatively easy to understand (Figure 5.10). The same letters are used to describe corresponding points in the straight and oblique figures. The letters in the straight figures are capitalized, while those on the oblique are in lower case, which helps the reader find the correspondence between analogous

Caramuel’s theory leads to multiple possibilities, all equally valid, and it is left to the judgment of the architect to choose among them.

198 points in the two figures. Caramuel even takes the precaution of warning his readers of the increase in the degree of obliquity of the columns in the plate, where, in order to make more explicit the obliquity of the columns, the centre of the plan is placed much closer than it would be in a real building.

199

Figure 5.10 Plate XLV showing corresponding lines on a straight column and one in a circular arrangement.

200 An attempt to follow this procedure presents challenges for an amateur geometer. The description is missing instructions, showing that Caramuel assumes the architect is a proficient geometer. The first of these omissions appears in the delineation of the base of the column. Caramuel explains that the lines parallel to (FE) and (CD) should be concentric with the centre in R (Image 5.bxvi). The line (FE) corresponds to the circular line (fe), (CD) to (cd) and so on. Nonetheless, the description does not specify how the curve and the corresponding line are drafted in order to make them both the same size. The text indicates that the distance between (f) and (e) is the same as between (F) and (E), despite the different shapes of the lines; (FE) is straight while (fe) is a curve, making the actual length of the lines different. The same is true for the lines that run parallel to these aforementioned. The lines (fc) and (de) are of different lengths than their straight equivalents (FC) and (DE).

Instructions about how to transfer dimensions from a straight figure to a curved one are likewise absent from the description of the delineation of the plan of the column. Once the base has been drawn, Caramuel explains, to draw the plan of the column on top, the line (MN) may be divided into as many parts as are desired. In Caramuel’s example, the line is divided following the different mouldings of the lower part of the shaft of the column. Tracing through points (T) and (V) lines parallel to (MH), the points at which these meet with the diameter (OK) of the straight circle can be determined; these points would serve to make the construction. On the oblique figure the line (mn) is divided into the same number of parts as (MN), and lines are drawn from these points to the centre (R). Where these lines intersect the line (ok) are the points (z) and (α) that correspond to (Z) and (Æ). A problem arises when placing the points at which these guides cross the circle and are supposed to guide the construction of the oblique column. Obviously, points (ɤ), (Ȣ) and (♋) are those at which these lines intersect the circle that represents the plan of the column; however, the means by which these points describing the circumference of the oblique plan are meant to be placed is

201 omitted.21

21 Some of the information missing in the text is present in the plate that illustrates the construction (Figure 5.10); however, because of the layout where the actual construction of the drawing is interrupted by another, the geometrical procedures are difficult to follow. The width of the column (OK) is calculated by projecting two lines at opposite sides of the diameter of the column until they intersect the arc (ik) with the centre in (P). The points on this arc where the projections intersect constitute the width of the base. The same procedure is used to find the width of the other parts of the column. This is more obvious if the projection lines in fig. III are rotated and superimposed on fig. IV.

As a mathematician, Caramuel was aware of the difference in line lengths between straight and circular lines when following this construction. Yet, taking into consideration his clarification that in a building the columns would be much farther away than they are on the plate, Caramuel’s apparent lack of rigour in the description may be excused, since the difference in reality would be insignificant, or at least insufficient to be perceptible to the human eye. The description shows that, notwithstanding the importance Caramuel affords geometry in architecture, he does see a difference between the conception and drawing of a building’s elements and its construction. The drawing must be sufficiently precise for the masons to carry out the work, and no more. According to Caramuel, the craft and the materials had to be taken into account in making drawings, but there was no need to bother with geometrical accuracy that did not affect execution.

In the geometrical construction itself, the steps of the process can be understood as Caramuel’s recognition of the skills his readers would necessarily have possessed at a given point in their education. The exclusions also suggest a non-instrumental understanding of theory: for Caramuel, theory was not a prescriptive method that could teach anyone how to build oblique architecture. The principles in his treatise require a knowledge of geometry, among other preliminary requirements. At the same time, the fundaments of Oblique Architecture are aligned with the tradition of the liberal arts—they are kindred to philosophy and theology, and intentionally leave room for the judgment and interpretation of the architect.

202 Despite the inconsistencies in the description, Caramuel takes care to draw in the plate all the elements of the columns, both in their straight and oblique versions. The column Caramuel uses as an example is once more from the Campidoglio in Rome. It is drawn in elevation, includes a plan of the base and a plan of the capital (Figure 5.10 – I, II and V) and the oblique plan of the base following a circular plan (III), as well as the corresponding capital (VI), and the plan of the column for a declination such as the one described in the section on Constantine’s Chapel (VII).

The columns of an elliptic plan22 – A case of circular arrangement

22 The circular figure Caramuel calls an ellipse in the title of this section as is an oval, drawn using one of Serlio’s methods for constructing ovals. That Caramuel is aware of the geometric distinction between the oval and the ellipse is evident in the chapter on geometry at the beginning of the treatise, in which Caramuel defines the different kinds of circular figures (ACRYO, Vol. I, Treat. IV, Art. V, p. 28). Yet he calls the plan elliptic in the title and refers to it as an oval in the description. One possible reason for this terminological inaccuracy might be the difficulty of drawing ellipses with compass and ruler, which limited the draughtsman and led him to draw an oval in lieu of an ellipse. A second possibility for Caramuel’s reference to the colonnade as elliptic might be the influence Kepler presumably had on Caramuel’s theory.

Caramuel’s knowledge of mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy is indicative of his awareness of the difference between the ellipse as a conical section and the oval as a curve made with segments of circle. In his treatise, however, he uses the terms ellipse and oval interchangeably. It is the claim of this dissertation that the idea of Oblique Architecture is modelled on Kepler’s elliptical orbits, and for that reason, this dissertation echoes Caramuel’s term ellipse. The term oval will be used only to refer to the geometric construction of figures, not to their significance.

Both the oval and the ellipse fit the observations of Kepler’s measurements of the planetary orbits; however, Kepler dismissed the oval because the ellipse follows from the geometrical principles he considered part of the providential plan for the world. Only the ellipse abides both the distance-velocity law and the reciprocation law

203 Caramuel takes the case of circular arrangement further, proposing a drawing for a plan with the columns arranged in an elliptical plan.

Figure 5.11 Geometric construction of the elliptic plan.

Kepler had demonstrated as part of the organizing principles of God’s creation. For this reason, Caramuel’s preference of the term ellipse over oval can be seen not as geometrical but theological.

204 He chooses examples from ancient theatres, moving away from his preferred examples of churches and palaces for the first time in the treatise. Caramuel’s choice is likely influenced once again by Serlio’s book On Antiquities, in which Roman theatres with oval plans appear immediately following circular churches, both of clear interest to Caramuel.xvii

Architects building theatres in ancient Rome were in Caramuel’s view no better at applying the principles of Oblique Architecture than any architects building round temples. The columns that surrounded Roman amphitheatres were built using perfectly square bases and perfectly round shafts and this, Caramuel has already explained, is incorrect. His assessment of the errors made by architects in the past is reinforced with an inscription in the plate that accompanies the text (figure 5.14).

True drawing and plan of an oval peristyle and of the multiform columns that adorn it. Nota bene: It is a great error, frequently made by famous architects, who accept either the plinth of the peristyle as perfectly square, or the base of a column as perfectly spherical.xviii

Caramuel’s elliptic plan elaborates on the delineation of the columns in the circular plan: in a circular arrangement the columns always have the same shape. In an elliptic plan, the columns change according to their position on the circumference (Figure 5.12).xix Once again, Caramuel’s description is short and technical. In under a page, the instructions for a seemingly complex delineation are explained. The only two columns in the ellipse that have the same shape as those of a circular plan would be the columns at points (M), where the two figures, the ellipse and the circle, meet. In order to delineate the other columns, the width of the bases must first be placed along the circumference of the circle. Extending these beyond the circle to the line that describes the ellipse, the equivalent widths for the bases along the elliptic plan can then be determined. To determine the depth of the bases, two ellipses parallel to the original are drawn using the interior and exterior lines of the bases of columns (M) to determine the distance between them. The bases of the columns result from the intersection of the two ellipses and the lines representing their width. Once the shape of the bases

205 is determined, the plan of the shafts is derived from circular shapes inscribed within them.23

The plate corresponding to the elliptic colonnade shows a circle—circulus aequans—as the central figure from which the oval plan is drawn. An oval describes the arrangement of twenty-four columns on its circumference, each with a different shape; below, a water level is depicted, and labelled organum libratorium (levelling instrument). Between the level and the oval colonnade, the symbols of seven constellations, from Aries to Libra, are arranged counter clockwise.

23 Contemporary authors looking at the plate have focused on the possible criticism of the colonnade at Saint Peter’s square in Rome. There are several reasons to believe that, while Caramuel sees in Saint Peter’s a missed opportunity to apply the principles of Oblique Architecture, his intentions in proposing a theory for an elliptic plan go beyond a mere criticism of Bernini’s project in Rome. We must first consider that in finding precedents for the elliptic plan, Caramuel mentions examples of Roman theatres and describes the delineation of the elliptic plan explicitly as the plan for a theatre. It is also important to point out that in the description of the elliptic colonnade Caramuel makes no mention of the colonnade at Saint Peters. Caramuel’s criticism of the project by Bernini is included in a later chapter, discussed among other Roman projects (Vol. II, Treat. VIII, Art. III, Sec. X, p. 52 – 54). Finally, to suggest that the ellipse in Caramuel’s plate oriented with the long axis vertically is a criticism of Saint Peter’s (given that the plan of the colonnade at Saint Peter’s is oriented sideways) is a reduction of Caramuel’s proposition. As the description of the plate will show, Caramuel sees in this colonnade the possibility of building architecture following the newly found geometry of the ellipse of Kepler’s observations a way to bring into the world the same order God used in the creation of the universe. See J. Fernández- Santos, “Classicism Hispanico More: Juan De Caramuel’s Presence in Alexandrine Rome and Its Impact on Architectural Theory,” and A. Guido Marino, “Il Colonnato di Piazza San Pietro: dall’architettura obliqua del Caramuel al classicismo berniniano.”

206 Figure 5.12 Elliptic plan. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XXIII.

207 A second inscription, framed on three sides by the water level and on the fourth by the horizontal line defined by the instrument, is taken from the book of Proverbs: “He gave to the sea his decree, so that the waters did not go beyond their boundaries.”xx (Figure 5.12). Despite the evident richness of the elements in the plate, Caramuel does not discuss any of them in the text.24

24 This omission is common in Caramuel’s treatise. For Caramuel, ideas communicated through text and through image are different and complementary. The plain description of the colonnade in the text contrasts with the intriguing layout of the plate. An examination of the elements in the plate helps discern Caramuel’s intentions behind the elliptic colonnade.

The word aequans refers to Ptolemy’s theory of the epicycles: a point is identified from whence the orbit of a planet moving around the earth is perceived as uniform, even if in reality its movement is unequal. This point is called punctum aequans or “equalizing point” (Figure 5.13) and it is situated on the opposite side and at the same distance as the earth is from the centre of a circle.

Figure 5.13 Diagram showing the punctum aquans.

If we consider the centre A of the circulus aequans in Plate XXIII (Figure 5.12), the point A could be assumed to be the punctum aequans in the figure. While in the theory of Ptolemaic epicycles an observer would need to be outside the earth on the punctum aequans to perceive the motion of the planets as equal, in Caramuel’s colonnade, someone standing at A will see the columns as if they all had the same shape. The

208 overlay of a diagram of the theory of the epicycle onto the plate shows that even if A is the geometric centre of the oval, understood in the context of the theory of the epicycles, A is in fact an eccentric point (Figure 5.14). While A is apparently at the centre of the figure, an educated observer familiar with the Ptolemaic theory reading the inscription would recognize A as an eccentric point.

The plate shows how, for Caramuel, images communicate at different levels, and that the knowledge conveyed in images depends upon the information available to the beholder. The idea of equilibrium conveyed by the circulus aequans in the plate is emphasized by the water level below. Traditionally, horizontality was represented with the surface of water in repose. Yet the line that the water describes when still is not horizontal but parallel to the surface of the earth. The line Caramuel represents in the plate therefore looks horizontal but in reality is a segment of the curve that describes the surface of the earth, a curve that had already being proved as not circular but ovoid.

That the line in the plate refers to the circumference of the earth is further confirmed by the Latin inscription it frames. The words “and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits” refers to the surface of the water on the earth. The phase is taken from the Book of Proverbs in a section where Wisdom speaks of the creation of the universe:

I [wisdom] was set up from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived, neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out.

The mountains, with their huge bulk, had not as yet been established: before the hills, I was brought forth: He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world.

When he prepared the heavens, I was present: when with a certain law, and compass, he enclosed the depths: When he established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters: When he compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits: when he balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times… (Proverbs 8: 23 – 30)

In the first part, the Biblical passage speaks of wisdom as existing before the world; it makes reference to moral values preceding matter in the creation of the world. In the

209 description by Wisdom, the creation of mountains, rivers and the poles recall the oblique lines Caramuel associates with the work of God, and which he mentions at the beginning of the chapter in which he explains the origin of Oblique Architecture. Finally, the passage mentions a “certain law and compass” that God used to limit the orbits of the heaven and the earth. While the reference in the Biblical passage to a “certain law and compass” can be read together as the theoretical principles of geometry and the instrument that materializes it, it can also be interpreted as two different things: the compass as a symbol for geometry and a “certain law” for any kind of legislation, such as cannon or civic law. In either case, the laws of geometry or law and geometry, two important aspects in Caramuel’s theory, bind the circle of the heavens and the water to the surface of the earth.

There are two references to the circle of the heavens in the plate. First, the circulus aequans refers to celestial movement, and second, the constellation signs that surround the water level at the bottom of the page represent the planets in motion. Natural phenomena encompass law and geometry, which appears in the plate through the spirit level itself. While levelling with water was a traditional practice, dating back to antiquity when sites were flooded in order to use the surface of the water as point of reference to measure heights, Caramuel does not choose to depict water as it appears in nature to refer to curvature of the earth. He shows the spirit level as a modern instrument, described for the first time in the 1666 Machine nouvelle pour la conduite des Eaux, pour les Bâtiments, pour la Navigation, et pour la pluspart des autres Arts, by Melchisédech Thévenot. This indicates the fundamental difference Caramuel sees between the methods of the ancients and the instruments of the modern. While in antiquity man used nature to help him in his works, the moderns have developed tools in which the divine revelation contained in natural phenomena is contained in the instrument, in this case the water level. With advances in science, man puts nature in the service of art through the instruments he builds. At the same time, while man uses the laws of nature in the execution of works of art, these same instruments help man understand the cosmos through the actual making of the works.

Finally, the Book of Proverbs from which the inscription is taken is attributed to Solomon, a figure whose importance in Caramuel’s theory has already been established. Proverbs teaches how to understand metaphors and allegories, and how to

210 Despite Caramuel’s laconic description, he manages to make explicit his vision for the perception of these columns once built. The columns in an elliptical plan, if they follow the principles of Oblique Architecture, will be perceived by an observer standing at the centre as if they were all equal. Otherwise, if they all have the same circular plan, they will appear as being of different shapes and sizes.25 The entire delineation of the columns Caramuel envisions depends on a single point, from which the observer would have a privileged vantage and apprehend the building’s perfection in a single moment—an illusion of perfection that would vanish the instant the observer moved ever so slightly away from the centre of the plan.26

decipher them. The reference to Solomon’s book in the plate thus hints at the wisdom necessary to understand the messages contained in the universe; Solomon, capable of learning the moral lessons contained in the world and the heavens and of translating them with the help of tools in the works he makes, once more appears as a wise figure.

25 Pérez-Gómez and Pelletier discuss the theological implications of the geometry proposed by Caramuel. The disposition of the columns in the oval plan is interpreted as the intention of revealing the divine order of the world from a central point; standing in the geometrical centre of the oval, which is considered a deformed circle, the oval will be perceived as a perfect circle. Man in his imperfect nature is allowed to attain God’s perfect vision by the conscious manipulation of the rules of geometry. See Pérez-Gómez, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge. p. 149 – 157.

26 For Caramuel, reality is multifaceted. Man gathers a fuller understanding of the world when looking at it from multiple perspectives. And while the absolute grasp of reality is reserved for God, the human mind, which partakes of the divine, has the capacity to incorporate the multiplicity of experiences of the world and to unite them. It is possible that Caramuel intended the experience of this colonnade as a metaphor for the rich diversity of reality. We might imagine a building in which slight irregularities in the parts create a tension. Wandering through the building, the experience is ever changing, with different views opening and closing as one walks about, only to reach

211 Figure 5.14 Plate XXIII with an epicycle diagram overlaid.

Caramuel’s illusion of regularity, which appears when standing in the centre of the ellipse, would be amplified if the plan had several concentric rows of columns instead of a single one. The observer standing at the centre would perceive the columns as though perfectly circular in plan, and would also see the columns that would otherwise appear as a dense limit containing the space disappear behind a single, visually permeable row of columns (Figure 5.15).27 This idea of a

a moment of revelation at the centre, with the irregularities resolving into the disclosure of the architecture’s underlying perfection.

27 This is effect is actually achieved in the colonnade at Saint Peter’s square by Bernini, where, standing at the plaques on the floor that mark the geometrical centres of circles that make the oval plan, the depth of the colonnade collapses into a single row of columns, revealing the city behind them (Image 5.c: photograph by the author).

212 colonnade with multiple rows is represented in a plate and introduced with a Latin inscription:

Division, size, form and outline of columns arranged in a tetrastyle configuration. The exterior columns are quasi-aspheric; they are not perfectly circular but almost circular; those inside necessarily regress into beautiful quasi-ellipses.xxi

The plate shows a portion of the plan of the colonnade and the elevation of the lower portion of two columns, presumably from the same colonnade. Next to the base of the columns, four observers are shown looking up at the large columns. Between them an inscription, scamilli impares, refers explicitly to the Vitruvian notion of optical correction (Figure 5.15).28

Image 5.c The colonnade at Saint Peter’s.

28 For Vitruvius, the middle section of the stylobate of a temple should be raised slightly so as to appear perfectly horizontal, lest it give the impression of being sunken. Similarly, in Caramuel’s circular and elliptic arrangement of colonnades, visual perception takes precedence over ideal shapes. Placing both the elliptical plan and the scamilli impares in the same plate might be taken as evidence of the similarity Caramuel saw between the two: both are examples of optical correction, and both acknowledge the imperfect perception of the human eye and recognize the need to adjust the form and dimensions of buildings to attain the appearance of harmony and perfect proportions. Nevertheless, there is a fundamental difference between the traditional understanding of optical correction and Caramuel’s interpretation. For Vitruvius, optical correction is part of solertia, the cunning intelligence of the

213 Inclination – Obliquity in elevation

Caramuel’s third type of obliquity, inclination, assumes that on sloped surfaces a building should follow the inclination of the ground. As in the other two cases of obliquity, the harmony and proportion of the whole should be maintained. However, in Caramuel’s theory, inclination seldom refers to sites where the ground is actually inclined, such as mountainsides or hills, applied instead to situations within buildings where the floor is slanted.

Special attention is paid to staircases, a circumstance Caramuel considers ideal for Oblique Architecture.29 Palladio was the first of the Renaissance authors to pay attention to staircases. Caramuel recognizes Palladio’s influence, but his approach is different from that of his predecessor. While Palladio was concerned with the design of stairs,xxii Caramuel is concerned exclusively with their ornamentation, the columns and balustrades used to adorn their adjacent walls.xxiii

architect, who makes necessary adjustments to account for inexact human sight. However, these adjustments take place through verbal communication, generally on site, and the mason executes the changes. Caramuel turns the traditional interpretation on its head, suggesting that for Vitruvius, optical correction is part of the practical knowledge of the mason who in the execution would account for the correction. Caramuel argues that is the role of the architect to counter the irregularities of sensory perception in his drawings, through the use of geometry. Oblique Architecture can furthermore be understood as an inverted case of optical correction, where the same understanding of vision as limited prevails, but where the issue is to build the oblique, rather than to counter the irregularities of vision.

29 Stairs were of minor importance in Renaissance architectural theory. In Baroque architecture, in which ritual motion occupies a central role, stairs are of particular interest. Stairs often became dominant elements in buildings in the seventeenth century. Their upward motion acquired an importance it never had during the Renaissance, when issues of frontal image and horizon-bound motion were more dominant. Vertical motion during the Baroque is often associated with transcendence and, for Caramuel, represents a divine dimension.

214 Figure 5.15 Tetrastyle colonnade. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XXIV.

215 This warning I intended to put forth at the outset, because it is not the same to cut the ornaments in the stone obliquely to lay the stones slanted. [Stones] must be placed on top of each other, the surface on which a stone is placed, horizontal (it must be ad libellam) and never slanted.xxiv

Caramuel is aware that if bricks are laid on a wall slanted, they are unstable and the wall will collapse (Figure 5.16, lower left corner). Therefore, walls should be built with the stones or bricks horizontal (CD) to ensure the stability of the wall; otherwise, not even a great work of masonry would make such a construction safe (NO).30

Balustrades and columns, both climbing along the sides of a staircase, were among the main subjects of Oblique Architecture. Traditionally, when building columns on inclined surfaces, architects resorted to a triangular wedge to compensate for the inclination of the ground. Caramuel considers this wedge unsightly, and a threat to the stability of the columns. Appearing as an afterthought rather than an integral element of the column, the wedge, Caramuel imagines, could easily be kicked out of place by a distracted passerby, leaving the column unsupported. Caramuel argues that examples of this mistake are found in buildings all over Europe, both by ancient and modern architects, who, lacking the principles of Oblique Architecture, did not know how to build properly in these kinds of situations.

30 Plate III of Part IV (Figure 5.16) shows the proper way of building wall on an inclined surface (DC). In the plate, the bed joint is horizontal but the butt joint is inclined, so that, laid in rows, the edge formed remains parallel to the slope. This is contrary to the inclination of columns and other ornamental elements, where the verticality of the element in preserved and the horizontal lines inclined. This contradiction is representative of the difference Caramuel sees between the structural and ornamental elements of architecture, with Oblique Architecture only applicable to the latter.

216

Figure 5.16 Walls built on inclined grounds. Architectura Civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate III, detail.

The balustrades and columns adorning stairways should be designed following the inclination of the ground where they are built; to this end, the oblique elements must be conceived with their vertical lines unchanged, while those that would normally be horizontal are to follow the inclination of the ground. Caramuel illustrates the straight and oblique variations in a plate that compares a straight and an oblique balustrade (Figure 5.17). In the caption, Caramuel invites the “prejudice-free reader” to refuse the straight delineation and favour the oblique.xxv31

The method for drawing inclination was included in the description of the method for transforming a straight figure to its oblique equivalent. Caramuel wastes no time in repetitive explanations, instead carefully including enough plates to show graphically oblique versions of the columns and of the different elements of the orders. From the eleven orders included in the section on Straight Architecture, only four of the traditional five are illustrated. The plates include the unadorned or

31 The inscription on the plate suggests that when building on inclined surfaces, Caramuel considers Oblique Architecture superior to Straight Architecture, celebrating as it does the inclination of the ground rather than concealing it.

217 naked Tuscan column (Figure 5.18), a Tuscan column with its pedestal and cornice (Figure 5.19), the Doric column with its capital and cornice (Figure 5.20 and Figure 5.21), the detail of Ionic volutes (Figure 5.22), and a Corinthian cornice (Figure 5.23), among others.

218 Figure 5.17 Straight and oblique balustrades. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate VI.

219 Figure 5.18 Straight and oblique Tuscan column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate VIII.

220 Figure 5.19 Straight and oblique Tuscan pedestal and cornice. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate IX.

