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architecture

virtue

and

memory

Carole Yocum, July 1998

in

and
Filarete's

College of Architecture

b e e :

the
Trattata

di

Architettura

McGill University. Montral

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the
requirements of the degree of Masters of Architecture in History and Theory.

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0-612-50694-0

Canad~

abstraet

ii

prologue

iii

biography - treatise

introduction
b e e s

- memory

milan

virtue

self-portraits
the dance - antiquity - bees

10

founclations
gathering - elements - interment

26

excavations
stones

36

books

vice -' virtue

fantasia - mountains
ark
the path
summit
grotta

46

- adam
rooms
rituals

conclusion

88

appendix

94

bibliography

96

Antonio Averlino, known as Filarete (1 400- 1469). wrote that architecture

IS

a gestational

process, likening the architeet to the mother and the father as the client. The process reqUires the
architect-mother to Ufantasticare e pensare e rivoltarse/o per la memoria." fermenting ideas and
Incubatlng them in conjunction with one's memory. The intent is to understand mnemonics as a
creatJve operation in Filarete's Trattaro di Archirerwra. A key to

thlS

lies wrth Filarete's persona1

symbol, the bee. The bee's process of mellification acts as a metaphor of the architect's gestauonal
design. The bee, long utilized as a memorative trope, points towards other memory models created
throughout the treatise, culminating with the design for the House of Vice and Virtue. Dlrecting the
reader and inhabitants of the city in a social narrative, Filarete's architecture reveals the dependence
upon remembrance and Vrtue for the city's creation and public rituals to sustain its life.

Antonio Averlino, connu sous le nom de Filarete (1400-1469), a crit que l'archrtecture est
un processus de gestational, comparant l'architecte la mre, et le pre en tant que client.

Le

processus exige de la mre d'architecte de ufanrasticare e pensare e rivoltarselo per la memoria," de

fermenter des ides et les incuber en mme temps que la mmoire. L'intention est de comprendre la
mmOire comme processus crateur en Filarete's Trattato di Architertura. Un cl a ceCi se trouve
avec le symbole personnel de Filarete, l'abeille. Le processus de 'abeille du mellification agrt en tant
que mtaphore de la conception du gestational de l'architecte. l'abeille. longtemps ser d'un trope de
mmorie. se dirige vers d'autres modles de mmoire crs dans tout le livre. culminant avec la
conception pour la Chambre le Vice et la Vertu. Dirigeant le lecteur et des habitants de la Ville sur
dans un rcit social, l'architecture de Filarete indique la dependance le remembrance et la vertu pour
que les rituels de la cration et du public de la ville soutiennent sa vie.

RI

T 0 Alberto Prez-Gmez. for his patience and faith during the formulation of the ideas comprislng this
thesis. and his unstated understanding that it may take sorne of us years to find the fortltude and
acumen to open the box of knowledge.

T 0 Greg Caicco, for his persistent belief in the keys of memory and guidance in uncovenng the bee of
archrteeture; his enthusiasm and encouragement is gratefully infectious.

T 0 Susie Spurdens. for her kindness in helping the finalization of the thesis proceed smoothly and
easily.

To the Interlibrary Loans Department at the University of Louisville, and thelr Art Library. who
unknowlngly enabled the completion of the work to be realized away from Montral.

ToTed Bressoud. for his flexible understanding and friendship that facilitated my search to find tJme to
complete the work.

T 0 Megan Spriggs. Alice Guess and David Williams. for their crucial moral support. advice and
countless reassurances.

T 0 Jerzy Rozenberg. Keith Plymale. and others at the University of Kentucky who guided my first
Investigations into architecture and its poetic content. They initiated the fundamental gestation of these
thoughts.

architecture

and

the bee 1 acknowledgament.

Il

- milanln 1446 Francesco Sforza led the March of Ancona through ltalyand narned himself
"Count and Viscount, Lord of the Marches." 1 He had aJready, by 1434, acquired the moniker
"GonfaJoniere della Chiesa" from Pope Eugene IV, who approved of Sforza's drive to conquer
various cities and was a powerful condottiere. 2 However, when Sforza was evemually able to
take over Milan (with the rronetary assistance of Cosimo d'Medici), his entrance Into the city ln
February of 1450 was under hostile and questionable circumstances.
Arnong the methods to establish his legitimacy to the throne was the forging of a deed
claiming that his father-in-Iaw, the former Visconti duke, had given him power and he went to
the extent of adopting their coat-of-arms. There was much opposition to his claim and it
became necessary to "engineer some semblance of security for the struggling regime ... 3
Francesco Filelfo wrote an epic poem on Sforza's deeds, Sforziade, and began a history on hrm.

De vita et rebus gestis Frandsd Sfortiae. The creation of a strong system of diplomatie alliances
also became part of Sforza's regime. Arnong them was France, where he sent diplomats to
reside with Louis Xl beginning in 1460. 4 When Christian 1of Denmark visited Francesco's

IG. Mattrngly. "The First Resident Embassies." Speculum. (Cambridge. 1937).431.

2 J. Spencer. "Filarete's Bronze doors at St. Peter's" Collaboration in 'rahan Renaissance Art. (New
Haven. 1978). 36. and n. 14. A condottiere was a mercenary soldier that was for hire by other crtres in thelr
milrtary reglmes.

3 G. lanzrti. "Patronage and the Production of History: the case of Quattrocento Milan." Patronage.
Art and Soaery. ed. F. W. Kent, P. Simons. and J. C. Eade. (New York, 1987).305.

4G. Mattingly. "The First Resident Embassies." 437.

archlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 prologu.

III

son Galeazzo in 1474 he was shown the Sforza's collection of relies and valuable items. They
included the body of a Holy Innocent, the arm of Mary MagdaJene, a tooth of St. Christopher.
and sorne of the Virgin's har, ail displayed in omamented. gilded reliquaries. 5 ~ vvell, Sforza
developed extensive patronage - "the distribution and manipulation of favors to create a
c1ientele of firm supporters amongst Milanese noble families. n6

Machiavelli writes that

Francesco Sforza's rise to power - from private citizen to prince - was obtai ned precisely
because he was skilied in arms. 7 He took Fortune by the hand and when she abandoned
him, he was equipped with military preparations and was able to resist adversity in part by
these engineered construetons.

- biosra,hx By 1451, not long after Sforza took control, Antonio Averlino, known as Filarete, was
at work on various projeets in the city, including the still extant Ospedale Maggiore. Averlino
was bom around 1400 in Florence to Pietro Averlino 8 and nothing is noted about his life until
1433, when it is known he entered Rome, and was present for the May 31st coronation of
Sigismondo. Later in that year he began work on the bronze doors for Old St. Peter's (they
are still intact in the present day St. Peter's and were extensively c1eaned in 1962), obtaining
the commission From Pope Eugene IV. He ran a large bronze foundry in the city and

J.

R.

5 M. Hollingsworth. Patronage in Renaissance Imly. (London, 1994), 160.

6

G. lanziti. "Patronage and the Production of History," 305.

7 N. Machiavelli.

The Prince. C. E. Detmold, trans. (New York, 1965),73 .

Trouato di architectura. ed. A M. Finoli and L. Grassi. (Milan, 1972), "nota cronologica," Ixxxviii.
rchltecture .nd

the bee 1 prologue

Spencer speculates that in arder ta have received this large commission, there must have
been sorne strong recomrnendation ta the pope from established, recognized artists, possibly
Donatello and Michelozzo. It is conjeetured that these two might have taught the young
Averlino in his years prior ta arriving in Rome. 9 It is expeeted tha-t some political relationship

was established for Filarete to have received the work. Regardless, it is known that he and his
studio toiled on the doors for twelve years, until 1445. Spencer construets some other
interesting scenarios involving Filarete's possible travel outside of Rome during this period,
suggesting it as a potentiaJ factor in the length of tirre involved ta complete the project.
!n 1434, Piccinino led anti-papal rebellions in Rome and it is possible Filarete left the
CIty in search of safety, likely moving to Todi. where Sforza

was at the time. There is also

evidenee given by some of the content in the doors' images that Filarete may have again left
Rome, this time to Florence. in June to November of 1439. The basis of this supposition is the
depiaion of a group of Greek diplomats in full regaIia on one of the panels. During the before
noted months of 1439, there was a treaty being formed between the Greek and Roman
churches and the c1arity and detail of Filarete's images are convincing enough

tO

find this

believable.
By 1447, the doors had been completed for two years and there is no evidence of
any other extant work or projeets that could be attributed ta Filarete in Rome. However,
Filarete managed ta remain a topic of discussion by being charged with the theft of the relie
head of St. John the Baptist. He was tortured and then freed (the pope pardoned him) but

J. Spencer. "Filarete's bronze doors at St. Peter's." 33 .

rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 prologu.

expelled from Rome. 10 Filarete apparentJy traveled to Venice, making his way through Rimini,
where he stayed until he rnost likely was expelled with the ether Florentines in December of
1449. 1 f It is not long after that he made his way to Milan. There are various letter5 recording
the possible aetivities and trips outside of Milan by Averlino during these years !2 and it is
generally unclear as to where Filarete journeyed after 1464, when power in Milan shifted
from Francesco to his son Galeazzo, but it is known he left around that time.

Various

scenarios depiet him travelling to Constantinopie,I3 retuming to Rome, or going back to

Florence, ta work under Piero d'Medici's patronage to whom he ultimately dedicated his

Trattato di Architecttura, written in Milan and originally dedieated ta Francesco Sforza.

- treatise The Trattata di Architettura

in twenty-four books, relates a narrative dialogue

between a king and his architeet, a work that Filarete suggests be read aloud in several sittings.
115 structure is episodic and fitting to the oral transmission of its ideas in short, evening readings.
It is a traditionaJ relationship of an advisory, tutoriaJ position of a philosopher to king on how to
rule and behave.

Seneca's On Clemency, Plutarch's Ta an Untrained Ruler and Aqulnas'

Regimen Principum ail follow this mode!. St. Thomas Aquinas writes. "the founder of a state or
kingdom must mark out the chosen place according to the exigencies of things necessary for

10

TronarD. Unota. cronologica." Ixxxix, and n. 6. 103.

Il M. Sanuto,

"Vrta de Duchi di Venezia." Rerum fta/icorum Scriptores. XXii. col. [ 136.

12 TronarD., "nota cronologlca," xc.

t 3 E. Legrand. Lettres grecques de Francois Fi/elfe. (Paris, 1892) 120. letter 70.

rchltecture .nd the

bee 1 prologue

VI

the perfection of the state or kingdom.... These are ... the duties of a king, in founding a city
or kingdom as derived From a comparison with the creation of the world." 14 Mer a
dedication, Filarete opens with the relating of his vie'NS on architecture within the atmosphere
of a dinner party. Architecture is established as deriving from man, and after relating the
process of design as gestational, he goes on to tell of the types of buildings continuing through
1

the materials required - lime, sand, brick, stone, marble, wood - and how to estimate the
number of workers and cost of materials.

Book IV focuses the story on the creation of

Sforzinda, a new city in the countryside for Francesco, and its civic buildings. Book XIV begins
the construction of a second city on the water, named Plusiapolis, and its various buJldings and
their social-architectural programs. The final three chapters discuss the aspects required in
learning to draw. An additional chapter, Book XX:V, ends the Magliabecchianus manuscript
(the one dedicated to Piero d'Medici) with a delineation ofvarious Medici buildings in Florence.
My concern is not with the legitimizing nature of Filarete's treatise - it fits convincingly
Into the politicaJ framework of Sforza's Milan, and likely reinforced ft - but with the method and
philosophy from which Filarete structured the narrative. It would be naive for us to believe in
slmply answering the questions about the Trattato by neatly including it among the production
of Sforza's "historiography". The work extends beyond this equation of patron - architect to an
engaging personal philosophy of architecture's modes. What does it provide us, as readers.
with in a civic and public regard, as weil as in a personal manner? And how does this
Renaissance architect answer these questions?

Filarete introduces the treatise to his patron

by saying: "Come si sia, piglia/a. non come da Vitruvio, n dalli a/tri degni architetti, ma come da/

14 St. Thomas Aquinas. De Regimine Prindpumi, p. 97, trans. G. B. Philan. (Toronto (935). For
the herltage of the prince-philosopher relationship 1 owe S. Lang. "Sforzinda, Filarete and Filelfo," Journal of rhe
vVarburg and Courtauld Institute. 19n. See n. 29, 394.

rchlt.ctur nd th. b 1 prologue

VII

tua ff/areto architetto Antonio Averfino fiorentino. ,,15 His self given name ff/areco, from the Greek
fil and arete, means "lover of virtue". distinguishing himself from other architeets, even

Vitruvius, with this term, and guiding his architecture and staries for the city with this individual
ideology.

15 Trattato. f. 1r., 5. See aise n.I, 5. Trearise, 3 ... Such as it is take t as not written by
by other IMJrthy architeets, but by your Filareto architeet Antonio Averfino, the Florentine."

archlt.ctur. and th. b.. , prologu.

ViUUVIUS

nor

VIII

n t

c t

figure 1. Initial fetter "E", (rom Codex Trivulzio (destroyed 1944).

architecture and the bee 1 introduction

ft

- becs - mcmoa - yjduc 'We ought

to imitate bees, as they say, which

ffy about and gather [trom]

fiowers suitable for

making honey, and then arrange and sort inta their ceJls '.4A1ate'er nectars they have col/eaed. " 1

The rnedieval author, in depieting hirnself, would use a common trope of assuming the
role of a reader of an old book, or listening to an old story in the telling of their own narrative.
Another commonplace was to represent oneself as a bee. Mary Carruthers, ln her work The

Book

of Memory,

broaches this topic by bringing the reader to Seneca's above quote

concerning the imitation of bees.

Elaborating on this metaphor, she writes, "composition

begins in reading, culled, gathered, and laid away distinetively in separate places, 'for such
things are better retained ifthey are kept separate', then, using our own talent and faculties,
we blend their variety into one savour which, even if it is still apparent whence it was derived,
will yet be something different from its source... 2 This blending of flavors speaks direetly ta the
role of the architeet in Filarete's Trattato di Architettura. An early Renaissance treatise on the
art of building, Filarete's work rernains a produet of a medieval sensibility in his choice of its
metaphors, but the deve[opment of these is truly representative of the Renaissance architea's

1 Seneca. Epistulae morales. Ed. L. O. Reynolds. (Oxford: Claredon Press) 1965. Quote (rom p.
84, translated by M. Carruthers, The Book. of Memory. (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 192. d., n. 7, p.

335 .
2 M. Carruthers. The Book o(Memory. r 92. Seneca: Mut etiam si apparuerit unde sumptum sir, aluid
tamen esse quam unde sumptum est appareat."

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 Introduction

ideas on making the world around them. 3 The trope of the bee is mentioned only briefly
within the treatise itself,4 however. Filarete's personal identification with this symbol is not to
be overlooked as an impetus in his formulation of architecture. Bee symbolism from ancient
and classical writers to medieval and Renaissance works is weil documented as a weil
rounded symbol. S ln 1464, Filarete composed a self-portrait medal depieting himself with
bees ftying about his head, and on the verso, working at a tree filled with honeycomb. The
bees' connection ta Filarete as his own sort of coat-of-arms creates a symbolic, emblematic
motto. The complexity infused into the bee trope that has emerged from my investigation for
this essay has appeared ta be critical to penetrate FiJarete's treatise and his proposais for the
raie of architecture in society. Filarete's simple choice of a bee as a single symbolic image leads
us direetJy to the key issues of his own moral outlook: memory and virtue.
While discussing the conception of a building, Filarete states in his Trattaw that the
archltea's role is to "fantasticare e pensare e rivo1carse1o per fa memoria. .,6 Architeaure

IS

designated as a manipulation of one's fantasia, our imagination. and the architea must revolve
these creations over in his memory. allowing the ideas to ferment and gestate. Filarete ties the
realm of memory direetly to the aet of composition - it is an incubation. The building itself

3 The treatise has been traditlonaJly disregarded as a meandering and unclear worl<. with most CritlCS
mtroduCing the project with an apology for Filarete. Georgio Vasari charaeterized it as "full of foolishness wlth
some good things in it." Vite. ed. G. Milanesi. (Florence. 1878), 461.
Bees are included in the design of the statue of Virtue (f. 142 v,), the foundatlon ceremony (f. 26
r.). and the story of Aristeus and the bees is told near the end of the treatise (f. 152 v.).
of

5 T. M. Greene. The Ught in Troy. 72-80.

6 Tratrato di Architettura. L. Grassi. editor. f. 7v.. 40.

The English translation by J. Spencer
essentiaJly omits the word 'memoria', saying that "he shoufd dream about his conception, thin 1< about it and
turn ie over in his mind in many 'M1ys," 15.

archlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 Introduction

becomes a manifestation of the memory. combined with the imaginations of the present,
creating a harmony that is an "echo of the celestial and universally valid harrnony. ,,7 As the
bee combines different nectars into a whole, architecture becomes a thick f1esh of the worfd.
The relationship of bees and rnemory to Filarete's architecture is suggested by a largely
unmentioned drawing in the little cited Trivu/zio manuscript in MiJan. 8 M. L. O'Ancona's
article "II 'S. Sebastiano' di Vienna: Mantegna e Filarete" reproduces an image from the
prologue of this manuscript. We see the illustrated initial "E" (figure 1) with what appears to
be a self-portrait of Filarete and below him, a scribe working on a book. O'Ancona suggests
thlS is the golden book of the treatise,9 which is inscribed "Memor;o InteJ/etto Ingegno.

