#31 Brunelleschi & The Dome II

* When Bruno – or Pippo was he was known to his friends (short for Filippo) went to Rome, after the embarrassment of the Baptistery doors competition, it wasn’t the Rome of Augustus. * At its height, Rome’s population was one million people. * When Bruno arrived there, it was less than 20,000, thanks to the Black Death of 1348. * 1/50th of its heyday. * Can you imagine what that would look like? * Rome had shrunk into a tiny area inside its ancient walls retreating from Seven hills to huddle among the few streets on the bank of the Tiber across from Saint Peters whose walls were in danger of collapse. * It was full of wild animals and beggars everywhere. * There were livestock grazing in the forum which was now known as the field of cows. * The temple of Jupiter was a Dunghill and both the theatre of Pompey and the mausoleum of Augustus had become quarries. * People would come and take the building materials for use in other buildings some as far away as England. * Statues were lying around in rubble everywhere. * Some through neglect, but others had been deliberately destroyed by Christians who saw them as pagan idolatry. * The true nature of Bruno’s visit to Rome was unknown even to Donatello, his travelling companion. * Bruno would walk around studying ancient ruins while pretending to be doing something else, and making notes in a secret cipher in his notebook. * This was common practice in those days. * There was no such thing as copyright or patents. * Manetti claims Bruno was measuring heights and proportions of the buildings. * Where did he get this idea? * And how did he measure them? * Might have used a rod. * Or he might have used the mirror trick. * Both of these methods were discussed in Leonardo Fibonacci’s book Practica Geometriae. * The mirror trick – you position a mirror facing the object you want to measure, then walk backwards until the top of the object appears in the center of the mirror. * Then its height is arrived at by multiplying the distance between the object and the mirror by the height of the observer divided by his own distance from the glass. * Or he could have employed a quadrant. * So you know how that works? * Get a quadrant – like a protractor – and mark it off at a 45 degree angle. * Make sure it’s level to the ground and walk backwards from the object you are measuring until the top of it is in line with the 45 degree marker. * You then have an isosceles triangle. * has two sides of equal length * The distance from where you are standing to the base of the column would be equal to the height of the column. * Or you could just ask Siri. * He was measuring the columns and pediments to determine the measurements specific to the three architectural orders – Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. * Devised by the Greeks, refined by the Romans. * Governed by precise mathmatical ratios * A series of proportional rules that regulated the aesthetic effects. * For example the height of a Corinthian entablature is a quarter of the height of the columns on which stands * While the height of each column is 10 times its diameter * The entabulature is the upper part of a classical building supported by columns