221 Figure 5.20 Oblique Doric capital. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate X.

222 Figure 5.21 Oblique Doric Pedestal. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XI.

223 Figure 5.22 Straight and oblique Ionic volute. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XIV.

224 Figure 5.23 Straight and oblique Corinthian cornice. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XVIII.

225 Caramuel, concerned about possible misunderstandings of his method, includes a plate in the treatise showing a mistake that could easily be made when drawing the oblique equivalent of the classical orders (Figure 5.24). Plate XVII – Part IV shows a Corinthian capital and base, in straight and oblique versions. Because of an error in the transformation, the proportions of the image on the left look different than those of its straight counterpart. The mistake occurs when, after measuring the width of a given part (such as the distance of the base EA), instead of translating the dimension on the corresponding inclined line (ap), it is translated on a horizontal line (ae). This makes the oblique delineation wider than the original. The mistake appears corrected in Plate XVIII – Part IV (Figure 5.25). Caramuel claims that the harmony and proportion of the correct delineation of the Corinthian capital is evident and therefore demonstrates the gracefulness of Oblique Architecture.32

After showing the delineation of the oblique orders and the possible mistakes of the architect, Caramuel complains about the ignorance of the laws of Oblique Architecture before his time. He argues that mistakes have spread to such an extent throughout Europe that even inside the holiest of all buildings, Saint Peter’s in Rome, Oblique Architecture has been wrongly executed. The object of his complaint is none other than the Scala Regia. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the pope’s architect, had used wedges where columns meet the inclined ground at the top and on the base of the columns.xxvi

32 In Caramuel’s classification of the two types of truth, self-evident truths and those demonstrated by logical arguments, images correspond to the second. Images are often demonstrative, since the information they contain is transmitted to the viewer directly through sight. The signifier and the thing signified are present simultaneously and perceived immediately. When Caramuel argues that the image of the correct delineation of the Corinthian capital is evident, his claim is not a figure of speech. Caramuel believes that the superiority of the correct delineation to the one mistakenly drawn is demonstrated and evident in the plates.

226 Figure 5.24 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XVII.

227 Figure 5.25 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XVIII.

228 For Caramuel, Bernini’s solution is unacceptable. If the wedges between the cornice and the column are somehow concealed, Caramuel claims, the ugliness of those at the base of the column truly offends the eye (Figure 5.26).

Figure 5.26 Plan of the Scala Regia, G. Bernini, 1663 – 1666, Vatican Museum, Rome.

Caramuel includes in his treatise a number of explicit counter-proposals for Bernini’s staircase at the Vatican,xxvii proposing in his engravings several possibilities for replacing the straight elements with oblique solutions, and including a study of how this might be possible using different orders of columns (Figures 5.26, 5.27 and 5.28).

229

Figure 5.27 Oblique Corinthian colonnade. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XX.

230 Figure 5.28 Ionic columns on stairs. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XVI.

231 Figure 5.29 Corinthian columns on stairs. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XXI.

232 Obliquity in plan and elevation – Circular staircases

In each of the three cases of Oblique Architecture included in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, the obliquity seems to be applied either in plan or in elevation, but seldom in both. The circular staircase is a special case of obliquity, where inclination and circular arrangement coincide. The theory that describes the circular staircase does not go beyond stating the need for the elements to respond to the double obliquity of the situation. The difficulty of imagining elements that respond both to the circular arrangement of the plan and to the inclination of descent is obvious in the plate that illustrates the case (Figure 5.30). The detail on the top left corner of the plate shows a balustrade in elevation, where the line of inclination is curved, indicating that in this case, the delineation employs a method similar to inclination, using curves instead of straight lines. To the right, a smaller drawing shows the point at which the straight and oblique balustrades meet. While in theory the two cases of obliquity, inclination and circular arrangement, can be combined, in the drawing the refinement of the engraving present in most of the plates included in the treatise is lost; the balustrade looks like a flat ribbon spiralling upward, while the steps arranged on a circular plan are inwardly slopped. Clearly, when making the drawing, Caramuel used the centre of the circle of the plan to radiate the steps without considering their change in height.33

33 The difference in the quality of the draughtsmanship of the plates in Architectura civil recta y obliqua can be explained by the time it took Caramuel to compile them. In the introduction to Oblique Architecture in the treatise (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, p. 2), Caramuel explains that the first plates were engraved in 1635 in Brussels, Louvain and Anvers, while he later had others made in Austria, and many in Prague, Rome, Campania, Milan and Vigevano. While some of the plates are of poor quality, the illustration of the circular stairs is not necessarily poorly executed. The problems it presents relate to the construction of the perspective more than to the quality of the engraving.

233

Figure 5.30 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXV.

234 The circular staircase also presents Caramuel with an opportunity to criticize some of the works at the Vatican. The charges are once again against Bernini; this time the object of Caramuel’s complaint is the staircase leading to the Confessio, just below the Baldacchino in Saint Peter’s Basilica (Image 5.dxxviii). Through his criticism of Bernini’s work, Caramuel reminds the reader of the three conditions necessary for good architecture, characteristics first introduced in Caramuel’s description of the archetypal architecture of the Temple in Jerusalem: the idea formed in the mind of the architect, the materials used, and the craft used in working such materials.

Image 5.d The Confessio at the Vatican.

Caramuel explains compliance with two of the three requirements for good architecture results in loathsome architecture. In the case of the staircase in St. Peter’s, Caramuel recognizes both the beauty of the material and the excellent craftsmanship, but condemns the architect’s underlying idea, that is, his design. Caramuel does not specify the mistake he sees in the Vatican stairs, but it can be assumed he is referring to the balustrades that are built as if they were on a straight banister. Following the principles of Oblique Architecture, those on the upper level should follow the circular arrangement of their plan, while those descending to the crypt should incline following the angle of inclination of the stairs they adorn.

235 Oblique arches

Another aspect of Oblique Architecture that Caramuel considers in his treatise, oblique arches, can also be understood as a situation in which obliquity results from a double obliquity. The section on arches is concerned primarily with the development of a technique that will help in cutting the stones for an oblique arch. Caramuel’s intention is to explain to the reader how to make a wooden scale model of the arch, from which the geometry of the stones can then be determined. He begins by describing the unfolding of a cube and naming its faces (Figure 5.31)—a descriptive representation of solids. In the case of arches, this unfolding technique supports Caramuel’s description of complex geometries, and he uses the unfolding method to describe the geometry of different arches. First Caramuel defines a straight arch as one in which the springers have parallel sides (fig. III in the plate shows the plan of a straight arch; in fig. VII the unfolding method applied to the same arch). The reader would be familiar with this type of arch, common in architecture since antiquity, and Caramuel assumes that by showing an example of a familiar arch to illustrate his unfolding method, the theory could then be extrapolated to the less well-known oblique arches.

Beyond the geometrical description of the stones of the arch, from a mathematical perspective, the procedure for making the wooden model is obscure, to say the least. The circumferences on opposite sides of the arch are different and do not align, because of the geometry of the stones at the base of an oblique arch. Caramuel proposes that one of the arcs of the arch be drawn on one side of a plank of wood as wide as the width (to scale) of the arch, and on the back, the other arc, maintaining their alignment. He then imagines that the inside portion of the arch might be removed using some kind of saw. Afterwards, using the same instrument, the different pieces that stand in as the model for the stones could be separated, resulting in a scale model of the different stones.

236 Figure 5.31 Method for cutting oblique arches. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate II.

237 Caramuel includes in his treatise several examples of oblique arches. The first building he mentions as a fine example is El Escorial, which Caramuel considers the modern equivalent of the Temple of Jerusalem. Although Caramuel does not mention specifically where these supposed oblique arches are in the building, he argues they are all very well made. Caramuel then refers to examples of oblique and semi-oblique arches in some of the chapels in the Cistercian monasteries in Castilla and La Espina. One final example is included, this time to illustrate an elliptic vault, a complex case of oblique stonecutting. Caramuel omits the name of the particular temple but includes two plates to illustrate it (Figures 5.32 and 5.33).xxix The oblique geometry of the dome requires new stonecutting methods, which Caramuel suggests the architect can learn through careful observation of the plate.34

34 The inclusion of stereotomy in Architectura civil recta y obliqua could well be a result of Caramuel’s education as a Cistercian. There is praise for the workmanship of stone in the Cistercian tradition. Since Bernard de Clairveaux’s reform of the rule in the Middle Ages, with a call for simplicity, Cistercian architecture developed as the result of a search for beauty in the work of unornamented stone. The removal of decoration resulted in the development of great skill in working details and joints, between stones previously concealed with ornamentation. Cistercian architecture was the forerunner of Gothic architecture. Over time, this tradition continued within the architecture of the order. As a Cistercian monk, Caramuel was exposed to the order’s tradition of stonemasonry. In Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel recognizes that his interest in architecture began in 1624 when as a young monk he witnessed the construction of a chapel in the Monasterio de La Espina in Valladolid, the same chapel he mentions in the examples of oblique arches (See ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, p. 2). Some contemporary studies of Caramuel’s work, based on the long tradition of stonemasonry in Spain, have gone so far as to attribute the origin of the theory of Oblique Architecture to a stereotomic interest. Yet the brevity of this section seems to betray Caramuel’s rather limited knowledge in stereotomy, particularly compared to that of his contemporary Guarino Guarini, whose Architettura civile privileges stonecutting. See J. Fernández-Santos, “Classicism Hispanico More: Juan De Caramuel’s Presence in Alexandrine Rome and Its Impact on Architectural Theory.”

238

Figure 5.32 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXVI.

239 Figure 5.33 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXVII.

240 Entasis

Caramuel includes the problem of entasis, another traditional topic discussed in architectural treatises, as part of his discussion on Oblique Architecture. Vitruvius is the first author known to introduce the idea that the columns should be wider in the middle. After Vitruvius, the authors of architectural treatises in the Renaissance included this central swelling of the shaft as part of their theories. Caramuel, who considers his theory a continuation of the classical tradition, includes the diminution of the diameter of the columns in his treatise and discusses several related traditional aspects, including the proportion between the top and bottom diameters of the shaft of the column, the place along the shaft at which the column should be wider, and the kind of lines that describe the profile of the column.

Caramuel’s theory is in disagreement with Vitruvius and his interpreters, whom Caramuel condemns for explaining entasis as a problem of optical correction. Caramuel believes it is a mistake to think that the diameter diminution at the top of the shaft compensates for the imperfection of human vision. According to Caramuel, foreshortening affects the vertical dimension (looking upward) and not the horizontal (in frontal depth), which he explains in further detail in the section on perspective. Furthermore, he argues that even if it were true that foreshortening occurs in the horizontal dimension, columns should be wider at the top, rather than narrower, so that when perceived from a distance they appear perfectly plumb. Caramuel’s argument for the entasis of the columns is proto-structural, because he considers bending or buckling failure. According to him, the delineation of columns follows the knowledge gathered by craftsmen through the use of their instruments, which often have handles thicker at the point at which they would break under constant stress.35 Likewise, Caramuel contends, the

35 The handles used in these instruments were most likely made out of wood, and would have failed in bending. When translating from a wooden handle into a stone column, shearing rather than bending will cause failure. Yet Caramuel’s claim is striking for its

241 columns are wider at the point at which they would fail if the load they are bearing were excessive.

After giving the reasons for the entasis, Caramuel goes on to discuss what is in his opinion the correct proportion between the upper diameter and the lower, the subject of discord among Renaissance authors. Aware of these divergences, Caramuel’s text presents the proportion between the diameters according to Vitruvius, Pedro Antonio Barca, Serlio, Palladio, Philander, Vignola and Wotton. After comparing the different theories, Caramuel bases his comments on Serlio, according to whom the top diameter is one-sixth less of the diameter at the base, and Vignola, for whom the difference is one-quarter, and concludes that the correct proportion should be one-fifth, halfway between Serlio and Vignola. Caramuel’s solution seems arbitrary, yet he argues for its legitimacy as the result of a geometrical construction. Moreover, he declares that the proportions used by his predecessors are arbitrary, since they follow tradition. Caramuel clearly believes that the laws of geometry are superior to those handed down through tradition. In order to further demonstrate the validity of his argument, Caramuel uses a basic geometrical construction: a pentagon is inscribed in the circle that describes the lower diameter of the column, and then a second circle that corresponds to the upper diameter is inscribed within the polygon. As a result, the diameter of the interior circle is one-fifth smaller than that of the exterior circle (Figure 5.34).36

proximity to a structural engineering argument, a science that would not coalesce for another seventy years or so. Caramuel’s argument is therefore unique in the context of architectural treatises, where, with the exception of Perrault, issues of meaning take precedence over scientific questions. It is important also to point out that Caramuel is using this proto-structural argument against the arbitrariness he sees in Renaissance theory, yet the structural argument will be shortly overridden by a more traditional one: the relationship between the columns and the human body.

36 Caramuel’s argument is deceiving. His geometrical demonstration would be equally valid for any of the other traditional recommendations on this matter. If, instead of a

242 Beyond the scope of the traditional treatises of the Renaissance lies the foundational question of the entasis of the columns of the Temple of Solomon. Before Caramuel, only J.B. Villalpando considered the possibility of entasis in these columns. For Villalpando, these columns were the paradigm of classical architecture; therefore, he argued, entasis first appeared in the columns at the entrance of the Temple. Caramuel, who is usually adverse to Villalpando’s ideas, in this case agrees, explaining that, following the Vulgate, it is clear that the shaft of these columns was divided into three parts.

pentagon, a different polygon were inscribed in the original diameter, the ratio between the circles would correspond to a fraction equal to the number of sides of the polygon. Thus the same argument could endorse Serlio’s or Vignola’s position, if the figures used were correspondingly the hexagon or the square. However, the difference for Caramuel is not whether any of the other arguments can be legitimized geometrically or not. Caramuel sees the limitation of Serlio and Vignola’s arguments in that they are conceived as the continuation of a tradition, a humanist respect for authority, and not as the result of a geometrical construction—the basis, for Caramuel, of a truly modern (and Baroque) understanding of true knowledge.

Caramuel’s claim that the proportions chosen by Renaissance authors were arbitrary because they were based on tradition is similar to the one Perrault uses to argue for the arbitrariness of proportion. For Perrault, the rules of proportion are arbitrary because they are not dictated by reason or present in nature, but the product of habit. Yet, while both Perrault and Caramuel point out the arbitrariness of tradition, Caramuel is not ready to do away with the traditional role of proportion as the origin of beauty.

Caramuel and Perrault argue against tradition, and they both propose mathematical demonstrations to overcome its limitations. In his 1683 Ordonnance des cinq espèces de colonnes selon la méthode des anciens, after comparing different manifestations of columns, Perrault proposes an arithmetic argument, the law of averages, as a way to avoid the arbitrariness of habit. Caramuel also uses averages between the diameters of the column, yet unlike Perrault, who sees in the absolute and abstract use of numbers proof of the truthfulness of his argument, Caramuel sees the validity of his argument in geometric proof.

243 Figure 5.34 Detail. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XV.

The circumference at the base of the shaft was 12 cubits, as discussed in the chapter on the Temple at the beginning of the treatise. The widest part of the column measured 14 cubits and was at one-third from the foot. The top diameter was 10 cubits (see Figure 1.2). With this argument, Caramuel not only supports Villalpando’s claim, but also suggests that Vitruvius himself extracted his theory based on the columns made by Solomon. Caramuel argues that, for the Roman author, the ratio of the diminution of the diameter of the column is of six to five, the same Caramuel assumes was characteristic of the twin, mythical columns Jachin and Boaz.37

37 Caramuel’s argument here is somewhat devious. On one hand, in the beginning of the section, Caramuel argues against Vitruvius that the best proportion between the

244 One problem Caramuel sees in the delineation of entasis in traditional theory is the divergence of opinions on where the widest part of the column should be along the shaft. According to Caramuel, Philander and Carlo Cesare Osio claim that the column should be wider exactly in the centre; Alberti places the widest diameter at four-sevenths of the height. Caramuel agrees with Palladio, Serlio, Vignola and Dürer, who proposed the widest diameter to be at one-third of the height of the shaft, but disagrees with the shape they give to the column. For some of these authors the lower part of the column was a straight cylinder and the tapering of the shaft started at one-third of the height; for others, the lower third tapered downward. A common Renaissance explanation of this shape was that the first structures were made of wood, and the columns carved from tree trunks were naturally wider at the bottom. Later, when the columns started to be made in stone, the tapering of the trees was maintained. Caramuel responds that it is false that trees are narrower at the top. Instead, he believes, columns are modelled after the human body, and since healthy bodies are wider in the middle, columns should have a bigger diameter in the centre.

Another question that appears in Renaissance treatises and around which there were major discrepancies is the geometry of the line that describes the entasis (Figure 5.35). Vitruvius, and after him Pedro Antonio Barca, believed that the profile of the column should be a straight line from the bottom of the column to the top. For Philander and Palladio, the lower third of the shaft should be straight, and from there a line to the top of the column describes the entasis. Serlio and Vignola also have a straight shaft in the first third of the column, at which point

diameters of the columns is one-fifth, and not one-sixth (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XIV, p. 22). On the other hand, by placing the wider diameter at the bottom and the smallest at the top, the shape of the shaft in Vitruvian theory differs from Caramuel’s argument regarding the columns at the entrance of the Temple (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XIV, Sect. XV, p. 33 – 34). This manipulation is common throughout Caramuel’s text. His convoluted rhetoric and the apparent continuity in the narrative conceals the inherent contradictions.

245 they draw a circle and divide it into horizontal parts, projecting the points of the circumference upward, to determine the incremental reduction of the width of the shaft (Figure 5.36).

Caramuel considers all Renaissance methods for drawing the entasis imperfect: all use straight lines in their delineation, and leave the junction between these lines to the mason, who would sand them down to dissimulate the resulting angles. To overcome this limitation, Caramuel proposes the profile of the column be a perfect ellipse, a curve that falls under the architect’s jurisdiction and allows the conception and drawing of a superior shaft from the beginning; the mason is relegated to the status of executor of the architect’s ideas.38 The explanation is illustrated in the last column on the right of the same plate depicting the theories of the Renaissance (Figure 5.35).39

38 It is important to emphasize that, even if the entasis of the columns is a traditional aspect of architectural theory, Caramuel included its discussion in the section on Oblique Architecture and not in the section on Straight Architecture, in which he deals with most of classical theory of the orders. Behind this categorization lies the claim that Oblique Architecture elevates the art from a mere mechanical art to a liberal art. This elevation is possible through the application of geometrical laws to architecture. Caramuel repeatedly seeks to ennoble aspects of architecture that traditionally fell to masons to have them ruled instead by the geometric modus operandi of the architect. It is through the construction of the oblique ellipse that the architect refines the problem of the column’s profile, so it can be merely reproduced in practice, whereas before it had necessarily been adjusted through craft from its much more imprecise delineations in traditional treatises.

39 Caramuel never gives a full description of the columns of the elliptic colonnade. In Plate XXIV (see Figure 5.15), Caramuel shows parts of an elliptic plan and the lower part of its columns. In the text, the imagined correspondence between the plan and elevation of his colonnade becomes apparent. For Caramuel the ellipse is both the shape of the plan of the layout of the colonnade and the line that defines the profile of its columns. The reason for choosing the ellipse as the plan of the colonnade, as

246 Caramuel sees Oblique Architecture as the continuation of the work of Carlo Cesare Osio, the first author who in Caramuel’s mind had increased the status of architecture in the hierarchy of the arts. Following Osio, Caramuel declares that the linea conchilis is the line that describes the entasis of the column. 40According to Caramuel, in his 1661 Architettura civile, Osio proved the delineations of architecture through geometrical constructions. In his treatise, Osio introduced the linea conchilis. Osio belonged to a broader genealogy of authors and scholars for whom geometry was a universal science. Marin Mersenne inaugurated this tradition in his Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim (1623), using the linea conchilis to geometrically demonstrate the infinity of the line and therefore the infinity of God; following Mersenne, Milliet Dechales included this line among many in his 1674 mathematical treatise Cursus seu mundus mathematicus.

previously discussed, comes from Kepler. Similarly, Caramuel finds in Kepler’s symbology of the ellipse reasons to use it as the profile for the columns.

Kepler was part of a long tradition associating the circle, as the perfect shape, with God, and the straight line of the square as a symbol for man. The ellipse for Kepler is a combination of the curved and straight lines, and as such partakes from both the divine and the human. In Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel associates the vertical dimension with the perfect, invisible and eternal realm of the divine, and the horizontal with the imperfect, material and time bound human realm. While columns are vertical elements of architecture, therefore carrying the dimension of the divine, traditionally they were also representations of the body of man. Since columns are in Caramuel’s theory the elements of architecture where the divine and the human coincide, it is possible that he saw in Kepler’s ellipse a fitting shape for the columns. According to Kepler, the ellipse is the conic section that tends towards circularity. It is a shape that represents the effort of men to resemble God as much as possible, but at the same time, as Caramuel is clearly aware, it can never reach the perfection of the model.

40 This proposition stands in contradiction with Caramuel’s previous statement of the profile of the column being defined by an ellipse.

247 Figure 5.35 Different theories on the entasis of columns. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXX.

248 Osio used the same line to describe the entasis of columns, implicitly associating architecture with theology through mathematics.41

For all his emphasis on the predominance of architectural art over the craft of masons, Caramuel considers it unnecessary to take the designs of the architect to extreme levels of precision that could not be maintained by the mason in the construction. Writing about the different methods for calculating the entasis (Figure 5.35), Caramuel explains that there is a difference if the line that defines the profile of a column is a circle or an ellipse, and that this difference can be calculated mathematically. Yet this difference is negligible in the actual construction of the column: undetectable by the human eye, it escapes perception. It is also unachievable, since the chisel cannot carve it. Therefore, according to Caramuel, the level of precision an architect should use in his designs must correspond to what the body perceives and what tools can build, and no more. From the mathematical sciences, geometry gives man this level of precision.42

41 The geometrical construction of the linea conchilis is included in Architectura civil recta y obliqua within the section on geometry. In the section on Oblique Architecture, the line is described as one that is not parallel to the vertical; it approaches the straight line infinitely but without ever touching it. “Not being parallel to the perpendicular, on the contrary it approaches it more and more but in a way that even if it grows closer progressively it will never touch it or intersect it.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XIV, Sec. VIII, p. 28. Caramuel recognizes the use of the linea conchilis in Osio’s theory as a precedent for his own theory of entasis, where the profile of the column speaks of the human condition as perpetually perfectioning itself using God as a model, but without ever aligning with divine perfection, being of a different nature.

42 For Caramuel, geometry perfects architecture by aligning it with the underlying order of the universe. This perfection, ultimately fuelled by a theological conviction, is not the same, however, as the precision of algebraic calculations that by Caramuel’s time had already advanced significantly, allowing for the accurate calculation of geometric figures and curves. Arithmetic reaches a precision that is not possible in the material

249 The flutes of a column

Caramuel’s theory of Oblique Architecture also included the fluting of columns, touching on the difference between various authors’ opinions of the number of flutes the shaft of a column should have. Caramuel concludes that most of their theories are aligned with Vitruvius, for whom the Doric column had to have 20 flutes and the other orders 24. Nevertheless, Caramuel considers that the number of flutes on a column is arbitrary, finding no reason, geometrical or other, to legitimize it. Caramuel declares that the same mistakes he finds in oblique columns executed without following the principles of the art are repeated when carving the flutes of oblique columns. In order to teach the reader the proper delineation, he includes a plate, where the plan of a column with flutes is transformed from straight to oblique (Figure 5.36).43

As would be expected from on Caramuel’s emphasis of the Temple of Jerusalem as the origin of architecture, Caramuel also delves into the question of the flutes on the columns of the Temple. He concludes that, even if Scripture does not mention this detail, we can assume the original columns were fluted, with 48 flutes on each column. The fluting is described as an important part of the craftsman’s role in adding to the beauty of the materials:

It seems impossible, that if all the other elements that crowned the columns were so beautifully worked and carved, only the columns would have been left plain without grooves or other decorations.xxx

world because it uses discrete numbers, an abstract construct of the mind, for its calculations. Geometry uses tools analogous to those used on site by masons and deal with numbers as continuous quantities; for this reason, the level of tolerance within which geometry operates on the drawings of the architect is achievable in built works.

