Gabbia Epistemic

Eggs, turnips and chains: rhetoric and rhetoricians of architecture Antonio Becchi A strange monarchy be able not only to write but also to think is nei- Another paper included in this volume appro- ther Latin nor English, nor Italian nor Spanish, priately calls to mind the work of Francis Ba- but a language […] in which silent things occa- con. I will adopt a position diametrically op- sionally speak to me, and in which one day I posed to the thoughts expressed there in order shall perhaps justify myself from my grave be- to underline what I consider to be crucial for fore an unknown Judge”1. the historiography of architecture understood “Things”, then, are the focus of attention, or as res aedificatoria. I take my cue from an rather (in Hofmannsthal’s words) “a language apocryphal letter addressed to Francis Bacon. in which silent things speak”. It bears a date that takes us back almost exact- Francis Bacon himself is also linked with a ly 400 years: 22 August 1603. The date is clear- scathing judgement that was formulated ly not random; on 17 August 1603, just five roughly a century ago by the author of a book days previously, the then 18-year-old Federico which, in its own field, is unsurpassed even to- Cesi and his friends Francesco Stelluti, Anasta- day. I am referring to Raffaello Caverni’s Sto- sio de Filiis and Johannes van Heeck had ria del metodo sperimentale in Italia (1891- founded the Accademia dei Lincei in the Via 1900), which castigates the prophecies of Baron della Maschera d’Oro in Rome. This apocryphal Verulam as follows: “Francis Bacon gave the letter, written at the beginning of the 20th cen- name Instauratio Magna to his new scientific tury, left an indelible mark on the ensuing kingdom, and he regarded himself as having decades. It was published in the Berlin newspa- been invested as its monarch for having per Der Tag (moderne illustrierte Zeitung) on planned the Encyclopaedia of every art and sci- 18 October 1902. ence in his book De augmentis scientiarum, I am referring, of course, to the famous Brief and for having minutely fixed the rules to be des Lord Chandos an Francis Bacon written followed in experimental method in his Novum by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. I recall it, in spite Organum. It is easy however to persuade one- of the fact that it has lost much of its freshness self that his monarchy was nothing but an emp- through repeated quotation, because I should ty name or, if you like, a kingdom that had al- like to attempt to consider it from the point of ready passed away. For if there is, in fact, no view of the correspondences with which we are such thing as science, and never has been, as concerned here: a letter published a century Bacon maintained, it follows that he divided up ago in Berlin (where the Max Planck Institute the burial niches in his Encyclopaedia without for the History of Science has its seat), ad- having anything to fill them with”2. dressed to Francis Bacon (the focus of our at- Here, too, I shall leave Caverni’s words to res- tention), and dated just a few days after the onate in the background without comment. fateful meeting in the Palazzo Cesi in Rome They speak for themselves. I would only add (not far from the Bibliotheca Hertziana), exact- that the empty burial niches [the loculi vuoti] ly four hundred years ago. I will transcribe a are a warning to us all in this research project, passage from Hofmannsthal’s letter without and convey one admonition in particular that is further comment, which will remain the cantus a real literary case. firmus of my considerations: “I felt at this mo- My considerations will focus on a field of re- ment with a certainty not wholly untinged with search that has not yet found its rightful place pain that I would write no English and no Latin in the order of things and that ekes out a mea- book in the coming years nor in succeeding gre existence on the margins of the official his- years, nor indeed in all the years of my life; […] toriography of architecture: mechanics in an because the language in which I would perhaps architectural context and, more generally, the 97 history of building construction. By this, I do venuto3; from the publications of the Instituto vince us that at last he has understood every- to play a major role in research and teaching. not mean the history of machines, nor even the Juan de Herrera to the book series Between thing. The opposite is the case: he shows that Invited to reflect on the historical approach in history of machines for building sites (on which Mechanics and Architecture (Birkhäuser) and he has not even begun to think about and, what teaching structural disciplines, Del Piero (pro- there is abundant literature), but the branch of Studies in the History of Civil Engineering is worse, to read and look at those things that fessor of Scienza delle costruzioni