"ID

Flying

around Filarete's head, under the scribe's chair, and through the decorative. trailing illustration,
are bees. Memory aets a creative force for Filarete, in an engaging variation of the growing
Renaissance use of mnemonics to explicate architecture's social and personal function. The
memory system employed by Filarete operates through the narrative dialogue as both a
reading process, and as a participatory act.

J.

R. Spencer's translation of the treatise dismisses the fantastical creations woven

through the tex! as peripheraJ matter - "the f1ights of fancy. the allegorical conundrums, and the

7 R. Wrttkower. Architectural Principfes in the Age

of Humanism. 01'1.

W. Norton & Co .. 1971). 8.

8 See Nappendix", which contains a 'famiJy-tree' of the manuscnpts. The most commonly
referenced one is the Magliabecchianus. from which the English translation by Spencer is denved. The
Trivulzio manuscript was destroyed in the tire bombings of Milan during VvWII.

9 The golden book. discussed further in the following chapters. IS a book discovered by workers

excavatlng for the building of Filarete's city_ft is an 'ancient' text that Filarete relies on for gUidance in deSign
wtthin the Iast sections of his narrative.

Image
113.

IS

10 D'Ancono. Nil 'S. Sebastiano' di Vienna: Mantegna e Filarete." Arte Lombardo (Milan. 1972). The
also reproduced in M. Lazzaroni and A Munoz. Filareee, scuftore e architetto. (Rome. 1908). 238. fig.

architecture

and

the

bee 1 Introduction

digressions - tend to obscure the true aim of Filarete's treatise."

11

However, Filarete's treatise

extends beyond this reading of the manuscript as a prescriptive outline. It is precisely through
these fantasia that the "true aim" of Filarete becomes apparent. This thesis intends to reveal
Filarete's treatise structure, a narrative dependent upon these fantasia, to be a personal
interpretation of the memory arts influence. The aim of his architecture becomes the making
of an all-encompassing site for an understanding of the world and our place within it.
The memory arts tradition has a long and diverse history as a means to memorize
significant details and universal precepts through the use of 'places', foci. and 'images'.
Simonides is the man credited with the invention of the art around 500 B.e. Mer singing a
poem at a banquet for a nobleman in Thessaly, Simonides was told that he would only be paid
half of his fee because he had included a praise to Castor and Pollux in the lyric. A bit later,
Simonldes was called outside to meet!wo men (Castor and Pollux, no doubt). However, no
one was present, and while he was outside, the building collapsed, killing everyone inslde.
The bodies were unrecognizable, but Simonides, the only survivor, was able to identify ail the
bodies by remembering where they had been sitting around the banquet table. Simonides
realizes the importance of an orderly placing of things for a goocf mernory and is credited with
Inventing the art. 12 Mnemosyne. the goddess of mernory, is the rnother of the Muses, and this
faa alone transmits the art-of-memory into ail the arts. establishing a labyrinthine and at times
fleetmg world that this basic human aetivity encompasses.
The many facets taken on by the art and expounded by Filarete 's narrative is my

11 Treatise on Architecture. J. R. Spencer, trans. p xix. The 'true aim' according to Spencer is the
"exposition of the 'new' architecture, and a denouncement of anything Gothie. (xix-xx).
ft

12

F. Yates. The An of Memory. (Chicago. 1966). 1-2.

.,chUecture .nd

the

bee 1 Introduction

exploration, and it is my contention to establish it as an important underlying structure for the

treatise. By tracing the development of the memory arts from the c1assical tradition to its
various permutations in the medieval learning circles and ensuing appropriation into the
Renaissance culture. Filarete's treatise will emerge as another variation of this evolution, amid
what is an ever increasing array of rremory treatises. 13
Spencer's translation and introduetory analysis also seems to overlook another
predominant interest of the Renaissance, the authority of the ancients.

By delegating its

Frequent references as a play to "doak the practice of architecture with enough erudition ta
make it one of the liberaJ arts,"

14

he ignores the increasing prominence given to antiquity and

its constant invocation duringthis time. Instead, the overall structure ofthese "digressions" and

entertaining narratives provide us with a sense of the scope in Renaissance memory

enaetment, and of the art of remembering weil to establish a proper and intluentiaJ kingdom.
It is valuable to remember the trouble ta which Francesco Sforza, the new, self-appointed
duke to Milan went ta in order to do this very thlng.

It is the prevalent fascination with a past

culture and its dependence on a creative rnemory that is cultivated in Filarete 's writing.
The etymologicaJ root of memory has been traced back ta the two-/etter construaion.
mr, and linked to the phrase "head-waters" .15 As weil, it is connected ta respiration and
circulation, a concentrated breath that grounds us. Works to be discussed in this essay Involve

13 Yates. The An of Memory, l 05. The number of memory treatises ncreases so much that there are
too many for her to discuss. See n. l, r 05. There is a complexity to the memory tradition that develops ln
the Renaissance which Yates in intent on drawing out.

14

Treatise. Introduction, xx.

15

C. Dunne. "The Roots of Memory." Spring (Dallas, 1988), 1 J 7-18.

.rchltecture .nd

the

bee 1 Introduction

mainly Cicero and Quintillian, writers of memory technique as a tool for dassical rhetoric.
Admitting this phrase "head-waters" and realizing the fluid nature of memory, we will benefit
by addressing the topic through Hugh of St. Victor, Ramon Lull, St. Thomas Aquinas and
A1bertus Magnus, proponents of the use of merrory in religious medievaJ scholasticism. We
will begin ta see the transformation the art took and its deep, thick center into which the
imagination could expand. In a study of this scale 1do not intend to evaluate the writings of
each one of these works in depth, but hope to outline an established tradition of mnemonlcs,
rendering a foundation within which the work of Filarete may be investigated.

It is my

Intention to form an assembly of mnemonic models which Filarete and the early Renaissance
ingested. 1do not feel it is possible to make concrete historical suppositions over where and
when Filarete may have absorbed such rnaterial but can only ask the reader to accept that the
atmosphere was extant. My work depends to a great extent on the scholarshi p of Frances
Yates' The Art

of Memory,

specifically her discussion of Ramon LuI! and the c1assical beginnings

of the art in the area of rhetoric. and the initial uses of architecture as its site of study. As weil. 1
am indebted to the work of Mary Carruthers in The Book of Mem ory, on the art of memory in
the Middle Ages, that establishes a c1ear link between scholarship, memory and virtue. My
approach is in the interest of architecture and in exploring one of its varied expressions ln the
Renaissance. The hope is ta understand how the architecture of Filarete. 50 often pushed
aSlde ln historical studies. was actually tied to the center of ts world through links made with
perhaps a less understood area of influence upon fifteenth century architecture and
humanism.

The essay that follows will trace Filarete's use of symbols, emblematic devices, and
metaphoric tropes, and their interaction with the architecture, depieted by written imagery

.rchlt.ctur. .nd

th.

b..

Introduction

and visuaJ drawings. The intent is to place emphasis uJX)n the culmination of these concepts in
his ambitious proJeet of the House of Vice and Virtue. A/so central ta this remaking, is the
excavated golden bCXJk of Filarete's narrative, from which we hear the author retell the story
of a former city on the exact site that Filarete intends to build the city Plusiapolis for the duke
Sforza. Other scholarship done on Filarete regarding his early work on the dCXJrs for Old St.
Peter's; his possible sources for design; and the various translations of the Trattato will also be
dlscussed in light of my argument of the significance of mnerronics in his archileauraJ wori<.

" impossible a dare a intendere queste case dello edificare se non si vede disegnato. e neJ disegno
ancora diffidle a 'ntendere il disegno, perche maggiore fatica a 'ntendere il disegno che non il
disegnare. n 16

With this remark to the prince who asks to learn about architecture. Filarete says It is
impossible to understand the building if you don't see the drawing. and the design itself is
difficult to understand if you have not made it yourself. The architecture that Filarete descnbes
c10sely follows this explanation. The buildings are 50 intricately described it is difficult to grasp
them fully and the drawings lend insight, further adding to the detailed information given about
the design. Filarete continually expresses to the king in his treatise that he wishes to describe
the design briefly, and then, when it is completed, the king will see and understand
completely. In this sort of reasoning by Filarete. 1suggest that the architecture he intends
one that necessitates a personal interaction precisely through the use of memory.

15

The

meuculous descriptions inscribe an order that strives ta be universal, requiring a personal

interpretation in a memorab/e rnanner with these figures.

16

Trattato. f. 138r.
architecture

and

the

bee

Introduction

P-s weil, this issue of memory is linked to the morality of man, and 1believe becors a
motivating force in Filarete's architeaure, stressing the importance of v;rt. The points that
Filarete builds upon revolve around virt and imagination - his fantasia - in the aet of building,
an action that ultimately is linked to memory.

Filarete associates the Greek term arete to his

own work - the designs of the architea - and the Latin virt to the social program of the built
work and the virtue of the citizens and the virtue of the king. He acknowledges the role of
the architeet as someone distinct, with his own realm of virtuous aets. Filarete is someone
who blends the responsibilities and requirements of the varying aspects of design - the virtue
of the patron-king acting with prudent industriousness and military strength, as compared to
the ultimate giving over of the architecture to the citizens, called upon to pursue a virtuus life
dependent on knowledge and ritual in Filarete's city. 1will trace the role of these elements
with his architecture and how they may have provided the impetus for him to write the

Trattato. P-s weil, taking lead from the transformations of the memory arts by Aquinas and
Albertus. Filarete's continuai thread of Christian overtones in the work will be grounded. Not
Incongruous asides nor merely persona! overtures, the making of a city that culminates with
r

the House of Vice and Virtue, is a complex reaJization of his theories on building.

His

architecture is a sacred procedure that puts Forth elements that generate truth and access to
knowledge, divine and secular.

"It is not the function of the poet to relate what has

happened, but what can happen." 17

17

Aristotle. Poetics. (Chapel Hill. NC. 1942). 18.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 Introduction

p o r t

r a

figure 2. Filarete's signature portrait. bronze doors of St. Peter's. 123 cm x 22 cm, back of the Ieft-hand Ieaf.

architecture and the bee / self-portrait

10

- the danc."CETERIS OPER[A]E PRETIUM FUSTUS [ ]MUS VE MIHI HllARJTAS."

This phrase appears on a panel of Filarete's bronze doors for Saint Peter's in Rome.
The panel is an unusual and atypical self-portrait scene, made around 1445. 1 (figure 2) The
Inscription "OPER[A]E PRETIUM" has been translated in two forms: "the price of the work" or, "i! is
worthwhile". This phrasing renders the inscription as either "For others. the priee of the
work, the pride orthe 'smoke', but for me joyfulness" or, "To others the pride of the 'smoke'
makes it worthwhile, to me it is the joy of it.,,2 The self-portrait depieted is certainly full of joy.
Not only

IS

Filarete depieted. but he is trailed by six named disciples. 3 Behind them is an older

figure riding a donkey, emerging from a gate and carrying a jug of wine. The gate bears the
inscription:

"ANTONIUS PETRI DE FLORfNl1A FEOT DIE ULTIMO IULII MCCCXLV .,,4

The disciples are ail

holding hands, wearing work aprons and carrying various tools, in a sort of weaving dance.
Filarete leads the group, and holds an upturned compass inscribing a circle, as they make their
way towards a man seated on a camel. playing reed pipes. Below him, the image bears the
inscription

"DROMEDARJUS."

1 j. R. Spencer.

Around Filarete's feet it is written: .. ANTONIUS ET DISOPULI MEl."

"Filarete. Medallist of the Roman Emperors." Art Bulletin (New York, 1979)

2 C. King. "Filarete's Signature Self-Portrait." Journal

(London. 1991). 297. See a/so. n. 5.

of

the Warburg and Courtauld InstJtutes.

3 C. King. "Filarete's Signature Self-Portrait." 297.

They are: Angniolus. jacobus. jannellus.
Passquinas. lovannes. Varrus Florenti[a]e. See Lazzaroni and Muroz. 79 .

The date of July 31st was uncovered in the 1962 c1eaning of the doors.

rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 If-portrait

11

There are twa other inscriptions on this panel and they bear a bit of consideration .
Underneath the donkey we find the letters "APO a" that have been interpreted as "APO(5TOlQ
CJ[VITATE]" -

"in the city of the Apostle. ,,5 W. von Oettingen, in his study on the treatise,

apparently was generally confounded at this inscription 6 and agreeably, it is difficult to make
clear sense of this interpretation.

Possibly the" APO" can be read as "APO[lOGUS]", meaning

'narrative', rendering the phrase as "the story of the city," which dearly describes the vanous
sciences on the doors.

The doors depiet scenes such as Christ enthroned; Pau! candemned

and executed; Mary; and Peter receiving keys From Pope Eugenius, the foundations of the
Church. In addition, Filarete created four smaJl narrative panels showing Eugenius' pontificate.
It has been suggested that these pietures. inserted into specifie places amid the larger

theologicaJ images 'Nere able to aet as glosses, like illustrations in manuscripts (figures 3.4, S,
6).7 If we consider his self portrait in this rnanner, it appears as a forerunner of the treatise.
Filarete's Trattato can be charaeterized as an evolution cf the 'narrative-portrait' that relates a
contemporary situation side by side with a cJassical scene into one story, carrying a similar vern
of ideas that transpire in the self portrait.

J.

R. Seymour begins ta describe the above scene as this: "Representing the master

with his assistants who weave their way in a 'dance of life' away from Intemperance,
symbolized by a figure holding a jug, on an ass."a

5 C. King. "Filarete's Signature Self-Portrait.

They mave towards a camel at whose

297.

6 W. von Oettingen. Quelfenschri(ten fr Kunstegeschiete und Kunsnechni/( des Mine/alcers und der
Neuze/t- (New York, 1974), 12. See C. King. "Filarete's Signature Portrait", n. 6.

C. W, WestfaJl. In rhis Most Perfeet Paradise. (University Park, PA, 1974), 9.

C. Seymour. Sculpture in Ira/y, 1400- /500. (Battimore. 1966). 116.

archlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 If-portra"

12

head it reads "PlO VI", translated by M. Lazzaroni and A. Murioz to rnean "in divine wine" ("PlO
VI[NO]").9

Catherine King, in her article on the signature portrait, suggests this is not very

convincing and interprets it as "PIO[RUM] VI[RTUS],

If

or, the "virtue of the pious." 10 This

connection of virtue to the came1paints a discemable portrait of Filarete, the self-proclairred

'lover of virtue.' The rest of Seymour's depietion pertaining to the carrel strengthens this citynarrative concept.

He says, the figures are approaching "Virtue and Right Judgemem,

symbolrzed, as in medieval bestiaries, by a dromedary." Il

This particular slant on the

composition links the issues to the larger body of work and ideas of Filarete. Not only do we
see the early emergence of his ideas on virtue as they pertainto the city. but the narrative
structure of the treatise can be seen as a natural extension and deveJopment of a notion of
story-making in a world increasingly involved in composing an archeology of the past, both
formaIly and mythically. These crucial elernents are tempered by the use of remembrance
and recollection of the pasto Other images on the doors, specifically the borders, have also
been linked to medieval bestiaries and drlleries, and it is likely they "conveyed moral
allegories as complicated and pious as the story of Cato and Marcia did to Dante." 12
The dromedary aets as a symbol of piety, a sort of moral emblem to the city. The pig
and an other unidentified animal (a sheep, perhaps) at the camel's feet. along with the ass,
suggest this sort of moral drllerie. While the came1is curiously related to winged serpents

9 M. Lazzaroni and A Murioz. Filarete scuftDre

e architetta dei secolo XV. 79.

10

C. King. "Filarete's Signature Portrait." n. 7, 297.

Il

C. Seymour. Sculpture in lea/y. 116.

12 H. Roeder. "Borders of Filarete's bronze doors" Joumaf

(London, 1948),1 5 1.

of the

Warburg and Courrauld Institutes.

.,chlt.clur. and th. b.. 1 If-portralt

13

(according to the Zohar, the serpent in Eden was a "f1ying camel"),

13

it is also a symbol for

memory.14 As Mary Carruthers asserts, bestiaries existed in monastic libraries to "provide

them, [the monks], with mnemonicaJJy valuable heuristics , orderly "foundations" or sets of
mnemonic lad. n 15 Wrth its natural storage system to carry the essential sustenance of life. and
ability ta maintain i15 strength, the camel easily becomes a metaphor for retention of
knowledge. The use of animais in general in mernory training seerns to derive in part from the
Ad Herennium, an anonYrnQus text written in Rome circa 86-82 B.C.E., where the author uses

a ram's testicles as part of an image-making scheme: "And we shaH place the defendant at the
bedside. holding in his right hand a cup. and in his left tablets, and on the fourth finger a ram's
testicles.

