Francesco di Giorgio Martini

[Opera di Architettura]
[Works of Architecture]

[Siena, Italy, 1479—80]

NYPL, Spencer Collection

In this work, the Renaissance architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini draws heavily from the newly rediscovered ideas of the first century B.C.E. Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius. Francesco translated selected passages from Vitruvius’s writings and developed them into his own theories of "human analogy." While Vitruvius suggested the proportions of the human body as a source for architectural proportions, Francesco tried to explain in words and illustrations how this could work, particularly in terms of columns. Here he demonstrates the theory that in the same way that a man’s shoulders support his neck and head, a column’s architrave should support the cornice and the frieze; he goes so far, in fact, with his analogy that the teeth of the man correspond exactly to the dentils (teeth-like decorations) on the column. The text and drawings in this manuscript were most likely executed by a professional scribe in the Italian city of Siena around 1479 or 1480, when Francesco was living there.

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