Architectural Practice and the Planning of Minor Palaces in Renaissance Italy: 1510-1570
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Architectural Practice and the Planning of Minor Palaces in Renaissance Italy: 1510-1570 by Claudio C. Pereira Bachelor of Architecture Instituto Ritter dos Reis, Brazil, 1985 Master of Architecture Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 1993 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ARCHITECTURE, ART AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY JUNE 1998 1998 Claudio C. Pereira. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of author: Department of Architecture April 27, 1998 Certified by: David Hodes Friedman Associate Professor of the History of Architecture Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: Stanford Anderson Professor of History and Architecture Head of Department of Architecture UFRGS ::p,cuLDADE DE ARQUITETURA BIBLIOTECA READERS: Howard Bums Professor, Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia Mark Jarzombek Associate Professor of the History of Architecture, MIT Henry A. Millon Visiting Professor of History and Architecture, MIT 2 UFRGS ,`:ACULDADE DE ARQUITETURA BIBLIOTECA Architectural Practice and the Planning of Minor Palaces in Renaissance Italy: 1510-1570 by Claudio C. Pereira Submitted to the Department of Architecture on April 27, 1998 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture, Art and Environmental Studies. ABSTRACT This dissertation proposes to study how the commission and design of minor palaces contribute to the understanding of architectural practice in early 16th century Italy. The particular nature of the small urban palace as a reduced and less expensive version of larger palaces and its recurrent nature in the practice of architects malte this type of building very important in illustrating the changes in the profession at that time. Minor palace commissions also show architects dealing with a growing private market for the exercise of the profession: in Rome, the architect's clients belong to a lesser nobility composed of merchants and professional men (doctors, lawyers, notaries, artists, diplomats, bureaucrats) mostly connected to the Papal civil service. Moreover, the planning of these buildings manifest the increasing specialization of the profession at that time, when expertise in Ancient Roman architecture and the mastering of new instruments of representation (orthogonal projection, perspective, sketches) were added to the usual technical and artistic skills required of an architect. The dissertation focus on how architects define a planning procedure to cope with the new set of circumstances related to the commission of a minor palace (budget, site, program, recurrence). The design of a palace comprised different 3 UFRGS FACULDADE DE ARQUITETURA BIBLIOTECA functions arranged in horizontal sequence with a few vertical connections; therefore, drawings of plans were the central instrument of their design. The dissertation is primarily based on the study of original plans that illustrate the working methods of 16th century Italian architects. Three of them were chosen (Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Baldassare Peruzzi and Andrea Palladio) based on their activity as designers of minor palaces and the existence of a substantial amount of plans for this kind of building by them. A second part of this work presents a general view of the working procedures employed by these three architects in commissions of minor palaces. Through the study of their drawings and planning procedures, this dissertation intends to illustrate the establishment of the modern sense of architectural practice in 16th century Italy as shown through the design of minor palaces. Thesis Supervisor: David Hodes Friedman Title: Associate Professor of the History of Architecture 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writing of this dissertation has incurred many debts. First of all, I am extremely grateful to Prof. David Friedman, who apart from generously sharing with me his knowledge of the Italian Renaissance, was a constant supporter of this work and its author in all of its stages. I would also like to thank Prof. Howard Burns for his advice and encouragement, both in Cambridge and in Vicenza. I am indebted to Prof. James Ackerman, who suggested the topic of this dissertation during a course he was teaching at MIT in 1996. My thanks also to Prof. Henry Millon, whose Venice seminar in 1994 was crucial in leading me to write on 16th century Italian architecture. I am grateful to Prof. Mark Jarzombek, head of the History, Theory and Criticism section of the Department of Architecture at MIT, for his advice and participation. The resources available at Rotch Library at MIT and the friendliness of its staff were fundamental for this dissertation. I have also benefited from the resources made available by the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University. My research would not be possible without the assistance of the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi in Florence; the Bibliotheca Hertziana of the Max Planck Institut in Rome; and the Drawings Collection of the British Architectural Library in the Royal Institute of British Architects, London. Four and a half years of learning and research at MIT were generously supported by a scholarship granted by the National Council of Science and Technology (CNPq), an agency of the Brazilian government, and by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I am grateful to the Department of Architecture of MIT for two travel grants (1994 and 1997) which made research in Italy possible, and for the financial support received in my last semester. I also want to thank some colleagues who received and helped me in my research: Renato Fiore in London, Carla Keyvanian in Rome and Paolo Scrivano in Turin. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my wife Nara and our children, who provided me with the comfortable atmosphere of a family here in Cambridge. This dissertation is dedicated to my parents Cecilio and Zilma, constant supporters of my academic pursuits. I regret that my father was not able to see the completion of this work. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS: INTRODUCTION 7 PART I - THE WORKS 38 CHAPTER 1 - Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and the Casa Sangallo on the via Giulia 39 CHAPTER 2 - Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and the Palazzo Sangallo on the via Giulia 55 CHAPTER 3 - Baldassare Peruzzi and the Palazzo Ricci in Montepulciano 69 CHAPTER 4 - Andrea Palladio: sketches and alternative plans for minor palaces 88 PART II - THE METHODS 117 CHAPTER 5 - Antonio da Sangallo the Younger 119 CHAPTER 6 - Baldassare Peruzzi 133 CHAPTER 7 - Andrea Palladio 142 CONCLUSION 153 BIBLIOGRAPHY 157 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 165 ILLUSTRATIONS 171 INTRODUCTION The term "palazzo" is derived from the popular denomination ("palatium") given to the imperial residence in Ancient Rome, located on the Palatine hill. During the Middle Ages, the term was used all over Italy to describe the residences of princes and bishops and also for the seats of communal government and administration of justice. Therefore, in many towns of Italy one find buildings such as the Palazzo Comunale, Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo della Ragione, Palazzo Ducale and Palazzo Arcivescovile. The building contract for the facade of the Palazzo Sansedoni in Siena (1340) seems to be the first documented mention of the term ("palaço") applied to a private residence without public or official connotations.1 In 15th century Florence, The Palazzo Corsi-Horne was described in documents as "palageto," a diminutive of the Florentine "palagio" or palace.2 Therefore, from mid-14th century on, "palaço" or "palagio" starts to define patrician residences as distinguished from more common urban houses. The use of a diminutive for the Palazzo Corsi-Horne (begun c.1489) means that private palaces were already being hierarchically classified according to their size. In fact, Florentine private palaces in the 15th century can be subdivided in two categories: the monumental ones (Medici, Pitti, Strozzi;fig. 1) and the minor ones (Boni- Antinori, Pazzi, Corsi-Horne, Gondi, Scala, etc.). One of the few dependable references today to set a standard to classify these buildings is the comparison of their ground floor areas. The Medici and 1 Toker. Franklyn. "Gothic architecture by remote control: an illustrated building contract of 1340" in Art Bulletin LXVII, 1985: pp. 68-94. 2Mandelli, Emma. Palazzi dei Rinascimento. Dal rilievo al col!fronto. Florence, 1989: p.173. 7 Strozzi palaces are the biggest private palaces of "Quattrocento" Florence, with ground floor areas of 1.600 and 2.200 square meters respectively.3 However, the 15th century Palazzo Pitti is certainly one of them too, even with a much smaller ground floor area (c. 800 m2) which is comparable to the minor palaces. What distinguishes the Pitti as monumental is its formidable height (35 m, compared with 24 m for the Medici and 32 m for the Strozzi, all for three floors), its setting and the quality and cost of the materials and craftsmanship employed in its construction. Average Florentine palaces generally have less than 1000 m2 for their ground floor area. The follovving table provides some examples of Florentine palaces: TABLE 1 - Examples of l5th century Florentine palaces: Palace: Date started: Architect: Area: Height: Medici 1444 Michelozzo 1.560 m2 24.00 m Pitti 1458 unknown 772 m2* 35.38 m Strozzi 1489 G. Sangallo** 2.114 m2 32.00 m Rucellai before 1446 Alberti (facade) 875 m2 21.08 m Pazzi 1458 unknown 944 m2 22.34 m Boni 1461 unknown 922 m2 22.42 m Corsi-Horne c. 1489 G. Sangallo** 354 m2 19.50 m Gondi c. 1490 G. Sangallo 900 m2 24.36 m *corresponds to length of seven bays and width of sala plus walls / **attribution 3A11 ground floor areas provided in this work are approximate, based on various sources indicated in the illustrations and quoted in the bibliographic section.