16

As weil, "ifwe wish to recall a horse, a lion, or an eagle, we must place i15 image

in a definite background."

17

During the Middle Ages, animal images were used more

frequentJy in relation to memory techniques: Dominican Hugh of St. Cher used an openmouthed bear in depieting a vicious adversary 18; Thomas Bradwardine used the animais
associated with the zodiac;

York.

19

and in the Renaissance, Peter of Ravenna, a

13 The Zohar is a basic source of the Kabbalah. See also.

962). 37.
14 Ibid.

J.

E. Ciriot. A Oietionary

5th century

of Symbo/s.

(New

37.

15 Carruthers.

The Book.

of Memory.

110.

16 [Cicero] Ad Herennium. III. XX. 33. See editor's note 'b' which tells of a nerve which extends
from the feurth finger of the Ieft hand te the heart.

f7

Ibid. III. XVII,

18 The Book.

30.

of Memory.

128 .

19 Ibid. 134.

archlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 If-portralt

14

1awyer, was able to associate any number of animais ta each letter of the alphabet.

20

It is the

creation of this 'background', the loci. that becomes the memory-making element, and the
essence of this it seems, is in story making. Whether it is the tale of each specifie image. or the
narrative of rnoving along the path and seeing a complex of scenes, the /od and story converge
to make the pieces memorable. In the case of the bronze doors. the story is contained within
115

images and enclosed by the frame of the doors. The use by Filarete of a camel's retention

of knowledge transports the wisdom from architeet/sculptor into the ritualistic dance and the
public arena of the city. The narrative of Filarete and his workers dancing at the completion of
the doors, amid an assortment of animais and music creates a visible and palpable story that
begins to establish a consistency in imagination and philosophy in Filarete's own vision on
remembrance and virtue for a meaningfuJ life in the city.

- antigug Aiso included on the bronze doors, amid contemporary scenes of ceremonies are
Christian stories and myths of antiquity, like medieval margina/ia,21

Among them there is

Hercules and the Bull, Cadmus and the Dragon, the Death of Hercules and animal scenes
derived From Aesop, The collage of images hints at the emerging Renaissance equation of
contemporary authority paralleling ancient and religious authorities, The borders themselves
seem to function as memorative eues, creating loose correlations to contemporary events a.. ~

20 Ibid. 109. Also, Dominican Cosimo RoseIIi associated an animal to each letter of the alphabet.
remembering the word 'air', for example. with a donkey Cosinus), elephant, and rhinoceros. See Yates. r 19.
21 C. Seymour. "Sorne Reflections on Filarete's use of Antique VisuaJ Sources,"
(Milan. 1973), 37,

Arre Lombarda.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 lf-porlr.U

15

people, forming the frame of a Renaissance preoccupation with antiquity. The images consist
of not only mytho1ogical scenes, but simple pietures of birds, fruit and ftowers amid large
acanthus ornarrentation (figure 4). These are early metaphorical rrotifs, traditionally made to
create rnemorable pages in books 22, and applied in this case to doors for the city, transforming
their relevance into a social and public environment.
Amid the representation of the many Roman emperor medallions there exists a tmid
self-portrait relief in the doors' border.

It shows a young man, resembling Filarete. in a

charaeteristically Roman coin motif (See top edge of figure 4). Spencer has dated it ta pre1445 and also attributed a number of aetual coins depieting Roman emperors and classical
stories as being fabricated by Filarete. 23 It is frtting ta believe that "Filarete view[ed] such
celebrities not only as figures of historical eminence but also as exemplars of virtue. " 2 4

It

seems this is a modest start of Filarete's ideas on architeeture's relevance for a city. The
creation of!Wo bronze doors plants the seed, perhaps, of the potential of social imagery. The
responsibility of Filarete's designs are expanded and grow. shifting from the pope's Rome to
the laying out of his ideas on a new city for Sforza.

- beesThe explanation of these two self-portrait inventions leads to a discussion of Filarete 's

22 Carruthers. The Bool< of Memory. 246. "Certain classes of images appear over and over in the
margins from the earliest decorated books through hand-painted printed books. These include jeweJs, cOins.
bwds, fruit. flowers (sometimes shown with insets sucking their nectar). and scenes of hunting and flShing. bath
by animaIs and humans."

23

J.

R. Spencer. "Filarete, Medallist of the Roman Emperors." Art Bulletin. (New York. 1979)

24 C. Lord. "Solar 1magery in Filarete's doors to St. Peter's." Gazette des Beoux Arts. (Liechtenstein,
1976). 145.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th.

b.. 1 lf-portr.U

16

bronze self-portrait medal 25 (figure 7). Dated to the 1460'5, this design summarizes Filarete '5
ideology.

By probing the metaphor he presents us 1 hope to locate a key reading of the

Trattato. Imitating an ancient artistry and inserting his own imagination into its mode, Filarete
strives ta show us his desired position of virtuous-architeet.

Cyriac d'Ancona searched

antiquity to "wake the dead". He believed that through antiquity his contemporaries would
~recognize their true names" and thus find their true selves. 26

1 believe we can attach a

similar sentiment ta Filarete, in that his ambition strives ta establish an expansion of

architecture, reaching out ta the essences that establish a meaningful life.
The self-portrait sho'NS us a profile of Filarete's head on the front, surrounded by three
bees and the inscription:

"ANTONIVSAVERlINVSARCHITECTVS."

The verso depiets a man sitting at

a tree with its trunk cut open ta reveal an over-flowing honeycomb that forms a pool of honey
at ilS base. Bees swarm around him as he works at the tree to reveal its richness. The
InscriptJon reads: "vr

SOL AVGET APES SIC NOBIS COMMOOA PRINCEPS."

The gentle help of the

prince is like the assistance of the sun to augment the bees' making of a sweet fruit.
The bee is industrious and selfless and Filarete invokes it as a plea to his patron for
munificence, atone that underlies the whole treatise. Mer a dedicauon to Piero d'MediCJ 2
the story begins with Filarete recaJling being at a dinner party where the conversation turned

25 There are two copies of the medaJ. the better of them located at Gablnetto nUmismatlco ln

Milan.
26 C. Mitchell. "Archaeology and Romance in Renaissance Poetry." lralian Renaissance Studies.
(London, 1960). 470. Quoted from Mehus., Kyraid Anconitani ftenrarium. (Florence. 1742).

27 The treatise was rededicated to Piero in 1464. Although the original tome was written for
Francesco Sforza. it is assumed that Filarete rededicated it after leaving Milan. hoplng to obtain work
elsewhere. The PaJatinus 141 1 manuscript contains the dedication to Sforza. See n. 5. page 4 ln the
Spencer translation.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 'f-portr.lt

17

to architecture, and there being no other architeets present, he steps forward, saying Perhaps
U

you will think me presumptuous for attempting tG tell yeu these modes and measures .. .[but] 1
beg your exceJlency ta be attentive while he listens ta my arguments to the same extent that he
would if he had ordered his troops to reconquer and defend one

of his dearest possessions... 28

Not

only does Filarete relate architecture for the patron-king as a action similar to seizing a military
opportunity and appealing to his desire for manly excellence, but, ft is Filarete's hope that the
patron love the architect as his own wife, honoring her and being a devoted mate ta the
work. For the architeet's kllCMAedge is rare and [she] should be esteemed for it, because ..
U

.[she] is called noble insofar as [s]he has virt... 29 Obtaining this honor Filarete reaIizes depends

upon the virtuous action by the architeet. However, the architeet's action is as a

~[over

of

vlrtue", the arete of goodness and excellence of charaaer. 30 Part of this role involves the
gestation of the design idea, like a mother. Since the building is like man according to Filarete.
it also requires a lime of conception and birth.
"" genare dello edifido si in questa forma: che si come niuno per s solo
non pu generare sanza la donna un a/tIn, cosi eziandio a simi/iwdine 10 edificio per
une solo non pu essere

eatO,

e come sanza la donna non si pua fare, cosi cdu;

che vuo/e edificare bisogna che abbia f'architetto e insieme collui ingenerarlo. e pd
f'architetto partorirlo e poi, partito che l'ha, l'architetto viene a essere la madre

d'esso edifido. . . . Cosi l'architetto debba nove

28

sene mesi fantasticare e

Treatise. f. 1v.-2r., 5. Trattato. 9.

29 Treotise. f. 9r., 18. Trattato, 44. In caJling the architect female 1 am following the metaphor
Filarete develops about the mother-father relationship.
30 Oassic Greek. Oictionary. (Chicago, 1962), 100-101.

archlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 If-portralt

18

pensare e rivoitarseJo per 'a memoria in pi modi. "3 J

The architeet is entrusted with the life of the prince's kingdom and requires love. Not only
must the prince love the architect as a wife, but the architect must sustain the design with her
own nourishment.

Part of this gestation involves meditation and study, another requires

searching out of ail the materials necessary for a successful birth and fostering of the
relatlonship. like someone in love. This metaphor of architecture is also quite alchemical in
tone. "Philosophers contemplating their alchemical works are like a rnother contemplating the
fruit of her womb ... and the art is like the development of the embryo and then the child." 3 2
The work of architecture must be loved and maintained as a body.
The architeet locates a site in the treatise and begins to locate the materials and
Filarete relates this process to us in episodic stories. In locating the site for Sforzinda he tells
the first of many 'adventures'; '" found a gentleman near this valley . .. After vve had dined wtJile
discussing many things, he saw that , wanted to see the valley. . . Since 1 desired ta knON off the
good and utility

of this valley.

1 asked him the name

of the river that flo.ved through

that it was called Sforzindo and the valley was called Inda. ... Then
out and looking at its shape.,,33

it. He said

we rode along searchmg it

ln the self-portrait medal, Filarete depiets an image of the

architeet working at a tree, searching out its own shape and plenitude. He delves imo the

31 Trattata. f. 7v.. 40. Trearise, 15: The building is conceived in this manner. Smce no one can
conceNe by himse/fwithout a 'MJman, by another simile, the bui/ding cannot be conceived by one man a/one. As
Ir cannot be done without a IMJman, so he who wishes ta build needs an architeet. He conceives ir with him and
then rhe architect cames it. '" Before the architect gives birth he shou/d dream about his conceprion. thinl<
about ir. and wm it over in his mind in many 'M:1}'S for seven ta nine mon ths. " Spencer does not translate the
CruCIal term 'memoria'.
y

of A/chemy. (London, 1994), 22.

32

G. Roberts. The Mirror

33

Trearise. f. Ilv.-12r., 23. Trattata.53.

archlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 If-portralt

19

tree with his tools - a symbolic tree-of-life perhaps - to find ail its sweetness. The honeycomb
fills the tree, a microcosm of the worfd and the architeet reveals the nectars hidden within
each cel!. The throng of bees f1ying about his head and the tree are like the workers Filarete
mentions - that much depends on good rnaster masons, because ifthey are bad. shame and
damage may come to the projeet. 34 Filarete's excursions describe trips into the countryside,
surveying of land, finding f10wing rivers of crystal water full of fish, crops of grain, wine, oil,
saffron and apples, deer and ail sorts of wood and marble necessary for the buildings. The
hunt too, is a rremory metaphor - Aristotle says that people recolleet from a starting point and
"hunt successively, n and Quintilian relates that a skillful orator knows his memory places in the
same vvay a hunter knows how to track game. 35 The architeet's excursions are quests for
suitable building materia/s, the tirst step of formulating his worthy and noble designs.
Filarete 's procurement and discovery of the fruits of the world, examined with the
image of the honey-extraetor on the medal brings us to the bee-trope in rnemory circles. The
bees on the bronze medal "pack close the f10wering honey and swell their cells with nectar
sweet. "36 Quintilian. in his Institutio oratoria, equates the orator, rnaking an eloquent speech
from many different sources to the bee making honey.37 The honey comb is like a book and
each cell a storeroom for knowledge and wisdom. The bee gathers as the architeet similarly
does, and tucks it away into the chambers of her memory. "The search for wisdom is a

34

Treotise. f. Br.. 16. Trattato., 4 r .

35 Institutio oratorio. V, X. 20-22.

36 Vergil.

The Aeneid. l. X. 7 .

371nstitutio oratorio. 1. X. 7.

archltectur. and th. bee 1 If-portralt

20

search for the symbols of order that we encounter . . . medieval poets and mystics stress the
motive of the hunt... 38

It is important. however, to elaborate on this metaphor of memory

and bees. The criticaJ element in the gathering and hunting of various nectars in not that these
pieces are colleaed and repeated by rote or simply displayed. Instead, theyare kept for what
Albertus Magnus caUs 'reminiscence.'39

It is the uinvestigatio" with the memory in a heuristic

rI1.anner. 40 To relate this distinction to the bee-model of mnemonics we must acknowledge

the enti rety of the honey-making process r specifically digestion/mellification. The use of a
mnemonic scheme depends upon a transformation of the components. Seneca suggests "we
should see to it that whatever we have absorbed should not be allowed ta remain
unchanged, or it will be no part of us. We must digest it; otherwise it will rnerely enter the
memory and not the reasoning power [ingenium]. .. 41

The various substances require

b!ending into a new essence for a rneaningful life.

T. M. Greene writes about the storage of the nectar and its transformation: "We do
not, perhaps cannot, know exaetJy how nectar becomes honey, how food becomes tissues
and blood; analogously the assimilation of our reading is a process not to be codified" and
Seneca's analogies have maintained such a long life simply because he uis taetful enough to
leave a space for an invisible event." 42

1think it is fair to suggest Filarete was aware of the

38 l. Illich. In the Vineyard of the Text. (Chicago, 1993). 31.

39 Albertus Magnus. Liber de memoria et reminescentia. tr. 2, c. 1. (p. 107): [R]eminlscentla nlhll

alrud est nisi Investigatio obliti per memoriam. n See The Book of Memory. n. 19. 292 .

40

Carruthers. The Book. of Memory. 20.

41

Seneca. Ad Lud/ium. 281 .

42

Greene. The Light in Troy. 74.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 If-portr.1t

2 1

broad range of associations contained in the bee symbol, with Seneca's words having had a
long influence. The issues touched upon by Greene hold great relevance in relation to
mellification and architecture. The transformation of substances is intrinsically the magic the
architeet performs in building. ln Delphic beliefs the three fateful sisters known as the Thriae
were also called bees. They lived in a rock cleft of Mt. Parnassus and made wax. "Their
divining could only be relied on when they could feed on 'the sweet food of the gods'; if
honey was denied them, they lost direction and would not speak the truth. "43 The space of
the invisible event is precisely the key of creation, or alchemical transformation of the soul. 44
When Filarete discusses the various modes of explaining his designs no single element carnes
Wlth

it the entirety of the project and he repeatedly shifts From verbal description ta drawings

and promises comprehensive understanding upon completion. It is this invisible, digestive.

gestational process that aJlo\NS the true and virtuous, that is, ethicaJly grounded construaion of
architecture to emerge.

43 Quoted from Rykwert. On Adom's House in Porodise. 142. The quote

IS

from Homer.

44 See T. Burckhardt. "The alchemist. in his dreamlike search. brings to the light of day certain
contents of his own soul previously unknown to him. and thus. without consciously intending to do 50. bnngs
about a kind of reconciliation between his superlicial, ego-bound. everyday consciousness and the unforrned
(but form seeking) power of [his unconscious]. A/chemy. science of the cosmos. sdence of the sout. (London.
ft

1967).8.

.,chll.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 If.portr t

22

figure 3. Emperor Sigismund retumirg te Castel SanfAngeb. bronze dool'5 at St. Peter's.

figure 4. Birds and acanthus. borders of the bronze doors at St. Peter's.1eft: Ieaf. bottom rail.

architecture and the bee 1 self-portrait

23

figure S. Detatl d right Ieaf, martyrdom d St. Peter, bronze ctocn of St. Peter's.

figure 6. Detail cl rVtt teaf, departure of the Greeks, bronze doors at St. Peter's.

architecture and the bee 1 self-portrait

24

figure 7. Self-portrait medal of Filarete. Gabinetto numismatico, Milan.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 lf-portr.1I

25

fou

nd

at

ons

figure 8. Initial letter "P", Codex Magliabecchianus, Biblioteca Nazionale. Florence.

architecture and the bee

1 foundations

26

The correlation of memory and cities is told in two stories by Filarete that differ in plot.
but show two sides of the same mernorative 'coin' present in the Renaissance. One tells of
discovering, the unearthing of a box of relies from 'antiqurty'; the other of creating a foundation
box, containing symbolic items gathered together to preserve the memory of the city
Sforzinda. Mer consulting his astrologer for a fortuitous date and hour to lay the tirst stone of
the city, [ Sforza allows Filarete ta forge ahead with the plans and preparations for the
ceremony. It is this gathering of elements for the foundation of Sforzinda we will examine tirst
(figure 9).
While the elements are intended to substantiate and nurture a virtuous and vital city,
the fad that they are hidden and stowed away inside the body of the building is indicative of
Filarete's preoccupation with memoria and its relation ta the gestation/digestion process.
"Symbolic memory is the process by which man not only repeats his past experience but a/so
reconstruets this experience."2

Consider the words of Hugh of St. Vidor concerning this

procedure: Hugh suggests that we need ta "gather brief and dependable abstraets" in the
"chest of our memory". Later, when required, we will be able to access the combinations
colleeted and "turn [them] over in the mind and regurgitate from the stomach of one's

1 It is determined to be April 15, 1460, 21 minutes after 10:00. See n. 4, 43 in TreatJse and
Spencer's article "La Datazione deI Trattato dei Filarete desunto da suo esame interiore." Rivisra d'Arre.
(1956) .