43 Like the plates that illustrate the elliptic plan, where the distance between the centre and the columns has been increased to make their geometry visible, in the fluted column plate Caramuel draws fewer flutes that there would actually be, for ease of reading.

250 Figure 5.36 Plan of the flutes of a column in their straight and oblique versions. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Plate XXII, Part IV.

251 The image Caramuel includes to depict the flutes of the Temple columns follows Serlio, who in his On Antiquities included the detail of many buildings. Caramuel selects one of the columns of the Pantheon among the Italian author’s descriptions, and assumes that the columns of the Temple of Solomon must have been similar. To illustrate the design of the Temple column flutes, Caramuel chooses from his own treatise the plate depicting the columns of the interior peristyle at Trajan’s Forum.

Figure 5.37 Tutte l’opere d’architettura et prospective, Book III, p. 54.

Both depictions reinforce the idea of the Temple as a precedent for the best works of classical architecture (Figures 5.37 and 5.38).44

44 There is an apparent contradiction between the description of the columns of the Temple presented in the chapter where the building is described at the beginning of the treatise and the claim that the columns in the Temple were fluted. Whether Caramuel refers here to columns at the Temple other than those at the entrance (Jachin and Boaz) is not clear.

252 Figure 5.38 Columns in the interior peristyle of the Temple. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, plate LII.

253 Doors and keys

The last two sections of the chapter on Oblique Architecture are dedicated to the doors of churches and palaces and to the keys to those doors: the first is a traditional topic in the theory of architecture, with as precedent once more Vitruvius and his Renaissance commentators. Caramuel begins by stating that doors are the most important part of a building, because a magnificent building with a mean door appears unsightly—the most important aspect of any door is therefore proportion. Caramuel believes that theories such as Vitruvius’s and Philander’s, for whom the height of the door is proportional to the height of the building, result in extremely high doors. Vitruvius proposes doors that are four- sevenths of the height of the facade, so if the facade is 100 feet tall, writes 2 Caramuel, the door would be 57 /7 feet tall. Philander, on the other hand, proposes 1 a proportion of 5:6, in which case the door would be 83 /3 feet tall. Caramuel affirms that, to correct this mistake, Palladio in his treatise proposed that the doors should be proportional to the grandeur of the owner.45 However, Caramuel, aware of the difficulty of assessing such a thing as greatness, proposes a safer rule: he establishes the maximum size for a door, independent of both the size of the

45 Caramuel uses Henry Wotton’s text here to cite Palladio on the proportions of doors. The Latin quote Caramuel argues is from Wotton’s treatise reads “Palladius concludebat, principalem Introisum nunquam regulandum secundum certas dimensiones, sed secundum dignitatem Domini…” (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XVI, p. 38). The word dignitatem—dignity—is translated as grandeza, which could refer to either the size of the person or to his status. Caramuel deliberately uses the second to retain the original meaning, albeit not without some mockery. Palladio in his treatise writes: “No certain and determinate rule can be given for the height and breadth of the principal doors of fabricks, or concerning the doors and windows of rooms; because, in making the principal doors, the architect ought to accommodate them to the size of the fabrick, to the quality of the master, and to those things that are to be carried in and out of the same.” Palladio, The Four Books of Architecture [I quattro libri dell’architettura], 1570, p. 30.

254 facade and the nature of the commission, suggesting doors should be no bigger than 24 feet tall by 12 feet wide.46

The last section in the chapter, on the keys to large monasteries and palaces,xxxi is without a doubt unique in the history of architectural treatises. Caramuel describes a method for casting keys to a building with many doors, so the keys and the corresponding doors can be easily identified without using numbers.47 The method he proposes begins with casting the key handle and the locks on the doors located on the same floor using the same shape (Figure 5.39). Once the level of a given door is identified using the handle, Caramuel proposes a system, similar to ciphers, to identify which door in the given corridor the key will open. The symbols were to be defined with nails: black nails would be the equivalent of single units and golden ones, of five units. The same symbolic system is thus used for identification on both door and key.48

46 While doors have been discussed in the treatise as important elements since Caramuel’s description of the temple, the claim that the door of a building is its most important part is an overstatement. In his discussion of the Temple doors, Caramuel emphasizes their proportion. Most have a 2:1 ratio between the height and the width, the same ratio proposes for the largest door he considers acceptable.

47 Included in the same section are other aspects of keys. Caramuel explains how to make master keys, and how to make keys that open both from the inside and outside of a door.

48 It is easy to dismiss Caramuel’s section on the keys as an eccentricity, or to assign it to the superficial variety of topics that interested Caramuel. Yet ciphers, ars combinatoria, and all manner of puzzles were a major source of fascination for Caramuel. One might argue that behind a discussion of the keys to a monastery is a theme that underpins Caramuel’s entire theory—the immediacy of knowledge transmitted visually, and its supremacy over abstract and rational knowledge. Caramuel is interested in putting forward a graphic method for the identification of the keys because he believes it to be superior to the numerical equivalent. It would be easier to simply number the rooms sequentially; however, knowing the room number

255

does not identify the floor on which one may find it. This could obviously be avoided if there were a combined system of numeration, as we see in many buildings today, yet Caramuel seems not to consider this possibility. Caramuel’s keys are preferable to another numeric alternative because they convey two types of information simultaneously, the room and the floor on which it is located.

The word llave in Spanish has its origin in the Latin word clavis. While the obvious meaning of the word is that of an instrument to open a mechanism, it could also mean a principle or means to help acquire knowledge of something else. The word llave, like the English “key,” implies a correspondence between different orders. In Caramuel’s example, the key matches a room in a monastery or a palace. While the key in itself holds information about the place it opens, this information is not univocal. The knowledge we gather from looking at the key does not reveal the entire order of the arrangement of the rooms, it only guides the visitor in finding it. Caramuel’s keys can be seen as a metaphor for geometry as the key to the universe. Similar to a monastery or palace, the universe is a system organized following certain order. A geometric model such as that of Kepler or Tycho Brahe is a key to that order. A comprehension of a given geometric model of the universe does not reveal the entire secret God had concealed within it; it merely helps man orient himself within the work of God.

The keys Caramuel imagines contain multiple information, while a numeric system is abstract and univocal. The keys stand for the things of the world, and show how the earthly carries multiple meanings: the natural world, works of art and architecture, and man. Caramuel’s section on keys summarizes his perspective on architectural meaning. In explaining certain aspects of architecture, Caramuel often includes theological, moral, literary and other analogies; architectural meaning is not direct and explicit, but ambiguous and multifaceted.

256 Figure 5.39 Keys for a monastery or palace. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXIX.

257 i “Hoy nace una Arte Nueva; (Otava entre las Liberales, Decima entre las Musas) de la qual nadie ha escrito en el Mundo. LA ARCHITECTURA OBLIQUA.” ACRYO, Vol. I., Dedication to Don John of Austria. ii “Trata la RECTA de edificios, con que sus suelos son al Horizonte parallelos, se hazen ad libellam, y tienen por Perpendiculares, las lineas que cayeren a plomo. Sobre estos Planos erige Muros Rectos, y haze Salones, Camaras, y Galerias Quadradas, gobernando sus Ideas con la Esquadra, Instrumento que sirve solamente para delinear Angulos Rectos.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part II, p. 30. iii Fastigium: 1. The pediment of a portico, so called in ancient architecture because it followed the form of the roof. 2. The crest or ridge of a roof. In Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture, ed. CM. Harris. New York: Dover, 1977. iv “Occupase la OBLIQUA, donde el suelo se inclina (como lo haze en todas las Escaleras; en que cada dia se cometen mill yerros) en los Passadisos y Puertas, que corren en viage; en los Templos Redondos, o de figura Elliptica; en las Coronas que se ponen sobre las Ventanas, y los Fastigios, en que se rematan los Frontispicios de los Templos.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part II, p. 30. v “…el primer Architecto, que en el Cielo y la Tierra hecho lineas Obliquas, fue Dios. Porque yendo en el Cielo los dos Tropicos, y los Circulos Arctico y Antartico parallelos a la Equinocial, hizo que el Sol con su movimiento annuo describiesse la Ecliptica, que es un circulo, que corta la Equinocial obliquamente al Zodiaco, a la larga en dos partes iguales […] Mando en la Tierra, que obliquamente se engriessen y erigiessen los montes: y obliquamente corriessen los rios y arroyos, por sus valles.” ACRYO, Vol. III, Treat. VI, Art. II, p. 3. vi After publishing Architectura civil recta y obliqua in 1678, Caramuel prepared a translation of the treatise into Latin, which edition is published in 1681. It seems possible that Caramuel was thinking about the translation of his ideas into Latin at the time of the Spanish edition, since the problem with the terminology is discussed in his work in Spanish. vii “Luego, si rectè y vitiosè se oponen, agere rectè, es obrar sin vicio.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. I, p. 2.

258 viii “Luego agere obliquè, es obrar sin guardar leyes de prudencia y racon,” Ibid. ix ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. IV. x “Y ultimamente con mano docta y exercitada passando por los puntos señalados describiras el circulo obliquo…” Ibid. xi “Con las noticias que te dio la Contemplacion de la passada Lamina, te passas a considerar la Lamina XLV, de la Architectura Recta que toda es Fundamental, y como pienso con solo veer sus lineas, quanto hay en ella, ya lo entiendes.” Ibid. xii See A. Pérez-Gómez and L. Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. p. 149 – 157. xiii www.flickr.com/photos/jrm_tomburg/370561078. xiv Serlio included in his book the Pantheon (51r – 56r), Temple of Bacchus (56v – 57v), a Temple on Tivoli that some call the temple of Vesta (60v – 61v), a temple the author does not name, indicating only that it is outside Rome (62r, 63v), a tempietto (63r), Bramante’s proposal for the Dome of Saint Peter’s (66r – 67r), Bramante’s Tempietto (67v – 68v), a building outside Rome near San Sebastiano now in ruins (69r), the Theatre of Marcellus (69v – 71r), another Theatre at Pula (71v – 72v), and the Theatre at Ferrento (73v – 74r). xv “En un edificio circular las bases de las colunas, que al rededor se pusieren, no pueden ser perfectamente quadradas; ni perfectamente redondas las colunas, que sobre estas bases se erigieren.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. VI, p. 9. xvi www.touritalynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Basilica-of-St.-John-Lateran1.jpg. xvii In Serlio’s book the first oval building mentioned is the Roman Coliseum (78v – 82r), followed by the Arena at Verona (82v – 84v), and the Amphitheatre in Pula (85r – 86r). xviii “Vera Ovalis Peristylii et multiformium illud ornantium Columnarum Vestigium seu ichnographia. Nota bene: Vel unam in Peristylio Plinthum, esse exactè quadratam; aut vel unius Columnae Vestigium esse perfectè sphaericum, magnus, et frequenter a celeberrimis Architectis admissus, error est.” ACRYO, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XXIII.

259 xix This plate is published several times in contemporary analyses of the work of Caramuel; see for instance Daria de Bernardi Ferrero, “Il conte Ivan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Vescovo di Vigevano architteto e teorico dell’architettura”; J. Fernández- Santos, “The Elusive Role of Perfection in Architecture: Caramuel’s Raptus Geometricus Reconsidered” and “Classicism Hispanico More: Juan De Caramuel’s Presence in Alexandrine Rome and Its Impact on His Architectural Theory”; Guidoni Marino, A., “Il colonnato di Piazza San Pietro: dall’Architettura obliqua del Caramuel al classicismo berniniano”; L. Parvis Marino, “Novità e conservatismo nell’opera architettonica di Juan Caramuel di Lobkowitz”; A. Pérez-Gómez and L. Pelletier, “Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge.” xx “Et legem ponebat aquis, ne transirent fines suos,” Book of Proverbs, 8:29. The translation here is the one proposed by Professor Michelangelo Sabaino, after comparing the English, Latin, and Italian translations of the text. xxi “COLUMNARUM IN TETRASTYLIO PER ORDINES DISTRIBUTIO, MAGNITUDO, FIGURA, ET DESIGNATIO. Exteriores comumnae parasphaericas sunt; non perfecte rotunda, sed rotundis simillimae: interiors autem in speciosas parallipses necessario degenerant.” ACRYO, Vol. III, Plate XXIV, part IV. xxii Andrea Palladio, The Four Books of Architecture [I quattro libri dell’architettura], 1570, trans. Ware Isaac, ed. Adolf K. Placzek. New York: Dover, 1965. Book I, Chap. XXVIII, p. 34. xxiii “El mayor uso, que puede tener la Obliquidad de inclinacion, viene a ser en el adornar las escaleras. Estas suelen tener colunas grandes, o balaustres pequeños.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XII, p. 19. xxiv “Esta advertencia he querido proponer al principio, porque no es lo mismo cortar en las piedras obliquamente los adornos, que assentarlas al sesgo. Que haviendose de poner una sobre otra, la superficie de la piedra inferior, que sobre si recibe otra piedra, ha de ser horizontal (ha de ser ad libellam) y nunca puede ser inclinada.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. X, p. 16. xxv “Lectoru a praejudiciis libero. Columellarum (hispanus eas Balaustres nominat) duos ordines repraesentamus. Inferiores ineptissima sunt et tamen in scalis ubique terrarum

260

ab architectis conformata. At rejici omnino debent, Superiores que earu loco substitu; ubi enim pavimentum AB, quiod Censetur fundamentalis linea inclinator; duci ad libellam aliae C et D, E et F, G et H, I et K, etc. nequeunt; quoniam sic conducta inter se non coaerent; et tu cohaereant debet ipsimet horizontali AB. (arequali in distantia) decurrere utin superiori ordine repaesentatur.” ACRYO, Vol. III, Part IV, plate VI. xxvi This is the first time Caramuel explicit criticizes Bernini in the treatise. See ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. IX, p. 13. xxvii Caramuel writes, “Si esta escalera, que yo condeno, te pareciere bien, ponte a mirar de espacio las Laminas XIII. XVI. XX. XXI. & c. en ellas versa otras escaleras (una Dorica, otra Ionica, y dos Corinthias) y sin gobernarte por mi, consulta tu sinceridad, y de di, si no seria peccado de prodigalidad gastar dinero en hazer una escalera como la del Vaticano, quando se puede hazer como una de estas quatro, que he propuesto.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XII, p. 19. xxviii Photo: Sacred Destinations. xxix In the chapter on the arts and sciences that accompany architecture, in which the works of antiquity are included, the building is identified with the Pantheon. xxx “Que parece increible, que siendo todas las otras partes, con que se coronaban las Colunas, tanbien trabaxadas y labradas, ellas solas fuessen lisas, sin tener entalle, ni adorno ninguno.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XV, p. 36. xxxi “Como han de ser las Llaves de un gran Monasterio, o Palacio?” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. XVII, p. 38.

261

Chapter 6 – On the arts and sciences that accompany and adorn architecturei

Caramuel considers that an architect whose knowledge is not restricted to his field, and who knows other disciplines that help him excel in the practice of architecture, is a better architect. These auxiliary disciplines can be divided into those that are fundamental and must be learned before dealing with architecture, and those that are accessory and will make a better architect if included in his education. The disciplines of language (grammar, logic and rhetoric) and mathematics belong to the first category; in the second, Caramuel includes painting, statuary, perspective, music, astronomy and military architecture.

In the introduction to the chapter on the arts and sciences that accompany architecture, Caramuel explains that these arts have in common the use of διαγραμματα ii—diagrams. Caramuel translates the Greek word as meaning to paint, describe, draw and/or delineate; the arts ancillary to architecture are those that use line drawings as part of their process. These drawings can be the first lines a painter draws on a canvas, the models of the architect or sculptor, or lines used to construct a perspective, and Caramuel also includes in his category musical notation and astronomical charts, in which fields preliminary sketches are used at the conception stage.1

Painting, physiognomy and statuary and the issue of visual communication

Caramuel starts the arts of drawing with painting, an ancient practice that appeared in Egypt thousands of years before it was practiced in Greece.iii Citing Alberti’s De pictura,iv Caramuel explains how the first painters used the shadows of the sun to trace their contours onto a canvas. Over time, painters began to fill in these shapes with monochromatic paints, and new pigments were later invented. Other than the origin of the art and a few exemplary figures,v Caramuel is not interested in the work of painters but in authors whose texts include discussions of painting: philosophers, theologians, and military and civil leaders, whose disciplines use metaphorical images to illustrate difficult concepts.vi 2

Drawing is an important skill for the architect to make scale drawings, necessary to successful execution of the works.vii Caramuel also recognizes the importance of perspective as a pictorial discipline for the architect (though he explains its relevance to architecture in a separate section). In the section on painting,

1 Calling the arts of drawing accessory to architecture can be deceiving for the contemporary reader. While today ornament is associated with the accessory, for Caramuel, who still operates in a traditional world, ornament is an intrinsic component of architecture; it is where meaning is conveyed. After having established the role of drawing as the skill that differentiates the work of the architect from that of the mason, it is clear that for Caramuel drawing is more than accessory to architecture. The chapter on the arts and sciences that accompany architecture is mostly dedicated to drawing, and Caramuel emphasizes issues of meaning.

2 In the beginning of the chapter, Caramuel introduces the issue of visual figuration that shapes his work on architecture. Caramuel is interested in the production of images, especially those that can carry meaning beyond the figurative. He sees these images as analogous to metaphors, by which mental images are created to illustrate difficult concepts.

263 Caramuel includes a classification of different kinds of images that can be made and explains how to distinguish among them. Images, writes Caramuel, can be made with lines (such as the monograms of antiquity or the engravings of the moderns); they can also be illuminated figures, where colour is applied to fill the lines traced on a surface. Yet neither of these is a painting: according to Caramuel, paintings are depictions without lines, made through the skilful application of colour on a canvas.3

This distinction between drawing and painting is further emphasized in a digression Caramuel allows himself, regarding the famous contest between Apelles and Protogenes, viii with the artists challenging each other to paint the thinnest line. Caramuel explains that it is a mistake to refer to the trace of the painter as a line. The skill of the painter is not the ability to draw lines; to draw lines is the skill of the geometer, whose hand should be able to draw straight lines without a ruler, and perfect circles without a compass. The major difference Caramuel sees between painting and drawings is that the latter belong to the domain of geometry, a necessary discipline for the architect, while painting is accessory, because it does not rely on geometry for representation. Despite their differences, both drawings and paintings are important for architecture.

Caramuel’s intention is not to make a comprehensive description of each art, but to focus on aspects relevant for architecture. After his brief discussion on painting, he continues with statuary. His explanation of this art is far from comprehensive. Caramuel begins by listing the characteristics that make a great

3 Although Caramuel is not explicit, it can be inferred from his theory that images can also be made using words. The distinction he makes here between drawings and painting has to do with the difference he sees between images made using lines, that is, drawings, and those in which depictions are effected through the use of colour on a canvas (that is, paintings). For Caramuel, drawings employ geometry and therefore reflect the order given to the universe. Painterly images, on the other hand, are valuable since they can be used to represent difficult concepts through analogy.

264 work, which in Caramuel’s terms relate both to its size and to the proportion of the parts in relation to the whole. A work can be grand, writes Caramuel, if it is of unusual size. The best example, he says, are the colossal sculptures men have built since ancient times. To illustrate grandeur in size, Caramuel chooses first an example from Vitruvius’s treatise. In the introduction of the second book, where he deals with materials, Vitruvius tells the story of Dinocrates, who presented his body as a model for a city on Mount Athos.

He left his clothes in the inn, and anointed himself with oil; he wreathed his head with poplar leaves, covered his left shoulder with a lion’s skin, and holding a club in his right hand, he walked opposite the tribunal where the king was giving judgment.

When Alexander asked who he was, Dinocrates explained:

For I have shaped Mount Athos into the figure of the statue of a man, in whose left hand I have shown the ramparts of a very extensive city; in his right a bowl to receive the water of all the rivers which are in that mountain.ix

Caramuel praises the prudence of the ruler who abstained from founding a city in an unsuitable place and uses the Vitruvian passage to find a precedent for colossal statues. In his interpretation, Caramuel claims that Dinocrates intended to carve Mount Athos in the shape of a man. Caramuel’s interest is in speculating about the possible size of the statue had it been built; his conclusion is that the statue would have been of great size, 33½ stadia high (606 feet). 4 Caramuel dates

4 In the Vitruvian passage, the body of Dinocrates acts as a metaphor between the body of man and the city as a body. Given Caramuel’s interest in metaphorical language and the primacy he gives to the proportions of the human body in his theory of Straight Architecture, it is surprising that he takes Vitruvius literally, overlooking the symbolic connotations of the passage. Notwithstanding that for Caramuel site selection is a central issue in Oblique Architecture, he also disregards the emphasis the account puts on the good judgment of the ruler who rejects the proposal of the architect because, even if the idea was good, the site was not. Caramuel will write about the question of the site in Chapter VIII of Architectura civil recta y obliqua (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat.

265 Dinocrates’s project to the fourth century B.C. The second example Caramuel includes in the treatise, the colossus commissioned by Nebuchadnezzar, is not as big as the Greek example, but it is older. Using the Old Testament as a source, Caramuel dates the statue to the sixth century B.C. and gives it 60 cubits (90 feet) in height. Caramuel includes also other statues from ancient times, such as the statue of Apollo at the Campidoglio in Rome and that of Jupiter at Campo Marzio, both 30 cubits high (45 feet); a statue at Taranto, 40 cubits high (60 feet); and the colossus at Rhodes, 70 cubits (105 feet), among others.

Caramuel remarks that, even if these statues are large in size, they are not necessarily great works. Most, he argues, were built as the result of the arrogance of princes and emperors who wanted to be taken for gods. What makes a statue magnificent according to Caramuel is not its size but the proportion of its members. The notion of the proportionality of the body is common to architectural treatises since Vitruvius and throughout the Renaissance, when different authors presented their own theories on the relationship between the height of the human body and the head. Caramuel has already made reference to proportionality in his description of the Temple, as well as in his account of the orders of Straight Architecture.

In the section on statuary, however, Caramuel chooses a different source, the sculpture theorist Pomponius Gauricus.5 In De sculptura,x Gauricus argues that a

VIII, Art. II, p. 2023). In Chapter VII, Caramuel’s sole concern is the possibility of erecting a statue as large as a mountain.

5 Pomponius Gauricus (1482 – 1530) was an Aristotelian and humanist whose interest in showing the relationship between narrative and sculpture was an attempt to elevate this art to the sphere of the liberal arts, by arguing its connection to language and rhetoric. It is no surprise that Caramuel, seeing the similarities between Gauricus’s ideas on visual communication and his own, uses it as his point of departure for a discussion of human proportions in statuary. See Robert Klein, “Pomponius Gauricus on Perspective,” The Art Bulletin 43.3 (1961).