at the Uni- knowledge that is precisely defined in German (Ashgate). These are encouraging signs, but might have set him thinking. A smattering of versity of Ferrara) insisted vehemently that under the heading of “Geschichte der Bausta- they remain sporadic and isolated in nature, the vocabulary of the engineer, a handful of “the science of construction is the science of tik” and which in English is called the “history and it is still difficult for them to obtain the nec- quotations comme il faut, and a good dose of construction”(!) and not its history. In his view, of structural mechanics”. It is no coincidence essary institutional backing and the support amour propre make our author believe he has the historical approach represents a dangerous that I mention this field of research, of course. that is essential for research. found the solution that remains hidden to the derivative that abandons the rigour of the clas- The project “Epistemic History of Architec- rest of us. To find solutions, however, you need sical formal approach – the only method worthy ture” has its origins in a collaboration between Caricatures of thought first to identify the problems; and that is some- of consideration. two institutes, each with its own illustrious tra- To demonstrate this without seeming too elu- thing Fleckner has been unable to do. Del Piero’s febrile words underline the typical dition in fields of research that are apparently sive, I will give two examples – two bad exam- Among its various useful features, the article misunderstanding of a person accustomed to far removed from one another: the history of ples, both of which are revealing and to be presents an image (fig. 1) that is meant to ex- tautologies and afflicted with a worrying lack of architecture and the history of science (with avoided – which symbolically opened and closed emplify the statics scheme to which the author intellectual curiosity. This misunderstanding particular regard to the history of mechanics). the year 2003. refers. In its seemingly innocuous simplicity, was all the more glaringly revealed at a confer- The relations between mechanics and architec- The first example dates from January 2003, this concept of statics would surely leave mod- ence mounted to pay tribute to a scholar who ture will inevitably converge, therefore, in fu- when an article signed by Sigurd Fleckner was ern structural engineers perplexed; and it must has dedicated a large part of his life to advanc- ture investigations: a point of intersection in published in the authoritative journal Bauinge- make a historian’s hair stand on end, conscious ing and developing the “history of the sciences the history of thought that at present plays a nieur under the title “Gotische Kathedralen – as one is of the slow, laborious, hazardous and techniques of construction” and their modest role in architectural historiography. Statische Berechnungen”4. The subject of the progress of knowledge and – in this particular teaching, a scholar who has turned the docta This is indeed an empty or abandoned burial paper is stimulating, and the article is worthy case – of the first mechanical interpretations of curiositas into a lifestyle. niche, sometimes temporarily occupied by of closer reading, judging at least by what is the statics of arches. It goes without saying that The misunderstanding, of which Del Piero be- some vagabond, who comes upon it by chance, promised in the editorial note: “This specialist Fleckner is ignorant of them; probably he does came the mouthpiece, stems from the suspicion driven there by curiosity or by necessity. paper has been scientifically assessed and re- not want to know about them. This is demon- that historical analysis is a soft option, a short One might object that the literature on this viewed”. The article does indeed seem to prom- strated with great clarity by the contents of his cut to relieve “conceptual fatigue” and to trans- subject has grown in recent years, with new au- ise significant new findings, as the author article and the attached bibliography. form the hard core of the discipline into a frag- thors and new research programmes entering stresses. In the introduction and in the text it- The second example is as follows. On December ile popularization of hagiographic character. the limelight. Although I understand the rea- self, one finds the following thesis: “According 2003, a seminar was held in Florence on the There are even those who believe that the his- sons for this objection, I still think that the re- to the present state of research in the history of “Teaching of Scientific Disciplines in the Cur- tory of scientific concepts can be no more than ality is very different – apart from the effects of art, the erection of Gothic cathedrals was main- rent Curriculum of the Faculties of Architec- “anecdotal”.

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