E. Cassirer. An Essay on Man. 57.

.rchltecture and the

bee 1 foundatlona

27

memory to taste them, lest by long inattention to them, they disappear. ,,3

This rnetaphoric

process a/50 echoes Filarete's sentiments on the gestation period of the mother-architeet.

The components involved in Filarete's ritual reconstruction are a dated marble stone
inscribed with the name of Sforza, the pope and Filarete. In the cornerstone a marble box is
placed, containing lead and bronze effigies of worthy men, vases holding various substances
and a bronze book "dO.te fatto memaria di tutte le case di questa nostra et e anche degfi
uomini degni da loro fatte. .. 5

Not only does this book have the figures of Vice and Virtue

carved on them, but the other projeets of Filarete are also carved on the box - the Milan
hospital, the Bergame church, and his doors for St. Peters - "the noble things 1have done... 6 This
desire for recognition strives ta create a noble soul. Filarete wishes to invent an image of his
noble character that is etemal, in the way that Gad is eternal.

Later in the treatise. during the

excavation of items, the king implores Filarete "non guardate a spesa nessuna e a fare case
perpetue, e massime fa memoria. .. 7 Filarete wishes to obtain a personal honor, putting his virtue

at his patron's disposaJ, 50 that the king rnay triumph even iffortune does not shine on the city.
ln addition ta the vice / virtue book, Filarete also intends to place inside the box
another book which will contain moral stories, reminiscent of the stories on the dcx:>rs of St.

3 Hugh of St. Victor. Didoscolicon. 94.

.. See 'self portrait' chapter.

rhlS

5 Traaoeo. f. 2Sr., 103. Treacise, 44: "... in 'Nhich there is

our age and the deed of worthy men."
6 Ibid.

book of bronze containing the record of

f. 25 r.

7 Trattaeo. f. 102r.. 389.

memorial co this f<ing...

Treatise. 179: .. Forgee the expense but build etemal rhings, espeally the

archltectur. and th. b.. 1 foundatlona

28

Peter's as moral - mnemonic eues.

The mirroring, or doubling, of the 'box' parables in the

treatise rely heavily upon the book-trope. The signiticance of the inclusion of books in the
foundation box is not to be overlooked - they are extemal rrernory banks. 8 While Filarete's
concern with memory and virtue relies upon this sort of gathering and burial of items, we can
withness a diferent understanding of these issues for the condottiere turned prince. This
exploration of virtue and the prince's architecture is concerned with the discovery /
rediscovery of these texts as guides to construeting the city.

-e le me nts"A dty ought ta be like the human body and for this reason it should be fUll

of 011 that gives

life ta man. .. 9 This describes the vital substances Filarete places inside the cornerstone oox of
Sfozinda's first building. Six earthen vases are made and filled with grain, water, wine, milk, ail.
and honey. Each has its own generative force and its essence is kept pure inside the buildingbody. If this precious box of essences, the pith 10 of the construeted body is maintained then
the city will be strong and able to aet properly. It is a matter of giving symbolic images the
correct, memorable form 50 they have strength. 11 Vases and vessels inherently symbolize a
place ta store thing5 to be remembered. The Codex A1exandrinus, a 5th century Greek

8 S. Huot. "rnventiona/ Mnemonics." Connotations. (Munster, Germany. 1993/4). 104.

9

Treatise. f. 25v.. 45. Trattato. 104.

la One etymological root of the word memory, (s)mer-, is connected to pith. marrow. and the
medulfa. the very 'stuff of life. See C. Ounne. "The Roots of Melnory."
Il E.H. Gombrich. "'cones Symbolicae: the visual image in Neo-Platonic thought." journal
Warburg and Courrauld Institutes. (London, 1948).

rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 foundation.

of the
29

Bible provides an applicable image of an empty vase with the words of Gad pouring into it 12
A full vase symbolizes fertility and is a simile for Filarete of ail that gives life. At Paestum. for
example. a small, sealed building / tomb has been found that contained eight bronze
amphorae and two bronze hydriae, holding honeycomb, the sweet preservative of life. l3
The first vase of Sforzinda contains grain and the container depiets the portraits of
Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the "three fatal goddesses in whom our life consists, that is one
spins. one receives the thread, and the other breaks ie. On the vase nothing is written but these two
words, Life and Death, for there is nothing in this vvorId but living and dying. A dty endures for the
term conceded ta

je. n 14

The next vase contains water, because it is "dean, pure, and dear and very useful ta
everyone.

If it is not dirtied by other matter, it always dear and ludd.

inhabitants

of the dty should be dear and dean and useful to others.

In the same way the

If this water is dirtied and

spoiled by paor actions of the residents, the men themse[ves are defiled and will not be nobly
remembered. In its rnost reduced etymological form, 'memory' becomes 'mr' - the letter 'm'
representing "water n and the Jetter r', "head". to form an intriguing relationship of memory to
1

the fiowing vitality of life. 15

Water contains everything that was in existence prior tO the

materia prima and contains ail wisdom. [t is symbolic of both life and death. the submersion

12

See Carruthers. The Book. of Memory. n. 64, 345.

13 J. Rykwert. The Idea of a TO'M1. (Cambridge. J 976). 35. See also, on honey as a sacnfiCJaI
substance. n. 59. 206. Honey acts as a preservative and was offered to the dead. The souls of the dead were
also called bees. See n. 9. On Adam's House in Paradise.

14

Treatise.

f. 25v., 45. Trattato. 104.

15 C. Ounne. "The Roots of Memory." 120. For more on water and its symbolic content, see 1.
Illich, H20. or the Waters of Forgetfulness.

30

and interment of death and the birth of the whole world that has sprung from it. and is
symbolized succinetly by baptism.
"Wine 1indude because it is a liquor suited
excess takes ~ bath feeling and health ." 16

ta the life of man if used tempera te/y. Its

Wine represents blood and sacrifice. "Ali liquid

substances ... which were offered up in antiquity ... were images of blood." 17 A5 a symbol
of blood. wine a/so elevates man to Gad. acknowfedging the elernent of the divine in aH men.
On the converse, there is the vase of milk. which "as every man knCMtS, ... is distilled b/ood" 18
It is the basic nourishing element of mankind, and represents the purity that we should

pursue, as weil as alluding again to Filarete's basic mother-father relationship of architeaure.

19

The architeet places within the body-child-building the sacrificial blood of birth and the

unadulterated blood of nourishment for a purified and virtuous existence. The fifth vase
contaJns oil, which Filarete calls useful and naturally inclined to rise above water. It

IS,

of

course, related to Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, to whom the olive tree is dedicated. "The
olive signifies viaory and peace. This great city should have viaory, peace, and. like ail, dominion
over thase smaller than itse/f, 'Nth 'Nsdom, pleasantness, and in a good manner. ,,20

Lastly. there is the vase of honey, placed in the foundation because it is sweet and the
"They desire and have a lord and ruler over themselves

bees are industrious, severe, and just.

/6

Treatise. f.25v., 45. Trattata, 105.

17

J.

18

Treatise.

19

See above. "self-portrait" chapter.

E. Cirlot. Dietionary of Symbots. 24.

f. 25v.. 45. Trarrata. 105.

20 Treatise. f. 25v.. 45. Tfarrata, 105.

rchltecture .nd the b.. 1 found.tlona

31

and they fol/ON ail his commands.

becomes so oId chat he con

Everyone has his task and everyone abeys. When their ru/er

no longer ffy, through justice and demency chey carry him. Thus shou/d

the men of the city be. . . . Thus ther fruits INill be sweet and usefiJ/ like those of che bees.,,2 lin

Orphie tradition the bees are symbols of wisdom and "the spiritual exercise of selfimprovement, "22 and self-improvement depends upon the gathering of knowledge.
transforrned into wisdom by the memory. The honey of the bronze jars at Paestum suggest
the worship of a dead person. the memory of a saerificed founder. 23 "Thus though a bee
weak in body, yet it is strang through the power of wisdom and the lover of virtue. "24

IS

It is

hoped !hat the city of Sforzinda will be wise and good by remembering these elements placed
within its own 'body' and the symbolic burial of the ritual within the inhabitants, memory.

jnterment.
The box of elements buried within the body-building is ceremoniously placed with the
digging of three shovels of earth, symbolizing the "three rimes, past, present and future." The
aa of burial is deliberate and crucial for the ability of the foundation elements to maintain their
symbolic and literai power.

The enclosure keeps their consummate purity intaa. as a

hermetically seaJed sanetuary. Symbolically, theyare buried into the foundation of man, his city

21 Treatise.

22

J.

f. 26r.. 45-6. Trattato. 105.

E. Griot. Dietionary of Symbols. 24.

23 RyIGvert. Idea of a To'MI. 35 .. and n. 59. 206. On honeyas a sacrificiaJ food. see Paulys. RealEncydopadie der Kfassichen. Ed. Georg AltertumS'Nissenschaft: new edn.. (Stuttgart: Wissowa) 1894 ff.

F. Unterkircher. Tiere, Glaube, Aberglaube: Die Schoensten Minaturen aus dem Bestiarum. (Raz:
Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt) 1986. Quoted from H. Biederrnan. Dictionary of Symbofism. (Faas on
File. 1992). 35.
24

.rchll.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 found.tlons

32

that is built up in the mind. the social memory of a city; the box is contained by her body, the
flesh of the building. Their memory is kept present by the remembrance of the ritual as weil

as the visual date on the cornerstone. Every inhabitant that "could see. inscribed on marble or
bronze stele. the decrees and oaths .. 25 was connected to the larger sacred city.
Ouring the placement of the foundation stone there is an incident involving the death
of one of the workers. " During the excavation one of the diggers saw a hole near him. With hls
shoveJ he lifted a large piece of earth and d;scovered a den where a large and bOutifUI serpent was
coiled up. . . . The serpent wrapped itseff around h;s neck. and squeezed 50 hard that it rook his
lire ... 26

The death of this man provides a sort of necessary sacrifice to the work and a1lows the

prudence and wisdom to prevail over anger. -The killing of the man ;s chis: someone will come
as a beast to the dty and without roson. will wish ta do it harm. and it will turn on him in its (ury.
kill him and undo him. It then will retire and gCNern itseJf with prudence and wisdom . .. 27

It imparts

the mark of 'tomb' to the foundation stone. Ni a symbolic casket, the box a/so suggests the
alchemicaJ opus and the personification of the king and his tomb as a stage of the process. In
alchemicaJ theory. the birth of the work could not occur unless a death happened first. 28
The Renaissance, and Filarete's treatise on architecture. depends upon these
metaphors of resuscitation and the rebirth of antiquity.

2S

J.

lt occurs as "no accident that the

Rykwert. The Ideo of a TO'MI. 40.

26 Treatise. f.

26v, 47.

27 Treatise. f.

45r, 78.

28 One emblernatic representation of the alchemlcal process involves a series of images of a kIng
who is, in one variation. chopped into pieces, buried. and exhumed. becoming whole again. It IS a death that
QCcurs in order to retum to basic elements. the prima mat.eria. 50 that a new understanding of the self. and
hence the worfd. can be bom.

archltectur. and th. be. 1 foundallon.

33

cultivation of memory received new and careful attention.,,29 1think we can begin to discern
how rnemory is related to virtue in the Renaissance envioenment and operates differentJy
from a medieval schoalstic method.

a visual mnemonic device, we can imagine the sight of

the stone and recall the mornentous start of the city, acting as lia complex of symbols; in which
the citizen, through a number of bodily exerdses, such as processions, ... [and] sacrifices.
identifies himself with his town, with its past and its founders. ,,30

The sight and rernebrance

of these items must be done with prudence and wisdom says Filarete, inherently binding this
virtuous memory to actions that create a menaingful site for the citizens.

the archtieet.

Filarete's relationsip to this civic action is removed. He places himself to the side, with the
prince and pope at the foundation ceremony; a director and moral conscious of the group. the
archltea becomes an assistant. aiding the prince in his own pursuit of establishing a virtuous
and solid footing. The interment of the foundation box is a prelude to the resurrection that
occurs later in the treatise, when the city of PlusiaJX>Iis is founded from the watery depths of
antiquity.

29 Greene. Ught in Troy. 31 .

30 Rykwert. Idea of a TO'Ml. 189. Rykwert's cencern is te "show the tewn as a total mnemonic

symbol."

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 found.tlon.

34

figure 9. Plan of Sforzinda. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee 1 foundations

35

a t

1 excavations

36

figure 10. Tibuma Serpentaria. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee

stones"We discavered a rather large ship. Its wocxJ

short rime."

WQS

as sound as if it had been there but a

Excavated from the depths of the port of Plusiapolis, an unusually formed boat

emerges pristinely preserved, and also is a wooden tomb (figure 10).

Called Tiburna

Serpentaria, it is as black as coal, a petrified ark, a necromantic allegory of disinterment and

rebirth. 2 (figure! 1) The formulation of the equation between the knowledge of antiquity and
the literaJ archaeology of items, a critical propellent of Renaissance imagination, becomes fully
realized at the port of Plusiapolis. Filarete shifts our out/oak from the burial and safekeeping of
the estimable things of architecture to the excavation of them in order to reveal the
opportunities and events that will establish this well-founded city.
The exhumed boat contains a wooden chest on its deck that is very heavy and "bound
in such a

way that no one could see hON ta open it. ,,3 The contents, though solemn in nature,

are "noble things" of gold and precious stones and a small gold casket containing a cup of
emeraJd carved with figures. One of these figures, a nymph-like creature, holds a unicorn in
one hand and a tiger in her other. Around it are written these /etters: "l, Queen Demiramisse.

Treatise. f. 157v.. 270. Tratta ta , 585.

2 Leonardo da Vinci also records a similar event. Nobooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 1. trans. E. McCurdy
(New York. 1938. 356). This story is aise told by Fontius in 1485, about a tomb found on the Via App1a; and
ln 1599 the Cardinal of S. Cecilia found a body of St. Cecilia divinely preserved. See F. SaxI. "The C1assicaJ
Inscription in Renaissance Art and Politics." Joumal of Warburg and Courtauld Instiwtes. (London. 1941).
3

Treatise. f. 157v.. 270. Trattato. 585.

.rchlctur. .nd th. b..

.xc.v.llon.

37

send thee this cup (rom which you will be pleased ta drink..

When you see it, chink.

of thy

Oemiramisse... 4 Drinking from the cup of antiqurty is a similar rnetaphor to "eating the book, a
ft

recommendation given to Ezekial (3 :5). 5

The allusion to a Biblical metaphor of study in the

same story of an ancient artifact enfoces Filarete's ideology of blending cJassical and Christian
tenents. It r-etums to the mellification / digestion process of learning; by filling our stomach wlth
the works of the ancients we can satisfy our present needs and was used by medieval scholars
as an injunction to memorative study.

The understanding that this cup is sorrething seen ta

convey its particular narrative is significant as weil, forming a recolleetive impression that

IS

distlnguished from the ordinary events of life.

The marvelousness of this discovery is celebrated by a ceremonious delivery of the
boat by river to Sforzinda where it is placed on four columns. decorated with gold and
positioned in front of the temple. The entire ship and its box becomes a monument to the
former kingdom. Freed from its moorings and uplifted to the sky. it is transformed into a
meanlngful, civlc memory. As an architectural element ln Filarete's design, this monument
comprises part of the web of memory devices formed ta enable a noble and worthy city. It is
an immortal treasure, incorruptible and pure, and its arrangement into the city ensures the
retention of its erudition. 6 Filarete composes a merrorial ta leave an etemaJ expression of his
Renaissance city, exhibiting its scholarship and preeminence among others, a gesture that

"' Ibid.

5 See Jerorre. Commentarium ln Ezekial, PaYolagia cursus camplecus. series Latina 00. J.-P. Migne.
(Paris. 1841 -64). AIse. Revelation 10:9: MAnd 1 went unte the angel. and said unto him. glve me the little
book. And he said unto me, take it, and eat it up."
6 See Hugh of St. Victor, "De Tribus Maximis Circurnstantiis Gestorum." translated by M. Carruthers,
"Apr:endix A", The Book. of Memary, 261.

architecture and the b.. 1 excavation.