266 healthy and beautiful human body is harmoniously divisible into nine parts, using the face as a module. Gauricus’s theory is no different from his contemporaries’: he claims that there is one module from the top of the head to the chin, half a module from the chin to the end of the throat, one from there to the middle of the chest, one from chest to navel, one from the navel to the sex, two from the sex to the knees, two from the knees to the ankles, and half a module from the ankles to the soles of the feet. Gauricus also claims that the height of a man is equal to the distance between his hands when extended; a man standing with limbs outstretched describes a perfect square, a pet figure among Renaissance artists.

Caramuel finds the approach of the sculptor too general, and suggests that it is a mistake to generalize the proportions of the human body, since different people obviously have different proportions. Caramuel had already noted this range when dealing with the relationship between the body and the shafts of columns. Caramuel suggests as an alternative for the proportions of the human body those proposed by the Milanese engineer Pedro Antonio Barca in his Avertimenti e regole.xi Barca not only determines a different proportion for each body type, but also includes personality traits with the descriptions. Caramuel quotes Barca, according to whom the height of a beautiful woman like Minerva should be eight times the size of her face; for a robust man like Hercules, this proportion should be seven; for a fierce man like Mars, seven and a half; for a young man, eight; women should be nine like Venus; and others, like the nymphs and muses, ten.

Caramuel continues to explore the physical manifestations of human differences by looking at facial expressions. Caramuel again cites Gauricus, for whom someone’s personality could be inferred not only by looking both at the proportions of their body but also in their facial expressions. For instance, someone whose face looks like a lion is furious and choleric, while those who have aquiline noses are ingenious. To illustrate how the metaphysical qualities of a thing or person shape its physical appearance, Caramuel uses two examples: in entering the house of a craftsman, Caramuel explains, looking at his tools is enough to know the person’s trade. If the shop is filled with big mallets, coarse

267 files and heavy chisels, he is a blacksmith; if, on the other hand, the mallets are small and the files fine and delicate, and there are circles divided in numbers, and sharp burins, the craftsman must be a clockmaker. Similarly, looking at someone’s house allows an inference regarding the person’s status: a large, palatial house will belong to a wealthy and powerful owner, whereas a humble house reveals a poor and miserable inhabitant. The soul, writes Caramuel, is a craftsman whose instruments are the senses, and his house the body; the quality of the soul can be inferred from the qualities of the body it inhabits.6

Similar to the body that carries in it invisible qualities of the person, material objects can be made to represent invisible values. Caramuel describes a statue in the Aeropagus in Greece, where the court of appeal was held. The statue, he writes, conveyed the qualities a senator must have, reminding the senators of their responsibilities as they entered the building. The statue was stable, like the perfect and incorruptible marble of which it was made. The figure of an old man represented implied the prudence that comes with age. Its hands were severed to warn senators about bribery, it was surrounded by carved books, because senators should be educated men, and the statue was blind, because senators had to have completed their education before being promoted.7

6 The relationship between facial features and personality was first raised in Giambattista della Porta’s De humana physiognomonia (1586), in which the author argues that facial features are indicative of a person’s character. In the seventeenth century, physiognomy and character theory were matters of popular interest. The French painter Charles Le Brun (1619 – 1690) used geometry to establish links between the senses and the soul. This interest is also evident in Descartes’s 1649 Les Passions de l’âme. For Caramuel, the relationship between personality, body and facial features is proof of the connection between the soul and the body, and concomitantly between the visible and the invisible. Caramuel firmly believes that traces of the invisible are present in the visible; hence his interest in visual communication.

7 This section recalls the different types of images introduced in the section on the Temple of Jerusalem, where Caramuel differentiates between portraits as literal

268 Architectural representation8 – Ichnographia, orthographia, sciographia

From the drawings of the architect as ichnographia, orthographia and sciographia, Caramuel does not mention the first, and the other two he understands as synonyms. From the Vitruvian terms, the translation of ichnographia as the orthogonal projection of the plan of the building was unanimously accepted among his commentators, Caramuel included. Conversely, there was much discrepancy about the kind of drawing Vitruvius was referring to as sciographia.

representations of things and symbolic images as representation through analogy. Although Caramuel makes no explicit connection between the painterly and the architectural, it can be inferred from this section that Caramuel sees architecture as partaking from visual figuration. The example of the statue of the senator shows how art, and therefore architecture, through the skilful manipulation of materials, can bestow significance while becoming a tool for the improvement of society.

In Architectura civil recta y obliqua Caramuel affords architecture its communicative capacity both in terms of its physical presence and metaphorically. Ultimately, for Caramuel, the knowledge that architecture reveals is an understanding of the principles God used in the creation of the world, present as they are in the line drawings the architect makes. When built into the world, the contemplation of architecture through our physical eyes lead the eye of the mind to discover the universe’s governing laws and, through them, its creator.

8 The issue of architectural representation appears in Architectura civil recta y obliqua in two separate sections. The first deals with the Vitruvian ideas of ichnographia, orthographia and sciographia, and is included at the beginning of the chapter on Oblique Architecture (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. III, p. 4 – 5). The second deals with perspective in the chapter on the arts and sciences that accompany architecture (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VII, Art. IV, p. 49 – 60). Caramuel’s discussion of the Vitruvian terms serves as an introduction to his extremely unconventional understanding of perspective. The original structure of the treatise has not been followed in this case, to make explicit the connection between the two types of architectural representation Caramuel includes in his treatise.

269 Caramuel explains in Architectura civil recta y obliqua that some believed the scribe had made a mistake in transcribing the manuscript, and replaced the word with scenographia (scenography), where the architect, through perspective, created the illusion of depth, particularly for the theatre. Caramuel considers it unnecessary to enter that discussion, suggesting instead that the word used by Vitruvius was sciographia, or σκιογραφια in Greek. The root of the word, σκια, Caramuel explains, means shadow, and sciographia therefore is the art of drawing with shadows.xii

Sciographia, Caramuel goes on, is twofold, natural and artificial. Natural sciographia is the shadow of a building when the sun is at its apex, as if it’s stones were transparent. Natural sciographia corresponds to the plan of a building and is equivalent to ichnographia (Figure 6.1). xiii Artificial sciographia, according to Caramuel, is the scale drawing of a building, which the architect does with the help of applied geometry.9

Perspective

Caramuel claims that perspective is not one of the fundamental ideas of the architect, yet he sees its use particularly in dealing with figures that stand above eye level. Perspective for Caramuel has to do with the foreshortening that happens when objects move away from the centre of vision.

9 Caramuel’s definition of sciographia recalls the story of the first paintings, where men traced the sun’s shadows on a canvas. In the same way, orthographic projection according to Caramuel comes from the imitation of the traces the sun makes on the ground when it is at the zenith. The sunlight projected orthogonally onto the ground makes an image of the plan of the building, which, because of its materiality, is concealed. The mind of the architect, partaking from God’s attributes, has the capacity and knowledge required to imagine that drawing and reproduce it on a plan. Assuming the traditional association of the solar with the divine and considering the ground as representative of the human realm in Caramuel’s theory, the drawing of the architect mediates between God’s divine light and the world.

270 Figure 6.1 The plan of the column shows Caramuel’s idea of orthogonal projection as the shadow of the sun at the zenith as if the stones were transparent. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XLV.

271 Caramuel begins his section on perspective by explaining that οπτικα (optics) and perspective are equivalent terms. He is certainly referring to optics as perspectiva naturalis, the way light travels, and not to the perspective of artists (perspectiva artificialis). In a text concerned with the arts that use geometrical diagrams in their methods, Caramuel is not interested in discussing physical phenomena, only the geometrical constructions artists use in their works. Caramuel calls architectural perspective that which teaches the architect how to create buildings that, looked at from a specific angle, appear exactly as they were depicted in a perspective. This perspective, Caramuel complains, has been left out of architectural theory, and the explanation of its principles in the treatise aims to satisfy the deficiency he sees as having characterized the architect’s understanding of this art.10

The first part of Caramuel’s passage on perspective deals mainly with painting and sculpture. Caramuel acknowledges that objects have a different size than how they are perceived by the human eye, and explains that geometry, architecture and statuary are disciplines that deal with the real dimension of objects, while painting and perspective study the objects as they appear. Caramuel condemns as flawed the idea that foreshortening happens both in the vertical and the horizontal dimensions; he affirms that the human eye’s deception as to the size of objects at a distance applies to the vertical dimension (looking up) and not the horizontal

10 Since the fifteenth century, perspectiva artificialis had been divided between trompe- l’œil and paintings. In practice, the two constructions employ exactly the same methods, yet the former was considered superior to the later. For Caramuel, this traditional hierarchy is irrelevant. Both types of perspective teach the representation of subjects, whether objects or spaces, as they appear when perceived from a certain vantage. Caramuel holds that representative perspective is the domain of the artist, not the architect. As with his inversion of the traditional notion of optical correction, where his interest is not in countering the imperfection of vision but in building it in the world, in matters of perspective, Caramuel is not interested in representation but in how to construct perspective.

272 (frontal depth).11 Caramuel explains that objects seem to be the same size because they occupy the same sized angle in our field of vision. In plate XXXI – III (Figure 6.2), Caramuel represents the eye of the observer (A) and its field of vision is the arc (BD). The vertical line (BC) represents any object, such as a column or facade, with divisions. In order for these line segments to be perceived by an observer at (A) as being equal, they must occupy the same sized angle in the field of vision. As the diagram shows, this occurs if the segments on the vertical object increase in size as the distance between the object and the observer increases.12

In the plates that correspond to this section of the treatise (Figure 6.3 and Figure 6.4), Caramuel shows figures that seem proportionate on the ground floor (Figure 6.3 – I) but will look distorted on a higher plane (Figure 6.3 – II), and teaches his reader how to make them so they seem proportionate when placed above eye level (Figure 6.4). Caramuel’s example is no other than Bernini’s statue of Constantine at the Vatican, a perfect demonstration for Caramuel that even architects considered among his contemporaries to be the most talented artists are ignorant of the laws of perspective.

11 Caramuel’s rationale is unsurprising given his use of columns, the archetypal element of architecture, to embody the problem of foreshortening. The width of a perfectly cylindrical column remains constant regardless of the height at which the projection is taken; it occupies a constant angle in the field of vision. Caramuel assumes that columns do not suffer foreshortening in their diameter, and by extension that foreshortening does not affect the horizontal dimension.

12 The same argument Caramuel uses to explain vertical foreshortening could be used to explain the horizontal, by assuming the diagram is not a section but a plan. For Caramuel, however, the horizontal and the vertical are simply different, and it is correct to assume that the distinction between foreshortening affecting the vertical and not the horizontal is related to the first dimension’s association with the divine and the second with the human. It is possible that Caramuel’s notion that foreshortening affects only the vertical dimension relates to the incapacity of man to attain the divine.

273 Figure 6.2 Explanation of foreshortening as happening in the vertical dimension. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXXI.

274 Figure 6.3 I. Proportions of a sculpture if placed on the ground, II. Shows how the same statue would look if the original proportions were kept and the statue placed on a high place. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXXIII.

275 Figure 6.4 The proportions a statue must have when placed on a high place. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXXIV.

276 As in painting and statuary, in architecture, the parts of columns that stand at higher points should be built to account for the deformation they suffer in the vertical. The volute of the Ionic capital, for instance, should be carved like an ellipse, with the long diameter in the vertical, to be perceived from below as perfectly circular (Figure 6.5).13 A good example of this, says Caramuel, can be seen in the Theatre of Marcellus. Unlike Serlio, who in his treatise criticizes the elongated cornice as going against Vitruvian theory,xiv Caramuel explains that the architect of the theatre, aware of the principles of architectural perspective, made the cornice longer in its vertical dimension. A similar case is Bramante’s design for the dome of Saint Peters, a design criticized by many for its excessive height compared to its breadth. Caramuel approves of the cupola’s design, and explains that its detractors are ignorant of the principles of perspective, which Bramante had mastered.

The last part of the section on perspective returns to the issue of inscriptions on buildings, a subject that is first introduced in the explanation of calligraphy at the beginning of Architectura civil recta y obliqua (Figure 6.6). While in the chapter on calligraphy Caramuel is concerned with the proper delineation of letters, in the section on perspective, Caramuel deals with inscriptions made on buildings. These can be on top of staircases (II), on arches (III), or on surfaces that are not parallel to the observer’s view plane. The first two cases Caramuel discusses have a direct correlation with Oblique Architecture: the delineation of inclination and circular arrangement follows similar rules to those of perspective. In the first case, the letters are inclined exactly like the columns and balustrades; their vertical lines remain intact, while the horizontal lines are inclined using the same angle as the inclination of the stairs on which they will be inscribed. In the case of circular arrangement, the letters are arranged in the same way as the columns on a circular colonnade: they describe a circle parallel to the arch of the door above which they will be placed, and converge towards its centre.

13 The actual shape of the volute is an oval.

277 Figure 6.5 Shape of a volute placed on a high place. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part II, Plate XLI.

278 Figure 6.6 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part II, Plate II.

279 Figure 6.7 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part IV, Plate XXIV.

280 The last case corresponds to the case of declination, and illustrates the proper means of inscription on a plane that is neither parallel nor perpendicular to the observer. The last example of inscriptions (IV) illustrates Caramuel’s understanding of foreshortening and why it affects only the vertical. The inscription above (I) corresponds to the form of the letters as they would be inscribed on a flat panel. Below, the surface on which the letters are inscribed appears in parallel projection converging to a vantage point to the right of the plate. The width of the letters is projected downwards from the letters at the top, while their height follows lines that converge at the same vantage point as the surface on which they are inscribed. The letters seem to be receding, but their width remains the same, since it does not acknowledge their position in reference to the visual plane.14

14 While the drawing betrays a limited knowledge of the construction of perspectives, for a seventeenth-century theoretician like Caramuel, familiar with theories of painting such as Alberti’s, ignorance of the principles of perspective seems rather improbable. It is unclear whether Caramuel’s erroneous construction is deliberate or not; however, the drawing is aligned with Caramuel’s theory that foreshortening affects only the vertical dimension, and a deliberate construction is therefore more likely.

While the differences between perspective and Oblique Architecture have already been mentioned, there are also similarities between the two. The layout of plate XXIV (Figure 6.7), with its adjacent representation of the circular colonnade and the problem of optical correction, suggests a relationship between Oblique Architecture and architectural perspective. In Caramuel’s theory of Oblique Architecture, circular arrangements offer a way to build columns so they appear round. The columns of the circular arrangement are not located on an elevated plan but on the ground, yet, because of their distance from the observer, when built with circular shafts, they appear elliptical. Oblique Architecture teaches how to build the same columns so that, observed from a central point, they appear perfectly circular in plan. Similarly, perspective teaches to the building of statues and architectural elements so that they appear proportional when elevated. Both Oblique Architecture and perspective offer

281 Music

Following Vitruvius, Caramuel includes music as one of the arts auxiliary to architecture. Yet the relationship between music and architecture is, in Caramuel’s theory, far from traditional. From all the aspects of music that might be relevant for the architect, Caramuel chooses its history and evolution, overlooking the correspondence between musical harmony and geometric proportion. This section of the treatise is primarily a summary of Caramuel’s previous work on music, The New Art of Music, published in Latin in 1646 and in Spanish in 1666.xv The first thing Caramuel includes in the abridgement is the title of his musical work, where the origin and evolution of the art is presented through a genealogy, almost identical to that in the title of Architectura civil recta y obliqua:

The New Art of Music. Invented by Saint Gregory the Great, monk of the order of Saint Benedict and after pontifex maximus. Thwarted in MXXII by Guido Aretino, monk of the same order and excellent musician in his own time. Restored to its former perfection in 1615 by Fr. Pedro Ureña, a Cistercian monk from the Monastery of La Espina. Summarized in this compendium in 1644xvi by Don Juan Caramuel, a monk from the same monastery and now Bishop at Vigevano in the State of Milan.xvii

Caramuel tracks the evolution of music from a remote and sacred origin in Adam, who received his knowledge of all the arts, including music, directly as a gift from God. This knowledge of the arts was transmitted, according to Caramuel, to Adam’s descendants, only to disappear with the annihilation of the human race in the flood. Caramuel does not specify how the knowledge of music survived the flood, but only indicates that somehow this knowledge remained part of the Hebrew tradition, transmitted through the Jewish exodus to the Egyptians, who in turn took it to Palestine and Chaldea. Through Greek merchants and philosophers

the architect a way to build so that when the work is perceived from a certain angle, it appears as it does in a preliminary drawing.

282 visiting those lands, as well as through Gypsies, Babylonians and Jews, Caramuel explains, music finally became known in Greece. Caramuel claims that music arrived in Rome only in Christian times. Considered a low art, unworthy of the house of God, it was initially forbidden inside churches. Finally, in 388 A.D., Saint Ambrose introduced chants to the liturgy, and in 600 A.D., continues Caramuel, Saint Gregory systematized and perfected this art—the Gregorian chant. Caramuel laments the reforms introduced by Guido Aretino at the start of the eleventh century. Aretino, Caramuel explains, replaced the neumes that had been used for writing music since the Middle Ages by the actual name of the notes—ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la—and eliminated one of the seven traditional musical notes, supposedly in order to facilitate the learning of the chants. Caramuel has no objection to the change in notation but complains that the elimination of one of the notes makes learning an otherwise easy art difficult and convoluted. Caramuel’s brief history of music ends in 1615, at what he considers the restoration of music to its ancient glory, when the Spanish Fray Pedro Ureña reintroduced the seventh note to the scale, keeping, however, the new names of the notes as per Aretino’s notation.

Within the history of music, Caramuel includes a paragraph dismissing as false the story of Pythagoras and the blacksmith. During a visit to a smithy, the story goes, Pythagoras discovers that sounds are related to the proportions of physical intervals between the notes in a chord, and uses the tale to illustrate the relationship between music and number. Pythagorean theory demonstrated the translation of the arithmetic ratios of the musical scale into geometric and therefore spatial equivalents. Since antiquity, this idea had been embraced by architects, who considered geometrical proportion a way to achieve proportionality and therefore beauty. Caramuel simply denies the story, condemning it as a fiction. The account, he contends, is not only false but also impossible, since there is no relationship between the weight of the hammers and the notes they produce. Furthermore, he asserts that any man of knowledge would

283 know that the pitch of the sound made by a hammer depends on the strength applied to it.15

15 Caramuel’s claim is difficult to understand because he doesn’t elaborate. He simply dismisses the Pythagorean tale of the blacksmith as absurd. Caramuel is probably aware of the changes that took place in the sixteenth century, when harmony was no longer accepted as the expression of unchanging essences. Experiments with strings performed by theoreticians such as Vicenzo Galilei (1520 – 1591) demonstrated that the ratio that produces consonances depends also on the material of the strings; the ratios that produce consonances in one material are not the same as those that would produce it in another. Caramuel’s claim of the strength applied to the hammers is a similar argument as that used by Galilei, which recalls a recurrent aspect of Caramuel’s theory: the idea of Probabilism, in which the absolute—in this case the ratio of musical harmony—is conditioned by particular circumstances, the material of the string producing the sound being one.

We know that Caramuel acknowledges the relationship between music and mathematics from his 1670 Mathesis biceps, which includes music among the mathematical disciplines. Yet, using proto-scientific arguments, Caramuel discounts the Pythagorean theory of musical harmony. The new science of acoustics dismantles the traditional belief that the arithmetical ratios of musical intervals correspond to geometric proportion, a condition for beauty. Caramuel thus anticipates a positivistic approach to aesthetics, one that will be advanced by the likes of Perrault, for whom beauty is not only independent from proportion, but also arbitrary. Although Caramuel still operates in a traditional world, the new way of thinking implicit in the experimental methods of the new science permeates his thought, and while Caramuel will still adhere to some traditional beliefs, others, like Perrault, are ready to do away with tradition.

On the evolution of music theory see Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Fifth Hammer: Pythagoras and the Disharmony of the World. New York: Zone Books; Cambridge, MA: Distrib. MIT Press, 2011. On Perrault see A. Pérez-Gómez, “Introduction.” Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns after the Method of the Ancients. Santa

284 Two types of architecture

The sections that follow the discussion on music contain two different structures. Under the title of astronomy Caramuel included astronomical observatories as a new kind of building. Under military architecture, he introduces new advancements in the construction of fortifications.

Astronomy

Throughout Caramuel’s treatise, the universe is claimed to be the work of God, from whom the architect can learn the principles used in its creation and apply them to his own works. If astronomy is the science that studies God’s creation, architecture is the work of man, and Caramuel believes there is a fundamental difference between the two; the work of God is superior to anything man can ever achieve, though it remains the paradigm for human endeavours. This difference notwithstanding, Caramuel conceives of Astronomical Architecture as the art in which astronomy and architecture converge. This is a new science, Caramuel explains, concerned with building palaces in such way that they may be used to make astronomical observations. Astronomical Architecture gives the architect the necessary knowledge for the construction of buildings appropriate for astronomers, through which they can study and learn the work of God.16

Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities; University of Chicago Press, 1993.

16 Caramuel’s decision to include his design for an astronomer’s palace as the only project in Architectura civil recta y obliqua is indicative of the importance he gives to the astronomer in society. To churches and civic palaces Caramuel adds a new type of public building, this time to house the observations of astronomy, the science that helps man better understand the work of God. The inclusion of this project in the treatise not only shows that Caramuel places astronomy next to religion and politics, but also corroborates the influence of astronomical observations on his theory.

285 Tycho Brahe provides the clear precedent for this type of building, and in Architectura civil recta y obliqua Caramuel acknowledges Tycho’s work, particularly his published work Astronomiae instauratae mechanica (1598),xviii in which Uraniborg and Stjerneborg are described. Caramuel criticizes the buildings at Hven as unsuitable for astronomical observation, considering them unworthy of the title of Astronomical Architecture. According to Caramuel, the palace at Uraniborg provided a house for Tycho, but it was no more appropriate for the intended astronomical observations than any house with large windows and rooms spacious enough to fit his instruments. Tycho’s project, according to Caramuel, belongs to the realm of civil architecture, and it is the shortcoming of Tycho’s building that inspires Caramuel’s proposal for an Astronomical Palace. Despite Caramuel’s criticism of the buildings at Hven, the work of the Danish astronomer can be considered the most important influence on Caramuel’s own project. If Caramuel was opposed to his building, he clearly admired the instruments Tycho had devised. Tycho Brahe’s greatest achievement was the accuracy of his observations, afforded by the size and craftsmanship, and the resulting precision, of his instruments. Because of his familiarity with instruments, Caramuel knew that bigger instruments granted greater accuracy. The instruments of the astronomer grew gradually in Caramuel’s project, the building became an oversized instrument in which the astronomer would take his measurements, and finally the instrument grew to encompass the entire building. Caramuel imagined a building that, with its walls, windows, dome and garden paths, would itself measure the movement and position of the heavenly bodies.17

17 Caramuel introduces astronomy at the beginning of the chapter as one of the arts in which diagrams are used to make astronomical charts, yet the section on astronomy reveals his true interest: designing a building where the sun will draw the astronomical charts on the walls with its own shadow. This idea is reminiscent of the description of ichnographia as the drawings the sun makes on the ground when it is at its zenith, which are then reproduced in the architect’s drawings, only here the solar drawings become visible as they are cast onto the surface of the building.

286 The astronomical palace is the only project Caramuel includes in the treatise. Its description warrants a scant two pages, and is supported by two plates showing the eastern and western facades of the building (Figure 6.8 and Figure 6.9). Its design, as appropriate for a building of the sort, is aligned with the meridian line and oriented according to the four cardinal points. The eastern facade (Figure 6.8) shows a symmetrical, three-story building with a central volume formed by two exterior staircases, and crowned by a hexagonal tower with an onion dome. The main elements of this facade are two quadrants the size of the entire building.

