Abstract
Sant’Andrea in Mantua is the last of Alberti’s churches yet it is the most complete, and the one in which his intentions seem to be clearest. It takes the form of a Latin cross, but evidence suggests that Alberti had intended a basilican plan. Alberti specified that his proposal was for a church of the type “known among the ancients as the Etruscan,” but it is not planned like an Etruscan temple. The description in Alberti’s treatise adhered precisely to the account of Vitruvius only in the presence of the unusual proportion of 5:6. In spite of numerous attempts to discover the proportional system in Sant’Andrea, the present study is the first to have found the presence of the proportion 5:6 in the completed building. This paper demonstrates the systematic strategy that Alberti employed to bring every detail of the building into a coherent spatial framework related to the perceiving body, not as an abstract exercise, but as an enveloping web of meaning.
First published as: Michael Ytterberg , “Alberti ’s Sant’Andrea and the Etruscan Proportion”, pp. 201–216 in Nexus VII: Architecture and Mathematics, Kim Williams, ed. Turin: Kim Williams Books, 2008.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Alberti sent this letter, accompanied by a sketch, to Ludovico Gonzaga on 20 or 21 October 1470. For a photograph, transcription and translation of the letter, see Johnson (1975: 8, 64, pl. 12).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
An innovation at Sant’Andrea is the close correspondence of interior and exterior; see Tavernor (1998: 167–168).
- 6.
Alberti expressed disapproval of oculi in a letter to Matteo de’ Pasti, the site architect for another of Alberti’s churches, the Tempio Malatestiano Tavernor (1998: 60). Johnson, however, suggested that the original form of the interior elevations of the nave may have included round headed rectangular niches above the doors to the small chapels, similar to the façade, surmounted by the existing oculi. There is evidence for this view in the form of walled-up openings visible from within the western transept piers. See Johnson (1975: 16–17, pl. 17, 18).
- 7.
For many centuries the Basilica was therefore referred to as the Templum Pacis or the Templum Pacis et Latonae or simply Templum Latona, which is how Alberti knew it. The reference to Latona is another mystery and possibly another case of confusion with an adjacent monument, in this case with the Arcus Latronis. Latona was the mother of Apollo and Artemis (Alberti 1988: 22, 370, note 83).
- 8.
Establishing the Temple of Jerusalem as the model for Sant’Andrea would be most convincing if there were the replication in Sant’Andrea of the dimensions and/or proportions of the inner chamber of the Temple, given in the Bible as 20 cubits wide by 30 cubits high by 60 cubits long, a proportion of 2:3:6 (1 Kings 6.2). This corresponds to Pythagorean musical consonances of a fifth (2:3) and an octave (1:2 = 3:6), ratios condoned by Alberti in his treatise (1988: 305). Numerous observers have measured Sant’Andrea and have found that the width of the nave is 40 Mantuan braccia wide by 60 Mantuan braccia high, a ratio of 2:3, the same as the Temple (Tavernor 1998: 169 f).
The question of the length is more difficult since the extension of the church in the sixteenth century. At least one observer, the local historian Giovanni Cadioli, established in 1763 that the nave of the then Latin cross plan was 120 Mantuan braccia long, see Cadioli (1974: 61). If this figure was the same for Alberti ’s plan, then the correspondence with the Temple would be perfect, and the ratio between height and length would be 1:2, an octave. Yet the best attempts to reconstruct Alberti’s design fail to support this number. Tavernor measured the length of the existing nave as “closer to 115 braccia,” based on a photogrammetrical survey made of the church prior to a 1994 exhibition (Tavernor 1998: 171). Based on the same survey, the present study suggests that the length of Alberti’s nave was precisely 116 Mantuan braccia long. This result would not seem to fall within an acceptable range of approximation to the Temple for an architect as rigorous as Alberti, so the proportional model for Sant’ Andrea must lie elsewhere.
- 9.
Tavernor has suggested that the disconnect between Alberti ’s description of the Basilica Maxentius and its proportional scheme may have been a typographical mistake. He suggests that with a simple transposition of numbers, Alberti’s proportional scheme can be made to fit the Basilica of Maxentius more exactly. Alberti’s text reads, “In plan, their length, divided into six, is one part longer than their width. A portico, serving as the vestibule to the temple, takes up two parts of that length” (Alberti 1988: 197). Tavernor suggests that a closer fit to the Basilica of Maxentius would be obtained if the passage were to read, “In plan, their length, divided into six, is two parts longer than their width. A portico, serving as the vestibule to the temple, takes up one part of that length” (Tavernor 1998: 177). Unfortunately, Tavernor prints a diagram which does not conform to his suggestion. The diagram he publishes divides the Basilica lengthwise into seven parts, not six. But the diagram is correct, for it demonstrates that the main part of the Basilica of Maxentius does conform to the proportion of 5:6. The vestibule is an addition to this proportion, making a total length of seven units, not a subtraction from the overall proportion of six units as Alberti’s text suggests. For Alberti’s description to be an accurate account of the Basilica of Maxentius, it would have to read, “In plan, their length, divided into six, is one part longer than their width. A portico, serving as the vestibule to the temple, is one part in addition to that length.” If this were the case the text would precisely reflect the reality of the plan of the Basilica.