38

speaks of the charaeter of the city. For the prince Sforza, however, the establishing of a
memorial to the past conves his prowess as a ruler. Induded in this mesh are the words of
the prior city's king, transmitted to Filarete via the other excavation at Plusiapolis - the
unearthing of the stone box.
ln crafting his narrative, Filarete creates a story of resurrection. During the excavation
arrangements for Plusiapolis a stone box is exhumed. It too, carries with it implications of a
grave, containing a likeness of the former king as part of its contents. As an archaeological find,
the disentombment summons together the ancient wisdom and insight Filarete seeks and
breaks it out of its vault, giving the past and present a common place of life. A construeted
mnemonie device in the story, its items also impart the knowledge Filarete wishes to explicate
about building.
Digging foundations for a building reveals "a square stone ... almost like a large chest"
It

15

written upon with "/ettere antichissime" in Hebrew, Arabie and Greek and the intenor

chamber reveals " a smal/ lood box. .. also a large book of ail gold .. .[that] stood on edge.

In

the remainder of the hal/ON there were two vases of the same meta! as the book. " 7 When the

lead box is opened a golden head with a crown full of precious stones is discovered. and the
rest of the lead box is filled with colored jewels and a green and red cup. eovered in jewels
and carved wi~ an image of the king's head. The placement of these items within the interior
lead box lends an aura of weightiness to the king's dominion and the authority of his words as a
guide to making a city are ta be revealed in the inf1uentiaJ book of gold, a mnemnonie of text
and glosses.

Tremise. f. IOlr.-IOlv.. 177-78. Trattato. 385-86.

39

- books The book u was made in an unusual manner so that we had considerable difficulty in
finding hON to

unseal.

open it. n8 Again.

as in the case of the queen's chest, the case is a challenge to

1believe this speaks to the nature of the allegories about to be revealed - Filarete

desires to bestow a vi rtuous , unbroken relay of truths to the city from this box, becoming like
an oracle. Merrory, however, is Unot just any strongbox or storagechest - it is particularly the
one in which bCXJks are kept... 9 The book rtself is a mnemonic mode!, the place where "dicta
et facta memorabilia

10

are kept; wisdom is stored in the archa of the heart says Hugh of St.

Victor. Traditionally, books were kept in horizontal cupboards or recesses in the wall and
called arca, armarium, or th esa uri, and is among the mos! common of memory metaphors.
The arca is al 50 understood as the Ar!< of the Covenant, which is itself a book, and also the Ark
of Noah - an arca preserving life itself. See figure 12, where the Ar!< of Noah is represented
as a chest with legs and a lid. The metaphor collapses and doubles simultaneously. The story
Filarete relates of finding the box and book is not an oddity, but immersed within this cultural
reliance on memory, and he reinvents the metaphor as an archaeological discovery. There
are countless variations on the discovery of books in temples and libraries. Hugo of Santalla
discovered an astronomical treatise in a secret area of a library;

Il

Lynn Thorndike tells us

about a hermetic book found in a golden ark within a silver chest , in turn placed within a

Treatise. f. 101 v.. 178. Trattato. 387.

Carruthers. The Book of Memory. 43.

10 Carruthers. The Book

11

of Memory. 8

W. Eamon. Sdence and the Seaets of Nature. (Princeton. 1994). 42.

rchltecture

and

the bee 1 excavation.

40

casket of lead; 12 and a complete copy of Quintilian 's Institutio oratore was discovered by
Poggio Bracciolini in 1416 in the depths of a rnonastic tower.

13

"The genre presented

seemingly endless variations on a theme involving the discovery of sacred bocks and the
revelation of scientific knowledge. 14
ft

Peter of Ravenna, a writer of a popular Renaissance book on rnemory, instruets us that

a "well-trained rnernory is mast like a book containing both text and glosses. n 15 The golden
book of Plusiapolis transmits this two-fold rrerrory (figure 13). "1 King ZogIia, lNhich means in our
vulgor tangue 'Nise, rich, trained in many sdences, feave this treasure in your guordionship, F%non
and Orbioti. No one 'Nil! ever be able ta touch this treasure unti/ there cornes
(rom 0 smalf prindpare and through his

man who will rise

own virt acquire a substantiaf kingdom. "16 The book's

form is detailed by Filarete. The largest book he has ever seen, the exterior boards were
thlck and covered in gold, with the Figures of Will and Reason depieted earlier in the treatlse.
on the coyer. The interior pages were "each one-eighth onoa thick . .. engraved [with] vorious
morality ffgures

17

ail explained in detail to Filarete by the interpreter. He "saw and noted

Il L Thomdike.

The HistDry of Magic and Experimental Sdence. vol. 2

(New York), 224.

P. S. Boskoff. "Quintilian in the Late Middle Ages." Speculum. (Cambridge, 1952). 76. AIse. see
Yates. The Art of Memory. 56. 112.
13

14

Eamon. Sdence and the Secrets of Nawre. 43.

15 From Carruthers The Book of Memory. 109.

16 Treatise. f. 103r.. 181. Trattato. 393. See a/sa n.2. 393. on the anagram of Folonon and OrbJati,
possibly explained as "Filelfo. Antonin. and Libro"

17 Treatise. f. 109r., 190. Tra ua ta , 412.

architecture and

the

bee 1 excavation.

41

carefully everything and made drawings

of the appearance of ail [the] buildings. " 1a

There seems

to be a general confusion overthe drawing of the golden book in the treatise, with "Memoria
Ingegno Inte/leta" on its cover, as it is generally identified as the 'found book', but the drawing,

placed earlier in the treatise, corresponds to the 'buried book' of Sforzinda. We can assume
that these books are simifar in Filarete 's mind, though, given the fact that he develops their
essences as one unit - a made book and a found book, both containing the measures and
modes of building. There is, of course, also a third book, the treatise rtself, which undoubtedly
Filarete hoped would be preserved as nobly as the two inside the story.'9

The engraved

pages of the golden book also resurrect the classical memory metaphor of wax tablets: "he
wrote down what he wanted to remember in certain places in his possession by means of
Images, just as if he were inscribing letters on wax." 20

The rest of Filarete's own book, his

treatise, depends upon the exhumed book for the remainder of Plusiapolis' designs. It guides
him with foresight and scholarship - revealing sorne truth of the ancient city impressed upon
these pages, hoping ta orient man with his architecture. Is it this foresight he hopes to endow
to the prince, helping him obtain a strong, virtuous status as ruler?
Filarete's intention stated at the beginning of the treatise entails the teachlng of the
"modes and measures" of architecture. 21 He creates a complex composition developed from

these episodic stories and condenses them into mnemonic images such as these.

The

18 Ibid.
19 Reason and Will are original/y designed as a painting te go in the king's council hall.
69v, 120. Trottato, 265. See "vice / virtue" chapter for more on this image, figure 24.

Treatise. f.

20 Cicero. De oratore. Il, Ixxxviii. 360.

21 Treatise. f.

r., 3. Trattato. 3. "intendere modi et misure dello edificare."

42

scholarship given ta Filarete from this book is what he hopes ta translate into buildings that will
enable a virtuous citizen. The overall effect is a community comprised of ail the 'parts' that
Filarete determines will enable a 'noble' and etemal city. "What people remember is not
'objects'; but inventionally valuable images, consciously set into heuristic schemes. These
images result from extemal and intemal sensory traces 'translated' by imagination... 22

22 Carruthers. "Inventional Mnemonics" 106.

figure

ri.

Body of a Roman girl. Ashmole MS., f. 161 v .

figure 12. Noah's Ark, in the shape of a wooden storage chest. From 'The Ashbumham Pentateuch.'

architecture and the bee 1 excavations

44

figure 13.

Golden book, inscribed "Memoria {ngegno {n/letD."

Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee 1 excavations

45

&

..... .

.'
~

",-.

..

figure 15. House ofV and Virtue. Codex Magliabecchianus.

46

ln introducing the House of Vice and Virtue to the king, Filarete describes it with a
variety of metaphors that need to be traced in order to grasp the breadth of Filarete's
intentions. "La mia fantasia" 1 he narnes it, admitting that he thought of the scherne some tirne
aga, and indicating the importance he places on this building by calling it 'mine'. He solicits the
king by asking to be aJlowed ta describe it in the manner of Ovid's House of Sun and of Envy,
Statius' House of Mars, and Vergi['s House of S/eep. 2 Vergil's The Aeneid. chapter VI, begins
with the story of Daedalus, his escape From the labyrinth and his building of a golden temple
atop a hill; The chapter ends with the portrayal of the two gates of Sleep. "One is of Horn /

Md spirits of T ruth find easy exit there, / The other is perfeetJy wrought of g/istening Ivory, /
But From it the Shades send fa/se drearns up to the world ... 3 The construction of these !wo
cholces is the basis of the building's ideology.
The House of Vice and Virtue is also portrayed by Filarete as a mountain: "Oro dira la
forma de/la ediffdo come l'ho pensata, bench io l'abia dinanzi in disegno fatta aguisa d'una
montagna
1

n4

The description of the figures of Virtue and Vice atop the House are named as a

Trattato. f. 142

v .. 531.

2 The ltalian for 'sleep' is

Tra tta rD , 531.

"sonno

w
,

as rt: is written in the TranarD. However, Spencer translates It as

'dreams', which is "sogno".

3 Vergil. The Aeneid, VI, lines 893-99, p. 145. P. Dickinson, tranS, (New York. 1961).

4 Trattato. f. 143 v., 535.

Spencers translation, Trearise, 247: "Now 1will tell you what 1 have
thought about the form of the building, even though 1 said previously 1 had designed rt: in the form of a
mountain."

architecture and th. b.. 1 vice & viflu.

47

rnountain too. As noted by Grassi, this description of the statues is an a1legory of the whole
building, which is in tum, presented as a microcosm of the world. 5 The building is where the
seven liberal arts are to be taught, a place where anyone can pursue knowledge and virtue.
At the end of the progression through seven components of leaming, one arrives at the apex,
at seven bridges, where the student can "go ta a very pleasant, beautiful and deJightfUl place. "6
The purpose of ereeting this structure is the acquisition of virtue and knowledge. that
which makes man happy in this life and the Iife hereafter. "There are two things in man through
which he acquires renOMl. Generally [he acquires it] on/y through one. but sometimes by both.
although the one by which he acquires perfea (ame is unique. This is virtue. This is wnat makes
man happy."

Though no more is mentioned about this beautiful place at the apex, its vague

placement atop the House ofVirtue, coupled with the building's description as a mountain is a
suggestive association that has not been previouslyexplored. In considering the full breadth of
this metaphor. the cohesiveness of Filarete's House of Vice and Virtue cames to light. The
building is a spiritual edifice, and envelops Filarete's instructional, sociologicaJ, memorative and
ethical concerns in one scheme. The various elements we have traced in the Trattato and
Filarete's career are collected and recolleeted into a singly composed idea of architecture.

- la mia fantasia ~av'tCl<nCl

is generally translated as imag;nativa (in Latin), or phonetically. as fantasia

Trattato. n.l. 534.

Treatise. f. 142v.. 246. Trattato, 532.

7 Ibid.

(in Greek). "The imagination makes images, but memory bath puts them away and hauls
them out again, not as "random objects" but as parts of a construction, a network, a web, a
texture of associations. ,, 8 Mernory is an "inventional faculty"9 and there is a translation with
each recolleetion. When Filarete caUs his designs for the House of Vice and Virtue "fa mia

fantasia" there is an awareness of this transformative process. It is an opening remark to his

attempts at making dear the idea of the building with words and drawings, and is a cognizance
of the many faceted existence of architecture and this network of correlations. The fantasia
compose FiJarete's character, as a demonstratien of his love for ethical construction.
Whife preparing for the king to arrive sa he can explain his designs for Sforzinda.
Filarete writes: "'0 che stavo 'stratto e a fantasticare e misurare. ,,1 0 He is inventing and
measuring, in a back and forth process of imagining. fantasizing and turning it over, ordering
and marking off the architecture in a regular fashion.

Filarete is giving a hierarchy ta the built

world - an "orderly arrangement [that] is a cJarity of knowledge."

Il

He lets the king take

what he has worked on to look over and read and the rest of the day is spent working and

"follONing my fancy." or, "seguire la mia fantasia. ,,12

The explanation of his design for the Houses of Vice and Virtue ln Plusiapolis is aise
8 Carruthers. "Inventional Mnemonics" 106.
9 Ibid.
10

Book.

Trattato.

f. 46

V.,

ISO. Treatise, aD.

ri Hugh of St. Victor. "De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum. trans. M. Camrthers.
Appendix A. 261.

In

The

of Memory.
12

104.

TrattatD. f. 46

r., 181.

Treatise. 81.

.rchltectur. .nd th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtue

49

introduced as "/a mia fantasia. ,,13 Filarete begins by suggesting, "al/ON me to describe it with
words." He explains he will tell us the whole design and then darify it, point by point. The

explication method shifts From a general physical overview of the structure, to its theoreticaJ
and philosophical ideas, followed bya specifie discussion of the statues of virtue and vice. He
then says, "1 et me arrange the building" r 4 and c1arify everything. The drawings of the building's
elevation are referenced next, leading us to understand that "arranging", or "vi ordini" the
building is an ordering of it through the drawing - a step back to observe and el ucidate the
design. He then gives us a description of the interior rooms and t'len finally, the plan. MartIn
Kemp touches on this process: "fantasia for Filarete is an all-pervasive factor, embracing every
facet in the conception of a work of art or architecture." 15 Filarete's transformative description
of a projeet. his fantasia, mirrors the transmutation the invention makes through the memory
and its aetualization, and important/y [ocating this as the raie of the architect.
Returning to the notion of memory as an inventional process, invenzione is the
unearthing of truth as described by Cicero: "invention is the discovery of things true or
probable." 16 N5 the primary source on mnemonics in the Middle Ages and Renaissance,
Cicero's discussion of invenzione and memory feeds this design process. For our fifteenth
century architeet, we can begin ta see the full circle relationship betvveen fantasia, memory,
invention and ethics. If memory is an inventional process and invention is a search for truth.
13 Trattata. f.

casa

VI

(42v., 531. Trearise, 245.

14 Treatise. f. 143 r., 247. Tratrata, 534: "Egli (orse il meglio ch';o
chiariro insieme."

VI

ordim questo edificio, pal agnI

15 M. Kemp. "From Mimesis te Fantasia." 370.

16

Cicero. De invenzione. 1.7.

.rchlt.ctur nd th. b 1 vic.

vlrtue

50

memory readily becomes an ethical act, and performs as the binding element of one 's
imagination. This had not escaped the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and A1bertus Magnus who
denoted memory as a part of Prudence, one of the four cardinal virtues. The fantasia of
Filarete, however, reinvents memory and virtue in regards ta architecture.
Rather than a static system, the mnemonic mechanism breathes.

The mode of

praetice for Filarete is not yet tempered by our own modern predilection for positivistic
operations such as the prescriptive blueprints of plan & section, offering a procedure
unreferenced ta human conditions and values.

With its discursive interpretation, the

descnption of Filarete's building occurs in a hermeneutical and poetical rnanner. "The concern
here is with ethics, the wall-builder's charaeter, not with reproduction . . . [but] with
recollection, not with rote. n 17

- the mouotain The physicaJ description given by Filarete is a difficult ta follow trail of measurements
and Filarete himself acknowledges the building is better understood by the drawings.
Regarding figure 14, an elevation drawing shows the reetangular base and a circular tower
rising above.

Of ail the drawings, this one can be interpreted most c10sely to resemble

Filarete's idea of the building as mountain.

A monumental and oversized structure. the

building is firmly planted before us as an axis mundi - the meeting of earth, heaven and hel!.
Painting towards a celestial city, the House of Vice and Virtue in the form of a mountain leads
us upward in body and spirit. associating this place of education with a temple. This building-

17

Carruthers. 'Ihe Poet as Master Builder." 89 1.

architecture and th. b.. 1 vice & vlflue

51

mountain is an earthly manifestation of the city of Gad that is "Iocalized among us in sacred
urban enclosures, primarily the temple and palace, within whose highly wrought premises we
fulfill our capacities for craft and art, finding the completion in ritual and worship of our capacity
for politics. that is. the life of men in cities. nl8
The symbol of the mountain as a place of connee.tion to heaven is a common idea.
Distinct and powerful in its ability to have survived the Flood, it is perhaps the one place that
still contains ail that has existed since the expulsion From Eden, and remained untouched.
This mountain aets as the center of its own world, its own city. epitomizing the Renaissance
microcosmic-macrocosmic understanding of the world.