The height of the sun, moon, planets and stars, Caramuel explains, are measured using the quadrant to the south (PSR) when the stars cross the meridian into the southern hemisphere; when they are in the northern hemisphere, the opposite quadrant (OTV) is used. The two staircases (IG and MH) face each other and protrude from the facade, so the astronomer or one of his assistants standing on them is able to reach the edge of the quadrant where the angle measurements are inscribed. There is a door at the top, where the two staircases meet, that accesses a room on the second floor. This upper room is designed to measure the solstices, equinoxes and declinations of the sun on its walls, the light of the sun entering the room through the small orifice (X) on the eastern wall of the room and shining on the opposite wall, allowing the astronomer to measure the eastern amplitude of the luminaries at each specific moment. The west facade has a similar orifice designed to measure the western amplitude of the sun.

The western facade of the buildings is shown in plate XXXIX (Figure 6.9). At the south end of this facade is a door to a room where the astronomer can measure the correct ascension of the stars. The facade of the room includes a line that corresponds to the equinoctial (CE) and a polar line (VD) that intersects it perpendicularly. The measurements are taken with the use of a dioptre. xix The cross at the top of the central dome is also an instrument. Caramuel imagines a garden outside the building, with a path running east to west crossing the main body of the building at the centre on both sides.

287

Figure 6.8 Astronomical palace’s Eastern facade. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part IV, Plate XXXVIII.

288

Figure 6.9 Astronomical palace’s Western facade. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part IV, Plate XXXIX.

289 This path, he explains, is the tangent of an invisible circle with its centre at the top of the cross. Measuring the height of a star and projecting it to the tangent, the astronomer will be able to calculate its position with great accuracy, or so Caramuel believes. Caramuel refrains from further description of the building in the treatise, promising a more complete explanation in the Latin translation of the text. Unfortunately, this explanation, along with the promise of a fourth volume of the treatise, is never realized.18

18 Assuming that the project for the astronomical observatory was conceived between 1635 and 1678, the time Caramuel states it took him to write Architectura civil recta y obliqua, it is intriguing that Caramuel does not include the telescope in his Astronomical Palace. We know with certainty that not only was Caramuel aware of the work of Galileo, but also that Caramuel supported his observations with the use of the telescope. Caramuel described his observation with the use of a telescope in a letter sent to Anton Maria Schyrlaeus de Rheita included in the Mathesis biceps. See J. Velarde Lombraña, Juan Caramuel: Via y obra. Oviedo: Pentalfa, 1989, p. 74.

This intentional exclusion of the instrument is the most significant clue of the unconventionality of Caramuel’s project. Caramuel tacitly states that the observations achieved in his building would be of a higher order than those made with a telescope. The instruments of the astronomer facilitated his task, but were not enough to gain real knowledge. Caramuel believes that human vision is limited not only because of the physiology of the eye, but also by the spiritual condition of the viewer. Consequently, instruments could overcome the limitations of the eye, but God’s grace was necessary in seeking true knowledge. To overcome the limitation of observational instruments, Caramuel includes one last instrument in his project: two concave mirrors. The mirrors are not explained in the text but appear on the plate (Figure 6.8), above the building and held by two angels. The two angels use the mirrors to gather the sun’s rays and direct them towards the building, enabling the measurement of the position of the sun within it. Yet, besides the mirror’s obvious purpose, there is more. Caramuel was an accomplished astronomer and his appreciation of the advances made by Tycho Brahe in the field of observational astronomy was the point of departure for Caramuel’s own project. Using the plates in Tycho’s treatise as inspiration, Caramuel imagines a building where the various elements, walls and windows, are transformed

290 Military architecture

The last part of the chapter on the arts and sciences auxiliary to architecture deals with military architecture. Military architecture is first introduced in the preliminary chapter of the treatise, in the description of the Temple of Solomon. Caramuel situates the origin of military architecture in the wall surrounding paradise, and makes a case for the legitimization of this art as necessary to restore order in the world. Yet Caramuel claims that what interests him in this final section on military architecture is no longer a discussion of origins or meaning, but the drawing of fortifications. Caramuel’s concern here is aligned with that of his contemporaries: the discussion of geometric operations necessary for the design of such structures.xx

Caramuel describes a fort as a man that defends the territory with his body. His arms are the strongholds and his knees the exterior forts; the figurative body has no feet and remains always in the same place.xxi Caramuel explains that military architecture, like any other art or science, has evolved over time. The first forts were very simple, made of stone and with a polygonal plan, and were easy to conquer because they had no bastions. Caramuel speculates that the first defensive structures were round, probably with one or two moats to make the defence more

into oversized viewing devices. Caramuel increases the size of Tycho’s instruments to the point that they become an inhabitable structure from within which man could measure the sky. Nevertheless, bigger and better instruments did not warrant an exact knowledge of the world. For Caramuel, the observation of the natural world and the knowledge derived from it did not take place only at a physical level only, but also at a spiritual one. The improvement of the instruments that the scientist uses in his investigations of the world would therefore remain insufficient to achieve full knowledge, if not aided by God’s will. In the Astronomical Palace, Caramuel offers a building that functions as an instrument because its size helps the human eye in its measurement of the sky, but only with the help of the angels, Caramuel assures us, can God’s true light be delivered to the astronomer to ensure the truthfulness of his observations.

291 effective. This type of fort, albeit primitive, is nonetheless appropriate for small towns, according to Caramuel, on which there is no need to spend a lot of resources. In opposition to this simple fort is the royal fortification (Figure 6.10): an ideal royal fort is hexagonal in plan, with an equal number of flanking bastions, several exterior defensive structures, and two surrounding moats.

Caramuel also classifies fortresses by size. A fortification is any open defensive structure; the smallest is called reducta and is smaller than 80 feet in diameter. If the structure is larger, it is considered a fortress. A fort is any closed defensive structure; if it is small, it is referred to as fuertecillo; if it is larger, it is a royal fort. The material of a fort’s walls also affects its name (a castle, for instance, is a brick or stone structure). The fort might also include a villa, in which case it becomes an alcazar. If the structure sits on an urban site, it is a citadel, and if it surrounds an entire town, Caramuel explains, it is called a plaza.

The precedents Caramuel acknowledges in this section include Vitruvius’s Book X, which includes a description of war machines. Caramuel also mentions his own work, specifically a certain work in Latin where, he claims, he discusses at length all manner of fortifications and war machines from antiquity to his own time.xxii Despite the proliferation of treatises on fortifications in the seventeenth century, Caramuel does not mention any work in particular. He simply refers to “Dutch, French and Italian authors” who have dealt with the issue, but criticizes them for the difficulty of their principles, with the angles of the fortifications calculated using numbers. The work Caramuel adopts as his point of departure for his discussion on fortifications is the Amusis Ferdinandea, xxiii by Emperor Ferdinand III,19 whose ability to simplify the drawing of fortifications down to a few easy rules compiled in a single table Caramuel finds exemplary.

19 Ferdinand III was a Holy Roman Emperor (1637 – 1657) from the house of Hapsburg. During his reign, the Thirty Years’ War, with Catholics and Protestants fighting each other mainly in central Europe, was finally resolved in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Caramuel, who directly assisted the emperor in the signing of the truce, considered

292 The section begins with praise of Ferdinand III as the most excellent monarch and one of the best German engineers ever, a combination of attributes that make him, according to Caramuel, a perfect architect. Caramuel summarily describes the emperor’s rules for the design of fortifications. Caramuel emphasizes the importance of the emperor’s geometric method over the algebraic counterparts of the Amusis. Caramuel believes the precision of algebraic methods exceeds the roughness of the tools used to build fortresses, and therefore finds triangulation a more appropriate method for their design.

Ferdinand’s first rule states that the plan of the fortress should be a regular polygon, and determines the maximum length of its side to be 600 feet—the maximum distance at which it was possible to aim with precision using a musket. The second rule explains how to derivate the rays of the polygon, and presents them in a table. The third rule claims that is not necessary for a military architect to measure the angles formed by the radii of the polygon, since knowing the length of the main lines in the polygon will suffice to trace the plan of the fortress. The fourth rule states that in order to determine the lesser parts of the fort, half of the side of the polygon, 300 feet, must be divided into 11 parts. Of those, the gorge of the bastion should be five parts, the semi-curtain six, the wing four and the capital line eightxxiv (Figure 6.11).20

To show the differences between algebraic and geometric methods, Caramuel includes a table comparing the two (Figure 6.12). He also includes a drawing of the elevation of polygonal fortresses and gives the dimensions of the parts (Figure 6.10, lower half).

Ferdinand III an exemplary figure to demonstrate the need for military architecture in restabilizing social order.

20 Caramuel claims he has drawn these principles in plate XLI of the treatise. However, plate XLI corresponds to the description he gives of plate XLII. The plate with the geometrical rules for drawing a polygon is missing. The image here is based on Caramuel’s description and on a plate from the Amusis Ferdinandea (Figure 6.11).

293 Figure 6.10 Plan of a royal fort. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part IV, Plate XLI.

294 Caramuel completes his explanation by declaring that these dimensions are only valid for a royal-sized fortress. In smaller constructions, the judgment of the maker should determine the dimensions of the parts.

Figure 6.11 Figure showing how to delineate a six-sided fort.

If the number of sides of the polygon that compose the plan of the fortress changes, Caramuel explains, the angle at point (N) changes and the resulting figure loses its proportions. Conversely, if the bastions are drawn with their point (G or C) coinciding with the corner of the polygon, when the number of sides of the polygon changes, the bastion will keep the same dimensions. 21 Caramuel furthermore demonstrates that the projection of the bastions inside the polygon results in equal-sized walls, which makes for a more regular figure and are therefore easier to build.

21 Caramuel attributes protective powers to the shape of the fortification itself, which is common in traditional theories of fortifications. Caramuel considers the regularity of the plan important for these kinds of structures in order to warrant peace and order.

295 Figure 6.12 Table comparing algebraic and geometric methods for the calculation of the rays of a polygon. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. II, Treat. VII, p. 71.

296 Caramuel recounts that he discovered the advantage of projecting the bastions to the interior of the figure while thinking about fortresses while in Hungary in 1645, xxv but confesses that he believed this method was his particular way of thinking about fortresses until he came across the same idea in Milliet Dechales’s Curus seu mundus mathematicusxxvi and in Count Pagan’s Les Fortifications.xxvii Rather than seeing his contemporaries’ discovery as a threat, the coincidence of many people thinking simultaneously about this new way to design forts seems to Caramuel to be proof of its soundness.22 In delineating the design of a fortress, Caramuel is also concerned with whether the bastions should be projected outward or inward from the sides of the polygon. The first method is the more common; Caramuel, however, prefers the second.

22 In designing fortifications because of their significant scale, Caramuel chooses triangulation over the algebraic calculations of angles. If triangulation is used in the design of fortification, on site, when translating the design from the drawing to the ground, a similar procedure can be used, allowing for precision in the construction. On the contrary, while algebra is precise on paper, on site the mason does not have a way to measure the angles. This recognition of geometry as a mathematical discipline that allows for the negotiation of real conditions is a common theme throughout the chapter, first introduced in the description of the drawings of the architect, where geometry allows the architect to reproduce the traces of the sun on the ground on his drawings. As well, since the drawings architects make employ instruments similar to those used on site by the builders, the traces copied from the sky are then built accurately into the world. Drawing has a fundamental role in Caramuel’s theory. It is the exclusive skill of the architect and that which separates him from the mason. Because the architect uses geometry in his drawings, this art allows him to present the divine order of the universe in his work.

297 i “TRATADO VII. De algunas Artes y Ciencias, que accompañan y adornan a la Architectura.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VII, p. 40. ii διαγραμματα originally comes from the Greek word γραμματα (letters) from the root γραμμή (line). iii Caramuel writes that some authors believe painting appeared in Egypt six thousand years before it appeared in Greece. The first Greek painter he mentions is Euphranor (fourth century B.C.), probably based on Pliny’s Natural History. iv Leon Batista Alberti, De Pictura, 1435. v Caramuel mentions Euphranos, Demetrius, Aristides of Thebes, Protogenes, the Roman painters L. Manilio and Fabius, Turpilio, Pacuvius and Sitedio (which latter painter in our opinion refers to Labeo), all presumably from Pliny’s Natural History. vi Caramuel does not elaborate on this aspect in his treatise and refers the reader to his own work on philosophy Apparato Philosophico, in which he says he has explained the art in detail. Among the surviving works of Caramuel, none corresponds to that title. vii “Solo dire, que el Architecto ha de saber dibuxar, porque nunca se edificara bien un Palacio, si en una plana no se delineare bien primero.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VII, Art. I, p. 42. viii See Pliny and H. Rackham, Natural History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938. ix Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture, trans. Granger Frank, ed. Henderson Jeffrey. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1931, p. 73. x Pomponius Gauricus, André Chastel and Robert Klein, De sculptura (1504). Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1969. xi Pietro Antonio Barca was an Italian architect and engineer who lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Milan, and who was in the service of the Spanish court. In his work Avvertimenti e regole circa l’architettura civile (1620), Barca argues for the relationship between geometry, the human body and the cosmos. See A. Pérez-

298

Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. London, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983, p. 207. xii ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. III, p. 5. xiii “Aquella se pone a contemplar el suelo de un Palacio, o otro qualquier Edificio Magestuoso […] y luego poniendo al Sol en el Zenith, y mandando, que una piedra con su opacidad no impida a otra, le dexa obrar al Sol, y que omnes lapides in plano adumbret, que delinee, y describa en el plano todos los cortes de las piedras. Y esta, explicada assi, viene a coincidir con la Ichnographia, que delinea todo el edificio en la planta.” Ibid. xiv “The height of the cornice is one braccio, forty-eight minutes, which is really half more than it should be, if we wish to put our trust in Vitruvian doctrine.” See Sebastiano Serlio, Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture [Tutte l’opere d’architettura et prospectiva, 1475 – 1554], trans. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. p. 138. xv There is some uncertainty about the dates and places of publication of these works. In the section on music in the treatise, Caramuel writes that his work on music was entitled Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Bi, Ars nova musicae and was published in Vienna in 1646, and that his work in Spanish was published in Rome in 1666 under the title Arte nueva de música. In the bibliography of Caramuel’s works that appears in the first volume of Architectura civil recta y obliqua , the two entries on his books on music show different dates for the publication of the work in Spanish, 1666 and 1669. See Daniele Sabaino, “‘E con ciò verrebe la Musica à recuperare l’antica perfettione’. Ricercare a due soggetti sopre la Lamina XXXVII della quarta parte del terzo tomo dell’Architectura civil di Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz,” Bollettino della Società pavese di storia patria 98 (1998). xvi The publication date here, 1644, is different than the one he gives previously, 1646. xvii “ARTE NUEVA DE MUSICA. Inventada año de DC. por S. Gregorio el Grande, Monje de nuestro Padre S. Benito, y despues Pontifice Maximo. Desconcertada año de MXXII. por Guidon Aretino, Religioso de la misma Orden, y Musico excelente en su tiempo. Restituida a su primera perfeccion año de MDCXV. por fr. Pedro de Ureña,

299

Monje Cistercense, hijo del Real Monasterio de la Espina. Reducida a este breve Compendio año de MDCXLIV. por D. Juan Caramuel, Religioso del mismo Monasterio, y ahora Obispo de Vegeven en el Estado de Milan.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VII, Art. V, p. 60. xviii Tycho Brahe, Astronomiae instauratae mechanica (Wandesburgi, 1598), trans. Bengt Strömgren, Elis Stromgren and Hans Ræder. Copenhagen: I Kommission hos Ejnar Munksgaard, 1946. xix The dioptre was a device, used in antiquity, for measuring the apparent diameter of the sun and moon. G. J. Toomer, “astronomical instruments,” The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Ed. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. Oxford University Press, 2009. Oxford Reference Online. www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html ?subview=Main&entry=t111.e886. Accessed August 23, 2012. xxOn treatises on military architecture see A. Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. London, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983. Chap. 6, p. 203 – 221. xxi This description is evocative of Francesco di Giorgio’s in the pages of his Tratatti. Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Pietro C. Marani and Luigi Firpo, Trattato di architettura di Francesco di Giorgo Martini: il codice Ashburnham 361 della Biblioteca medicea Laurenziana di Firenze. Florence: Giunti-Barbèra, 1979. xxii Caramuel does not specify here the text to which he is referring. Among his works, multiple texts deal with the subject, including his Encyclopedia concinatoria (Prague, 1652), and his Theologia moralis fundamentalis (Frankfurt, 1652). He is most likely referring to the Mathesis biceps (Campania, 1670), a text that prefaces Architectura civil recta y obliqua . xxiii Gaspar Schott, Mathesis caesarea, seu amusis Ferdinandea, scholiis et iconismis aucta. 1672. xxiv In the Amusis Ferdinandea the length given to the side of the polygon is 60 feet. The side of the polygon is divided into 60, from which the gorge is 14, the wing is 12 parts, and the capital line is 24.

300 xxv Caramuel participated in the defence of Louvain in 1635 and in Frankental in 1644. Later, in 1648 while in Prague, Caramuel actively participated in the defence of the city. Velarde Lombraña claims there are some manuscripts at the A.C.V. that include the design of fortresses. See J. Velarde Lombraña, Juan Caramuel: Vida y obra. Oviedo: Pentalfa, 1989, p. 217. xxvi Claude-François Milliet Dechales, Cursus seu mundus mathematicus. Lyon: Anisson, 1674. xxvii Blaise François de Pagan, Les Fortifications du comte de Pagan. Paris: Chez Cardin Besogne…, 1645.

301

Chapter 7 – The Works of men

Chapter VII of Architectura civil recta y obliqua is a compilation of memorable works of architecture that show the extent of men’s ingenuity. Caramuel’s list includes works made in imitation of the Temple of Jerusalem—attempts to reach its perfection—and he opens this chapter with an explanation that, as a cultural manifestation, architecture is instrumental in understanding the differences between nations. For this reason, he claims it is important to know about the works of architecture in antiquity, not only in Italy and Spain, but also in the East. Among the works Caramuel includes in this chapter are buildings that have disappeared, either with the passage of time or falling to invasions, and of which only written accounts remain. He claims that the reconstruction of the world after the flood was characterized by a proliferation of buildings including the Tower of Babel, the wall and gardens in Babylon, the Egyptian pyramids, and the statues that adorned the temples and palaces of Greece and Rome. Caramuel considers it necessary to record the grandeur of these works, which have been reduced to less than ruins.1

1 After having explained his theory of architecture and claimed that the works of men are built in imitation of the universe, Caramuel includes a list of buildings that demon- The seven wonders of the ancient world

The first group of works that Caramuel wants to remember in their former splendour are the Wonders of the World; nonetheless, he warns the reader, despite the magnificence of these works, they would be considered lesser in comparison to the works of his own contemporaries. Within the works of the past Caramuel includes six out of the seven works that comprise Herodotus’s list: the hanging gardens of Babylon, the temple of Artemis, the mausoleum built to the Carian king, the Colossus of Rhodes, Jupiter’s statue at Olympia, and the pyramids in Egypt.2 Caramuel increases the list by including the Tower of Babel, the walls of Baby- lon, and the palace of the Persian king Cyrus. His sources for the descriptions and discussions are diverse, including the Bible, the Natural History of Pliny the El- der, Straboi, several works by the Jesuits Athanasius Kircher and G.B. Riccioli,ii and the letters of Pietro Della Valle [“il pellegrino”],iii among many others.3

The first work Caramuel discusses in this section, the Tower of Babel, is an addition to the traditional list of wonders. Using Scripture as a source and supported by lay authors, Caramuel explain that the tower was the first building the de-

strate how architecture has succeeded in its attempt to imitate the work of God. Like his account on the orders, where, besides the five traditional classical orders, Caramuel includes columns from different times and places, in compiling his list of works of architecture he is not restricted by political or religious boundaries.

2 The Lighthouse of Alexandria, a work included among the seven wonders of the ancient world, is included in the section II of chapter VIII of Architecture civil recta y obliqua, where Caramuel adds works that are in his opinion equal to the wonders of the ancient world.

3 Caramuel’s treatment of many of his sources recalls his ideas on Probabilism, where no single argument prevails over others, but many are possible and worthy of consideration. When describing the works of the ancient world, Caramuel evaluates the different accounts and judges their veracity, often using simple calculations to corroborate the possible.

303 scendants of Noah made to show the excellence of their architecture. Caramuel dates the tower to the year 2,397 B.C. and situates it in Babylon.iv The first aspect he discusses is the question of whether there are still remnants of this work. Against those who believed that no traces remained of the Tower of Babel, Caramuel quotes the letters of Pietro Della Valle dated December 13 and 23, 1616, in which Della Valle claims that the ruins of the tower have been discovered in Baghdad.

The second building Caramuel includes among the wonders of the ancient world, the walls at Babylon, is also an addition to the traditional list. While the gardens of Babylon were traditionally considered as part of the wonders, the wall was not. Caramuel first notes that, despite the size attributed to these walls, they were not enough to defend the city. As he explained in the chapter on the Temple, in which the origin of military architecture is discussed, a wall is not enough to grant safety to a city, the bravery of its army being equally important. As proof Caramuel points out that, despite its large walls, Babylon was destroyed. What interests Caramuel the most in terms of this work is the volume of the 47-mile long, 200- foot high and 50-foot wide brick wall. Caramuel explains that in order to stand, this wall would have needed a wider base and, after calculating the section the wall must have had, he concludes that it would have had to be least 100 feet at its base. Then, by calculating the area of the section of the wall, Caramuel is able to estimate its volume and the number of bricks employed in its construction, a number he calculates is 28,500 million bricks.

The third work Caramuel includes in his list is the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Despite being one of the works traditionally accepted within the wonders of the ancient world, Caramuel is sceptical of the gardens being worthy of such praise. If by hanging gardens we mean those on top of houses and palaces, he writes, such as those in Naples, where, because of the weather, roofs are flat, leaving room to place planters and to create delightful and colourful gardens, then there is nothing particularly wonderful about those in Babylon. On the contrary, if the gardens of Babylon were really as authors had described them, Caramuel considers it un-

304 thinkable that such extravagance would have had any real purpose.

Caramuel continues his catalogue of works from the past with the Greek temple to Artemis, to which he refers by its Roman name, the Temple of Diana. According to Pliny, the construction of this temple took 220 years, which Caramuel deems a long time for such a building. Its construction was supported though financial contributions from the entire Asian continent, something that in Caramuel’s view diminishes the greatness of the work, since in his opinion a region that was then the third wealthiest of the known world should have been capable of better. Caramuel also discusses the material used for its foundations and concludes that, while is feasible that they were made of charcoal and tar, there is no explanation for the claim that wool was also employed in the foundation of this temple.

According to Pliny, the temple of Artemis had 127 columns, and the plan of the building was 425 feet long by 220 wide. Caramuel is particularly interested in the arrangement of these many columns to fit within the plan that Pliny gives to the temple. In order to arrange this many columns inside the building, Caramuel imagines seven aisles, the one in the middle wider than the rest (Figure 7.1). Caramuel places sixteen columns on each one of the eight rows, reaching 128 columns, a number close enough to the number of columns in Pliny’s account. In order to approximate the size of the plan, Caramuel gives 28 feet to the aisles, measured from the centre of the columns, and a double width for the central one. The width of the temple would thus be 224 feet, only four feet wider than the 220 feet Pliny gives. Taking the same distance between rows, Caramuel calculates the building to be 420 feet deep, only five feet fewer than what Pliny claims.4

After rectifying the dimensions of the Temple of Diana, Caramuel questions the veracity of the claim that each one of the columns was made by a different king.

4 The reconstruction of Caramuel’s plan resembles a Christian church with a wider central nave and the apse at the end.

305 Figure 7.1 Plan showing arrangement of columns in the Temple of Artemis. Ar- chitectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. II, treat. VIII, Art. I, sec. IV, p. 6.

