14 / 198
13
It was during the 16
th
century in Italy that the projective geometry of perspective received sophisticated
attention from Commandino and Guidolbaldo del Monte, both from the city of Urbino, while
the elegant treatise by the architect Vignola was published in definite form with a mathematical
commentary by Danti.*
23
Stevin played an equivalent mathematical role in Holland.*
24
Perspective
was entering mathematics, most notably via the projective geometry of Desargues in France, whose
protégé Bosse taught perspective with dogmatic insistence at the French academy.*
25
We can tell that
matters were becoming serious when principled polemics about the correct method began to rage in
the 16
th
century, as in the dispute between Bassi and Tibaldi about an illusionistic Annunciation by the
latter on the Baptistery in Milan.*
26
During the next century, “perspective wars” broke out in French
academic circles, involving Bosse, Curabelle and Dubreuil.*
27
The technicalities of the arguments that
were deployed must have gone over the heads of most practitioners.
Looking at the generality of the books, it is clear that they comprise a special genre in their own right, rather
like the picture-books of anatomy, which had little utility in the actual practice of medicine, but which
certified the high knowledge levels required of major surgeons. The most spectacular of the anatomical
books belonged in the learned libraries of major patrons and a few elite medics rather than in the rooms
of routine doctors or even in monastic hospitals. A few artists possessed substantial libraries with books on
perspective, though the proportion increased over the course of the centuries as the cost of the textbooks
came down and artists’ earnings improved.
Within the world of publishing the genre of perspective treatises thrived in a broad context of practical
mathematics, a discipline represented by upwards of 20 books in the collection that contain sections
on perspective. We find perspective conducting liaisons with the projective geometry of sundials,*
28
the viewing of astronomical phenomena,*
29
and the practice of surveying.*
30
There were also links with
garden designs.*
31
Most commonly, perspective is associated with the devising and communication of
architectural structures, civil and military. A number of the books in the collection involve military
design, above all of the intricate geometrical structures of advanced fortifications in which lines of
fire and the angles of bastions obey a kind of visual ballistics of form and space.*
32
Another branch of
architecture that deployed projective techniques was that of stereotomy or stone-cutting,*
33
which was
used to calculate the angles of the faces of abutting stones in complex arches and vaults. Perspective
belonged integrally with the great scientific and technical revolutions from the Renaissance onwards,
in which vernacular skills were newly claiming foundations in the mathematics of nature.*
34
But we have not yet mentioned what was perhaps the most sensational and large-scale function of
perspective design, that is to say in theatrical spectaculars. By nature ephemeral, with the most notable
exception of Palladio’s Teatro Olympico at Vicenza,*
35
great stage sets situated human protagonists in
front of streets and buildings that seemed to be plunging into the far distance. The biggest and best
have disappeared and are ill-served by illustrative engravings. The earliest woodcuts of stage designs
appear in Serlio’s books on architecture,*
36
using a system that was thought to be ancient Roman.
The greatest of the designs were breath-taking, combining optical illusion of deep recessions with
actual forms in high and low relief. The technique was more elaborate than in standard painting.*
36
The cost of such illusionistic constructions was very high and the masters of stage design were much
admired. Most famed in the 18
th
century was Bibiena, who invented the scena al angolo, in which the
corners of the nearest buildings were angled towards us, framing avenues that dashed dramatically
into angled spaces of indeterminate depth.*
37
The set itself became a drama, in the same way that
Piranesi’s monumental etchings of nightmare “prisons” exploited diagonally disposed architectural
forms and spaces as the main protagonists in his assertive displays of dynamic space.*
38
*
23
357-358
*
24
343
*
25
49-53
*
26
31
*
27
94, 102
*
28
28, 255, 305
*
29
142, 237
*
30
28, 186, 341
*
31
96, 153, 341
*
32
22, 57, 64, 70, 273, 274
*
33
215
*
34
38, 327
*
35
36
*
36
67, 73, 79, 312, 359
*
37
41
*
38
285