Not only is the entire building a

mountain, but the apex, surmounted by the figure of Virtue also stands upon a "mountain. n
The House of Virtue becomes the site to ascend to heaven. Mount Zion was traditionaJly
thought to be only eighteen miles From heaven 19 and the summit of the House of Virtue

IS

an

attainable pursuit for the city of Plusiapolis as an earth-bound reconstruction of the gate to
heaven. A similar construet in essence was the ziggurat - a "symbolic image of the Cosmos, its
seven stages represented the seven stages represented the seven planetary spheres: by
ascending them, the priest attained to the summit of the Universe. n20
This center. this "place in question being a 'sacred space'. consecrated by a
hierophany, or ritually constructed [... is] a sacred rnythic geography. n21

Carruthers calls this

18 W. A. McCiung. The Architecture of Earthly Paradise. (Berkeley, 1983). 14.

19

R. Pataj, Man and Temple in AndentJev.ish Myth and Ritual. (London, 1947), 131.

20 M. Eliade. Cosmos and History: the myrh of the emal retum. 42.
21 M. Eliade. Images and Symbols. 39 .

rchltectur. and th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtue

52

kind of ritually constructed place in the imagination "machines for making encydopedic fiction:
churches,

monastery buildings of every sort, casties, towers (or strongholds),

amphitheaters... 22 Upon ascent to the entrance of Filarete's building, one approaches two
doors - Porta Areti and Porta Chachia. 23

What awaits inside exists as this encyclopedic

experience, a bCXJk of rremory and knowledge fills and comprises the interior. The 5tair inside
Porta Areti is seven braccia high and these words are written above the doorway: .. Difficu/ty
with joy" and "chis is the path ta acquire virtue with difficulty.,,24 The 5tairs for Vice are steep

and have no treads. Above its dCXJrway it is written "pleasure wich pain" and "here enters the

troop of pleasure-seekers 'Nha willlater repent in grief. ..25

- adamThe beginning of the treatise sets the complexity of Filarete 's metaphors in motion with
the naming of Adam as the tirst architeet (figure 15):
"/t is ta believed chat vvf1en Adam was driven out

of Paradise,

it was raining.

Since he had nothing else at hand to caver [himseJO, he put his hands over his
head ta protea himself from the roin.

Adam had made

roof of his hands

21 Carruthers. Poet as Master Builder. 882.

23

Porta Areri: Gate o(Virtue and Porta Chachia: Gate o(Vice.

24 Trearise. f. 143 V., 247.

See also Trattato, 535: "faricG con gaudio" and "questa la vIa ad
andare acquistare la virt con (arica."

2 5 1bid.
piagnerete."

"Piacere con trisrizia" and "qui entrate, brigata, che goderete e poi con di spfocere il

archll.clur. and th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtu.

53

[and] it seems ta me that he was the first ta invent habitation. "26

Filarete also references Vitruvius in this explanation of the origin of architecture. Vitruvius
clairns the tirst building to be done by men who lived in the forests. making huts and grottes as
they could. 27

Filarete takes this one step further, by coupling architecture not only to

Christian ity. but direetJy to the FaU of man and his ensuing need to constantly remake himself in
what is now an incomplete world. "As emblem of the condition of fallen or degenerated
human nature. architecture is evidence that compatibility with nature - the naturaJ world, and
human nature properly understood - has been lost. n 28 Once expelled. Adam makes
architecture in an attempt to regain the earthly paradise. 1n contrast. while still in Eden, Adam
only "pursues the one acceptable craft of gardening. n 29 While this a reference ta Adam in
Milton's Paradise Lost. it raises a relevant issue discussed by Joseph Rykwert in On Adam's
House in Paradise. Upon reading Genesis and conjeauring on what eJse must have been in

Eden if there was a garden - wine. cups. plates and cupboards - Rykwert wonders about the
"implied house that must have existed. 30 For Filarete this house did not need to exist until
n

26 Trearise.

f. 4v.. p. ro.

The ltalian i5 as follows: "Chi (usse il primo che (acesse case e ob,raz/one

cerro non abbiomo, ma da credere che subito che Adamo (u cocciato dal Paradisio, e piovendo e non avendo
alrro p, pre~c.O ricovero, si misse le mani in capo per difendersi dafl'acque. ... Si che. se cosi fUr veflSlmiie che
Adamo fulle il primo."

(Tranata, 23-24)

27 Vrtruvius. The Ten Books on Architecture. Book Il. chapter 1. While the origin of archrtecture
slmilarly comes from a specifie need - protection from rain - the origin of architecture for VitruVIUS 15 the
discovery of fire. drawing men together into a social. communal setting. and noting thelr upright stature.
"gazlng upon the splendour of the starry firmament. and also in being able to do with ease whatever they
chose wlth thelr hands and fingers. they began in that tirst assemble to construct shelters." 38.
28 McClung. Architeewre

of Paradise. 48.

29 Ibid. 16
30

J.

Rykwert. On Adam's House in Paradise .

rchlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 vic. & virtu.

54

after the expulsion.

ln Genesis 2: 15, it is written "the Lord Gad took the man and put him in the garden
of Eden to till it and keep it... 31 However, upon the expulsion, this tilling of the sail becomes a
burden.

T 0 till the soil is an analogy for the constant remaking of oneself: "Therefore the

Lord Gad sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to til! the ground from which he was
taken. "32 Thorns and thistles, however, are ail man is cursed to be able to extraa from the
ground and this metaphoricaJ remaking of oneself also becomes conneeted to alchemical
processes. Adam and Noah were commonly portrayed as alchemists in fifteenth century
:;tories. 33

Adam knew the full nature and properties of the world prior to the Fall, and

alchemy represents an attempt to defy the now fragmented imperfeet state of man and obtain
1

a wholeness of spirit and souf. 34

Architecture, for Filarete, is born to protect man from the newly hostile world, and
becomes the remaking of our new center, our attempt at recreating Eden and in a1chemical
terms, as a resurrection of our intact being. This earth-bound, man-made center of rebirth
becomes the House of Vice and Virtue in the treatise. Knowledge, obtarned under unethical
Clrcumstances in Eden, becomes the path to man's salvation, and the path to a complete
existence for the citizens of Sforzinda and Plusiapolis.

Under the conditions that it is

remembered weil and properly. knowledge allows one to reach the mountain top and reside

31 Holy Bible,

Revised Standard Version.

&.

eat of

ft

32 1bid. Genesis 3 :23. Genesis 17-18 says "Cursed is the ground because of you;
all the days of your Iife; thorns and thistles it shaJJ bring forth to you."
33

ln

torl you shall

G. Roberts. The Mi"or of A/chemy. (London. 1994), 20.

34 See

T. Burckhardt. A/chemy: sdence of the cosmos. sdence of the saul.

archltectur. and the bee 1 vice & vlrtue

55

with Virtue.

- the

amAnother use of the mountain - as - center symbolism cames with Hugh of St. Victor, in

his work De Arca Noe Mystica (1 129-30).35 He describes a drawing (now lost. if it ever
existed) of the ark of Noah sited at the center of a map of the world. This ark contains the
personification of vices and virtues, representing the four stages of Hugh's "rnystic quest" , or
path to wisdom. While there are other aspects of this schema ta be discussed later, of interest
to us presently is the sequential nature of the imagery and the form of the ark itself. The
construction of this dravving has been shown to be an extension of the traditional art of
memory.36 It transforrns the art of the ancient rhetorician in a manner which personalizes it to
Hugh 's religious training. 37 Wisdom becomes the object of the art of memory rather than
rhetoric, and the use of the vices and virtues in conjunction with a memory device
foreshadows the later medieval emphasis of A1bertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas on
memory as a Christian attribute. Remembering weil, is "to impress wisdom on the mind [and]
to partcipate in the goodness. immortality and incorruptibility of Wisdom. "38
The four stages of the quest described by Hugh each have three degrees or steps.
These steps are each represented by a ladder and atop the ark is the final stage of "union",

35 Zinn. "Mandala Symbolism"

Hisr.ory of Religion. (Chicago. 1973), n. 11.

36 See G. Zinn's scholarship in MHugh of St. Victor an the Art of Merrory"

37 Zinn. MHugh of Saint Victor and the Art of Memory."

38 Ibid.

216.

archlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtue

56

with its three degrees of temperance , prudence and fortitude. 39 Hugh's students would have
committed this drawing to memory and proceeded to use it in their pursuit of a virtuous and
studious life. It is a rnethod for the novices to lead themselves properly through the stages of
learning and the use of symbols aet as "agents of transformation. "40 This symbol of the ark,
notes Zinn, is made in the form of a truncated pyramid. 41 The ark becomes conneeted to
two significant mountains: Mt. Sina and Mt. Zion.
The relationship of Filarete's scheme to this upward progression of learning will be
discussed further in the next section. As mentioned previously, Filarete describes the figure of
Virtue at the building's summit as a mountain. "1 make t'NO drdes like mountains ... 1 thrON on
arch from one of the mountains ta the other, through which one con go ta the

top of Virtue [and)

the mountains are made Iike stairs", and From these mountains a spring issues forth like Helicon

on Mount Parnassus. 42

The association with Mt. Sinai integrates the story of Moses and his

ascent to the mountain top to hear the voice of God - a metaphor of magnitude for the
reltgious novice who wishes to achieve greatness.

As weil, Mt. Zion is the site of the

reunification of ail nations after the fragmentation of rnankind from the Fall. Hugh says the

39 Temperance is deplcted by Hugh as the Hebrews at the foot of Mount Sinai; prudence as Moses'
ascent ta the mountaintop; and fortitude as Moses' entrance into the cloud of darkness at the summit to
recelve God's ward. From Zinn. "Hugh of St. Victor and the Art of Memory." 230.
40 Ibid.

41

De Arca Noe Mystica, IV, PL J 76:686 AB. Hugh refers to it by saYlng, '1his

IS

the mcuntaln of the

house of the Lord established in the top of the mountain. unto which ail natIons flow. and go up from the
ark's four comers as from the four quarters of the earth." "Mandala Symbolism." n. 13. See aise lsaiah 14: 13.
The truncated pyramid - mountain image of the ar1< is also present in Ghiberti's bronze doors ln Florence,
where Noah's ark is represented as a mountain.

42 Treatise. f. 145 v., 250. See also TrattatD, 542, specificaJly. note 3, where it is mentioned that
Helicon is considered to be the spring of the Muses and Apollo. and Mt. Pamassus the spring of Agamppe and
Ippocrene. the church of the Musses and Castalia. sacred te the god Pan and the Nymphs.

rchlt.ctur. and th. b 1 vic. & vlrtu.

57

contemplative quest is like lia building, a house. a d'Nelling for Gad." 43

ln Filarete, we see the

quest for virtue also acting as the spiritual rrountain center of reunifieation.
What we find in the treatise. though. is not a medieval contemplation of Gad solely
through an iconographie drawing kept in the memory. The citizens of Plusiapolis are not
religious novices dedicated to a life of solitary study, but are instead. pursuing this in an
interaaive site of merchants, craftsmen. and public ceremonies.
retreat, the Renaissance city splays open the hermetic cell.

Rather than an inward

Ivan Illich expands this

contemplative role of the medieval ark-schema: "Hugh's moral and spiritual Arl< of Noah is
more than a mnerrotechnic palace with biblical features. The ark stands for a social emity. a
process that begins with creation and continues to the end of time. n44

1 think this

representation of the ark as a broad-reaching entity may exist in the mind of the medieval
scholar, but with the late quattrocento architect. it escapes this boundary and with Filarete's
design transmutes into an aaualized, physical existence.

It allows for a social ritual through its

culmination. There is an intent for Filarete's drawing ta be construeted. and for the ascent to
the mountain top to be aaualized as a public rite. The schema is. rather than solely refleaive,
one experienced wholly with the body in virtuous study and ethical action. This is a pivotai
difference in regards to how the use of memory and virtue adapted and in this case, was
engaged through the experience of the built edifice. 45

There are other uses of the

43 Zinn. "Mandala." 334.

44 1. Illich. In the Vineyard

of the

Text. 46.

45 Illich says of Hugh:

NFrom 1150 on, new artificiaI finding devices provide some of the key
rnetaphors according to which the mechanics of memory and the rnetaphors for its training are devised. ...
Ali this gives ta Hugh's two mnemontechnic treatises ... exceptionaI importance." ln the Vineyard of the

Text. 45.
architecture and the be. 1 vice &. vlrtue

58

mnemonic 'ark' rnetaphor already discussed in the chapter on excavations that apply here as
weil.

In a microcosmic relationship, the arca is a memory device to hold books, and the

building-mountain enclosing vice and virtue is a larger representation of the arca. It too, is a
merrory book open for discovery. "Through wisdom is a house built; and by understanding it
is established; and by knowledge shaH the chambers be tilled with ail precious and pleasant
riches."46 And for Plusiapolis, through the pursuit of its path shall the city achieve a virtuous
and etemal position.

- the palb"Only persans can justly cIaim to be architeets who from boyhood have mounted by
the steps of their studies and. being trained generally in the knowledge of arts and sciences,
have reached the temple of architecture at the top. n47 The acquisition of this knowledge.
wisdom (sapientia) , is a process of discovery in the treatise. The inhabitant of Plusiapolis is able
ta approach these steps and work at reaching the rrountain summit and observe the heavens.
This is where we again reach the issue of designing a mnemonic structure. a memory scheme
withln the intellect versus the actualized building of this edifice in the city.

believe this is the

innovative and imaginative faculties of Filarete at work, acting upon bath aspects of writing a
text on architecture - that it will be read and remembered as an instructional work. and also
hoped that the programs devised will be built. The House of Vice and Virtue intends to allow
the city ta obtain and remember wisdom by an actual physical enactment of study. he

46 Proverbs 24 : 3-4.

47 Vltruvius.

On Architecture. Intro. 1. 11.

rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtue

59

freedom of ideas a1lowed by the narrative dialogue format in designing this scheme is indicative
of they way in which "humanism sees in the ars memoriae an important weapon for social
SLccess, ta ensure, by rreans of an infallible memory, advantage over others."48 This is what is
at stake for the architeet Filarete. Not only must his noble charaeter be realized, but the city's
success depends upon his designs. Not merely whimsicaJ digressions, the proposed struaures
bear the awesome responsibilities of entire kingdom.
The initial approach to the house of study is through a single door, dwarfed by the
immensity and blankness of the facade of the house and centered on its base.

To reach it.

one must mount nine steps. Regarding the plan (figure 16). and following Filarete's words,
after entering the building, the participant finds
"three other doors, each

of which leads into the other. Then he enters a doister in

which there will be a room with eight doors which ail endose it. This room will
cantoin three rooms and each

of them wiff be subdivided inta

three other rooms.

ln these there wiff be different places and rooms. One con exit only by another
[door] and he chen passes along a steep way, that is a stair. thot enters into
another room separated from the others. "49

Mer digressing to descriptions of the figures of Vice and Virtue, the descent into the house of
Vice, and an explanation of the formation of the plan, Filarete returns again to these three
doors. There is a
"door in the midd/e with two others on either side, made as stoted above.
first order

of this (lrst square is ten bracdo high at the entrance ta Porta Areti.

When one has entered, he (lnds a stair w11ich ascends ta the (lrst levef
square. When one has mounted this stair. he finds a square place

48 Cou/iano. &05 and Mafic in the Renajssance,

49

The

of this

on columns like

33. From Yates. The Ar! of Memory. 1 t 2.

Treatise. f. 142v., 245. Trattato, 532 .

.,chlt.ctur. and th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtu.

60

a loggia. At the head of chis stair there ;s a door through which one enters

te

ascend te the top of this building. Through chis sarne loggia one goes on through a
portico chat leads

to the places and rooms where 011 branches of knONledge are ta

be taught. "50
The house is open ta everyone to learn and proceed towards obtaining a doctorate. AIl the
rooms of teaching are gone through before reaching the summit. Atop the a1ready mentioned
stair, one passes through "twenty-chree doors six bracoa apart. After one has passed ail these
doors he ffnds eight more eight bracda apart. Then he ffnds (ive more ten bracoa apart. Then he
f1nds three, 12 bracoa apart. .. 51

This series of rooms brings one completely around the

perimeter of the reetangular base of the building. to the front again. where "then he finds
another square loggia. Here is

a stair chat mounts to che top of this square, chat is co the height of

20 bracoa, and CO the next floor. "52

On the plan drawing, these rooms are labelled A

through Z (figure 16).

ln analyzing Filarete's sequentially ordered and rising system of circulation within the
body of this mountain-building, [ arrive at the work of Raymon Lull ( 1235-1 3 16). Yates writes
that his ideas "continued into the Renaissance and combine with the c1assical art in some new
synthesis whereby memory should reach still further heights of insight and power. "53

Lull's

50 Treatise.
f. 144 V., 248. See also, TrattatD, 538. ..... una porta nel mezzo con altre due ail
entrara d'essa prima porta, le quali alfa similitLJdine antedetta sono fatte. E questo prime quadro alro If primo
sua ordine died bracda, dove che per la detta porta Areti s'entra; ed entrara, SI truova una scala la quale saglie
a questo primo quadro, 0 vero a quesra primo piano di qUestD quadro; e salira questa scola, SI truova uno luogo
quadra. il quale in colonne. come dire una loggia. E diritto di questa scala si una porta, per la quale s'entra
per andare af/a sommit di questo edifido; e per questa medesima loggia si va alrre per uno portico va alli luoghl e
stanze dove che le sdenze s'hanno a leggere ..."
51 Treatise.

f. 144v., 249. Trattato, 538. See aise . n. 3, 538.