His argument assumes that, with an alleged 127 kings in the 220 years of the construction, each would have ruled very briefly. On the other hand, he contends, if the kings were all ruling simultaneously in different regions, the building could not have taken so long to build, suggesting that the speed of construction is related to the financial capacity of a kingdom.

Caramuel also describes the statue housed in the temple, which was so ably carved and so diligently polished that it was impossible to look at it directly without being blinded by its shine. Around it stood five stone Amazons carved by the best sculptors of the time. Caramuel writes about the destruction of the temple, lamenting that its subsequent reconstruction lacks the majesty of the original. Caramuel ends his commentary by reminding the reader that despite the sumptuous description, this building remains insignificant in comparison to modern works.

The next work that Caramuel discusses is the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, built for the Carian King. Both of great size and well crafted, and because of its mag-

306 nificence, the mausoleum is included in the texts of many ancient authors. Based on the account of the Renaissance English scholar Thomas Farnaby,v Caramuel gives the building a perimeter of 412 feet and a height of 140 feet. The four sides of the square building corresponded to the cardinal points, with nine columns on each side, each set of columns carved by four of the best sculptors in Asia at the time. The sides culminated in a stepped roof formed by 24 steps, and at the top stood four winged horses carved by the Greek architect Pythis.

The Colossus of Rhodes follows. This statue has already been introduced in Ar- chitectura civil recta y obliqua in the section on statuary, in the chapter dedicated to the arts and sciences that adorn architecture. It was a 105-foot high bronze sculpture, carved by Chares of Lindosvi over twelve years. The first argument that Caramuel examines in his description is Pliny’s claim that the statue was so large that a single man could not have wrapped his arms around a single one of the statue’s fingers. The statue was 15 times the size of a man, Caramuel responds, and so one of its fingers would have been 15 times the size of a human finger, which would fit easily between the arms of a man. The second aspect that draws Caramuel’s attention is the statue’s weight. The first problem Caramuel encounters is that the statue was not a solid piece of bronze; it had stones inside to keep it upright. Because of the difficulty of calculating the weight, Caramuel follows Ca- sali,vii who, in order to calculate the statue’s weight, calculates that each of the 900 camels that had supposedly been used to transport the material can be assumed to have carried 12 pounds, and estimates the weight of the statue at 180,000 pounds, a number on which many authorities on the subject agree, according to Caramuel.

After the Colossus of Rhodes comes the palace of Cyrus the Great, King of Per- sia, another work not traditionally included among the wonders of the ancient world.5 Surrounded by three concentric walls, this marble palace is praised more

5 The reason for Caramuel’s inclusion of this palace among the wonders of the world is evident in the preliminary chapter of Architectura civil recta y obliqua. In Caramuel’s chronology of the Temple of Jerusalem at the beginning of the treatise, he explains

307 for its riches than for its architecture. Among the riches, of particular interest is the golden bed where the Persian kings slept, under the shade of a golden vine, with precious stones as grapes. Equally magnificent was the chamber where the kings dealt with their secret affairs. Entirely made of gold, this chamber had for- merly been the stern of one of the ships of Xerxes’s armada.viii The palace was surrounded by many ornamental gardens, vegetable gardens and parks, where the kings enjoyed their leisure time. The gardens were adorned with sculpted trees and bushes, and with water running along channels and sprouting out of fountains. The herb gardens released a sequence of aromas and were planted in such a way that they were always in bloom, and fruit was always on the trees. In the parks were kept wild animals, as well as those used for hunting.

Jupiter’s statue at Olympia is next in Caramuel’s list of ancient works. This time, Caramuel is not concerned with the statue’s size or weight; his interest lays in denouncing as false the story of the Greek sculptor Phydias, according to which, while Phydias was carving the sculpture, Jupiter appeared to him and guided his hand. Caramuel uses this opportunity to warn the reader to accept as true only miracles and apparitions that have been confirmed by the Holy Roman Church.

The final works Caramuel includes among the wonders of the ancient world are the pyramids. The first thing Caramuel mentions is the paradox of these constructions: they were intended as burial places for Egyptian kings who wanted to remain immortal, yet no one was buried there and the names of those who commissioned them are now forgotten. According to Caramuel, the pyramids, along with labyrinths, should be condemned for the great, unjustified expenses incurred in the construction of these buildings that serve no purpose.

Using Pliny as his source, Caramuel explains that it took 20 years and 46,000 men to build the biggest one of the pyramids in Egypt. Eighteen hundred talents were

that it was under Cyrus that the Jews were finally given permission to return to their land and rebuild their Temple. For this reason, the Persian king is for Caramuel a just and exemplary ruler, and his palace worthy of inclusion.

308 spent simply feeding the workers. Caramuel’s calculation is based on Pliny’s claim that the slaves working on the construction received at least one free meal while they were on site. Caramuel is also interested in the size of the pyramids, a matter on which the different sources disagree. These discrepancies, explains Caramuel, have to do with the differences between the units used in different parts of the world; Caramuel adds to the discussion on the size of the pyramids, citing some modern authors, among them Kircher, an authority on ancient works, and Pierre Belon, ix who measured the pyramids first-hand during a trip to Egypt. Among the works of the moderns, Caramuel considers Marco Grimani’sx account to be the more reliable, since Grimani not only saw and measured the pyramids himself, but also had the authority of being Patriarch of Aquileia, a religious position that gives his account the credibility of the church. Despite Grimani’s added authority, Caramuel includes in Architectura civil recta y obliqua the description of Pietro Della Valle, who questions whether the pyramids are worthy of the ap- pellation of wonders of the world. The builders of the pyramids sought eternity over beauty, Della Valle explains, and the pyramids were meant to mimic the shape of mountains, since there are no natural mountains in Egypt. In regard to their height, Della Valle argues, the pyramids are no taller than Saint Peter’s in Rome.6

Caramuel continues his account of the pyramids, calculating the volume and weight of the largest, which he estimates at 45,879 pounds.

6 The praise of the moderns over the ancient is common in Caramuel’s description of architectural works. Caramuel believes that architecture has evolved over time, as man’s knowledge of the universe has increased, yet there is also the important association of antiquity with paganism and modernity with Christianity, which supports the supremacy of the modern. Caramuel uses Della Valle’s account not only because it reinforces this hierarchy, but also because Della Valle uses Saint Peter’s basilica to argue for the superiority of modern works and therefore of Christian times over those the pagan past.

309

Figure 7.2 Egyptian pyramids. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part I, Plate F.

310 He does the same for a pyramid Kircher includes in his Oedipus Aegyptiacusxi under the name Bebet l’hajar; this pyramid Caramuel considers praiseworthy for having been carved from a single stone. Based on Kircher’s account, Caramuel estimates this pyramid had volume of 7,500 cubic feet and to weigh 1,500 pounds.

Caramuel extends his discussion of pyramids beyond Egypt; his comprehensive account includes a pyramid built to bury Job, the Christian patriarch and prophet who travelled to Egypt, where he died and where, according to Caramuel, he was buried in a pyramidal sepulchre.7 Caramuel explains that the Egyptian habit of building pyramids was adopted also in Greece and later in Italy. As proof, he describes the pyramid of Cestius in Rome, a building Caramuel saw while he was in Rome when Alexander VII had ordered its restoration.8

Caramuel closes his section on the wonders of the ancient world with puzzlement asking why, among these magnificent works, the ancients had not included the Temple of Jerusalem. Caramuel does not excuse the omission as the result of ignorance on the part of the Greeks and Romans, contending they would have come across the Temple when they invaded Palestine. He attributes the oversight to the primitive state of Greek and Roman architecture, which made them praise works for their size and not for the worth and richness of the materials employed.9

7 Caramuel is constantly attempting to trace the great works of architecture to a sacred origin. The inclusion of Job’s pyramid offers a biblical precedent to the Egyptian pyramids.

8 This description is reminiscent of Caramuel’s account of the evolution of columns from wood to stone, with their origin in Asia, from whence they were brought to Greece and from there to Italy. While the evolution of pyramids and columns is similar, they occupy different roles in Caramuel’s theory. Columns are the most important element of architecture, whereas pyramids are denounced for being useless.

9 The key to understanding Caramuel’s interest in measurement lies in the claim that works of antiquity were praised for their size. Caramuel evaluates the different opinions of recognized authors and in that study finds statements of size, volume, weight,

311 Other marvellous ancient works

The second section of chapter VIII of Architectura civil recta y obliqua describes buildings that according to Caramuel could have been included among the wonders of the world, but were left out simply because their magnificence was not acknowledged at the time. Among these Caramuel includes mostly Asian and Af- rican buildings, such as the statue of Alexander the Great, Nebuchadnezzar’s Co- lossus, the lighthouse of Alexandria, the Hall of a Hundred Columns in Greece, the sepulchre of Cyrus, the bas reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam in Persia, the tomb of Ozymandias in Egypt, the altar to Minerva at Elephantine in Egypt, the alabaster sphinx in Memphis, the statue of Isis, some labyrinths, and some Christian and Orthodox statues.

The first work, the statue of Alexander the Great on Mount Athos, has already been introduced in the section on statuary, in Caramuel’s description of the arts accessory to architecture.xii Caramuel uses the statue to foreground the importance of choosing a good site for a building, and to condemn architects who waste their patron’s money. Using Vitruvius as his point of departure,xiii Caramuel once more tells the story of Dinocrates, who proposed to Alexander the Great to build a statue as big as Mount Athos, with a walled city on its left and on its right a plateau, where all the rivers would mingle and cascade together into the sea. Despite the extravagance of the image, Caramuel warns the reader that in architecture works that seem impossible are not with sufficient labour and money.

When Alexander saw the scale model the architect had made, Caramuel goes on,

materials, and financial resources. Using mathematical methods, Caramuel calculates these dimensions, and uses his results to confirm or deny the greatness attributed to these works, and the veracity of the accounts that describe them. This method recalls other instances in the treatise where traditional accounts are tested using mathematical methods, such as Caramuel’s dismissal of Pythagorean harmony. In this manipulation of demonstration methods to deny mythical accounts, Caramuel is in fact anticipating modern science.

312 delighted with the idea, he called in some locals from the proposed site and asked them about the appropriateness of the site for such a work. The people answered that such a place was not adequate for a city, since food had to be brought in from far away. Caramuel criticizes Dinocrates’s lack of judgment, since it falls to the architect to determine the suitability of a site before submitting any proposals to a patron. The site for a city, writes Caramuel, should provide in abundance all the things a city needs. Likewise, a building can only be considered successful if the site on which it stands has been well chosen.

Second in Caramuel’s account is the statue of Nebuchadnezzar. According to the Bible, the statue was cast in gold and measured 60 cubits (90 feet) in height and six cubits (nine feet) wide. Caramuel argues that Nebuchadnezzar was capable of amassing the gold necessary to have such a statue cast from the gold he stole from the Temple of Solomon; even just the gold from the columns at the entrance of the Temple would have sufficed for the infamous statue.

Caramuel continues his account with a discussion of the lighthouse at Alexandria. Unlike useless works like colossi and labyrinths, Caramuel praises the lighthouse for its service to sailors. The greatness of the work is commended not only by many authors, but also in the many lighthouses that have been built everywhere after that paragon in Alexandria. Caramuel then writes about the Greek Hall of Hundred Columns, celebrated in the poems of Virgil and Horace with the name of Briareus, the hundred-handed giant. Caramuel reproduces Serlio’s plan of the building, with the columns are arranged in 10 rows and 10 columns (Figure 7.3).

313 Figure 7.3 Plan of the Hall of Hundred Columns. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. II, treat. VIII, Art. II, sec. IV, p. 24.

The structure is supported by four towers, on top of which stand four pyramids or obelisks that adorn the palace. In order to calculate the proportion of the columns, Caramuel uses the circumference Serlio gives them, that is, the length of the arms of two men together, from which Caramuel deduces a diameter of four feet. Caramuel dismisses the height suggested by his source; instead, using the principles of Straight Architecture, he concludes that the height of the columns must have been 20 feet if they were Syrianxiv and 36 feet or 40 feet if they were Corin- thian.

Caramuel’s account continues with the sepulchre of Cyrus near Persepolis and the bas reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam. He includes several pages of Pietro Della Valle description of these ruins. The only comment Caramuel adds to the Italian text has to do with the site chosen for the temple, which allowed for this type of construction by carving into the mount. Similarly, in the section related to the tomb of Ozymandias, Caramuel includes a page-long quote from Kircher’s Oedipus to show that this funeral monument should not be taken to be an Egyptian labyrinth, as some of Caramuel’s contemporaries apparently contended.

314 The next building Caramuel describes is the Altar to Minerva at Elephantine, built to the goddess of war and peace by one King Amasis. The altar was made out of a single piece of marble and measured on the outside 63 feet long by 42 feet wide and 24 feet high. Its side walls were three feet thick, the back wall, nine, and the ceiling and floor was three and three quarters feet thick, leaving an interior space of 55½ feet by 36 feet by 15 feet. According to some accounts, the stone used for its construction was carried 100 leagues from the quarries of Egypt to Saim, where the temple was built, which took 1,095 days and 2,000 people to accom- plish. Caramuel is interested in calculating the weight of the stone needed for such an altar. He uses the available information to calculate the weight of the stone, which he estimates weighed 12,700,800 pounds before it was carved, and 6,706,800 pounds afterward. It would have been impossible, Caramuel concludes, to transport such a stone, even if it had been carved before transport, since each man would have had to carry 3,353 pounds. Caramuel also considers the possibility that animals were used to help carry the weight, but again, given the 2,000 camels that would have been required and the coordination of so many animals, he finds the task unimaginable.

Two large statues are also included among the works that in Caramuel’s view should be added to the wonders of the ancient world. The first one, the Sphinx of Memphis, deserves as much praise as any of the statues discussed so far. The Sphinx was so large (173 feet tall) that it was carved in the place where it was to stand. The Sphinx was commissioned by Amasis, the pharaoh whose cruelty against the Hebrew people earned him divine punishment in the form of the seven plagues.

After the Sphinx of Memphis, Caramuel mentions the statue of Isis. Using Kircher as a source, Caramuel writes that the statue was either a square head or a bust. The cubic figure symbolized the immutability of the divinity associated with agriculture. According to Caramuel, Isis stood for the divine attributes of wisdom, providence and justice. The Egyptians chose to portray a disembodied head in or-

315 der to represent incorporeal divine wisdom.10

Caramuel, as has been pointed out, condemned costly buildings that served no purpose, such as labyrinths. Yet he considers it his duty to list in his examples from the past not only good buildings but also bad ones, and therefore he includes pyramids and labyrinths in his account. Labyrinths were subterranean structures with many streets and doors arranged in so contrived a manner that anyone who entered got lost. The four most famous labyrinths according to Caramuel were one in Egypt, one in Crete, one in Lemnos, and one in Italy. The Egyptian one was the earliest and largest. It had many columns, of which those on the outside were made of marble, while the interior columns were made of stone. Caramuel explains that the work was very expensive, and its patron unknown. Although Daed- alus used this labyrinth as model for his own in Crete, the Greek labyrinth was much smaller than its Egyptian predecessor. Caramuel denies the story of the Minotaur, yet he is aware of the fame of both Daedalus and his patron Minos, a direct result of the building. The third labyrinth, in Lemnos, is remarkable for its rich and beautiful 150 columns. The last, the Italian or Florentine labyrinth, was conceived as a mausoleum for the king of Etruria.xv

The last group of works that Caramuel includes in the list of those that compete in magnificence with the seven wonders of the ancient world are Christian and Or- thodox statues, including the statues of Jesus, the Virgin, Saint Peter and Saint Paul that are kept at the Vatican. However, because of the numerous statues erect-

10 Caramuel’s interest in Egyptian hieroglyphs as an example of visual figuration is manifest in his selection of Kircher as a source. In the example, Egyptians made a cubic stone statue to represent wisdom, which recalls the cubic shape of the heavenly Jeru- salem and the perfect cubic stones employed in the Temple of Solomon, the wise king. The use of similar symbols by different people serves to Caramuel as proof of the inherent significance of shapes; Caramuel has already discussed this in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, first in the chapter on the Temple, and later in regard to the role of images in painting. The statue here is used to illustrate how visual figuration takes place.

316 ed for worship, Caramuel stops his account and moves on to discuss the buildings of Rome.

Roman Architecture

According to Caramuel, ancient Rome was a city with very poor architecture. Romans were known as a military people with little concern for beauty and ornament. Only at the time of the emperor Domitian did this begin to change.xvi Rome reached its splendour under Augustus, when the city had aqueducts and fountains, and its roads were paved with cobblestones and furnished with sewers and drains. Caramuel laments that nothing remains of Rome’s former glory. Only the river is the same. The aqueducts are ruined, the drains are full of mud, the streets are no longer busy with carts but are ploughed, and the places where the military gathered are now pasture.

Amidst the ruins of Rome, Caramuel still sees value in some of its former buildings. The military roads, for instance, were built for the comfort of soldiers and merchants travelling on them, and utility was sought before beauty. The most famous are the Via Appia, Via Flaminia, Via Julia, Via Pia and Via Regia. Caramuel also praises the Pantheon, one of the most beautiful temples of antiquity. Commissioned by Marco Agrippa and supposedly built in two years, this temple was dedicated to all the pagan gods of whom statues were made. Of particular beauty were the statues of Jupiter, Mars and Venus. With the Christian Era the building was abandoned and it was only until pope Boniface IV that it was re- consecrated to the worship of the Virgin Mary. Caramuel gives the round wall of the building 158 feet in height and a width of 22 feet. To the Corinthian columns that make its circumference Caramuel suggests a change in the base to adjust its proportions to conform to those for the Corinthian base (Figure 7.4).

317 Figure 7.4 Corinthian base suggested for the Pantheon. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, part III, plate XLVI.

318 Caramuel explains that the entire temple was covered with metal shingles; also made of metal were the beams between the 28 Corinthian columns that formed the portico. Since neither the shingles nor the beams served any purpose, pope Urban VIII removed them from the building and had them recast into the columns for Saint Peter’s baldacchino; the remaining material was then employed to make artillery. Caramuel claims that what makes the Pantheon remarkable is its durabil- ity, which he attributes to the lack of timber used in its construction, which makes it resistant to fire. Yet, despite the strength of the building, the passage of time had made its renovation necessary and it was Caramuel’s acquaintance, Alexander VII, who undertook the work.11

The importance of the building is supported by the fact that Michelangelo used it as a model, learning from it the cannons of architecture. Caramuel nevertheless considers the ornamentation of the building inferior to its strength, and proposes some changes in the ornament of the Pantheon that he illustrates in two plates (Figure 7.5 and Figure 7.6). The changes include the use of Doric columns on the exterior, with sculptures within and above. In the interior, the lower level is made of Ionic columns. The dome is raised to include a row of windows with Corinthi- an columns on either side.

11 Caramuel first became acquainted with Fabio Chigi, later Alexander VII, in 1641, when Chigi’s spiritual director, the Jesuit Francisco Van der Veken, informed Chigi of Caramuel’s successful defence against the Jansenists in Louvain. From then on, Caramuel corresponds frequently with Chigi, and follows him to Rome after Chigi is appointed Pope Alexander VII in 1655. See J. Velarde Lombraña, Juan Caramuel: Via y obra. Oviedo: Pentalfa, 1989.

319 Figure 7.5 Exterior image of the proposed changes for the Roman Pantheon. Ar- chitectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXVI.

320 Figure 7.6 Interior of the Pantheon with Caramuel’s proposed changes. Architec- tura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXVII.

321 The oculus of the dome is crowned with a lantern.12

After the Pantheon, Caramuel describes the Temple of Peace built by Vespasian to the Roman gods in order to commemorate the conquest of the Hebrew people. The name of the temple comes from the peace that reigned in Rome at the time of its construction. Caramuel claims that Vespasian built his temple in the shape of the Hebrew one; however, the description of the building suggests it had a vaulted ceiling supported by large, beautiful Corinthian columns, a characterization at odds with the Jewish Temple. From the columns that supported the ceiling, all but one were lost in the fire that destroyed the temple. Paul V placed the surviving column on a pedestal on the square before Santa Maria Maggiore and commis-

12 In the representation of the Pantheon in the plates included in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, the only thing that remains unchanged from the original building is the cof- fered dome (Figure 7.5 and Figure 7.6). In the sectional drawing, the proportions of the temple are changed to resemble Renaissance church architecture. The depiction of the exterior is far from representative. In fact, the elevation resembles the Venetian church of Santa Maria della Salute by Baldassare Longhena, a building Caramuel would likely have seen while travelling through Venice. The suggested changes to the Roman temple are striking. They reveal Caramuel’s attempt to convert the pagan temple into a Christian church through changes in its appearance. This he accomplishes through a change envisioned in the ornamentation of its architecture, implying that the ritualistic re-consecration of the building at the time of Boniface IV was not enough, but that these changes had to be made apparent through its architecture. The project for the Pantheon exemplifies the power Caramuel grants architecture as a force to re- establish order in society. In this case, changes in the ornamentation of the building are evidence of the religious orientation of Rome from a pagan to a Christian city.

Caramuel’s passage through Venice after he left Prague for Rome in 1655 is docu- mented in a letter he sent to Alexander VII and that is kept in the Vatican archives. See J. Fernández-Santos, “Classicism Hispanico More: Juan De Caramuel’s Presence in Alexandrine Rome and Its Impact on Architectural Theory.” Annali du Architettura, Rivista del Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza 17 (2005). p. 137 – 138.

322 sioned a statue of the Virgin Mary to crown the ruin. Caramuel complains that the statue suffers from a lack of perspective in its design and as a result seems disproportionate, because its proportions do not take into account its elevated resting place.

In addition to the Temple of Peace, two coins were also minted to commemorate the Emperor’s Jewish conquest. The first bears a portrait of Vespasian with the crown of laurels on one side, and on the other a female prisoner sitting at the foot of a palm tree and guarded by a soldier. The second coin has a portrait of Vespa- sian’s son Titus on one side, and the other depicts the Temple with its two columns. The arc of Titus is the last structure built to celebrate the triumph of the Roman over the Hebrew people, and represents soldiers plundering the treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Two ancient Roman columns, the Trajan and Antonine, follow in the list of Ro- man works. Caramuel classifies them as belonging to the Tuscan order, even if they are more slender. The first takes its name from the statue of Trajan that was placed on top. Caramuel denounces Casali’s mistake in attributing a proportion of 1:9 to the statue of Trajan, since such proportion is suited for female bodies. In- stead he imagines the statue must have had a proportion of 1:7½ to reflect the might of the Emperor. Caramuel commends Sixtus V who in his renewal of Rome replaced the statue of Trajan by a statue of Saint Peter, and he praises the new monument’s beautiful metal. Just as he disapproved of the statue at Santa Maria Maggiore, Caramuel criticizes the proportion of the statue of Saint Peter, that is, its unsuitable proportions for a high place.

The second column receives its name from Marc Antony. Among the stories depicted around this column in celebration of the Roman victories during the lifetime of the Emperor, Caramuel focuses on the episode at Quadi, where it is believed that, thanks to the prayers of the Christian soldiers, God sent a storm to succour the Roman army. Caramuel explains that, besides celebrating the Roman victory, the column also commemorates the laws protecting the Christians that resulted from the miraculous episode. Like the Trajan column, this column was 323 restored under Sixtus V, who consecrated it to the apostle Saint Paul and commissioned a bronze statue.