- 10.
See Onians (1988: 59) for a discussion of the meaning of the Composite capital, the Roman triumph, and Christianity.
- 11.
- 12.
One of the most distinctive facts about Sant’Andrea is that the presence of the pre-existing campanile meant that the portico could not be as wide as the church behind, thus accentuating its semi autonomous nature.
- 13.
See the list of publications in n. 4 above.
- 14.
In the case of Sant’Andrea good drawings are available on which to base a proportional study. An exhibition on Alberti ’s architecture was mounted in 1994 by the Alberti Group, an organization created with the financial assistance of the Olivetti Corporation for the purpose of staging an exhibition. Photogrammetric surveys were made of the major works of Alberti at that time. The surveys that were available for Sant’Andrea were the south and west elevation of the nave and the west façade. These plus a restored plan and west elevation from Tavernor (1998: 142, 185) formed the basis for this study. These drawings show current conditions, of course, and not the original intentions of Alberti. No attempt has been made to restore these elevations or to suggest any disagreement with the restorations published by Tavernor. It should be noted that using another’s reconstruction of the original building helps to avoid the trap of devising a plan to fit a proportional system. Verification of key dimensions of the photogrammetrical surveys was possible by comparison with the survey published by E. Ritscher (1899: 2–19, 182–189), republished in Johnson (1975: pl.14, 15, 45, and 79). Every modular dimension in this chapter that can be verified numerically by comparison to Ritscher’s work deviates less that a fraction of a percent from the actual given value.
- 15.
See above, n. 9. A braccio (arm, plural braccia) is an Italian cubit whose exact length varied from city to city. The Mantuan braccio was equal to .467 m. A stone monument still exists in Mantua which established the official standard for the braccio and other measures. There is a photograph in Rykwert (1979: 76).
- 16.
The length of the plan unit, 16 Mantuan braccia, can be verified numerically. A close look at Ritscher’s (1899) survey and the photogrammetrical survey reveals that the bays of the nave side elevations, which appear to be uniform in terms of their decoration, in fact show a degree of variation, as one might well expect. If we take the average in either case and extend the existing nave by this dimension for the missing final bay, the answer gives a dimension, which, when divided, produces a value of within a fraction of a percent of 16 braccia. See n. 16 above.
- 17.
Ritscher gives the width of the central façade bay as 7.1 m versus the width of the typical major chapel as 7.16 m; see Johnson (1975: pl.14, 15, 45, and 79).
- 18.
Ritscher’s measurement is 18.82 m, which is 0.75 % greater than the ideal value of 40 Mantuan braccia, or 18.68 m; see Johnson (1975: pl.14, 15, 45, and 79).
- 19.
Note that this axonometric drawing shows an apsidal termination to the nave, another possible solution to the question of how Alberti would have completed his design.
References
Alberti, L. B. 1988. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Trans. J. Rykwert, N. Leach and R. Tavernor. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press.
Borsi, F. 1977. Leon Battista Alberti. New York: Harper and Row.
Cadioli, G. 1974. Descrizione delle Pitture, Sculture ed Architetture che si Osservano nella Città di Mantova e ne’ Suoi Contorni (1763). Bologna: Forni Editore.
Furnari, M. 1995. Formal Design in Renaissance Architecture. New York: Rizzoli.
Johnson, E. 1975. S. Andrea in Mantua: The Building History. University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Krautheimer, R. 1969. Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art. New York: New York University Press.
March, L. 1998. Architectonics of Humanism. Chichester, UK: Academy Editions.
Morolli, G. 1994. I Templa’ Albertiani: dal Trattato alle Fabriche. Pp. 106–133 in J. Rykwert and A. Engel, eds. Leon Battista Alberti. Milano: Olivetti/Electa.
Onians, J. 1988. Bearers of Meaning. Princeton: Princeton University.
Ritscher, E. 1899. Die Kirche S. Andrea in Mantua. Zeitschrift für Bauwesen. Vol. 49: 2–19, 182–189.
Rykwert, J., ed. 1979. Leonis Baptiste Alberti. AD Profiles 21. Architectural Design 49, 5–6.
Sanpaolesi, P. 1961. Il Tracciamento Modulare e Armonico del Sant’Andrea di Mantova. Pp. 95–101 in Atti del VI Convegno Internazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento. Arte, Pensiero e Cultura a Mantova nel Primo Rinascimento in Rapporto con la Toscana e con il Veneto. Firenze: G. C. Sansoni.
Tavernor, R. 1998. On Alberti and the Art of Building. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wittkower, R. 1962. Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. New York and London: W. W. Norton.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ytterberg, M.R. (2015). Alberti ’s Sant’Andrea and the Etruscan Proportion. In: Williams, K., Ostwald, M. (eds) Architecture and Mathematics from Antiquity to the Future. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00137-1_42
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00137-1_42
Published:
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-00136-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-00137-1
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)