52 Ibid .
53 The

Art of Memory. 173.

architecture and the bee 1 vice &

vlrtue

61

system of rnemory is essentially based u:on the goodness of Gad and what he believed to be
inherently universal about the divine's attributes. 54

The art he devised is of a tri-partite

struaure, a ref1eetion of the Trinity and built of three facets designed to find and know truth,
train the will to love truth, and ultimately to remernber truth. 55
Of particular interest is Yates' discussion of Lullism and his introduction of movement
Inta the memory arts by the use of recollection with two important tropes: his inventive,
revolving alphabet-based wheels and the imagery of the ladder. These methods do not entail
static figures to be memorized in situ. as with the c1assical structures. 56 See figures 17 and 18
as examples of the development of the ladder to heaven imagery used by Lull. The trope of
the ladder is the configuration of creation and each step is named in Lull's system, with figures
representing the elements of the world in an hierarchlcal struaure. Stars are. for example, on
the step coeJum, stones and trees on the lower, earthly steps. One ascends this ladder into
the heavens, carrying one of Lull's wheel devices (figure 19). The final destination s the
House ofWisdom. Yates say:; ofthis system:
"It is fundamental for the approach to the Lullian Art ta realise that it is an

ascendi et descendendi.

ars

Bearing the geometrical figures of the Art [the

wheels]. inscribed with their letter notations. the 'artista' ascends and descends
on the ladder of being, measuring out the same proportions on each level.
The geometry of the elemental structure of the world of nature combines with
the divine structure of its issue out of the Divine Names to form the universal
Art which can be used on ail subjeets because the mind works through it with

54 Ibid.

174.

55 Ibid.

174.

56 See the next section on 'rooms' and the structure of the c1assical art-of-memory technique.

architecture and the bee 1 vice & vlrtue

62

a logic which is pattemed on the universe." 57

The learning process to reach the House of Wisdom in Lull's art extends outward into the
world below, through allieveis of the earthly experience. At the obtainment of knowledge,
one enters the house of Gad, the heavenly walled fortres 5, through the gate of the tower and
resides there, proteeted under its roof.
ln The Book.

of Memory.

Carruthers reiterates Yates' conclusions on Lu" by succinaly

saYlng, "Lull's art was designed to be bath a key to universal knowledge and a rnemory

art... 58

The system devised by Lull was one that does not fit neatly into the method put forth by the
c1assical writers, with set loci and images. His tropes of ladders and a1phabetic construaions,
however, round out the tradition's breadth of influence in the Renaissance and are another
illustration of what 1believe ta be part of the humanist world of Filarete. He used common
symbols and figures that appear ta readily fall into Filarete's narrative and attempt ta relate ta
bath king and citizen. The rising up of man through the procuring of wisdom is a microcosmic
portrayal of the heavens and "his redemptian, his rising up ta the divinity, must include the
ascensIon of ail things.... Not only man rises up ta Gad ...[But] the universe is redeerned
within man and thraugh him... 59

- rooms-

The revolving wheels and moving systems of memory were established modes of
learning techniques in the medievaJ classroom monastic prayer tutelage traditions. While

57

Yates. The Art of Memory. 181.

58

Carruthers. The Book of Memory. 253 .

59

E. Cassirer. The Logic of the Humanities. (New Haven, 1960), 40.

rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtu.

63

Carruthers places these memory techniques into her own categories of diagrammatic
sehernes and meditationaJ devices, Filarete's transformation of mnemonic technique does not
fit neatly anywhere. The notion of a master, tutoring or reading to the novice for training
pertains directJy to the treatise, as it was proposed to be read aJoud to the king. The dialogue
throughout is of instruetionaJ nature, a description of the larger socio-philosophicaJ issues and
the smaller scale story-making of everyday details and events. This theme culminates in the
fabrication of the House of Vice and Virtue. with its rooms of leeturing rnasters.
The labeling of the rooms of study with the twenty-three letters of the alphabet (figure
16) does not seem ta correspond to any divisional hierarchy of instruction but perhaps
1

operates as a mnemonic device related in essence to the use of animaIs and the alphabet.
Eaeh room couJd designate a compendium of knowledge, assoeiated to its eorresponding
letter. The letters used by Lull in his wheels (figures 20, 21) form his basic concepts on the
"dignities of Gad," utilizing a sort of logie based on triadic structures of creation. 60

Through

these one can reach the Trinity and each part of the system relate a different meaning,
according to which step of the ladder you are on. 61

Filarete does not construet this level of

detail or complexity, but by designating a room of learning to each letter, he imparts an

encyclopedic book-metaphor to the building.
ln this scheme, after progressing through the perimeter rooms, the student proceeds
lnward to the circular tower which is divided into seven parts. There is a portico on the first
level and each of the seven rooms of the seven liberaJ arts rises one story.

60 Yates. The Art of Memory.

179 .

61 Yates. The Art of Memory. 179. For example, the letter "B" refers ta the bonitas found in an
ange1, man, imagination. animais. vegetables, virtues. etc.

archltectur. and the bee 1 vice & vlrtue

64

'The first cornes at the top of chis square at the height of twenty bracda. It is
divided into seven principal pans. The first is an endrding portico through which one
can

go al/ around this division.

is vaulted .. .[And] the

first

It is three bracda I},fde and 12 high. ... AlI of this

room has a daor above which is carved

a pgure

of various colors. This is done as Q symbol of Logic. In this

are carved the inventors of this art as weil as ail those who were excellent in

dressed in lined robes

room

this discipline. From chis room there is

a stair that rises to another ffoor. It is in the

same form as this Iittle drOVlling. . .. In the sarne \4ICJY there is a door aver which
another robed figure is carved vvith a book. in her hand. This is Rhetoric. Ali rhese
rooms continue in the same order, form and dimensions, leveJ by leveJ up ta the
summit with

pgures over the doors each a symbol of its science. "62

The ordered, regular formation of these rooms echoes the classicaJ art of memory which
evolved as a way to imprint places - loci - on the mind in order to retain the ideas to be
discussed by the rhetorician. Architecture is established as artificial rnerrory's site of operation,
ln which construeted images are placed. The author of Ad Herennium recommends that the
loci be places of moderate size. at a regular intervaJ from one another, perhaps thirty feet or
50. Iv:;

weil, Quintilian clarifies the "rules for places:

"Places are chosen, and rnarked with the utmost possible variety, as a spacious
house divided into a number of rooms. Everything of note therein is diligently
imprinted on the mind, in order that thought may be able to run through ail
the parts without let or hindrance. . .. What 1have spoken of as being done
in a house can also be done in public buildings, or on a long journey, or in
going through a city."63

62 Treorise.

f. 145r., 249. Trattota.540 .

63 Insriturio oratorio, XI. ii,

17-22.
.rchlt.ctur nd th. b 1 vic.

vlrtu.

65

The other aspect of the art depends on the construction of rnemorable images ta
recall the specifie ideas and precepts: choose lIimages which are active, sharply defined,
unusual and

... have the power of ... penetrating the psyche... 64

The author of the Ad

Herennium does not provide any lengthy details nor examples of images but expeets the

student will develop their own. The sarne expeetation occurs in Filarete's roorns of the liberal
arts. With his memory rooms we are told each door is marked by a figure symbolizlng that
particular liberal art.

Within each room are contained the images of invenrors and

distinguished teachers of the discipline. What takes place in each room is not explained, and it
IS

left to our imagination as to whether a professor is present there to instruet, or if there are

books to study. The suggestion is each student enters the room alone, with the portraits to
guide him, with an perception that the soul never thinks without a mental image,65 and they
stamp upon his memory the knowledge needed to graduate further, c1imbing upward to the
summit. The images aet as agents of our transformation from leaming. Each morsel a1low the
participant to delve deeper inward to antoher stage of knowledge.
As already mentioned, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, in thelr

comrnentaries on AristotJe's De memoria et reminiscentia conneet merrory to virtue, a part of

1

Prudence. modifying the traditional association of memory to rhetoric.

A1bertus writes:

"Memory can be a moral habit when it is used to remember pas1: things with a prudent looking
forward to the future ...66

64

Ad Herennium. Il, Ixxxvii, 358.

65 Aristotle.

66

ln striking similarity to Filarete's emblem of Will and Reason (figure

De Anima. 427, 18-22.

Yates. The Art of Memory. 62, quoted from de Bono.

erchlt.ctur. end the b.. 1 vic. & vlrtu.

66

22). Prudence has been described as a "lady with three eyes ... to remind her ofthings past,
present and future. n67 Prudence allo'NS man to derive universal knowledge through the
senses by means of studying the particulars, a relationship which is facilitated by the memory.
However, the citizen of Plusiapolis pursues knowledge with a tenacity facilitated byall the
vin:ues, bath the four cardinal virtues and the three theologicaJ. It is more to the realm of the
prince that prudence applies, as Filarete tells us on his self-portrait medal (figure 7).
A factor in the development of the virtuous memory for Cicero is solitudo, 50 as to
preseNe the sharpness and power of images. ,Aquinas refers ta this, but changes the term to
sof/iciwdo, memory that requires devotional study of an emotional nature.

Ethical aaion

Inherently is 'worrisome', being fraught with serious contemplation, and Carruthers argues that
thi5 alteration of the ward is intentionaJ in relating rnemorative study to the rnonastic life. 68 The
solitude and concentration required for study a/50 alludes to monastic cells. Besides being the
site of medieval study, they evolve as other metaphors for memory.

Cella refers to a

storeroom in memory designs and ceJ/ae are stalls and nesting cells for birds, as weil as books'
storage place in libraries. 69

The section drawing of the House of Vice and Virtue (figure 23)

reveals a similar structure comprised of many cells, densely packed in the ark-building. The
image recalls the srnaller scaled honeycomb in the tree of Filarete's self-portrait medal (figure
7). a cut away trunk full of goodness. We return ta the metaphor of bees, memory and

67 Ibid. 67.

68 Carruthers. The Book of Memory. 173. Solficitudo translate to worry " in English. and
the idea that the mind wvexes" the emotions to make and store rremory images.
W

IS

related to

69 Hugh of St. Victor uses the metaphor and in his Oidascalicon, writes: "The foundatton and
principles of sacred reaming is history, from which, Iike honey from the honeycomb, the truth of a1legory is
extracted." 138.

building, illustrated by their honeycomb of knowledge made of ceJ/ae, where the divine food is
created and ingested.

- symmitIIDirect your course hither to wisdom, and seek her ways, which are
ways of surpassing peace and plenty. Whatever seems conspicuous in the
affairs of men . . . is nevertheJess approached by a difficult and toilsome
pathway. It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness; but if you
desire to scale this peak. which lies far above the range of Fortune, you will
indeed look down from above upon ail that men regard as most lofty. n70

At the culmination of this transformative journey, the student reaches the sumrnit of the
mountan. ready to cross over into the mast central moment of the building. Mer moving
round the perimeter and slowly upward and inward through the rooms, one arrives at an
open floor circumscribed by a portico of figure-columns (figure 24). It is divided imo seven
sections that form seven bridges (figure 25). Each one of these has one of the seven virtues
carved above its entrance.

Il

They are arranged in such a VIOY that it is necessary ta pass over ail

of them ta get ta the drde in the middle. n71

At the summit of the most inner circle there is an

open space with figures of the nine muses.72 "Above these / make a cupo/a in the form

70 SeneCQ. Epistua/e Morales.

71 Treatise.

of a

285.

f. 145v.. 250. Trattato. 541.

72 The nine muses are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (the daughter of heaven and earth).
Each 15 Identified with one of the arts: Calliope. epic poetry; Clio, heroic poetry (her 5ymbol 15 often an open
chest of books); Erato. love poetry: Euterpe. music; Melpomene. tragedy; Polyhymnia. sacred poetry and
hymns; Terpsichore. choral song and dance; Thalia. comedy; Urania, astronomy.

architecture .nd the bee 1 vice & vlrtue

68

diamond. Above this 1put the figure ofVirtue made ofbronze. ,,73 (figure 26) The figure of Virtue

atop Filarete's microcosmic diamond-mountain is a double of the entire building.

The

mirrored mountains are like stairs, he says, 50 you can walk up them as a ritual representation
of the prcxess the student has j ust performed.

Il

No one should be permitted ta come here who

has not acquired the aforementioned ans. 1174 While there are three exceptions to this rule -

foreigners, those not trained that are accompanied by a doetorate, and special celebrations thls edia

IS

taken quite seriously. It is the place of persona! reward for the noble deeds of

study - where the student arrives at the "very pleasant, beautifu/, and delightful place. ,,75
Mer passing over the seven bridges - passages through the seven virtues - we arrive
at the apex, where all seven virtues are represented into one figure. Virtue is an emblem that
embodies ail things worthy and memorable. It is an "armed figure. His head would be like the
sun. In the right hand he holds a date tree and in the left a laurel. He stands ereet on a diamond
and (rom the base ofthis diamond there issues a mellifJuous liquor. Fame fis] above his head." 76

Filarete places virtue atop his diamond perch as a symbolic structure that fulfills a sort of
"double role of representation and interpretation: 77 It represents ail the virtues melded into
one body and stands for Filarete's theories on virtue as the highest achievement of man. As

73 Treotise. f. 145v.. 250. Trona rD. 541.

74

Ibid.

75 Treatise. f.

142v.. 246. TronarD, 532.

76

Treolise. f. 143r., 247. Tro tta rD, 533.

77

P. DaJy. &nblem Theory. (Liechtenstein. 1979),68.

architecture and the bee 1 vice &. vlrtue

69

weil. standing as a symbol above the city, it is left to interpretation?B

It can identify for each

inhabitant of the city, and each student that has passed upward to the mountain, their own
construet of personal imagination and memory. We must remember that it expresses the
desired essence of the city to outsiders and possibly, it seems sure Filarete must have thought,
to those that might unearth this city someday. It embodies the etemal struggle - an armed
figure - of Renaissance rnankind to recover Eden.
Alberti writes: UVirtue maintained with constancy and strength far outshines ail that is
subjeet to fortune's sway, ail that is transitory and destructible. 79 These thoughts illustrate
Il

Filarete's general philosophy on architecture and his interest in being nobly remembered.
of

One arrives at Virtue by untrod paths and after great tabors.

Il

80

The figure is a strong

personification and has been already conneeted to the story of Hercules at the Crossroads, a
Christian athlete holding symbols of vietory and fruitfulness, and Apollo.8 [ Complete with
armor and wings, Virtue almost f10ats above the earth, balanced assuredly atop the diamond.
He synthesizes not only these historical figures and ail virtues into one form, but manages to
capture the nobility and dignity that is accessible and pursued by the Renaissance through their
own synthesis - or mellification - of the riches excavated and awakened in man.
The figure of fame flying above Virtue is surrounded by winged senses - four eyes, two

78 See V. L. Volkmans. "Ars Memorativa." whch shows images from a German memory treatlse
conslSting of standing figures that hold various objects in a similar mode of Virtue.
79 Della Fam/glia., r 48.
80 Treatise. f. 69r.. 1 19. Trattato. 264.

81 See E. Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidev.Ege und andere antike Bildstoffe in der Neuren Kunst. 1930:
T. Mommsen. "Petrarch and the Story of the Choice of Hercules." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes. 1953; and 1. Spencer, Treatise. n. 1.246.

rchll.ctur nd th. b 1 vic. &: vlrtu.

70

ears, a mouth and a nase. These senses are precisely the gathering tools necessary to reach
this pinnacle as explained by A1bertus in obtaining universal knowledge. The attainment
occurs through our experience that culls together the nectars and digests them into the sweet
f1uid of virt. The piece of land that the emblem is sited upon appears earlier in the treatise
with the drawing of Reason and Will (figure 22) and implies to me a Paradise in its use atop the
House of Vice and Virtue. Filarete describes Will as a nude woman, ',,"wth one foot on a wheel,
wings on her feet and shoulders, and her head full

of eyes.

In one hand she [will ho/d] a balance

with one side lower thon the other and with the other hand she \Alill appear ta seize the worfd. ,,82

She is literally tied to Reason, with five strings that correspond to each of the five senses. "She
sits on a heart; in one hand she holds balaneed seoles and in the other reins.. .. On her feet she

wears lead slippers. ,,83 Will uses the senses to colleet and fly about. storing elements from the
world, while Reason acts as an ordering structure. The heart that she sits upon is also a
mnemonic trope, related to the phrase "Iearn by heart" and the Latin recordari. 84 ln her
hands. the world is kept baJanced and pure. At the House of Vice and Virtue. this aJlegory of
collection, recollection and ordering becomes architecture.