The next Roman work Caramuel describes is the Mausoleum of Hadrian. Caramuel explains that Hadrian was a pacific Emperor whose life is worth telling. Caramuel summarizes the life of the Emperor, choosing his most important ac- complishments in the field of architecture as worthy of mention. Among the many projects of the Emperor, Caramuel mentions the restoration of the city of Ni- comedia (present-day Turkey); a defensive wall to protect the Roman territory; a temple in France in honour of Trajan’s wife, Pompeia Plotina; a temple to Jupiter in Athens; the restoration of Jerusalem; the foundation of the city of Aelia Capito- lina, close to Jerusalem; the construction of the sepulchre of Pompey; the foundation of Antinopolis; and the construction of the Temple of Venus.13

Of all Hadrian’s works, his mausoleum was the most remarkable, beautifully adorned with columns and statues carved by the best sculptors of the time (Figure 7.7). Caramuel explains that the Mausoleum of Hadrian served as a defensive structure during the second Gothic War. The attack of the Goths was so difficult to resist that people taking refuge in the building retorted to using the sculptures at the top of mausoleum to defend themselves. Over time, Roman rulers repeatedly plundered the ancient building, reducing it to a pitiful state. Caramuel goes on to recount that, once peace was reached, the building received its present name of Castel Sant’Angelo, as a result of the miraculous apparition of an angel above the mausoleum, a sign sent by God to the people of Rome to signify the end of the plague that was decimating its citizens.

13 It is important to remember that the architect in Caramuel’s theory is that of a just ruler whose leadership includes the construction of great works of architecture. In that sense, Hadrian can be considered here as an exemplary architect.

324 Figure 7.7 Hadrian’s mausoleum. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, part I, plate G.

325 The original sculpture of the angel was later moved to a special shrine built for it with contributions from many devotees; in its place a statue of Saint Peter was placed, which was itself also subsequently moved to Saint Peter’s Basilica and replaced with a flagpole.

Saint Peter’s basilica and square

After a short section where Caramuel cites Giacomo Lauro’s description of the colossus in Rome, from his 1612 – 1628 Antiquae Urbis Splendor, Caramuel ends his account with a section on Saint Peter’s basilica, the most important building in Rome. Caramuel tracks the different stages of the reconstruction and praises or condemns the decisions taken by the various popes. Caramuel explains that, after the Gothic Wars, Rome was left in a state of destruction. The restoration of the city was a slow process, requiring the efforts of many rulers. Each successive pon- tiff undertook the reconstruction of Saint Peter’s Basilica. Caramuel traces the history of this building to its origins, when Saint Anacletus (79 – 92 A.D.) built a chapel to bury Saint Peter on a site near the temple of Apollo amidst the ruins of the Roman circus and Nero’s Naumachia. Once the emperor Constantin had converted to the Christian faith (in the third century), he initiated the first addition to the church at Saint Peter’s burial place. The original plan of the church was a cross, with a nave slightly bigger than the transept. The nave was built on marshy soil and over time began to give way; as a result, Julius II (1503 – 1513), fearing its collapse, ordered the church be demolished and called on the best architects in Europe to propose a design for a new church. Bramante’s was ultimately chosen.

After Bramante’s death (1514), Michelangelo succeeded him as the architect of Saint Peter’s, and his design replaced that of Bramante. Caramuel argues that, though Bramante’s design was beautiful, its columns were not strong enough to support the dome. Michelangelo’s design, meanwhile, was strong but not very graceful. A compromise was reached between the two proposals. Later, Paul V (1605 – 1621), finding the Greek cross of Michelangelo’s design inappropriate for a Christian church, ordered the demolition of the walls that had been built until

326 then and replaced the foundations to accommodate a larger structure.

According to Caramuel, by the time of Sixtus V (1585 – 1590), who according to Caramuel was a prelate versed in several disciplines including architecture, the transept’s vault had been completed, but out of fear, the scaffolding supporting its weight was still in place. Sixtus V calculated the weight of the vault and with his knowledge of statics reassured the fearful that the work was stable. Caramuel also claims that it was thanks to Sixtus V’s knowledge of statics that Domenico Fon- tana was able to move the obelisk at Saint Peter’s square. Caramuel describes the feat as being the idea of the prelate, with the architect as his executor. It was also under Sixtus V that the dome was gilded and painted. Caramuel claims that the dome at Saint Peter’s was at that time the biggest one ever built, surpassed only by the vault of the celestial sphere.14

14 The chronological account of the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica recalls the narrative structure of the story of the Temple of Jerusalem, as a series of rulers under whom the project developed. This resemblance suggests continuity between the two works. At the same time, in Caramuel’s narration, two important aspects must be taken into account. First, Caramuel’s claim that the only dome larger than Saint Peter’s was the celestial sphere implies that the architect in his design imitates the work of God in creating the universe; the remark also serves as a reminder of the superiority of the model.

A second significant aspect is the role Caramuel gives to the popes as religious leaders responsible for works of architecture. According to Caramuel’s theory, the pontiffs can be considered the architects of the project at Saint Peter’s, while figures like Bra- mante, Michelangelo or Fontana are secondary architects who execute the work. This is particularly clear in Caramuel’s commentary on Sixtus V, whose knowledge of mathematics and architecture Caramuel praises, and to whom he attributes the removal of the centering of the transept’s vault and the moving of the obelisk to the centre of the square in front of the Basilica. The chronology of the construction of the basilica at Saint Peter’s is thus developed through a genealogy of pope-architects that begins

327 After Sixtus V, Clement VIII (1592 – 1605) continued cladding the building. Gregory XV (1621 – 1623) followed Paul V. Under Gregory XV’s papacy, the chapel was adorned and therefore received its name of Gregorian chapel. Saint Peter’s Basilica was finally finished under the papacy of Paul V (1605 – 1621). Caramuel argues that the sophistication of the building and its ornamentation makes Saint Peter’s basilica superior to any work of antiquity. None surpasses the basilica’s magnificence, neither in size, opulence, or riches. Caramuel compares the basilica to the Temple of Diana, and claims that although the ancient temple was great for its time, it seems insignificant when compared to Saint Peters.15

Caramuel introduces the works in the square in front of the church, mentioning the patron Alexander VII, who furnished Rome with great works.xvii Caramuel begins by mentioning the colonnade designed by Bernini, which in his opinion is considered great only by those who are ignorant of the principles of Oblique Ar- chitecture, an idea he will return to later in the same chapter. Caramuel also mentions the fountain built by Carlo Maderno, which stood, at the time of Caramuel’s writing, on one side of the square. Caramuel considered Maderno’s fountain the best of its kind, on the grounds of the volume and the spectacular effect of the water that gushed from it. When comparing the fountain at the Vatican by Maderno to Bernini’s Quattro Fontane in the Piazza Navona, Caramuel considers the former an extraordinary work of statuary, yet as a fountain, he sees more value in Maderno’s monument. Furthermore, Caramuel warns the reader, if Maderno’s fountain were to be replaced by the two fountains proposed by Bernini for the square, the current flow of water would be reduced by half, causing the fountains

with Saint Anacletus and ends with Alexander VII, in a discussion of the square in front of the basilica.

15 By the works of antiquity Caramuel means the works of men. Since Caramuel considers the Temple a divine creation, he self-evidently omits the Temple from his comparison of buildings of antiquity to Saint Peter’s. It is also obvious in Caramuel’s scale that, with God as its architect, the Temple of Jerusalem is superior to any work, Saint Peter’s included.

328 to lose their grandeur. As an alternative, Caramuel suggests keeping Maderno’s fountain, but moving it to the centre of the colonnade, in front of the obelisk.16

Caramuel ends his description of the projects at Saint Peter’s with a declaration of the mistakes made by its architects, as consigned in Casali’s 1650 De urbis ae Romani.xviiiCasali denounces that the pillars supporting the dome were pierced inside to allow the insertion of staircases, risking the structural integrity of the work; he criticizes the half-cubit difference between the walls of the church and the new nave; and he mentions the wall raised on top of the cornice of the main facade. In order to mitigate the consequences of this latter error, Caramuel proposes either raising the columns of the facade by giving them bases or raising the cornices by making the columns taller, and suggests using either Ionic or Corin- thian columns. Casali goes on to note a fourth mistake: the towers on the sides of the church. Caramuel criticizes the towers for being outside the body of the church and for being built on unstable ground, that is, over Roman ruins. The fifth and final mistake on which Casali and Caramuel agree are the columns of the colonnade, which according to Caramuel go against the principles of Oblique Archi- tecture. To Casali’s enumeration Caramuel adds a sixth error, the stairs in front of the church, which lost their original amplitude and beauty when Clement IX re-

16 The two fountains that Bernini presented to the pope to replace the fountain by Mader- no were intended to mark the two geometric centres of the oval that make up the plan of the colonnade. Having remarked that a circular figure with a single centre is preferable to one with two centres in the description of the elliptic colonnade (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VI, Art. VII, p. 11), Caramuel’s amendments to the design of the square at Saint Peter’s can be interpreted as an attempt to transform the double-centre oval that Bernini had already built, into a single-centre ellipse, with the obelisk marking its centre. Caramuel sees the colonnade as a missed opportunity to apply the principles of Oblique Architecture yet, in face of a project that had already been built, the suggestion to replace the Bernini fountains by moving Maderno’s could be seen as an attempt to redeem the square and align it with a geometry that Caramuel has already defended as suitable for a colonnade of the sort.

329 modelled them so they could be climbed by horse.17

17 Despite the importance of the Vatican project at the time, to suggest that Caramuel’s theory on the elliptic colonnade is a result of his criticism of the colonnade would be an overstatement. In Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel criticizes the different mistakes made over time in the construction of the basilica, including the colonnade and the fountains. Caramuel deplores the lack of knowledge of Oblique Architec- ture on the part of the architect in designing the colonnade at Saint Peter’s square, yet his criticism of the colonnade is no more severe than his disapproval of the other mistakes he finds in the building. Given Caramuel’s definition of the architect as embodied by the double figure of the ruler-architect, his criticism is in fact directed against the popes, and not at their architects. The declaration of the errors at Saint Peter’s Ba- silica and Square is not Caramuel’s first attack on the Roman church; he was not afraid of denouncing the excesses he witnessed at the Vatican.

While most contemporary critics looking at Caramuel’s criticism of the colonnade have identified Bernini as the victim of Caramuel’s attack, considering Caramuel’s relationship with the pope at the time of the project, his opprobrium can be seen as being directed at against Alexander VII, and not Bernini. In Caramuel’s view, Bernini was only the second architect, the executor of the orders of the first architect, the pope. The admiration Chigi had for Caramuel at the beginning of their relationship had waned by the time Chigi became Alexander VII, not only as a result of Caramuel’s daring theological positions and his favour of the Emperor over the Pope in matters of religion and politics, but also because of Caramuel’s censure of the nepotism that characterized the Roman church. Fernández-Santos goes so far as to argue that Caramuel’s appointment to the bishopric of Campania and Satrianum was Alexander VII’s strategy to keep Caramuel away from Rome. It is possible, then, that through his condemnation of the works undertaken by Alexander VII in Saint Peter’s, Caramuel intends an indirect criticism of the pope in his role as religious leader.

330 Spanish works

The last part of chapter VIII of Architectura civil recta y obliqua includes some remarkable works of architecture in Caramuel’s homeland. To the surprise of the reader, only three works are included here, but Caramuel apologizes, explaining that the publisher is pressuring him to finish his manuscript.xix The first works Caramuel writes about are the colossal sculptures commissioned by the Spanish kings, followed by the Victoria, the first ship to circumnavigate the world, and finally he describes that most perfect work of architecture in his opinion, the palace and temple at El Escorial in Madrid.

Three large statues had been erected made in honour of the Spanish kings: the first was made in the image of Carlos V, and placed in a square in Aranjuez; the second, carved in Florence and kept at the Casa de Campo in Madrid, depicts Philip IIIxx; and the last statue Caramuel mentions was made in honour of Philip IV for the gardens at El Retiro in Madrid, and was later placed at the top of the palace at the same location. Once again, Caramuel explains that this latter statue was not originally conceived to be placed on an elevated place and that therefore when it was moved it lost its original beauty, seeming disproportionate.

In introducing the Victoria, Caramuel explains that God not only miraculously created the universe and suspended the earth within it, but also made miracles of water such as the tides and the confluence of rivers into the ocean. In imitation of God, men had made wonderful works both on earth and water. Of those miracles that have to do with water, the Victoria is the most remarkable in Caramuel’s view. This ship was the first to circumnavigate the earth, an achievement that for Caramuel makes it worthy of inclusion in his treatise on architecture.18

18 Besides the genealogy of Noah’s Ark, two possible reasons might justify Caramuel’s choice of including a ship among the most notable works of architecture. First is the pride Caramuel took in his homeland, including among its many deeds the Spanish discovery of the New World. The influence of the discovery of America on Caramuel’s theory is evident particularly in the section on the primitive origin of ar-

331 Caramuel traces the origin of naval ships to Noah’s ark, and censures the Greek story that contradicts Scripture, claiming that the Argo was the first ship, named after its architect Argus. Among other ships Caramuel praises the Syracusia for its size, so large that it was Archimedes’s knowledge of mathematics that allowed the nave to sail carrying 24 millions pounds or 12,000 tons. Yet Caramuel places glory above both historical primacy and size, and so the Victoria deserves first place.

The Victoria and its sailors faced numerous challenges in accomplishing their task. Caramuel seems equally interested in speculating on the luck of the nave after it reached Spain. According to many authors, the Victoria, on the orders of Charles V, was kept at the Arsenal in Seville, as was customary for a ship that had performed a great feat. This was not the case. Caramuel clarifies; the greed of those governing the Spanish navy led to the ship’s continuous use until it wrecked.

Caramuel also acknowledges other sailors who accomplished similar feats after the Victoria. These include Sir Francis Drake, xxi Sir Thomas Cavendish,xxii Sir Richard Hawkins,xxiii a certain Oliverius Vandernort,xxiv and George Spelberg.xxv Since all had been mentioned in Caramuel’s work on Histriodromica as part of the 1670 Mathesis biceps, Caramuel only says a few words about Drake in Archi- tectura civil recta y obliqua.

chitecture, where he associates the building methods of the indigenous people of the Americas with the early stages of architectural practice (ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. V, Part I, Art. V – VIII, p. 11 – 24). European advances in navigation at the time, promoted by the Spanish monarchs, had contributed to the expansion of the boundaries of the known world and deepened man’s understanding of the globe. Secondly, given Caramuel’s interest in the shape of the planets and the earth, it is possible he was fascinated by the first global circumnavigation, and with the ship that first describing with its trajectory the circular shape of the globe. Not perfectly circular but ovoid, the circumference of the earth is a precedent for Oblique Architecture.

332 Drake was in the service of Philip II when he was King of England. When Eliza- beth succeeded to the English throne, Drake’s skills were brought into the queen’s service to compete with the Spanish armada. In those early days, and throughout his first exploration around the world, Drake was loyal to his former patron, Caramuel explains, and avoided direct confrontation with the Spanish. Yet, over time, the love of Drake for Philip II turned to hatred, and on his second trip, he was determined to kill and pillage any Spanish ship he came across. Of his three attempted circumnavigations, Drake only completed two successfully. During the second, Caramuel tells us, Drake conquered La Española; during the third attempt, Drake died after becoming ill in Panama. His ashes were thrown into the ocean and thus the heretic’s remains escaped the fires of the inquisition.19

The last pages of Architectura civil recta y obliqua are devoted to the monastery and palace of El Escorial.20 Caramuel first mentions the site, which sits between

19 Caramuel’s account is inaccurate. Whether this is a legitimate error or a deliberate mistake is not clear. While it is true that Drake had travelled across the world once before defeating the Spanish Armada, he faced the Spanish fleet in their attempt to invade England. Caramuel is also mistaken in suggesting that the island of San Juan was conquered by the English captain, and in his declaration of Drake’s death during a third trip. Drake was defeated by the Spanish Armada in his attempt to take over San Juan, and died soon after, during that same trip.

20 In a table of contents included at the beginning of the first volume of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, within the contents of the book, Caramuel only lists chapters I to VII. Chapters VIII (“Practical architecture”) and IX (“Natural architecture”) were after- thoughts, as further evidenced by the end of Chapter VII, which Caramuel concludes with an engraving and anagram of the Virgin, a feature characteristic of the end of important sections in the text, and which is followed by an alphabetical index of concepts included in the treatise.

At the end of Chapter VIII, before describing the works that make Spain famous, Caramuel explains that he is under pressure from the printer to finish his work, which

333 the two Castile, and was ennobled by the addition of the complex. Because of the proximity of the site to quarries, most of the stone used in this considerable work was close at hand, making its construction expeditious.

Anticipating charges of bias in his description of El Escorial, Caramuel uses the account of Alessandro Tassoni over the many others available, since Tassoni’s Italian origin makes him an impartial source according to Caramuel.21

suggests that while the last two chapters were not part of the original treatise, he was able to add them prior to publication.

Taking in consideration the content of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Caramuel’s theory of architecture can be interpreted as bound between two buildings: the Temple of Jerusalem, as the origin of all good architecture, and the palace and monastery at El Escorial, a work by which man has achieved the highest degree of perfection in his works. Consequently, this dissertation considers the scope of Caramuel’s theory of architecture, and ends with Chapter VIII – Practical Architecture, in which the works of men are described in a progression that ends with El Escorial.

Chapter IX – Natural Architecture, which notably includes a paragraph for each one of the plates that comprise volume III, is presented to the reader as an introduction to Volume IV of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, a publication that never materialized. Following Caramuel’s original intention, Chapter IX will be included in forthcoming work the transcription and publication of the fourth-volume manuscript of Architec- tura civil recta y obliqua, on Natural Architecture.

21 Alessandro Tassoni (1565 – 1635) was a poet from Modena who, under the service of Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, travelled to Spain between 1600 and 1603. At the time of Tassoni’s writing, some Italian territories such as Milan and Naples were under Span- ish rule. Tassoni was an advocate of Italian independence, and many of his works attack the Spanish. Tassoni’s generous description of the Escorial is therefore all the more remarkable considering the mockery of the Spanish that otherwise characterizes his work. The words of Tassoni clearly illustrate his admiration for the building, demonstrating Caramuel’s point: even enemies of Spain are taken by the beauty and perfection of the work at El Escorial.

334

Figure 7.8 Palace and temple at El Escorial. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, part I, plate H.

335 The short excerpt of Tassoni describes El Escorial as being built entirely of marble and granite. Its plan is a perfect square, with the basilica of San Lorenzo at its centre (Figure 7.8). The monastery was spacious enough to house 100 monks, who lived comfortably and without hindrance from the royal court, with whom they shared the palace. There were in total 22 courtyards, 11,000 windows and over 800 columns. The many rooms and loggias were decorated with paintings by the most famous modern artists. The library held 100,000 volumes, many of which were original manuscripts by saints of the church. The richest sacristy ever built was at El Escorial, and in it were vestments entirely embroidered in gold, next to the gold chalices and silver vases, candleholders and other liturgical objects. Inside the church, the choir chairs were made of Indian wood, an imitation of those at the church of Saint Domenico in Bologna. The tabernacle, where the sacred host was kept, was made of oriental jasper and sapphire. The kings of Spain were buried at El Escorial, and it was filled with spacious gardens, fountains and nurseries.

Figure 7.9 Engraving made by Pedro Perret after a Juan de Herrera drawing of San Lorenzo at El Escorial (1589).

336 Tassoni’s quote ends with a remark on the coolness of the interior of the building, which was due to the choice of a site where fresh air would naturally cool the building.22

22 Caramuel’s brief description of El Escorial is surprising given the place the building occupies in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, throughout which Caramuel repeatedly declares it to be the most perfect example of architecture. Not only are the aspects that make the building deserve such recognition missing from the text, but the possible connection between El Escorial and the Temple at Jerusalem is also omitted in the treatise. What escapes a contemporary reader, however, is the content associated with the image Caramuel uses to represent El Escorial (Figure 7.8). Caramuel’s depiction was after a perspective of El Escorial engraved by Pedro Perret after Herrera’s own drawings, and is therefore in compliance with Philip II’s design (Figure 7.9). The image uses a bird’s-eye view, a type of representation characteristic of texts of military architecture, and which, with the exception of De Cerceau in his Livre d’architecture, was not conventional in architectural representation. Villalpando is the first author who refers to perspective as a drawing that encompasses the whole building and therefore is comparable to God’s vision.

An uncommon way to represent a building in the Renaissance, the drawing soon became an image associated with a heavenly vision and the building with the heavenly Jerusalem:

The perspective, which is represented in the engraving, is that of the building itself, seen from the slopes of the mountain… From there, everything is revealed, like the City of the Apocalypse which, with a higher vision and more mysterious perspective, was laid out in a block. (Francisco de Los Santos, Descripción breve del Monasterio de S. Lorenzo el Real del Escorial, Unica maravilla del mundo, 1657)

Considering that for Caramuel El Escorial is the most perfect building ever built, its construction must conform to the architect’s drawings. Therefore, to include a drawing in which El Escorial appears as a vision, like the Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, is enough for Caramuel to convey his appreciation of the magnificence of the work. Los Santos further comments on the effect of the architecture at El Escorial, with the body acting as a vehicle for the mind:

337 Caramuel concludes his chapter on the great works of architecture throughout history by noting that, while the works that he has included in addition to the wonders of the world are magnificent, they were not held in such high esteem. To respond to this, Caramuel makes a distinction between what things are in themselves (quoad se) and what they are to us (quoad nos), which corresponds to the distinction between truths and opinions. The buildings he has discussed in this chapter were not considered wonders of the world because of ignorance; Caramuel argues that if the ancient could have seen the works of the moderns, they would have changed their opinion, and would have included them among the great. Caramuel is explicit: there is no building in antiquity that can compete with modern works such as Saint Peter’s in Rome or San Lorenzo at El Escorial. Caramuel also recognizes the possible limitations of his work, since he acknowledges the possible existence of works of great value in other places of the world,

They have a curious effect on the sensibility of those looking at them. No one can enter this courtyard [of the Kings] without undergoing the same experience as when we unexpectedly hear music of consonant harmony; and this is what the architecture does here; it touches the sight as music does the ear, and causes a happy suspension in the soul that delights, broadens, and enlarges it; because these things, ordered with reason, art and measure, belong to [the soul] internal structure and are in close accord with the human spirit which was created to be a temple of God.

For Caramuel, an educated architect, one that has studied his principles on Straight and Oblique Architecture, does not need a written description of El Escorial. When looking at a drawing or if he has the good fortune to visit the building, an educated architect beholding the architecture of El Escorial will immediately recognize the laws and principles employed in its construction, and these in turn will lead him to a better understanding of the laws based on which God created the universe.

For Villalpando on perspective see A. Pérez-Gómez, “Juan Bautista Villalpando’s Di- vine Model in Architectural Theory.” Chora, ed. A. Pérez-Gómez and S. Parcell. Vol. III. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999. For the associations between the engraving of Pedro Perret and the Heavenly Jerusalem and the Temple of Jerusa- lem see Catherine Wilkinson-Zerner, Juan De Herrera: Architect to Philip II of Spain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993, p. 112 – 113.

338 of which he is ignorant. Caramuel ends his treatise claiming that, were he to live again, upon seeing El Escorial, Marcial would compose verse more delicate still, praising El Escorial over the Colloseum, verse of which Caramuel offers the reader a modern rendition:

Vespasian, your work in the amphitheatre will be silent, Though it be the best building in Italy. Every work of architecture now gives way to the Temple of our Philip; Its fame will be declared a work of art above and beyond the rest.xxvi

i Greek geographer and historian during the time of Augustus (c. 63 B.C. – c. 24 A.D.).