- lrotto"1 think vve ought ta show the things pertaining to bath Vice and Virtue, .. .For this reason

82 TrGtise. f.

69v. J 20-21. Trattato. 267.

83 Ibid.

84 See Carrurhers, The Book. of Memory. 48-49. According te Varra, the secand-century B.e. E.
grammarian. the ward derives from revocare, to "cali back", and cor, "heart"; it evalved into the Italian
ricordorsi.

.rchltecture and the bee 1 vice & vlrtue

7r

anyone 'Nha saw them would be urged ta fol/ON virtue and to shun and avoid vice. "85

When Filarete creates the lower half of the House of Vice and Virtue, it is with a peculiar
irony.

Aetually building and instrtuting a program pertaining to sin and corruption is a

questionable ad. Yet, its presence is crucial to the success and monumental consequence of
the path to virtue. The critical element of sight in the societal mechanism proposed by
Filarete. 1 believe, expresses the role that mnemonics assumes throughout his ideas. The
images described are the 'rnernorial notes' that are "moraJised into beautiful or hideous hurnan
figures as 'corp::>real similitudes' of spiritual intentions of gaining Heaven or avoiding Hell. n86
The figure of Vice, a naked satyr, sits on a wheel with seven spokes in Filarete's
Invention. "In one hand he ho/ds a plate
three dice on it. As a founcain

of things ta eat and drink.

of sweet Iiquor emerges (rom

and frlth issue trom this and make a pool

of ff/th in which

and in the other a boord with

the diamond. so seven rivers

a pig lies.

n87

of mud

This assemblage of sin sits

within a 5ubterranean grotto at the foot of the mountain. While virtue is a lofty. difficult goal.
vice

IS

easily entered. The House of Vice, counterpoint to Virtue, buries itself underground.

creating a worldly Hell. The components of aetivity here is a list of emblematic devices that
follow in theme the inventors and professors of the liberal arts. but with more specificity.
Bacchus rides atiger under a vine, holding a glass and grapes. He is naked, with goat homs
and yet, "beautiful in a Feminine way" - a seducer of unscrupulous behavior. Priapus. ugly.
bearded and malformed, holds a sickle in one hand and in "the other he [holds] over his sign. It

85

Treatise. f. 69r.. 119. Trattato.265.

86 Yates.
87

The Art of Memory. 77.

Treatise. f. 143r.. 246. Trattato. 534 .

rchltecture .nd th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtu.

72

appeared he menaced the women w;th the latter and the men w;th his sickJe. "88

Venus is also

present, as is her son Cupid. These figures even speak, giving suggestions on how ta conduct
oneself with decadence, using the uinstrument of Priapus" and hedonism of Bacchus.
ln understanding the issues at stake for Filarete we must see the presence of vice in his
deSigns as it pertans to both king and city. Rather than aetualizing an unrealistic 'ideal' aty,
Filarete embraces the full scope of the 'fallen' body of mankind.

It appeals also to the

occassions in which a prince must aet in opposition to virtue, capable uof changing readilly,
according as the winds and changes of fortune bid hm. "89

Perhaps the mast relevant issue in

the consideration of memory and Filarete is the way he creates this festival of vice ta remind
the citizens and readers of the alternative to vrtue. The images evolve the ideas on the what
the various places n Hel! are, and creates them into emblematic lad. The remembering of
Heaven and Hell becomes a part of memary treatises in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
frequently with diagrams on their construetion 90 (figure 27). The scenes are distinct and
controlled in a manner that cOncides with the cl assical art prescribed in Ad Herennium and
Cicero. uThe keenest of all our senses is the sense of sight, and that consequently perceptions
received by the ears of by refleXon can be mast easily retained if they are also conveyed to

88 Treatise. f. 148r, 253-54. Tratrato. 550.

89 N. Machiavelli.

The Prince. 87.

90 Yates. The Art of Memory . see pp. 60, 94-5, 108-1 l, 1 15-16. 122. This scheme was utilized by
Boncompagno da Signa. working in Bologna at 1235 : "We must assiduously remember the Invisible JOys of
Paradise and the etemal torments of Hell"; and Jacopus Publicius. whose work Oratoriae anis epitome was
published in Venice 1482. writes: "simple and spiritual intentions slip easily from the memory unless joined to
a corpo real similitude"; also Cosmas Rossellius. publishing in Venice, 1579 his work Thesaurus artificiosae
memoriae. with mernory place diagrams of Paradise and Hell.

rchll.clur. .nd Ih. b.. , vic.

vlrtu.

73

our rninds by the mediation of the eyes.,,91

The images fed to the mind are ta be aaive

similitudes. "as striking as possible", a precept conveyed ta the Middle Ages and Renaissance
through the Ad Herennium, and echoed by Filarete's inventional concepts.

Those who

'distinguish' themselves are rrnrked with corresponding ornamentation: the wearing of a vase
of wine and cup. or a priapic symbol strung around their neck, and then led through the
territory 50 everyone could see them. There is a civic ritual ta Filarete's scheme, involving the
people who choose ta descend into the depths of vice that unfolds the active image into the
materiaJ world.

- rituals
When Filarete creates his drawings for the treatise, laying out the linea, he begins the
building with hls own sort of memory device, a diagram ta keep in his mind and etch on the
earth. 92 The building's ensuant construaion is given over ta the city, and evolves into a site of
meaning and memory for the citizens. The complete imparting of the architeaure occurs W1th
the rituals and aaivity of the city, as exemplified by the cererronies invoked with the House of
Virtue. The students of virtue are rewarded and marked in a public display. Their charaaer
is comp05ed within the House of Virtue and in turn, begins ta compose the city. Filarete
professes, "Gad \Nshed that man, just as he was made in His image, should make something
similor ta himseJf. In this way [man] partidpates in Gad by making samething in his image through

91

Gcero. De OratDre. Il. Ixxxviii, 357.

92

See Carruthers. "The Poet as Master Builder."

.rchll.clur. .nd Ih. b 1 vic. & vlrlu.

74

the use given intellect... 93

The completion of study in the House of Virtue involves a cermonious examination to

determine if the student is worthy of the degree.
art 'With a gor/and

of laurel upon

his head.

Il

They would place him in a room

He passed ~rst through

of the ~rst

ail the places where he had

studied and left. the gar/and nailed up there w;th his nome. He left it in one and then 1Nef1t up ta
the ~rst room in the drde abOIe the square. ... Here they put another laure! on him ta the sound

of instruments. .. 94 Mer another examination, they take the garland from his head and put it on
the figure of the liberal art in that rcom. Proceeding upward through each room with a simiJar
procedure, they arrive at the figure of Virtue and "'Mth noble words they took. the gor/and tram
his head and put it on the head

of Virtue.

It was left there al/ day. Then after they had gone

around it once to the sound ofmusic and rejoidng, they descended,,95 accompanYlng him home
wrth a parade of celebrations. Honor is given to those acquiring "virtue (rom the exercise

of their

persan and of their spirit in this manner. "

93

Trearise. f. Sv. 11. Trattato. 26.

94

Treatise. f. 147r.. 252. Trattato. 546-47.

9S Ibid.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 vic. & vlrtu.

7S


or-.f :- -~":_ . - \:-~, -

'.

1;

figure

15. Adam as the first architeet. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee / vice - virtue

76


... '." ..., .. ~

i.~.F
~""
f~-~~':::

figure 16. Plan of House of Virtue. Codex M agliabea:hianus.

architecture and the bee

1 vice - virtue

77

figure 17. The ladder of Virtue. Herrad of Landsberg. Hortus Delidarum, ed. A. Straub and G. Keller.

architecture and the bee / vice - virtue

78

figure 18. Ramon Lull with the Ladders of his Art. 14th century miniature, Karlsruhe Library, Cod. St.
Peters 92.

architecture and the bee 1 vice - virtue

79

figure

19. The Ladder of Ascent and Oescent. from Ramon Lull's ber de ascensu et descensu intel/eaurs.

ed. of Valencia.

512 .

architecture and the bee

1 vce - virtue

80

figure 20. 21. COmblnaoon wh"",s. from Ramen lulrs Ars Brews.

arChitecture and the bee 1 VIce virtue

81

figure 22. Reason and Will. Codex Magfiabecchianus.

architecture and the bee

1 vice - virtue

82

.
.

.~

'~~?':'T'

-I!_> :

:..

~>'~'~';'-':

::~

...:-.:. .'tl.;:

,:~-j .. ~ ..

.,

-;t

.,.

..

)~~,
~:

.\~

-- _..1

fig u re '23. House of VICe and Virtue. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee

1 vice - virtue

83

figure 24. Caryatid figures atop House ofVirtue. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee

1 vice - virtue

84

figu re 25.

Plan of House of Virtue. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee 1 vice - virtue

85

fig ure 26. Figure of Virtue. Codex Magliabecchianus.

architecture and the bee 1 vice - virtue

86

....~~========-=:11

figure 27. Cosrnas Rossellius. Memory images of HeU and Heaven.

architecture and the bee

1 vice - virtue

87

figure 28. Emblem 149. 'The Mercy ofthe Prince" from AJciato's Book ofEmblems.

architecture and the bee 1 conclusion

88

Man's desire in the Renaissance to create and search our harmony through the built
world becomes an attempt to reproduce a celestial concordance, an ordering of the essential
substance of life. Filarete's attempt to fay its groundwork within the written story appears to
depend upon an understanding of mnemonic tropes to create the new city. It enables man to
discover this accord by remaking himseff uthrough the use

of his

God-given intellect."

The

archrtect is the master-builder, and architecture the mnemonic structure designed "not as a
device for repetition, but as a collecting and recollecting mechanism with which to construet
one's own education,"! like the bee culls and then distends the cells of its home with liquid
neetar. 2
Filarete, as an architect, is the body in which the mellification occurs. The wisdom
From the golden book passes through his imagination and is remade for the prince and his
citizens in a translated form. It is the architect's position to instill in the gathered pollen the
capability for an independent life; she aets as filter and catalyst. The relevance of striving to
unearth the foundations of Filarete's treatise as a memorative structure lies with the essence of
a mnemonic model's operation. ContinuaI reinterpretation and retelling over time of the cues
provides the framework of memoria. The cells of Filarete's House of Vice and Virtue are
literally passed through - during the initial solitary pursuit of knowledge and the ensuant

Carruthers. he Poet as Master Builder." 887.

2 Virgil. Fourth Georgie.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b.. 1 conclu.lon

89

community ritual of bestowing honor to the student. The golden book(s). too, are read and
reread; translated From Greek to ltalian; and interpreted from words and images to buildings.
It is the hermeneutie quality of stories and life that lets a meaningfu1 interaction take place, and
mis

15

the issue at stake in rnaking architecture. Filarete's methods and mooes of colleeting and

retrieving in his fantasia and imagination stands out as a potent metaphor in our burgeoned
twentieth century storehouse of data. The architect has becorne lost in the immensity or our
present condition. Rather than being able to exist as the philosopher - magieian, transfiguring
the world into a fertile construct, she is left fighting to even provide an empty diagram.
Filarete's eities have been called utopie, but it is not an architecture of "no-place;" 3 it is
our current situation instead that speeds reeklessly towards the sea of nowhere - cities where
"evaluations, opinions and attitudes replace the certainty of shared conviction." 4

While it

seems our intellect is constantly called upon ta narrow and specialize in response to the
expanding social responsibilities, the Renaissance architeet Filarete planned Wlth the ethics of a
hunting bee collecting varied nectars.

His designs are plans of action for the prince and

sketches of civic institutions for the citizens, providing bath with a specific, meaningful order.
The hierarchy Filarete devises 1S motivated by his perception of virt. Activated by the central
building of vice and virtue, the city contains the varying qualities of virtue as it pertains to
architecture. The three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity; and the four cardinal
virtues of justice, prudence, fortitude and temperance form one body-building in the treatise
to symbolize the universal nature of architecture.

3 See T. More's Utopia, an island of 'nowhere'.

of

D. Libeskind. "Symbol and Interpretation." Be~n Zero and Infinity. (Rizzoli, 1981),27.

.rchltecture .nd th. b.. 1 conclu.lon

90

There is a painting by Piero della Francesca, Allegorica! Triumphs (ca. 1472)5 that
presents Federico da Montefelto and his wife Battista Sforza riding towards one another in
carriages; Battista is depieted with the theological virtues and Federico with the cardinal
virtues. The segmentation of virtue in this painting demonstrates the two parties to whom
Filarete also must address himself: the king and the people, each with their particular virtuous
achievements and hierarchies to consider. The virtue of Sforza, like Federico. depends on the
strength of being a soldier and his prudent. yet swift acquisition and ruling of his new city.6
The city a1lows Sforza to show himself as merciful. humane and just. and as weil, able to "show
himself [as] a loverofvirtue and honor ail who excel in any one of the arts."? The theological
virtues of faith, hope and charity seem to speak of the qualities desired by an inhabitant of the
City pursuing it in one 'Nay with the acquisition of an intelleetual virtue
1

at the House of Virtue.

ln a rnedieval mindset, this theoretical quest is enacted through scholastic study. creatlng an
abstraet reality. The citizen of Plusiapolis, however, must locate the means to obtain this
goodness through public rituals.

They pursue this knowledge by experiencing the path

through the architecture, and its storage of academic material. Ultimately though, it seems that
greater than the scholarly aspirations, the inhabitant is made complete and fulfilled by forming a
public, ceremonious representation of the pursuit. It is through the eyes of the others that he
/ she becomes whole, versus the private redemption through the eyes of a medieval Gad.

5 From the Diptych lNith Portraits of Federico da Montefe/to and Battista Sforza. Uffizi, Florence. See
A. Cole, Virtue and Magnificence, 13. for an image of the painting.

6 The city of Sforzinda was caJculated to only take ten days to build. with 12,000 masons a/one laYlng
2500 bricks a day!

7 Machiavelli. The Prince.

110.

.rchlt.ctur nd th. b 1 conclu.lon

91

Architecture arrives at a position of providing a societal order, a concrete theater of

memory and participation that indudes bath the virtuous ideals of life and its perhaps necessary
vices. The Renaissance city unvei/s the abstract scholastic schema of medieval man and gives
birth to a site that is dependent upon an ethicaJ thickness of memory and action. Our own
condition, however, has broken open the

orca of hermetic knowledge into a quantifiable

operation, reducing architecture to a homogenous body of indifference.

Filarete's Ideal

program of a fulfilled, animated culture that is aetivated by architecture is a detached, a1ien ldea
to our present political and private situation. We are quickly slipping into a world where even
the modem museum becomes obsolete and the vast libraries of knowledge too are
Increasingly accessed without leaving our homes.

1 do not condemn this condition; the

challenge ofthis added complexity that tends to reduce knowledge ta information, is one we
must embrace in order ta create architecture that extends beyond a pragmatic equation.
The meditative, gestationaJ process of architecture that guided Filarete is a metaphoric
procedure that

believe expresses the patent capacity of the architea, but has been

sublimated by our instrumentation of imagination, and overlooks the very issue that Filarete, as
"lover of virtue", is concerned - an ethical order of architecture that still recognizes the
fragmented nature ofwoman / man and the need to remake our center. Filarete's unearthing
of the ancient relies and golden book reaches out ta the past to reconcile and reform the
present earthly orders. Our late twentieth century memorative unearthing is of course, not
50

straightforward. The complexity of architecture can be approached with a hermeneutic

course of action that mobilizes the imagination to discover truth; the "task of architecture is that

architecture and

the bee 1 conclusion

92

of interpretation."a
that differs not

50

It is a matter of revealng and concealing gathered staries in a manner

much From the shuttling action of the bee. The cities of Sforzinda and

Plusiapolis are immersed within a culture of remembering and inventing anew From the
exhurned pasto The hope for our own society is that architecture can thus emerge as an
interpretative site, concerned with society's charaeter and ethos. where ail that is publicly and
privately compiled, mellifies into a complex wholeness, feeding us spiritually and politically as
we pass through

rts doors and inhabit the world.

K. Hames. The Ethical Funetion of Architecture. (MIT Press. 1997). 4.

.rchlt.ctur. .nd th. b..

conclu.lon

93

architecture and the be. 1 .ppendlx

94

Filarete's original manuscript

Trivulzianus, dedicated
to Francesco Sforza (destroyed
in Milan, WNII, 1944 aerial
bombing)

Magliabecchianus Il, IV, 140

Bib. Naz., Florence! 29 x
40 cm.. 215 illus.,
dedicated ta Piero dMedici,
1464

1
~arcianus (Latin)

Blb. S. Marco,
Venice; 1484 copy
for MatthIas
Corvinus, King of
Hungary

lmodern copies'

'modern copies'
(Siena Paris
Turin)'
1

Valencianus (Iate /5th c.)

copy for Alfonso, Duke of
Calabria (presently lost)

Palatinus, Bib. Naz.,

Florence (fragmentary
manuscript)

.rchll.clur. .nd th. b.. 1 blbllogr.ph,

96

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