339 ii Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598 – 1671), Italian astronomer. iii Pietro Della Valle (1586 – 1652) is known for his accounts on his travels to Asia, which he recorded both in letters and travelogues. iv According to the Bible, the Tower of Babel was built on a certain plain in the land of Sennar (Genesis 5: 2) somewhere in Mesopotamia; its specific geographic location is uncertain. Caramuel places the tower in Babylon. v Thomas Farnaby, 1575 – 1647. From the many commentaries he wrote on Classical authors, Caramuel mentions that on Martial. ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VIII, Art. I, Sec. V, p. 7. vi Chares of Lindos was a Greek sculptor in the third century B.C. vii Giovanni Battista Casali (1473 – 1525) was a Roman author whose works include descriptions of Roman antiquities such as the 1650, De Urbis ac romani olim imperii splendore... auctore Joanne Baptista Casalio. Rome: Ex. Typ. F. A. Tani. viii It is not clear here which Xerxes Caramuel is referring to: Xerxes I of Persia was King of Persia between 486 and 465 B.C., almost a century after Cyrus the Great (576 B.C. – 530 B.C.) built his palace. Therefore, if the remnants of Xerxes’s ship were inside the palace, as Caramuel claims, they must have been a later addition. ix Pierre Belon (1517 – 1564). x Marco Grimani (1486 – 1544) was a Venetian noble who travelled to Egypt in 1533 and entered the pyramid of Cheops, took measurements and gave Serlio the result of his survey. http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/marco-grimani_(Dizionario-Biografico). xi Kircher, A. Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Rome, 1652 – 1654. xii ACRYO, Vol. II, treat. VII, Art. II, p. 45 – 48. xiii Vitruvius, Vitruvius on Architecture, trans. Granger Frank, ed. Henderson Jeffrey. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1931. p. 73. xiv Syrian is an alternate name Caramuel uses to refer to the Jerusalemite order.

340 xv Pliny the Elder, The Natural History by. xvi Domitian was a Roman emperor in the first century A.D. xvii Caramuel’s text reads: “Preciose Alexandro VII de muy gran Architecto; y ilustro a Roma con differentes Edificios y Fabricas,” which could be read as meaning either “Alexander VII boasted of being a great architect, who made Rome illustrious with different buildings and works” or “Alexander VII boasted of having a great architect, who made Rome illustrious with different buildings and works.” xviii Johannes Baptista Casalius, De Urbis ac romani olim imperii splendore... auctore Joanne Baptista Casalio. Rome: Ex. Typ. F. A. Tani, 1650. xix At this point, Caramuel explicitly declares that this is the last part of the treatise: “The publisher is rushing me and with a tired pen I reach the last article of this treatise. If I were unencumbered, I would write extensively about the many gracious things that with admiration are spoken of or found in Spain.” (“Dame el Impressor prisa, y con canfada pluma he llegado al ultimo Articulo deste Tratado, que a ballarme mas desembaraçado, escribiria a la larga muchas cosas, que con admiracion se cuentan, o se ven en España.”) ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VIII, Art. IV, p. 54. xx The statue Caramuel is referring to in this section stands today in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor. It was a gift of Cosimo III de Medici, duke of Florence. xxi Sir Francis Drake, England, 1540 - 1596 xxii Sir Thomas Cavendish, England, 1560 – 1592. xxiii Sir Richard Hawkins, England, 1562 – 1622. xxiv In the Mathesis biceps Caramuel writes that Oliverius Vandernort was a Dutchman who navigated around the world in 1600. xxv George Spelberg was a Dutch captain who began his journey around the world in 1615. xxvi “Vespasiane Tui taceat labor Amphiteatri; / Major enim surgit Machina in Hesperia. / Cuncta Phillipeo laus cesserit Escuriali. / Unum hoc pro cunctis Fama loquatur

341

Opus.” ACRYO, Vol. II, Treat. VIII, Art. IV, “Question Curiosa,” p. 61. Martial’s original verse reads “Omnis Caesareo cedit labor Amphitheatro; Unum pro cunctis fama loquetur opus.”

342

Conclusion

Architectura civil recta y obliqua was a response to the changes taking place in Europe in the seventeenth century, changes that ultimately determined our modern Western condition. Today, Caramuel’s treatise is instrumental in elucidating the complex and contradictory intellectual milieu of the moment that shaped it. At the same time, the text offers invaluable lessons for us, since it warns us of the risks involved in breaking with the past—one of the main tenets of modernity. Architectura civil recta y obliqua remains important because in it Caramuel positions architecture as a socially crucial practice. By broadening the scope of architecture, his treatise elevates it to a central place among human practices. Reading Caramuel’s treatise from our twenty-first century vantage, we are invited to reconsider the marginal role assigned to architecture and encourages us to recognize its full potential in regard to historical continuity and breach, and in its social and political inflections.

Architectura civil recta y obliqua can be said to be the first treatise in the history of the theory of architecture to include a historical account of the discipline. Yet, unlike our contemporary consideration of history as factual, Caramuel recognizes that historical narratives are artefacts, driven by intentionality. Rather than presenting a definitive history of architecture, Caramuel is interested in including in his treatise multiple alternatives in order to relate the present to the past. Caramuel’s accounts span from time immemorial to his own era. In the narrative on the origin and evolution of architecture, for instance, Caramuel’s account starts with the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem—a work from biblical times, in which God consigned the principles of good architecture—and ends with the temple and palace at El Escorial, a building that Caramuel considers the paradigm of modern architecture. The continuity that Caramuel’s account implies, and that ultimately materializes in his treatise, sought to bridge past and present of the art form, thereby imbuing architecture with legitimacy, by conferring authority to the past while elevating the artistic and historical significance of the practice.

Caramuel’s attempt to unify multiple events into a single narrative results in storytelling and lacks the accuracy we expect of history today. As the first author devising a history for the art, Caramuel was aware of the arbitrariness of his task. He understands a historical account as a construct that holds no absolute truth about events in the past, since the stories it tells are never complete. Nevertheless, Caramuel sees history as fundamental, providing the interpretive lens needed to arrange heterogeneous manifestations of architecture from the past. It is through the articulation of order that our historical accounts help us make sense of our own practice.

At the time Caramuel was writing, the role of the past and the undisputed authority granted to ancient authors since the Renaissance had already been called into question. Some of Caramuel’s contemporaries welcomed innovation as a consequence of the advancement of the moderns in different fields, and considered modern methods superior to what had been stipulated by tradition. Others continue to believe in the superiority of authors of the past. To the extreme positions that defended either the ancient or the moderns, Caramuel proposes an alternative middle ground. To accord authority to a work simply because it is ancient is absurd, while praising the modern simply for novelty is equally reductive. Caramuel sees knowledge as a collective endeavour, undertaken in the past with the ancients, developed over time to reach its highest level of

344 development with the moderns, and which will continue to evolve as future generations continue to improve methods of inquiry into the world. This continuity between past and present is crucial in Caramuel’s view for the advancement of human knowledge, and, as a result, he regards a complete break and dismissal of the past as a hindrance to progress.

To ensure continuity with the past in his own narrative, Caramuel models his historical accounts on the Bible, which holds that the knowledge of divine law is carried through time from generation to generation. The biblical role of genealogy is pivotal in the transmission of wisdom over time. Similarly, Caramuel traces genealogies of architects, through which knowledge about the art is preserved as it is passed on from one ruler-architect to the next. There are many examples of architectural genealogies in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, the first being the series of rulers involved in the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem, with God as the first architect, followed by David, who gathered the materials and bought the land, and finally Solomon, who directed Hiram in its construction. Generation after generation, the idea of the building that God had given Ezekiel was preserved and finally materialized.

The intended reader of Architectura civil recta y obliqua is a hybrid of ruler and architect, a figure that goes beyond our contemporary understanding of the architect as someone whose field is limited to the built environment. In Caramuel’s opinion, the potential of architecture as a tool for change lies in the hands of leaders of society. For that reason, Caramuel’s treatise is intended to educate those in positions of power, who are ultimately responsible for initiating and enabling works of architecture. The traditional division between patron and architect is blurred in Caramuel’s theory. The architect should be in a position of authority in order to have the capacity to sponsor buildings, while at the same time, in order to properly execute those buildings, he must be educated in the history of architecture, and he must be able to draw. Caramuel’s vision of the architect is based on the image of the Spanish King Philip II, who according to

345 Caramuel was not only a just ruler but also well versed in the mathematical sciences, including architecture, and whose legacy survives in El Escorial.

Within the socio-professional structure that has at its helm the ruler-architect is the societal role of the architect. Architecture is for Caramuel essential in shaping society, conveying moral values and lessons that offer guidance toward the common good; the architect therefore has social, political and religious responsibilities. The recognition of the role of architecture in society gives the discipline a predominant role among the disciplines of human knowledge. Architecture is in Caramuel’s treatise a new morality to follow, one at once concrete and widely accessible, open to everyone and without the limitations of the more abstract codes of conduct otherwise handed down. Architecture is fundamental as it educates people in a direct way by its presence in the world, reaching all levels of society and overcoming limitations of creed and language.

Caramuel is aware of the risks implicit in the power of architecture and, for that reason, the architect had to be a man of moral substance to avoid using his art for illegitimate ends. In order for the architect to fulfil his role as community leader, his education had to be holistic, and include many aspects of knowledge, including an education in values. Contrary to our contemporary praise for specialization, the architect in Caramuel’s view had to be a generalist, and have a grasp of an array of disciplines considered today to be beyond the scope of the practice, such as theology, grammar, history, music and astronomy. From the opening pages of his treatise, Caramuel warns us of the inherent limitations of specialization; Caramuel does not believe that extensive knowledge in a single aspect of architecture contributes to the evolution of the practice. On the contrary, he is aware of the complexity involved in architecture, a complexity that should be reflected throughout the educational and apprenticeship process.

The image of the architect in Architectura civil recta y obliqua anticipates the modern separation of tasks between designer and builder; Caramuel privileges the former over the latter. For Caramuel, design is superior because it involves a search for order through which the architect partakes of the divine. Construction,

346 on the contrary, is the manual execution of the architect’s design and therefore lesser. Despite this intellectual emphasis, Caramuel’s theory should not be understood as operating within a Cartesian dualism. On the contrary, Caramuel understands both body and mind as intrinsic to human nature and considers both necessary in the acquisition of knowledge. Although architecture is for Caramuel a mental operation, he does not reduce the functioning of the mind to the intellect. For Caramuel, the mind inhabits the body, and therefore the cognitive methods he proposes often involve direct and embodied perception over rationalization.

Despite this preference for direct knowledge, with the world known directly through the senses, Caramuel does not dismiss reason. In the process of knowing, direct knowledge is primordial, and reason follows. Drawing on the knowledge gathered through experience, the mind through logical operations reaches postulates that lead to conclusions. Rational thought is appropriate for certain disciplines; however, in architecture, in which experience of the building environment is pivotal, direct experiential knowledge is preferable to rational thought. Additionally, direct knowledge operates at a subconscious level, allowing for emotions to participate in the process of learning. In embedding reason into direct experience, Caramuel allows the architect to know the world as well as he knows his work, and thus to move toward a beauty that is attainable rather than merely illusory.

In Architectura civil recta y obliqua, architecture is not only a human practice that provides shelter to human action; it also appears as a metaphor for the world and for knowledge. The elliptic colonnade in Caramuel’s theory celebrates Kepler’s discovery of the real geometry of the orbit of the planets by reproducing it in the plan of a building. At the same time, the layout of the elliptic colonnade stands as a metaphor of the richness of a multi-faceted reality, pointing out the need to contemplate the world from multiple perspectives in trying to apprehend its complexity. In Caramuel’s design, the centre of the geometric figure gives a privileged vantage at which the irregularity of the columns, with their number of different shapes, is reconciled in what appears as a perfect and regular colonnade.

347 To the all-encompassing view from the centre favoured in the Renaissance, Caramuel adds the possibility of experiencing a work from multiple vantage points. Moving around the colonnade, the observer is offered several perspectives, which reveal the richness and complexity of the work. A fuller image of the building, and by extension of the world, is only possible in the mind of the beholder, when the multiple perspectives are reconciled.

Because of his understanding of architecture as partaking in the heterogeneity of reality, Caramuel constantly calls for multiple methods of representation to describe architecture. Neither words nor images suffice to fully communicate ideas about architecture. The architect must be a good speaker to communicate his ideas, and a good draughtsman to illustrate them. At the same time, when writing about architecture, both words and images are instrumental in communicating architectural ideas. Of the different representation tools the architect has at his disposal, words come first, both in articulating one’s own intentions and in presenting them to others.

Drawings are for Caramuel intermediaries between the intangible idea in the mind of the architect and the tangible world. As such, drawings should take into consideration the limits imposed by construction techniques. The precision of an architectural drawing should allow the builder to stay as close as possible to the idea of the architect. The architect should not leave anything to the mason; however, if the precision of the drawing exceeds the possibilities of building, the design will require practical amendment, and the architect has gone to unnecessary effort. Geometry is the discipline that the draughtsman and mason share, a science that most helps the architect adjust to the real conditions of practice.

In Caramuel’s theory drawings are not only documents that communicate ideas to the mason. Orthographic projections, far from the descriptive role they assume after Cartesianism, re-enact the natural phenomena of shadows cast by the sun on the earth at noon. These traces remain veiled to human eyes; the opacity of the material of buildings stands in the way of our ability to see the delineations the

348 sun makes on the ground, which carries within it the geometrical order of the universe. The architect’s skill in the use of geometry allows him to recreate these traces in his plans. Once built, the geometry employed in the design materializes in the building. In the process of projecting, the architect imitates the creator, who ordered the world using geometry, yet concealed the principles used in that creation within the universe itself. In the astronomical observatory Caramuel proposes in Architectura civil recta y obliqua, for instance, the light of the celestial bodies traces its shadows on the surfaces of the building. These traces are then measured and studied by astronomers, who will gather greater knowledge on the celestial mysteries by observing of the building. Architecture is a mimetic art, using the same principles that order the universe and simultaneously helping us in our search for knowledge.

Caramuel’s theory is heavily influenced by his recognition of the impossibility of man to access absolute values, a realization that comes from his work on moral theology and his defence of Probabilism. In the field of moral theology, Caramuel is interested in finding ways to orient our actions in a world ruled by contingency. This question of the moral responsibility of the architect in the absence of absolute values is particularly relevant today, when absolute values are no longer even a possibility and religious beliefs are no longer shared. Caramuel’s solution implies sufficient flexibility to accommodate the circumstances surrounding an action. This flexibility of law hinges in Caramuel’s theory of architecture in the relationship of Straight and Oblique Architecture. The principles of architecture in Caramuel’s theory are intended to guide the work of architecture, not to prescribe it. Caramuel considers the principles of traditional architecture—Straight Architecture—canonical; however, when faced with a real site, the architect is required to adapt these principles to accommodate to its conditions. Likewise, the particular situations surrounding a work of architecture include the time when it is built. Caramuel finds it naive to think we can still build in the same way the ancients did, but maintains that the architect must be able to recognize the lessons contained in these past works and apply them in an architecture that conforms to its own time. Oblique Architecture teaches the architect how to maintain the

349 beauty and proportion architecture must have while responding to the particularities of the place and time where it is built.

Through the many pages of Architectura civil recta y obliqua, architecture is revealed as a human practice far richer and more complex than our present understanding of it. Architecture for Caramuel is an art that celebrates the natural world by making it present through the embodiment of the order that articulates the universe. Caramuel’s theory of architecture broadens its scope to include political and social dimensions, and gives it a crucial role in shaping society. At the same time, the architect is reminded of the relevance of his, or her, work and the importance of ethical behaviour. The legacy of Architectura civil recta y obliqua is that it not only inaugurates the tradition of architectural history, though Caramuel is a visionary who recognizes the importance of the differences between eras and regions, and the continuity between them. Caramuel’s thought also renders a theoretical argument that illuminates our practice today, to include questions of intentionality and significance articulated through language and narrative. In a world characterized by instrumental obsessions and rapid change, his ideas remain fruitful ways to negotiate the complexities of our own complicated modernity.

350 Figures and Images

Figure i The Vigevano square before Caramuel’s intervention. 15

Figure ii The Vigevano square after Caramuel’s intervention. 15

Figure 1.1 Reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon based on Jacob Judah Leon’s description. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part I, Plate A. 39

Figure 1.2 Jachin and Boaz, the two columns at the entrance of the Temple, according to Caramuel. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part III, Plate XVIII. 41

Figure 1.3 Brazen Sea. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part I, Plate B. 43

Figure 2.1 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part II, Plate II. 66

Figure 2.2 Two versions of the sexagesimal table. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. I, p. 61. 75

Figure 2.3 Linea Escotia. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, vol. III, part III, plate XXXVIII, detail. 80

Figure 2.4 Showing how parallel walls in a tower converge to the centre of the earth. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, vol. III, part II, plate VII, detail. 82

Figure 3.1 Examples of primitive houses. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part II, Plate X. 108

Figure 3.2 Houses in trees. Architectura Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XV, detail. 109

Figure 3.3 Palace built by the cacique Comogro on Española Island. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XIII. 110

Figure 3.4 City of Hochelaga. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XIV. 113

Figure 3.5 Primitive wood architecture. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XV, detail. 115

Figure 4.1 Roof detail. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate IX. 127

Figure 4.2 Cornice profiles. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XVII. 128

Figure 4.3 Comparison of the upper part of the different orders according to different authors. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate LXI. 133

Figure 4.4 Jerusalemite order. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XVIII. 138

Figure 4.5 Five classical orders. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XIX. 142

366 Figure 4.6 Attic column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXIII. 147

Figure 4.7 Mosaic column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate LIX. 148

Figure 4.8 Atlantic column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Section III, Plate LXII. 151

Figure 4.9 Paranymphic column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate LXIV. 152

Figure 4.10 Proposal for a modern Doric order. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXV. 155

Figure 4.11 Straight lines volute. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XI. 158

Figure 4.12. Improvements proposed by Caramuel to Michelangelo’s volutes in the Campidoglio. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XL. 158

Figure 4.13 Oblique volute. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XLI. 160

Figure 4.14 Volute for columns placed at the corner of buildings. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XLII. 161

Figure 5.1 Method for drawing oblique architecture. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part III, Plate XXXIX. 181

Figure 5.2 Detail showing Caramuel’s method of transition from straight to oblique architecture. 182

Figure 5.3 Detail showing the transition from straight to oblique architecture. 182

Figure 5.4 Detail showing the transition from straight to oblique architecture. 184

Figure 5.5 Plan of a column in a circular arrangement. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XLV. 185

Figure 5.6 Delineation of inclination. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate I. 189

Figure 5.7 Delineation of inclination. Architectura civil recta y obliqua Vol. III, Part IV, Plate I, detail. 191

Image 5.a The baptistery of San Giovanni in Laterano. Photo Jeff Geerling, www.lifeisaprayer.com/photos/2009/1633. 194

Figure 5.8 Columns at the Baptistery where Constantine was baptized, Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part III, Plate LVII. 195

367 Image 5.b Columns in the baptistery of San Giovanni. www.touritalynow.com/blog/the- mother-of-all-catholic-churches. 196

Figure 5.9 Diagram of possible reconstruction of the Baptistery’s octagonal colonnade according to Architectura civil recta y obliqua. 197

Figure 5.10 Plate XLV showing corresponding lines on a straight column and one in a circular arrangement. 200

Figure 5.11 Geometric construction of the elliptic plan. 204

Figure 5.12 Elliptic plan, Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XXIII. 207

Figure 5.13 Diagram showing the punctum aequans. 208

Figure 5.14 Plate XXIII with an epicycle diagram overlaid. 214

Image 5.c The colonnade at Saint Peter’s. Photo by the author. 213

Figure 5.15 Tetrastyle colonnade. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XXIV. 215

Figure 5.16 Walls built on inclined grounds. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate III, detail. 217

Figure 5.17 Straight and oblique balustrades. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate VI. 219

Figure 5.18 Straight and oblique Tuscan column. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate VIII. 220

Figure 5.19 Straight and oblique Tuscan pedestal and cornice. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate IX. 221

Figure 5.20 Oblique Doric capital. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate X. 222

Figure 5.21 Oblique Doric Pedestal. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XI. 223

Figure 5.22 Straight and oblique Ionic volute. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XIV. 224

Figure 5.23 Straight and oblique Corinthian cornice. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XVIII. 225

Figure 5.24 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XVII. 227

Figure 5.25 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XVIII. 228

Figure 5.26 Plan of the Scala Regia, G. Bernini, 1663 – 1666, Vatican Museum, Rome. 229

368 Figure 5.27 Oblique Corinthian colonnade. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XX. 230

Figure 5.28 Ionic columns on stairs. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XVI. 231

Figure 5.29 Corinthian columns on stairs. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, Plate XXI. 232

Figure 5.30 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXV. 234

Image 5.d The Confessio at the Vatican. Photo Sacred Destinations, www.sacred- destinations.com 235

Figure 5.31 Method for cutting oblique arches. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate II. 237

Figure 5.32 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXVI. 239

Figure 5.33 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXVII. 240

Figure 5.34 Detail. Architectura civil recta y obliqua. Vol. III, Part IV, plate XV. 244

Figure 5.35 Different theories on the entasis of columns. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXX. 248

Figure 5.36 Plan of the flutes of a column in their straight and oblique versions. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Plate XXII, Part IV. 251

Figure 5.37 Tutte l’opere d’architettura et prospective, Book III, p. 54. 252

Figure 5.38 Columns in the interior peristyle of the Temple. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, plate LII. 253

Figure 5.39 Keys for a monastery or palace. Architectura civil recta y obliqua Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXIX. 257

Figure 6.1 The plan of the column shows Caramuel’s idea of orthogonal projection as the shadow of the sun at the zenith as if the stones were transparent. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XLV. 271

Figure 6.2 Explanation of foreshortening as happening in the vertical dimension. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXXI. 274

Figure 6.3 I. Proportions of a sculpture if placed on the ground, II. Shows how the same statue would look if the original proportions were kept and the statue placed on a high place. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXXIII. 275

Figure 6.4 The proportions a statue must have when placed on a high place. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part III, Plate XXXIV. 276

369 Figure 6.5 Shape of a volute placed on a high place. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part II, Plate XLI. 278

Figure 6.6 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part II, Plate II. 279

Figure 6.7 Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part IV, Plate XXIV. 280

Figure 6.8 Astronomical palace’s Eastern facade. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part IV, Plate XXXVIII. 288

Figure 6.9 Astronomical palace’s Western facade. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part IV, Plate XXXIX. 289

Figure 6.10 Plan of a royal fort. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III. Part IV, Plate XLI. 294

Figure 6.11 Figure showing how to delineate a six-sided fort. 295

Figure 6.12 Table comparing algebraic and geometric methods for the calculation of the rays of a polygon. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. II, Treat. VII, p. 71. 294

Figure 7.1 Plan showing arrangement of columns in the Temple of Artemis. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. II, treat. VIII, Art. I, sec. IV, p. 6. 306

Figure 7.2 Egyptian pyramids. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part I, Plate F. 310

Figure 7.3 Plan of the Hall of Hundred Columns. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. II, treat. VIII, Art. II, sec. IV, p. 24. 314

Figure 7.4 Corinthian base suggested for the Pantheon. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, part III, plate XLVI. 318

Figure 7.5 Exterior image of the proposed changes for the Roman Pantheon. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXVI. 320

Figure 7.6 Interior of the Pantheon with Caramuel’s proposed changes. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, Part IV, plate XXVII. 321

Figure 7.7 Hadrian’s mausoleum. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, part I, plate G. 325

Figure 7.8 Palace and temple at El Escorial. Architectura civil recta y obliqua, Vol. III, part I, plate H. 335

Figure 7.9 Engraving made by Pedro Perret after a Juan de Herrera drawing of San Lorenzo at El Escorial (1589). 336

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